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by the Rabbit Room We are so pleased to get to announce a brand new season of The Local Show, livestreamed from North Wind Manor, beginning on Tuesday, February 23rd with Andrew Peterson, Buddy Greene, Jeff Taylor, Ron Block, and Scott Mulvahill! Every other Tuesday night, starting on February 23rd, you’ll be able to tune in at 7:30pm CST on our Facebook , Vimeo , and YouTube pages. Other artists who will make an appearance this season include Zach & Maggie , J Lind , and Becca Jordan . More artists will be announced as they are confirmed. Our heartfelt thanks to our friends at Ronald Blue Trust for making this unique season of The Local Show possible. In order to create a quality Local Show livestream and offer it to the wider community, we need to reoutfit our equipment. We also want to care for our artists—especially now—by paying them well. If you’d like to be part of supporting The Local Show and the artists we love, please email us at info@rabbitroom.com for details on becoming a sponsor.

by Adam Whipple I have sympathy for suffering waters. Burns and creeks spiderweb the hills of East Tennessee, echoing by their burbling the chords of a different era. Not to glorify the past, but there was a time when one didn’t worry so much about drinking from a stream. My wife was raised on well water, and for a time, we got fresh drinking water from a community spring on the east side of town. Under a roadside shelter, people would line up with bottles large and small, preferring the taste of clay and mineral particulates to the fluoridated precision of city-run taps. I personally liked collecting our water there, because it mitigated the tendency of my mind to callus over. Trained by the convenience of a kitchen sink, I can easily dismiss my connection to the many waters near which I reside—the waters on which my neighbors, my children, and my animals depend. At Love’s Creek spring, we had to pay better heed to the weather, for example. Collect too soon after a storm, and you’ll have extra silt in your mouth. Plus, you had to stand and wait your turn, chatting with strangers and glorying in the general un-productivity that peppers a life well lived. Village pumps and wells are a longstanding tradition of the world anyway. Through the lens of history, sinks and faucets are the exception. I ought not think myself or others lowly by dint of these good labors, nor be overawed by the latest kitchen hardware. In addition, creeks are one half of the water-and-soil language that make up the terroir of our sundry regions. I’ll spare you my rant on bottled water—though it is quite dramatic—but unless you’re irrigating your life with English Mountain or Aquafina, everything local that you eat tastes a little like home. Rivers themselves are spoken tongues, white-noise voices unique to their geographic physiognomy. Caring for them is caring for humanity. Thus, we’ve begun rehabilitating the little stormwater creek behind our house. It isn’t much, though it can get fairly assertive after a good squall. In seasons of flood, it creeps up the rise of the backyard, eddying Van Gogh swirls of dark and froth through impeding brambles. It’s been home to our resident dinosaur, a snapping turtle the size of a manhole cover (or larger, depending on who tells the tale). Rufus-sided towhees make their winter pilgrimage and skitter in the surrounding underbrush. Rabbits graze and thump alarm beneath battlements of cocklebur. Herons and red-tails pass on their patrols. Yet like many an urban waterway, it isn’t as whole as it might be. In time past, some enterprising soul shoveled a dam into place at the bottom of the yard, just above the creek line, perhaps for livestock. These days, the pond it creates is only for mosquitos. I’m in the midst of cutting a hole into it, though I have to be cautious about runoff from the garden. Someone also put down plastic netting along the creek bed. It might have been a good idea in the short term. Soil unrestrained by plants and rocks will travel for miles along streams, affecting oxygen levels, plants, and animals. Furthermore, unnatural erosion—that is, humanly exacerbated erosion—is an unsung concern of urban and rural areas alike. Plastic in a creek, however, is slow poison. It leaches chemicals and degrades into ever-smaller pieces, creating a snow of pollution that filters into the food chain, being consumed by animals and perhaps even, new studies are suggesting, gathering on the tips of taproots that you and I eat. We decided to create a riffle, a little zigzag of rocks that encourages moving waters to meander instead of rushing. The plan is to take up the netting section by section, setting down lines of rock instead, and eventually replacing invasive privet with cattails, switchgrass, and bluestem. It’s slow work. It doesn’t pay fiscal dividends, but it is good labor in the service of others, of those who will occupy this land when we are gone. We’ll hopefully be poking away at this job as long as we’re here at The Watershed. We have to be careful about it. We can’t take too many stones from any one parcel of creek bank, or pull back offending plants too quickly, lest we encourage erosion there. I’ve weighed the idea of buying a load of stone, though I struggle with the knowledge that it would have to come from somewhere else, impacting someone else’s sphere, as it were. In the end, I suppose, it is Scriptural to say that all actions—even the best—are somewhat marred. We must do the good of which we’re able anyway. And this? This is where we are. As a Church. As peoples. Ideas do not happen in a vacuum. I myself am a watershed, and everything trickles into my speech and my daily actions. Adam Whipple The Capitol Insurrection and the war of thoughts that have marked American society have not exempted Jesus’s Church. I find myself grateful to sources of rhetoric that have offended my brothers and sisters, for they point out how I’ve been a poor servant to my neighbors. When my critics actually see a Levite in me instead of a Samaritan, I must repent somehow. I have somewhere an old Hutchmoot folder, into which is tucked a paper liturgy by Doug McKelvey, a precursor to Every Moment Holy . Called “The Liturgy of Lost Rhyme,” it washed through my spirit several years ago with the line, “The demons of this age are ideas.” What demons have I fed or served by my own thoughts? Ideas do not happen in a vacuum. I myself am a watershed, and everything trickles into my speech and my daily actions. Ecclesiastically speaking, we’ve had netting in place for a long time. This is a gross oversimplification, but just to mention a few things (of which I have much personal experience): racism, misogyny, the Church as a political bully, the freedom of markets over servanthood, the refusal to criticize or accept criticism from our friends—all these, some for pure ill and some well-intentioned, have been the plastic netting barely holding down the mud on the riverbeds of our hearts. So, too, has been the traditional social contrivance that we mustn’t talk about religion or politics. The silt and pollutants have washed down to us. People cannot breathe. So what do we do? We pull the thing up. With unflinching determination, we removed the failed artifice of Christ-less ideas, replacing it with the Gospel, the truth that is Jesus. Should we be surprised that such endeavors aren’t pretty? When you try cleaning a sickened creek, you stir up mud, and you get covered in it. Wherever you step, you send little clouds of effluvium downstream to who-knows-where, affecting other parts of creation. You end up with an ugly collection of litter, some new, and some of it mired in place long ages ago. You make mistakes. Your efforts are occasionally striped with the sin of vanity, the desire to impress others. Yet overall, the job is a good one. Necessary. Commanded. “Blessed is he who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, nor stand in the way of sinners, nor sit in the seat of mockers.” (Psalm 1:1) “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:9) A wild man in camel hair and holding a gnarled staff should haunt our dreams, reminding us how to prepare the way of the Lord. We are so exhausted. All of us. There is immeasurable work ahead. Much of it consists of thinking hard, listening well, and talking carefully. There will be a lot of wait-and-see, and a good deal of try-again. It is holy work. It is the prayerful work of healing the sick, having finally realized that sickness is not limited to our cells and tissues. The good news is that it isn’t new. Repentance and the actions it necessitates are an ongoing work of God’s people, and the Church has been at it since her beginning. Among the great cloud of witnesses, we are not alone in our efforts. Take courage. We will be doing this for the rest of our lives, to serve those who come after us. Such service is worship of the King.

by Andrew Roycroft Two roads converge on the way to Jerusalem, each finding their terminus at the foot of a cross. Two ways of looking at the world, at power, at prominence, and redemption, collide and compete with one another, and one of these will be the road we travel by. As the Lenten season continues, as Christians of various traditions and backgrounds reflect on the way and work of Christ, this post will take some time to look at how we approach and appropriate his suffering in 2021, and will hopefully help us to think about how we travel. The way of power and fury In many ways, Jesus was alone in the crowd as he approached Jerusalem. Thousands of people from far-flung places surged into the city to mark the Passover, a journey of faith and tradition reaching back long into their ancestry. Among this traffic were Jesus and his twelve followers—disciples marked by their allegiance to this man. For the disciples this was the eve of greatness, the messianic moment to which all of their history had been pitched, the consummation of their hopes, long wounded by the politics of larger nations. As Jesus walked towards the cross they watched carefully for the crown; as he laboured under the psychological weight of his coming suffering, they felt a scarce suppressed joy that he was coming as a new sovereign. Finally history would tilt in their favour, and they loaded their expectations on to the man, curiously gripped by a sorrowing sense of foreboding, who walked ahead of them. The triumphal entry was a bit unorthodox, the optics slightly off. Instead of a steed, their king came into the city on a donkey, and the religious leaders of the day seemed unimpressed. Regardless, they had opportunity to ply him with questions about the coming kingdom, about the advent of power, about the righting of the scales. His response had pointed away from apocalypse now, to waiting, and further world events which seemed to defer a new political dominance. “This linocut, ‘Blind Bart,’ is an illustration of the man who calls out to Christ for healing in Mark 10:46-52. Although it is true at all times, especially during Lent we feel that the cry of Bartimaeus is our cry: ‘Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!'” —Ned Bustard As the week progressed, as Passover approached, the King seemed to be descending lower, rather than rising higher. Their meal together had been overshadowed by talk of flesh and blood and betrayal, by words of departure and deferral, and by the final insult of Jesus washing the feet of the men he had led all of these years. In Gethsemane, the situation became terminal. Wretched and anguished sleep had been punctuated by Jesus, seemingly nerve-jangled and perturbed, begging for company as he prayed. Then the crowd had come, headed by Judas, seizing Jesus, reducing him to chains, and carrying him into custody. Peter had brandished his sword, a final swipe at the powers of this age, a final parry at the disappointing end of hope and salvation that this arrest brought. Then the gall of death, the weakness of his body wracked along the beams of a cross, his thirst, and sweat, and blood, and the blasphemy of a crowd who could not only crucify their leader, but do so with impunity. The sun, eclipsed at noon, had set on this whole salvation project, the man from Nazareth a wrecked cadaver flopping untidily into the arms of those who took him to burial. If this was kingship, it seemed to be only over a realm of disappointment and disdain, a nation of powerless fools condemned to death by Roman rule. For the disciples, their road into Jerusalem was one of ‘now’ not ‘yet’, a faith of entitlement and easy access to the upper hand. The devastation of that first Holy Week is hard to measure, but their perspective is all too easy to mimic. Faith in Christ can be portrayed as an upgrade to the luxury lounge, as a means of finding our place in the world, of gaining traction in society, and gaining access to the corridors of power. Of all the lament and repentance which might mark this Lenten season, perhaps a frank confession of this should be a high priority. This past year has exposed just how rapacious Christian ambition can be, just how devastatingly locked into politics it can become, of how our expectations can not only fall short of, but run counter to, what Christ came to achieve. Where we have married our hope to the fickle groom of power and advancement, we have not only found ourselves jilted at the altar, but left shamed by his record of debt and destruction. One road to Jerusalem can be to see in Christian faith a means to our own ends and ambition. To take this line is to see the cross as a shameful impasse, as a dead end in an otherwise strong trajectory of influence and affluence. The way of pain and victory For Jesus, expectation and realisation had held a bitter harmony all the way to the city. The weight of his cross was felt long before it was laid upon his shoulder; the ring of hammered nails and the toxic invective that would hound him to the grave, all rang in his heart before they reached his ears. While his disciples bickered about who was first, and bartered for the best seats, the Saviour was envisioning the horror-scape of Golgotha. While they jittered with excitement about a restored kingdom, he trembled in anticipation of being a ruined King. While they boasted of their allegiance to him even to the point of death, he read the signals in their body language, saw Judas fingering the hem of the money bag jealously, saw Peter prattling out his personal loyalty while thinking little of the cost. This past year has exposed just how rapacious Christian ambition can be, just how devastatingly locked into politics it can become, of how our expectations can not only fall short of, but run counter to, what Christ came to achieve. Andrew Roycroft The Upper Room had been a parallel world, his words hibernating in the consciences of these men, awaiting the wakening of the Spirit long hence. Gethsemane had been the final tipping of the balance. In earth, sodden with tears and hard wrought blood, he had pleaded and bleated lamb-like for relief from the pain that was to come. Unlike Adam, not left long alone in the garden, Jesus had roused his company several times, only to see them sag into sad slumber again and again. What was to be borne on the morrow, would be borne alone. The trial, before the Romans and before the religious, had been a mockery and a reduction of all that was right. Justice left the building, to be replaced with the flat-palm blows of soldiers, the pomposity of Pilate delegating everything but his power, and with the baying of a crowd craving a cross with Jesus’ name on it. He had watched all of this, silent, submitted, sorrowing, but certain that the way of pain was the way to victory. The cross had crushed him, even before the hill. Its brute weight too much for bone and muscles ribboned by rods and flagellation, and then the joggling into place on Calvary, the tearing tension of nails in hands and feet, the casual mockery, the absence of consolation or care for his bloodied brow. The silence was like darkness, the darkness like silence, the Psalmist’s anguished dirge transposed into a key not singable by anyone but him. Death, the final enemy, the culmination of all these other days, came suddenly in the end, like a thief. This is the true road to Jerusalem for us. Not that of power and fury, but of pain awaiting victory. Jesus is in the underclass, in the underbelly of a world set on winner takes all. Jesus is the loser in the political games of Jerusalem, the seeming victim of victorious religion and impervious Rome. Jesus is in the minority, following a vision of greatness predicated on sacrifice, ruin in anticipation of resurrection, death followed by life, glory preceded by shame. His promise to us as his followers is not that his way along this road provides us a bypass around it, but guarantees that we must follow him into it and through it. To follow Christ is to lose the franchise, and bear the reproach. It is to feel the sting of being misunderstood, and maligned. Following Christ means receiving hatred in return for our love, rejection in response to our embrace, and enduring suffering on the way to glory. Such words might meet us in our pain and disappointment in this season, they might fortify us afresh not to wrangle against every personal wrong, but to rest in the example Jesus has shown. To accept our trouble is not to acquiesce to it, to sing Psalms in the darkness is not masochism, but the kind of faith that holds to resurrection even as life ebbs away. Perhaps such teaching rips from our hands the laurel wreath that we have been platting with money and influence, and replaces it with a crown of thorns. Such a loss is ultimately our gain. Conclusion Two roads converge on the way to Jerusalem, each finding their terminus at the foot of a cross. Two ways of looking at the world, at power, at prominence, and redemption, collide and compete with one another, and one of these will be the road we travel by. As we walk towards this Easter season may God give us grace to trace the bloody footprints of his Son, and to see in him our salvation, and our grand exemplar of how our pilgrimage through this world and into life truly progresses.

by the Rabbit Room The Habit Podcast is a series of conversations with writers about writing, hosted by Jonathan Rogers. This week, Jonathan Rogers talks with W. David O. Taylor, author of Open and Unafraid: The Psalms as a Guide to Life . W. David O. Taylor is a theologian of the arts, Associate Professor of Theology at Fuller Seminary, and a director of initiatives in art and faith. His most recent book is Open and Unafraid: The Psalms as a Guide to Life . In this first-ever practical episode of The Habit Podcast , David Taylor walks listeners through the spiritual practice of writing psalms of lament. Click here for more resources related to the writing of psalms of lament, including a worksheet, a chapter excerpt from Open and Unafraid , and a forum where you can share and discuss your psalm of lament. Click here to watch the short film in which David Taylor gets Bono and Eugene Peterson together to discuss the Psalms. Click here to listen to Season 3, Episode 7 of The Habit Podcast. Transcripts are now available for The Habit Podcast. Click here to access them. Special thanks to our Rabbit Room members for making these podcasts possible! If you’re interested in becoming a member, visit RabbitRoom.com/Donate.

by the Rabbit Room Calling all music-loving kids, parents, and slugs named Doug: Slugs & Bugs is making a new Sing the Bible album, and you’re invited to help make it happen! In the words of Sparky the Lightning Bug, “Let’s get this slug started!” As you’ll see on the special SlugStarter page , Doug the Slug is currently halfway up the mountain, taking a much-deserved coffee break. But with your help, he can get all the way to the summit! Plus, there are all kinds of fun prizes to be had for helping him out—like autographed show posters, access to a Q&A session with Mr. Randall on April 10th, an invitation to the premiere of the Slugs and Bugs Show Season Two, and so much more. Here’s a message from Mr. Randall about the Sing the Bible, Vol. 4 project: Every morning I carry my Bible up the stairs. And these days, I’m so glad it’s heavy. It’s like a counterweight to all that would pile on and sink me into oblivion. As I read, the Bible lights a joyful path through the darkness. So naturally, I can’t wait to share these new word-for-word Scripture songs for  Sing the Bible Vol. 4! The theme for  Sing the Bible Vol. 4  is joyful discipleship, with 26 Scripture verses about what it really means to follow Jesus.How do we do it as a family? How does it change us? And what’s with all the barnyard animals? Join me, along with Doug the Slug, Sparky the Lightning Bug, and a host of other friends like Rain for Roots, Lakeisha Williams and various members of the Goodgame family, as we sing our hearts out in celebration of following Jesus along the well-lit path. Bwap, bwap-a-dibbity do! —Randall Goodgame Click here to visit the SlugStarter and be part of this fun new project.

by Rory Groves It was explained to me early in my career: 100 leads, 10 calls, 1 sale. It is known as The Sales Funnel. Imagine an inverted triangle, with curious tire-kickers spilling out the top, followed by significantly fewer “qualified prospects” in the middle (most having absconded after discovering the price), and finally a few brave “clients” trickling out the bottom. “It’s a numbers game,” I was told. The more leads that were dumped into the top of the funnel, the more sales fell out of the bottom. One astute observer explains it this way: “Marketing is a multifaceted discipline that has one objective: to separate people from their money.” I wholeheartedly adopted the approach when I started my own software firm. After all, who was I to argue with success? It was the height of the Dot-Com Boom, and I got in line to collect my Dot-Com Millions—a seeming birthright to CompSci graduates of the late-90s. It wasn’t long before my dreams were dashed by the Dot-Com Collapse, to be followed again by the Great Recession. The axiomatic business truths I had embraced were not generating the kind of results I had hoped for. Nor was the solitary, overly-specialized environment of computer programming bringing the sort of fulfillment and connectedness I increasingly desired with my growing family. So I moved my family from the city to the country in hopes of finding another way forward. Weary (and wary) of the technology industry’s addiction to obsolescence, I began to research more durable ways to work. Historically, professions lasted hundreds of years and were passed down in the same family from one generation to the next. Today, the average worker will change careers every five years. Was it possible, in our day, for families to work together and build something that would last? I discovered dozens of examples of historical professions—authors, masons, carpenters, silversmiths, midwives—which have been around for centuries and are still thriving today. I met people who were second- or third- or fourth-generation professionals, working the same careers as their great-great-grandparents. They were trained by their own parents, inheriting something more than merely a vocational education. Most surprisingly, I discovered that people working in these trades, by and large, never spent a dime on marketing. For them, it was not a numbers game. They did not have Sales Funnels; they had Relationships. No Little People Francis Schaeffer said, “We must remember throughout our lives that in God’s sight there are no little people and no little places.” This contrasts with popular success maxims that suggest we should never spend more than a few minutes with someone who can do nothing for us. Schaeffer’s colleagues report that he would “gladly sit and talk for hours to someone the world (or the church) might consider insignificant. He was just as happy talking with the maid or the janitor in a hotel as he was meeting famous church, business, or political leaders.” People were not accorded as Leads, Prospects, and Clients to Schaeffer; they were Sons, Daughters, Brothers and Sisters. On our farm, every activity is a family affair. Picking blueberries, stacking hay, mending fences. . . there may be little hands on a farm, but there are no 'little people.' Rory Groves While researching historical trades, I spent the better part of a year working construction part-time with a local carpenter. During one of our remodeling projects, I met the electrician he hired to re-wire the room. I asked how long they had been working together and was surprised by the answer: two generations. The electrician’s father was also an electrician who worked with the carpenter’s father. Their “vendor relationship” was older than they were. It’s hard to imagine anything so enduring in our transitory age. And yet, this arrangement was common for most of human history. Family businesses in farming, carpentry, and metalsmithing not only lasted for generations, their relationships did as well. The Industrial Revolution reordered society’s thinking around efficiency rather than relationships. Statisticians record that, in the pre-industrial way of life: The apprentice system was in vogue, and all parts of a trade were then taught where it is now usual and needful to teach but a single branch. The youth who aspired to become a shoemaker might, for instance, during his period of apprenticeship, acquire knowledge of every step from the tanning of the leather to its embodiment in the finished shoe. —Wright, Comparative Wages, Prices and Cost of Living Families that divided into factory labor no longer educated, mentored, and discipled their children at home. Dependency on the family and community was replaced with dependency on the employer. Work was no longer a context for older generations to transmit faith and values on to the next generation. It was an impersonal, at times de-humanizing, place that existed solely to make stuff. Gaining the Whole World The rapid rise in industrialization resulted in unprecedented material abundance, but came at the cost of imploding family and community relationships that had endured for centuries. Thirteen-year old Willie Bryden’s sole job was opening a door for the mule cart in a local coal mine. He was one of the many Trapper Boys, as they came to be known. “Waiting all alone in the dark for a trip to come through,” relates the photographer, “Willie had been working here for four months, 500 feet down the shaft, and a quarter of a mile underground from there.” —The Trapper Boys (Photo: Lewis Hine/Library of Congress) Historians record that, “It was not until 1842 that the hours of labor for children under twelve years of age were limited to ten per day.”  The English theologian and agrarian G. K. Chesterton roundly condemned the indiscriminate use of technology, noting that, “None of the modern machines, none of the modern paraphernalia . . . have any power except over the people who choose to use them”—a warning aimed as directly at the coal mines in Chesterton’s day as the keyboards in ours. The “Unrevolution” But there is reason for hope. People are waking up to the collateral damage of industrial efficiency. They are trading their cheap abundance for healthy, sustainable alternatives, trading factory-fed conveniences for the inefficiency of human relationships. In the last fifteen years, the United States saw an increase of four million home gardens and two million community gardens as people tilled up their manicured lawns to plant beans. Farmer’s markets increased from fewer than 1,800 in 1994 to over 8,000 by 2013, and can now be found in nearly every city, often by the dozen. Agrarian writer Gene Logsdon refers to this phenomenon as the “Unrevolution in Progress”: The new economy understands that farming is a biological process, one to be handled with careful love and very gentle agronomy and husbandry, not industrial production that concentrates on cramming more and more animals under one roof to lower the per unit cost of production. —Gene Logsdon, Letter to a Young Farmer: How to Live Richly Without Wealth on the New Garden Farm Among the historical businesses I researched, customers were not numbers in a funnel. The artisans I spoke with have face-to-face relationships with their customers, and know them by name. Often they know their children by name. It is not surprising, then, that these are the most enduring professions in a time of continuous upheaval. On our farm, every activity is a family affair. Picking blueberries, stacking hay, mending fences. . . there may be little hands on a farm, but there are no “little people.” Everyone is important, and everyone is needed if the farm is to survive. It is not an industrial economy , it is a family economy . Each year we raise a hundred or so chickens, two pigs, and a dozen sheep on open pasture. These animals are well cared for their whole lives. We intentionally do not “scale-up” beyond what we can handle ourselves. In the summer months, we host Customer Pickup Days where whole families arrive to pick up their shares. They stay to tour the farm, play with our kids, and catch up with our family. Many of our customers have been buying from us for years. We care for the animals and the land, and our customers care for us. It is a very small-scale operation, but it is sustainable. When God plants a seed, it multiplies into an abundance—the Sales Funnel in reverse. I spend a lot less time at the keyboard now, and certainly take home a lot less pay. But I get to work alongside my family, and we are growing rich in relationships. It’s hard to argue with that. Rory Groves is a technology consultant and founder of multiple software businesses. Several years ago he moved his family from the city to the country to begin the journey towards a more durable way of life. Rory and his wife Becca now reside in southern Minnesota where they farm, raise livestock, host workshops, and homeschool their five children. He is author of  Durable Trades: Family-Centered Economies That Have Stood the Test of Time.

by the Rabbit Room We’re so excited to share with you a brand new podcast by Jonathan Rogers: The Hobbit Podcast, a series of conversations with hobbits about breakfast. To kick off this new series, Jonathan Rogers interviews poet, hobbit, and breakfast-lover Malcolm Guite. Every time I’ve ever seen the poet Malcolm Guite, he’s been wearing a waistcoat. He smokes a long-stemmed pipe and blows smoke rings. He often ambles about in the countryside. He’s not very tall. He loves breakfast. And I think I’ve seen a picture of him going barefoot in public. I’ll leave you to draw your own conclusions. —Jonathan Rogers Click here to listen to this first episode of The Hobbit Podcast. Special thanks to our Rabbit Room members for making these podcasts possible! If you’re interested in becoming a member, visit RabbitRoom.com/Donate. Oh, and… April Fools.

by the Rabbit Room The Habit Podcast is a series of conversations with writers about writing, hosted by Jonathan Rogers. This week, Jonathan Rogers talks with Andrew Peterson, Jennifer Trafton, Pete Peterson, and Doug McKelvey, all authors and contributors to the Wingfeather Tales collection. Wingfeather Tales started out as a Kickstarter stretch goal for The Warden and the Wolf King , Book 4 of Andrew Peterson’s Wingfeather Saga. Andrew recruited five of his friends to write stories (and a poem) set in Aerwiar, the world of the Wingfeathers. He also recruited some of his favorite illustrators to illustrate. That compilation has been re-released in hardcover by Waterbrook Press. In this episode, five of the contributors—Andrew Peterson, Jennifer Trafton, Pete Peterson, Doug McKelvey, and Jonathan Rogers—discuss collaboration, community, and Wingfeather Tales. Click here to listen to Season 3, Episode 12 of The Habit Podcast. And click here to view Wingfeather Tales in the Rabbit Room Bookstore. Transcripts are now available for The Habit Podcast. Click here to access them. Special thanks to our Rabbit Room members for making these podcasts possible! If you’re interested in becoming a member, visit RabbitRoom.com/Donate.

by Amy Baik Lee Here is a memory. I am one of the early arrivals in the school pickup line on a wintry afternoon late in 2019. The tiny parking lot is bounded by a gray concrete wall built against a hill ahead, the school building to my left, and a sere upward slope of brittle grass on my right. Aside from the silhouetted movements of the other drivers, nothing moves in my monochromatic surroundings; I turn the engine off and let my mind wander. Every once in a while our daughters step up onto a new but invisible stage of growth and understanding. Lately it has been the subject of death, and our six-year-old in particular has been absorbing it by degrees, her progress peeking through in statements she utters as we run errands or take our walks. “I want to live in the new heaven and earth, but I wish we didn’t have to die.” “Do souls ever die?” “I don’t want you to die, Mommy.” I don’t let on nearly as much, but I am working through the notion of death again too, as I’ve had to do through my own developmental stages: first as a newlywed, then as an adult in her thirties, and most recently as the mother of two children. Death never seemed this appalling to my twenty-year-old eyes. I was ready to cast off and see the world then, and worried more over my parents’ worry than myself. But I am connected to many more ties of affection and love today, and every one of them makes the threat of loss more painful, though every one of them is also worth the pain of possible severance. I turn the key to check the car clock, then check my pulse. Medical issues have given me a few practice rounds in letting go. Is this something that can be ignored? What is the cost if I try? What if I make the wrong decision? Is this a new normal? Not too long ago, on a difficult day when mental and physical pain blended in a disquieting haze, a question stood out so clearly that it was almost audible: “Can you be brave?” I can’t , I whispered instantly, in a tone identical to our six-year-old’s voice when she is in despair. But even before I finished uttering the words I remembered that, all protests and resistance notwithstanding, this selfsame daughter often gathers her courage to do exactly what needs to be done. On her first day at this weekly homeschool program, she gripped my hand with all her might as we walked into the classroom. She clung to me for a second, asking softly where I was going afterwards, but then she went to sit down beside the other children and let her daddy and I wave goodbye from the door. I am slower, but I’m learning. If I must carry my current cross, then—as C. S. Lewis wrote—“surely you need not have fear as well?” His attitude has been a strengthening, almost jovial tonic to me in a culture that continually seems surprised that human beings should suffer or die. Of the death that looms over our awareness like a wall closing in with erratic speed, he says: Can you not see death as the friend and deliverer? It means stripping off that body which is tormenting you: like taking off a hairshirt or getting out of a dungeon. What is there to be afraid of? You have long attempted (and none of us does more) a Christian life. Your sins are confessed and absolved. Has this world been so kind to you that you should leave it with regret? There are better things ahead than any we leave behind. —C. S. Lewis, Letters to an American Lady For a few years now, the light of a long-awaited home has been growing on the horizon behind the fact of my mortality. I know the timing and the manner of my own eventual end are not up to me, though it’s taken me a long time to admit it. I’ve given up whatever control I attempted to have on the matter. It’s a relinquishment I’ve been able to make for the same reason, I believe, that Tolkien chose to give us the image of a “grey rain-curtain” rolling back, and Lewis the image of a great waterfall coursing upward at the world’s end: more and more, it’s becoming possible to approach death and see straight through it. A few weeks before my father-in-law died, I took my older daughter to a coffee shop. In between a stream of conversation topics, we watched other customers order croissants and mochas, and we listened to the swoop of the revolving door as they left. Between the whirring noises at the barista’s counter, we could hear the green trees outside rustling in the summer wind. “Do you know what I’ve been thinking lately?” I said gently, half to myself and half to my thoughtful companion. “I’ve been thinking that because of Jesus, death is not something you and I have to fear as we might have before accepting his rescue. We know what lies beyond it, so death itself is just a door—and even though for some it might be as simple as a glass door and for others it might look more like an iron portcullis—in the end, it is only a door, and not something that can ever swallow us up anymore. When we walk through it, we’ll be home.” I looked at her over the rim of my tea mug and saw that she understood. But I don’t yet know how to phrase this to my smaller girl, who is asking not simply about death, I think, but also how one can approach the grief of the separations caused by death without despair. Is there a human, even fully grown, who doesn’t struggle with object permanence? What explanations or relatable images can I introduce to this particular child about the death—to begin with—of believers? What might give her a portion of the peace that I’ve gained? The clock hits the hour, and the tan metal door opens. A single stream of vibrant little faces and bouncing backpacks begins to trickle out. All of the parents look up from their phones and books at the same time, but none of us moves; we know each class will troop out past the automobiles and file into the gym, where they’ll be sorted into the right order to be picked up. More and more, it’s becoming possible to approach death and see straight through it. Amy Baik Lee I spot my little one in the second group, right as she sees me. “Mommy!” She waves with a brightness that hasn’t ebbed in five months. How glad I am that, though shy, she has found a place of her own here. One morning a week, as I wave goodbye to the departing car, I pray that she and her sister and their father will abide in Him and He in them — that they will know His love deeply and be the bearers of it to others. At home this afternoon she’ll tell us about her day: a morning and afternoon filled with riveting tales that she is excited to tell because, out of all the family, she was the only one to witness them. She’ll describe the beanbag game she played with her friends at recess. We’ll learn how much she ate of the mac-and-cheese-and-broccoli she looks forward to every week. She might even share a few lines of the the new song she learned in music class. And as she talks, I’ll give silent thanks again for how her Shepherd has walked with her—for her growth in grace, by grace—and for the good work he has prepared for her to do. Even on the days she isn’t aware of it, even if she should someday lose sight of it, her life is a story of his love. I smile as I watch her walk with a cheerful spring in each step, and I wave back. “See you soon, Mommy!” she calls. See you very soon, sweetheart. The gym door shuts behind her class. I start the car again as the line begins to move. And I know.

by Drew Miller After this, when Jesus knew that all was now finished, he said (in order to fulfill the scripture), “I am thirsty.” A jar full of sour wine was standing there. So they put a sponge full of the wine on a branch of hyssop and held it to his mouth. —John 19:28-29 To be patient in an emergency is a terrible trial. Over the last year, I’ve thought often of a scene at the end of The Sound of Music : Nazi soldiers begin banging on the door of the abbey where the von Trapp family has taken shelter, and one of the nuns hurries to the door in her fright. But she is quickly and quietly corrected by Mother Abbess, who tells her to slow down—if she opened the door too hastily, looking flustered, the soldiers would immediately know they had found the family. So she stops, breathes, and walks calmly to the door. In any emergency, to abide with patience in our need is to take the blessed middle path between the near-irresistable offers of denial on the one hand and domination on the other. It takes enormous effort not to either freeze or fight, because each of these ensnaring alternatives to patience are survival instincts, complete with their own internal logic: If I could need less right now, if I could shut down all systems not essential to my survival, then I might escape. Or, if I could overtake my circumstances by brute force, then I might escape. In order to survive, I must become less. Or, I must become more. But Jesus is not trying to survive. “I am thirsty,” he says, and by saying this, what else does he say? “I am still here. You are still here. I am thirsty with you. This thirst we share, it is not a liability. This thirst we share, it is not a license to kill. This thirst we share, it is a narrow passage to an open space Called acceptance, repentance, patience, gratitude, returning, rest.” But what do I do , I can hear myself asking, when the emergency seems to last forever? When the din of violence and chaos reaches a critical threshhold—then exceeds that threshhold the very next day? When the ugly fact is that to freeze or to fight, to deny or to dominate, are my only alternatives to heart-wrenching pain? When all the patience in the world won’t change a thing? As the nun rushes in her fright to answer the door, the correction of Mother Abbess holds within it more than mere tactical advice. Latent in her correction is a reminder to the nun that she has access to patience, to presence, to returning and rest, even and especially in the moment of her greatest need. The soldiers banging on the door, compelled to follow the orders of denial and dominance on the grounds of the promise never to need again, forfeited their access as a rite of passage. The alluring daydream of power, large-scale operation that it is, requires such forfeitures as routine maintenance. The soldiers do not know that they are thirsty. They do not know where they are or who is there with them. And they dare not wonder too much about it, because to do so would be to risk losing their fictional moral license to raid an abbey. In mustering up her patience, the nun does not acquire a superpower to fundamentally change the situation. But her patience does expose the truth of that situation: the truth of shared human need, the soldiers’ denial of that need, and the futility of their resulting violence. Whenever a human being demonstrates their access to this patience, this presence, this returning and rest, God lavishly holds out through them the possibility of such returning to every other soul in their presence. “I am thirsty,” Jesus says, and we feel our dry tongues against the back of our teeth. “Abide in me, and the trial will be no less terrible, the emergency no less severe, but the difference will be that you will stay here. You will stay with me. And you will know that you are thirsty.”

by Pete Peterson [Editor’s note: This post was originally written and shared last year, at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.] My favorite moment of the entire church year is Easter Sunday. I love standing in the packed sanctuary and hearing the congregation proclaim “He is risen indeed” like a peal of thunder. But this year we don’t get to do that, and no live-streamed church service can adequately replicate that moment. As I was grieving the loss of that celebration, though, I had an idea. I ran it past the Rabbit Room staff to be sure I wasn’t crazy, and I think we all got a little choked up thinking about how good it could be. So we sent out an email asking a few folks to send us videos of themselves and their families saying “He is risen. He is risen indeed.” We’d edit them together with some music (Andrew’s “Risen Indeed” from Resurrection Letters, Vol. 1 ) and call it a day. Simple right? Well it wasn’t long before we realized that this provided us a chance to make the Easter declaration on a broader scale than even an Easter Sunday in-person service. Folks began asking friends in different countries and different languages to send in videos. The project grew from a few friends, to an assembly of Christians from the whole world across. This may not be every nation and tribe, every people and tongue, but it does include more than 40 nations and more than 25 languages, with more than 150 participants in total. The result makes me cry every time I watch it. This is the Church. The Bride of Christ. Alive and well. Socially distant, yet eternally present, in sickness and in health. From all of us, to all of you, Happy Eastertide! Declare it far and wide. Christ is risen. He is risen indeed. Alleluia, Alleluia. P. S. (We’d love it if you’d pop over to Facebook and post a video of your own Easter greeting in the comments.) Pete Peterson is the author of the Revolutionary War adventure The Fiddler’s Gun and its sequel Fiddler’s Green . Among the many strange things he’s been in life are the following: U.S Marine air traffic controller, television editor, art teacher and boatwright at the Florida Sheriffs Boys Ranch, and progenitor of the mysterious Budge-Nuzzard. He lives in Nashville with his wife, Jennifer, where he's the Executive Director of the Rabbit Room and Managing Editor of Rabbit Room Press.

by Andrew Peterson [Editor’s note: This was adapted from a 2019 post.] And now it begins. After forty days of fasting, after the harrowing darkness of Good Friday, after the long silence of Holy Saturday, after the dawn of Easter like a slow explosion of light over the greening hills of the Northern Hemisphere, we move into the joy of Eastertide. As much as I love that it all leads to Resurrection Sunday, I think my favorite part of the whole drama is today: Easter Monday. I’m writing this in the Chapter House, having just cleaned up the property after 100 guests for yesterday’s Easter Feast at the Warren. Nobody’s coming over. No parties. The bluebirds seem relieved that there aren’t kids traipsing around the pasture and poking their heads into the box where the babies are growing, and it’s business as usual again for the bright red cardinal pecking around the yarrow by the front door. I woke to a downy woodpecker grazing the trunk of the ash tree outside my window, and spotted a house finch a few minutes later. A big squirrel bounded through the grass between the white oak and the edge of the wood, furtively, as if he’s heard rumor of my pellet gun and my fierce defense of apples. (I planted apple trees ten years ago and have only eaten one apple to date, thanks to the squirrels’ mad habit of nibbling them and tossing them half-eaten to the ground before they’re ripe.) The Warren feels happy and profoundly peaceful, and I think it’s because of all the fuss the church calendar has caused for the last forty days. Disclaimer: I didn’t grow up in a church that paid much attention to the church calendar. I had a vague idea that Lent was a thing because of my one Catholic friend, but other than that I had no idea how rich and helpful it could be to move through the story of the Gospel over the course of a year. The irony, whenever I’ve heard any pushback on observing the church calendar, is that I don’t know a single Christian who doesn’t celebrate Christmas and Easter—and those same people look forward to the rhythm those events make of the years as they pass. So yeah, they follow at least a portion of the Christian year whether they think of it that way or not. It was just a few years ago that I first began observing Lent, and it wasn’t long after that when I realized Easter is more than just a day. It’s a season. Eastertide lasts fifty days. I read somewhere that the whole season of Easter is called “the Great Day of the Lord.” There’s this intensely glorious ramp up to Easter Sunday, starting with Ash Wednesday. Lent moves slowly, like a funeral procession, toward Holy Week, and if you’re fasting from something you probably find yourself looking forward to Easter with a measure of desperation. When Palm Sunday arrives, you know things are about to get serious. Holy Week can be exhausting, emotionally and physically. Not only are you on the final stretch that leads to the darkest day in history—there are (if you’re up for it) communion services at noon every day, there’s a Tenebrae service on Wednesday, a Maundy Thursday service, a Good Friday service, the agonizing wait of Holy Saturday, and then—then!—Easter. The resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. At our house, we party. I cry happy tears all morning. Church is bright and joyful. Then we come home and eat piles of food and laugh and revel in the victory of Christ. But it’s not over. I feel in my chest a loosening of tension, a relief that the grieving of Lent is past, the hard-fought self-discipline is behind me, and I can enter the days of work and rest with a subtly euphoric freedom from the thistle and thorn that infests the ground. Andrew Peterson Then, you see, it’s Easter Monday. It’s just beginning. Now we get a glimpse of the New Creation, because now we discover the “now what?” We go back to work, life resumes its usual routine, yes, but with the massive difference that now we live in that Great Day of the Lord for fifty days, a fitting foretaste of what’s coming to us after Christ’s return. I walked the property this morning and saw in the blackberry blossoms and green strawberries a fullness of time that feels less like the end of a story than the beginning of one. C. S. Lewis wrote in the final scene of the Narnia chronicles, “Now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on for ever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.” That’s what Easter Monday feels like to me: the beginning of a season that shouts, “He’s making all things new!” Keep your eyes peeled, because the waves of that distant shore sometimes wash over the hills of Tennessee with great glad joy. I feel in my chest a loosening of tension, a relief that the grieving of Lent is past, the hard-fought self-discipline is behind me, and I can enter the days of work and rest with a subtly euphoric freedom from the thistle and thorn that infests the ground. I’m still working in the fields, but for now it’s with gladness and not groaning. I know it won’t last. Creation still awaits her king. But moving through the story this way piques my yearning for the New Jerusalem like nothing else, and I’m happy to join with Christians all over the world who hold fast to the hope of the resurrection by truly celebrating it not just on Easter Sunday but on Easter Monday and for the next forty-nine days too. That’s why we’re doing the show tonight in Nashville, and why the Resurrection Letters tour was born. I usually don’t share my setlists because I like for there to be a bit of mystery to a concert, but it felt right to let you in on what these shows have looked like. (We’ve even posted playlists on iTunes and Spotify.) We open the second half with “Hosanna,” a Palm Sunday song. Then I explain to the audience that we’ll walk through the crucifixion by playing all the songs from Resurrection Letters: Prologue: “Last Words” (the seven things the Gospels tell us that Jesus said on the cross) “Well Done, Good and Faithful” (which incorporates Isaac Watts’s setting of Psalm 22, the “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” psalm) “Always Good” (a lament) “God Rested” (about Jesus’s interment in the tomb) After each of these songs we blow out a candle and the stage lights darken. There’s no applause after each song. After the last candle is extinguished the room is plunged into darkness and silence is kept for a few minutes. It’s a time to enter the tomb and to feel the weight of Christ’s death. Then, a candle is relit. Brandon drums the opening of “His Heart Beats,” and the lights are back as we proclaim, “His heart beats, his blood begins to flow, waking up what was dead a moment ago.” At this point, at every show on the tour, the crowd bursts into applause. Most nights they leap to their feet. We can barely sing for the joy in our hearts. As I told someone yesterday, “It’s the perfect story.” After that we move through a series of songs about the resurrection and the New Creation: “Risen Indeed” “Rejoice” “Remember Me” “Don’t You Want to Thank Someone” “I’ve Seen Too Much” “Invisible God” “The Good Confession” “Is He Worthy?” “All Things Together” “All Things New” Now that it’s Easter Monday, and we’re living in this foretaste of the Great Day of the Lord, our hearts will be on fire tonight at the Ryman Auditorium as we give thanks to Jesus for who he is, what he’s done, and what he’s going to do. I hope you can tune in and celebrate with us. So from now until May 23rd, I wish you a happy Eastertide. The Kingdom is coming and the Kingdom is here. Andrew Peterson is a singer-songwriter and author. Andrew has released more than ten records over the past twenty years, earning him a reputation for songs that connect with his listeners in ways equally powerful, poetic, and intimate. As an author, Andrew’s books include the four volumes of the award-winning Wingfeather Saga, released in collectible hardcover editions through Random House in 2020, and his creative memoir, Adorning the Dark, released in 2019 through B&H Publishing.

by Jonny Jimison Jonny Jimison is back with the thirtieth edition of his beloved comic, Rabbit Trails , featuring none other than Denethor. Click here to visit Jonny Jimison’s website.

by the Rabbit Room Artists & is a project created to meet the need for community among visual artists. Throughout this project, we will learn the stories of artists we know and respect, looking inside their studios and hearing about their work, process, and rhythms. In this second installment, we hear from Gina Sutphin and Bailey McGee. Gina and Bailey discuss how they each began their creative work from a posture of supporting their artist-husbands, not as artists themselves, and how visual art is merely one facet of creativity in each of their lives. Click here to join the  artists &  group on Facebook. And click here to watch the first installment of “Artists & their Stories,” featuring Kyra Hinton and Jamin Still.

by the Rabbit Room The Habit Podcast is a series of conversations with writers about writing, hosted by Jonathan Rogers. This week, Jonathan Rogers talks with Doug McKelvey, author of Volumes I and II of Every Moment Holy . Every Moment Holy, Volume II is a book of liturgies and prayers for seasons of dying and grieving. Doug McKelvey spent two years in dialogue with bereaved and dying readers as he wrote this book. In this conversation, Doug speaks with Jonathan Rogers about loving the reader, stewarding gifts and opportunities, and listening to the people you wish to serve in your work. Click here to listen to Season 3, Episode 14 of The Habit Podcast. Transcripts are now available for The Habit Podcast. Click here to access them. Special thanks to our Rabbit Room members for making these podcasts possible! If you’re interested in becoming a member, visit RabbitRoom.com/Donate.

by Jen Rose Yokel I’m writing this from a sunlit cafe in Providence, where the daffodils and forsythia are finally blooming and everything feels right in the world. Sure, I’ve got a mask on my face to remind me that we aren’t entirely done with this pandemic yet, but somehow this particular spring almost feels like waking up after a long, exhausting year. And yet, for so many, the losses big and small remain. The ruins of the past year are still being sorted, named, grieved. Music can be a good friend in grief, and perhaps that’s why Rachel Wilhelm’s new album Requiem feels especially necessary right now. As a music minister in the Anglican Church, Rachel has made it her artistic mission to write the songs the church needs, specifically when it comes to lament. Her hope is that this album, created remotely in 2020 with the help of her community, will be that friend for many. Recently, I had a conversation with Rachel about the making of Requiem and the compelling power of lament. I hope these songs can be a good friend to you too when you need to grieve, and I’m grateful to introduce you to Rachel’s good work. Before we get into talking about your new album, I realize many people in our audience might not be familiar with your music. So first of all, tell me a little bit about yourself and your art. What have you been up to? I am primarily a minister of music and worship arts and have been pursuing my calling in that capacity for about fourteen years. I’m currently based at an Anglican parish in Knoxville, TN, and minister there. I love to see people thrive in their calling, so I love to encourage artistic gifts in others. I also lead songwriting retreats for the church as a whole through a ministry called United Adoration . I love songwriting and filling in gaps in the church’s repertoire, which led me to release my first full-length record, Songs of Lament , in 2017, and now Requiem . Speaking of Songs of Lament , you also produced Cardiphonia’s compilation Daughter Zion’s Woe last year. So, is it safe to say lament songs are in your wheelhouse? What is it about lament that compels you as an artist? It’s totally safe to say that lament is in my wheelhouse! Lament and minor keys are something the church is allergic to, but I have always found comfort in lament since I was very young. I spent a long time thinking that something was wrong with me, not realizing or knowing that God puts different flavors into different people for the building up of the Body of Christ. It wasn’t until I started serving in the Anglican church, where the church calendar is practiced, that I understood that there was room for me during Advent and Lent to express my art in that way. I have always written from the minor prophets, believe it or not, and found those passages the most beautiful in Scripture. God laments in the Old Testament. Jesus is the Man of Sorrows. The church forgets this and prefers to treat Sunday morning as a vacation, not a place where we can carry each other’s burdens in community and see God for who he is. So I guess the church compels me to write laments. What is the story behind your new album Requiem ? My poet friend Kate Bluett and I were on the phone talking about the Daughter Zion’s Woe project back in March 2020 right at the start of the lockdown, and she was telling me that she was listening to requiems at night to calm herself. I think the reality of death during the pandemic was especially sobering for both of us. She asked me if I had ever thought of writing a requiem. Death is not right. And it’s okay to say so. Rachel Wilhelm At the time, I had only known of Rutter’s Requiem, and actually spent some time with it in high school one year when my choir and I performed it under Rutter himself at Carnegie Hall. Because of that experience, I was introduced to requiems enough to entertain the thought. I told Kate that if she wrote lyrics, I’d write the music. Directly after getting off the phone we started exchanging emails with links of requiem movements and what we needed. We brought in another friend, Amber Salladin, a seasoned choral arranger and director, to write choral arrangements for the project and guide us through what would work well. We were three women who wanted to bring healing and hope to families that lost or were about to lose loved ones to COVID-19. And as I was writing and recording Requiem , I lost a couple friends to cancer as well. 2020 was a hard year, wasn’t it? It sure was. I think a lot about how it was one hard thing after another on a global or national scale, but then we all still have our individual challenges and losses to face. We all have something to grieve this year. I’m very interested in the idea of working in such an old format to make something new! What was writing in the traditional requiem structure like for you? I’m used to working within structures because of the Anglican liturgical service, so I found a lot of freedom when writing Requiem . Kate, Amber, and I researched what movements we really needed (like Lux Aeterna, Kyrie, Sanctus, Agnus Dei, In Paradisum, etc). Kate is a prolific writer, so she was sending me lyrics left and right. It was a whirlwind of writing and finding joy during a time of isolation. I think with the production (by Jered McKenna), it was interesting to figure out what would sound transcendent, or not dated in a few years, so that no matter what, people could have the album recommended to them when they incurred loss, or pull it out if they knew about it when the time came and they needed to process their grief. I didn’t want to be tied to completely following the requiem rules, so I left out the Dies Irae because the song “Deliver Me” covers a lot of the wrath aspect of a requiem. The opening track, “Man That Is Born of a Woman,” is untraditional, but I wanted to pull something from the Book of Common Prayer (the Anglican missal). The Job scripture passage that the song is based from is one that jumped out from the BCP burial service. Sadly, there is no funeral mass. Because I am Anglican, I wanted to start with the Anglican song. Ha! For our readers who aren’t familiar with a traditional requiem, could you give us some background and walk us through the liturgy a little bit? Since this was Kate’s suggestion and more from her Catholic tradition, I emailed her and asked her to answer that question! Here’s what she had to say: The Requiem comes out of the medieval practice of praying for the dead. This was considered an act of mercy, praying for the salvation of the soul of the person who had died. In the old form of this liturgy, the emphasis was on judgment, and on the fear of damnation. “Deliver Me (Libera Me)” reflects this focus. But in the modern form of the funeral service, the emphasis is on asking for mercy for the departed. In the end, that’s what all of us are counting on, and the songs based on the Pie Jesu and Lux Aeterna show this. Those prayers are interspersed with the ordinary parts of a service: the Lamb of God, the Kyrie, and the Holy, Holy, Holy. Because death and our need to process it aren’t separate from the rest of our lives, but bound up in them. In a way, this is music for a regular Sunday, but it looks forward to the end of all our Sundays. —Kate Bluett That’s beautiful… thanks Kate! Something about the way you and Kate bring your Anglican and Catholic traditions to this project really delights me. Could you say more about how your respective faith traditions supported the creation of these songs? It delights me too! Anglicans and Catholics have a rough history for sure, and I love that the two of us can work together as sisters in Christ and create something beautiful for the Church universal. We frequently write together anyway since my hard leaning is melody. Collaborating is such a gift because the songs, especially if they have very well-crafted lyrics, beg to have a great melody, and it’s a good challenge. For a good number of the songs, I wrote three to four different melodies to each of them to be sure to give it my best effort. Something I really love about Kate is that she writes poems or lyrics each week based on the readings for each Sunday at her parish and posts them on her blog. She has hundreds. That girl knows her Scripture, too. She has to! I can tell her what Scriptures I want, the idea I want to be conveyed, and she says, “Got it!” and comes back to me with a jewel of a lyric. Since we wanted to be both Catholic and Protestant in this requiem, we were especially sensitive to each other’s traditions and were careful to find that middle ground where not one or the other would raise an eyebrow. It occurs to me that grieving and music-making can be both solitary and communal. Like grief is something you navigate on your own, but a community can come together to care for you. And you can write a song by yourself (or maybe with another person) but to make a record you need a community of musicians and producers. Could you speak to the role of community, especially when it comes to making a record in the middle of a pandemic? I could say so much about this. And that observation is thrilling and brilliant. Community is everything. I found that if I talked about Requiem even during its infancy, it helped me to keep going. Sort of an accountability. I love people. I just delight in watching them, being with them, and collaborating with them. I love seeing people flourish, I love promoting other people’s projects, I love understanding that people are experts at only a few things, and we should honor that. In making music, or a project like Requiem , I had to remember those people that I knew well enough who could pour their gifts into it to give it the best chance. What is interesting about your question is that every person who was involved in this project is from a Facebook group that I help lead called Liturgy Fellowship . It’s the only reason to be on Facebook! We are a tight online community sort of like Rabbit Room, but we (a mix of pastors and musicians) talk liturgy and worship stuff. And my community of women—Kate, Amber, and Keiko, who played cello. The second track, “Lord Have Mercy” features all my friends half-way through the song, my supportive musical community, who remotely provided their voices to form a choir. Yeah, I wrote the songs sitting on my bed during isolation and ordering Amazon Fresh. But the record wouldn’t be here without my community.  It’s true that we all have something to grieve after this hard year, and I join you in hoping for this music to do something healing and beautiful for many people. How did God meet you through making this record when it comes to your own 2020 grief? That’s a great question. Grief is a funny thing. At first, it hits you hard like planes flying overhead dropping bombs on you every minute, then after awhile, an hour, then a week, then a year, then every couple of years or so until it lessens into a faded painful memory. Life halted completely for everyone in 2020. For me, too. I had work trips planned, my son was graduating from language school (and I missed it), and many other things. But new grief brings out old grief a lot of times, and creating has a way of working out the grief you still had left from an old wound. My sister died of anorexia in 2010 at the age of 33. She had no community and she died alone. She isolated herself from everyone because of her mental illness. It crushed me when she died. We grew up like twins, and she even isolated herself from me. A letter I had written her was sitting in her mailbox while she was on her deathbed. I found out when that letter returned to me with the word “deceased” on it. When Kate sent me the lyrics to “Martha’s Song,” I felt like my heart stopped. The lyric retells Martha’s perspective on her encounter with Jesus at the tomb of Lazarus before Jesus raises him from the dead. When I went to record the vocals of that song (in my closet!), I couldn’t stop crying. I probably did a thousand takes. I cried every time. It took me a week to get through it. I cried for my sister, but then I was also crying for others who would lose a loved one. The reality of the pandemic really hit me. Death is not right. And it’s okay to say so. You can learn more about Rachel and her music at her website . Click here to listen to Requiem on Spotify , and click here to listen on Apple Music . And click here to learn more about Cardiphonia’s project, facilitated by Rachel, Daughter Zion’s Woe. Jen Rose Yokel is a poet, freelance writer, and spiritual director. Her words have appeared at She Reads Truth, CCM Magazine, and other publications, and she released her first poetry collection Ruins & Kingdoms in 2015. Originally from Central Florida, she now makes her home in Fall River, Massachusetts with her husband Chris, where you can find her enjoying used bookstores and good coffee.

by Chris Thiessen I knew my priorities in life were out of order. I knew it was making me anxious. I knew I needed a weekend away to go and sort out myself. I  didn’t  know that doing so would cause me to hate one of my greatest loves, music, as a result. About a month ago, I got away to Chattanooga with the purpose of assessing my life—how I spend my time, brain energy, love. On the first night there, over a personal-sized pizza (another of my greatest loves), I began reading James K. A. Smith’s  On the Road with St. Augustine  for no other reason than I wanted something thoughtful to read, and it was sitting in my Kindle app already. There in chapter one, I was met by a North African theologian who lived 1,700 years away from this pizza-indulging writer, yet who knew exactly what I longed for—a reordering of loves, a conversion from my anxious, unsettled self into a newly-liberated person. So with Augustine as my weekend guide, I set about dissecting my patterns, rhythms, and desires to find the foci of disorder and refocus them elsewhere. Though it pained me to admit, it became clear that music was the very core of my disorder and anxiety. Music—the time spent listening to it, absorbing it, writing about it, reading about it, etc.—was taking up such a large space in my brain that I feel it was in a way (though perhaps not so obvious externally) suppressing my relationships and other loves and desires. To paint a sort of picture of the grip music has had on my life, I averaged listening to 3-4 albums a day in 2020 and the first months of 2021. I’ve obsessively written down every album I’ve listened to for the past five years. I have a feed of music publications that sends me hundreds of daily headlines so I make sure I don’t miss a single thing happening in the music industry. Dozens of press releases hit my inbox daily. Twitter sends all the hottest and coldest takes from experts and writers across the industry. Music journalists have the pressure of not only being up-to-date, but actually trying to stay three or more months ahead of the game if they want to be published and heard and read. And that’s what I wanted. That’s why I’ve tried to keep up with this insane pace of consuming music even while a pandemic rages on; even while having a separate full-time job; even while being in my first year and a half of fatherhood. In Chattanooga, I had to finally make a confession:  I can’t be a music journalist . I’ve been chasing ambitions that simply can’t work with the rest of my life and hopes and loves. Even my love of music was, I believe, diminished by my attempts to use it to say something “important” or discover “the next best thing,” instead of allowing it to move me and challenge me first. Admittedly, I’m being a little harsh. I’ve been moved and challenged by plenty of music in recent years from Nick Cave’s haunting meditations on death and life eternal on  Ghosteen  to Kacey Musgraves’ sweet, butterfly-inducing melodies on  Golden Hour to Kendrick Lamar ’s prophetic words across a trilogy of perfect albums. Still, the ambition of a music journalist always led me to approach music with the questions “What’s  my  angle?” and “What can  I  say about this?” rather than first asking “What is the  artist  feeling? Expressing? Hoping for? Challenging the world to be? Challenging  me  to be?” It’s been a month since these revelations unfolded. I came back from Chattanooga feeling relieved, yes, but at the same time, disheartened. I didn’t want to listen to music at all. The thought of it caused a visceral reaction in my gut, akin to when one consumes one too many personal-sized pizzas (something  I’ve  certainly never experienced…). Throughout March, I’d try on occasion. I’d throw on some Peaceful Piano while working or Beatles for my own carpool karaoke or Lenten songs during Holy Week. But I hated the thought of listening to something new or listening analytically or meaningfully. Friends, hating a thing you’ve loved dearly is no fun feeling. But, if it is truly something worth loving, this hate—these visceral reactions and callous feelings—can’t last. Chris Thiessen Friends, hating a thing you’ve loved dearly is no fun feeling. But, if it is truly something worth loving, this hate—these visceral reactions and callous feelings—can’t last. In discussing the disordering and reordering of loves, Augustine says that tension like what I’ve experienced the last month is to be expected. There should be a “resistance of what I have become to what I used to be.” I had begun to love music wrongly, perhaps exploitatively. That love needed to be broken down, torn apart, shredded, and then remade—remolded by a love for creation and creator (little c and big C), for the wonderful, unmatched purpose music (and other art) holds as a means of spreading beauty, emotions deeper than words, hopes higher than thoughts, and stories truer than facts. This past Tuesday, two days after Easter Sunday, I felt the beginnings of resurrection in my love for music. The repulsion I felt toward music was lifted, and I felt free to once again enjoy music wholeheartedly. I know my relationship with music won’t (and can’t) be the same as it was prior to this month-long sadness. I feel no pull to return to those obsessive rhythms I held before as a faux music journalist. But that’s the purpose of reorder and resurrection: to strip away what was destructive and magnify what was good and right and worthwhile. I’m looking forward to leaning into this journey and learning to love music in ways I previously couldn’t have imagined. Click here to read more of Chris’s writing at Quarter Notes.

by the Rabbit Room The Habit Podcast is a series of conversations with writers about writing, hosted by Jonathan Rogers. This week, Jonathan Rogers talks with Rachel Pieh Jones, author of Pillars: How Muslim Friends Led Me Closer to Jesus . Rachel Pieh Jones has been living and writing in the Horn of Africa for the last eighteen years. Her new memoir is Pillars: How Muslim Friends Led Me Closer to Jesus . In this episode, Rachel and Jonathan Rogers discuss the value of being an outsider and what it means to be a witness. Click here to listen to Season 3, Episode 15 of The Habit Podcast. Transcripts are now available for The Habit Podcast. Click here to access them. Special thanks to our Rabbit Room members for making these podcasts possible! If you’re interested in becoming a member, visit RabbitRoom.com/Donate.

by J Lind Depression has been the low-hanging fruit of our family tree, along with addiction. It’s an ongoing chicken-and-egg as to what-causes-what. I experienced my first bout of major depression at the ripe age of eleven, spurred on by a scene of Bill and Ted playing Twister with Death. You read that right. I don’t remember much about the movie, probably because my green brain sponged it. (Truly. I couldn’t have told you anything about it, not the title or the scene, until a synchronous moment a couple years ago.) But I vividly remember that night, telling my neighbor I didn’t feel right and then running home, hopeful that I’d be spared some impending doom. I didn’t have language for it at the time, but looking back, I interpret it as my first encounter with death: I was confronted with not just any old mortality, but my mortality. Twister indeed. For the next few months, I slept poorly and cried often, positive emotions few and far between. That’s when I discovered my healing balm: music. For the first time, I felt moved by a song I’d heard at our non-denom church, prompting me to rip “God of Wonders” off Limewire and listen on my dad’s CD Walkman. That song parted the clouds for me, time and again, maybe even giving me the space to find words for the feelings. My dad listened to me intently and with a sense of familiarity. His brother, my namesake, had killed himself, and I suspect it was the black dog in my dad that set him on the path that culminated in AA, where my folks met. A wave of relief crashed over me as I reached for the words. We both cried. Building Fences My depression gradually lifted, and I soon became aware of a deep-seated fear that the black dog would return. So I took to building fences. I guiltily “acquired” thousands of CCM songs from the bowels of the internet; I started playing guitar for the skater-grunge youth group at our church, where I wrote my first songs; I cultivated a steady diet of apologetics, from Lee Strobel to William Lane Craig to C. S. Lewis. But the dog had grown, too. Depression at fourteen was similar to depression at eleven but, in my mind, even more intense. Again, I vividly remember that sense of pitch-black apathy rolling down me like a raw egg. Again, I lost sleep and my appetite and any interest in the social luxuries of being an eighth grader. The breaking point came on a rainy day in my youth group, when the dog bit me in the middle of a worship song that I happened to be leading. Not here, not in this place. I choked, got out of dodge, and again cried out loud with my dad. You can’t always get back through the wardrobe, though, and I’m grateful that my family found a psychiatrist. I had a few sessions with a therapist and started antidepressants. I don’t know exactly why or how it happened, but the dog slowly retreated. In the decade following the dog’s unexpected return, I set to work on yet another round of new-and-improved fences. I pursued music, my highest fence. I also followed my interests in philosophy, another sturdy fence, to Princeton and Oxford, where I hoped to become some sort of creative apologist, a la Lewis. And for five years I sat with patients in hospice, half-hoping to befriend death and do away with fences all together. I learned a lot, and together these experiences set something in motion. Faith and Certainty “Deconstruction” or “disorientation” or “disorder,” as some folks call it, is a painful process that, for me, just sort of happened. My paradigm stopped working. It didn’t feel like a series of vocal sins that finally toppled my tower of understanding, or like taking an oath to Richard Dawkins after a failed duel with my former Jedi master. It was more like being handed some square-peg experiences that just didn’t fit. There were clearly gaping holes in my fences, so some of them had to come down, against my will. It was honest and paralyzing. After experiencing it, I couldn’t go back to where I had been before. The other side of disorientation, deconstruction, and disorder is a new thing: re-orientation, re-construction, re-order. New fences. Here’s the problem, as I see it: can we trust any fence to be sturdy enough to keep all of life’s dogs at bay, especially once we come to appreciate the fact that our most prized fences have failed us? That is, I don’t think the desolation of “the dark night of the soul” is simply the result of finding some gaping hole in any one fence. I think it’s more about realizing, on some broader existential playing field, that being human means that even our best fences will have holes . And some things—like dogs, or God—will still get over the fence. We’re limited. In this state of being human, or in this state of being limited , I’ve found some consolation: I’m alone, and I’m also not. That is, there’s a host of witnesses stretching back through the millenia who have walked this path, building their own fences only to watch them come down. The known, the unknown, the abyss, the resurrection—it’s an ancient wheel, and it seems that faulty fences are part of the deal. And yes, certainty is comforting. But certainty certainly won’t always be there. And maybe that’s a good thing. What if, for example, certainty and faith were diametrically opposed? What if you not only encountered Christ in the tabernacle but also when you were treading water in the deep? What if the greatest feat of Peter wasn’t that he died a martyr but that he believed despite having seen the miracles? It could be the case that proofs, for all their short-term comfort, actually make faith more difficult. And faith can’t be fenced in. What if the greatest feat of Peter wasn’t that he died a martyr but that he believed despite having seen the miracles? J Lind In this state of being limited, I recognize that I’m destined to keep building fences. But maybe, after a few painful failures, I can ask certainty to step aside. Moved as I am by visions of milk and honey and the kingdom of heaven, maybe I can hammer in the pegs with some lightness and levity, appreciating that this is, after all, yet another fence. Of course, I’ll still need to keep half an eye open for that big black dog, or for the divine—but that might even change the way I relate to each of them. On this side of the fence, I’m not in the Land of Canaan, or the New Jerusalem; I’m in the desert of uncertainty. And maybe faith is, too. You can listen to J’s new concept album, The Land of Canaan , here , and order it now in the Rabbit Room Store . It’s a new and original story, and it’s also not.

by the Rabbit Room There’s a strong biblical connection between people and trees. They both come from dirt. They’re both told to bear fruit. In fact, arboreal language is so often applied to humans that it’s easy to miss, whether we’re talking about family trees, passing along our seed, cutting someone off like a branch, being rooted to a place, or bearing the fruit of the Spirit. It’s hard to deny that trees mean something, theologically speaking. This book is in many ways a memoir, but it’s also an attempt to wake up the reader to the glory of God shining through his creation. One of his first commands to Adam and Eve was to “work and keep” the garden (Genesis 2:15). Award-winning author and songwriter Andrew Peterson, being as honest as possible, seeks to give glory to God by spreading out his roots and raising his branches, trusting that by reading his story, you’ll encounter yours. Hopefully, you’ll see that the God of the Garden is and has always been present, working and keeping what he loves. Sometimes he plants, sometimes he prunes, but in his goodness he intends to reap a harvest of righteousness. The God of the Garden releases on October 26th. Click here to place your pre-order in the Rabbit Room Bookstore .

by Shigé Clark When I discovered the Rabbit Room, I was blown away that a group like this had existed in the world all this time without my knowledge. Honestly, that hasn’t changed. I act less astounded these days—since it would be weird for me to go around with my mouth hanging open—but I’m still blown away. Imagine me, out in the void, carrying forth my lonely but unsnuffable torch with the conviction that God is a storyteller, that art matters in a deep and abiding way, and that sub-creation is one of the most beautiful and compelling ways he reveals himself in the world. Imagine this defiant little soldier (in this metaphor, I am small so as to be dwarfed by the oppressive night—just roll with it) stomping tight-lipped through the darkness, only to round some invisible corner and find an encampment full of bonfires burning beneath the stars. Hands wave in welcome and beckon me to add my torch to the flames, and I’m frozen in disbelief at the edge of the sudden swell of light. In many ways, I’m still standing there. So, when someone discovers the Rabbit Room, or—like me now—has been following for years and finds themselves freshly impacted, it’s as if they’ve stumbled up beside me at the edge of the camp and we’re just staring at each other in wonder. When that happens, I often get questions. Folks want to know how best to throw in their support (if they’re looking to bunk down in the encampment and make it their own, I suggest membership ), but often they want to know where to lay their torch for a while. They’ve caught the vision, they’re excited, and they’re asking for the best place to get involved. I know exactly how that feels. May you know that you’re welcomed. May you be inspired. And if you’re looking for a place to set your torch, I hope you find it here. Shigé Clark Others come with a specific passion. Our community is full of amazing people who know how difficult an artist’s calling is and want to ease that struggle—those who want to help unique works and creators thrive where they might otherwise wither for lack of support. I share that passion myself, and I’ve hated not having a place to send them where they could know their gift would go toward helping the artists they love. General donations are incredible, and necessary, but it’s encouraging to know the specific need your gift is meeting, or to be able to direct your funds toward a need God has specifically called you to meet. I’ve been part of this encampment long enough now that when people come stumbling up, I want to hear them, answer their questions, and be able to direct them to where they can set their torch. So here it is, call me the camp cartographer. We’ve set up a new group of designated funds that speak to the core focuses of our Rabbit Room mission. As I said, general donations are essential, but if God has called you to this work and you want to know a more specific way to offer support, we’ve drawn you a map. The Artist Support Fund For those who specifically want to care for and nurture writers, musicians, and artists of all types in their creative work, there is now the Artist Support Fund . The Rabbit Room began with a group of musicians inspired by the Inklings to aid and encourage each other in Kingdom-oriented creation. Fifteen years later, the support and cultivation of artists is still at the core of our identity—especially those “square peg” creators doing good work without a place to land in conventional markets. Whether offering relief to struggling artists, providing retreat or workspace opportunities, facilitating mentorship and education, or other types of care, donations to this fund provide a dedicated way for us to bless the people who’ve blessed us with their work. The St. Anne’s Fund Named for the house of refuge in C. S. Lewis’s That Hideous Strength , the St. Anne’s Fund supports pastors, teachers, mentors, and others in ministry for the nourishment of Christ-centered communities. With this fund, we want to provide opportunities for rest and retreat, discipleship, community engagement, and other forms of care to those doing their own forms of Rabbit Room-aligned ministry. Gifts to this fund help us take care of the people who spend their time pouring into others for the sake of the Kingdom and the life of the world. The North Wind Manor Fund Now that North Wind Manor is practically complete (there are still some bolts to tighten and lands to scape), we want to make sure that the space we’ve built reflects the Rabbit Room’s dedication to beauty, hospitality, and stewardship of a God-given place. This fund supports the regular needs of repairs, cleaning, utilities, and stocking essentials—but, more than that, it goes toward investing in the beauty of the space, the hosting of events with generosity, and the local sourcing of food and supplies in order to serve the community. Sponsorships Through sponsorship we’re able to fund specific events and programs, like Hutchmoot , The Local Show , and the Rabbit Room Podcast Network . Hutchmoot: Homebound is possible because of the sponsors that come alongside us. The Local Show has been free this year (and last)—despite actually costing more to produce—due to the generosity of sponsors like The Cook Family Foundation and Ronald Blue Trust. If you have a specific program or event that you love and want to support, sponsorship is the way to go. I hope this map provides some helpful direction for those stumbling into this encampment of God’s goodness. I believe he led us to this place for a reason, and I’m glad you’re here. May you know that you’re welcomed. May you be inspired. And if you’re looking for a place to set your torch, I hope you find it here.

by the Rabbit Room What happens when a self-assured university student comes home as a “chivalric” English gentleman, ready to assume responsibility for his sisters and the family estate, but somehow wakes up the next morning as a stranger in Fairyland? Come join us on an adventure in which the young Anodos is forced to reassess his assumptions about both himself and others–and eventually to deconstruct his entire concept of a hero. Within the realm of faerie, he begins to build a completely different way of engaging with the world and to adopt a whole new understanding of honor and even of self. Reading this short novel radically impacted C. S. Lewis, who said the journey of Anodos showed him holiness and “baptized” his imagination. He returned to it again and again, claiming in later years that Phantastes had shaped his philosophy of life and even his vocational attitude more than any other book. About the Group MacDonald scholar and lecturer Kirstin Jeffery Johnson leads a read-through and discussion of Phantastes , providing context and guidance for navigating an often bewildering but profoundly moving and influential fantasy novel. The “live” version of this book group (including the online forum) opens May 24 and will include Zoom chats every Tuesday night at 7:00 p.m. CST for five weeks. However, you are welcome to join at any time, even after the live chats have ended. The discussions will be archived, and the forum will be open indefinitely for new registrants to continue reading and discussing the book. Here’s a note from Kirstin Jeffrey Johnson to kick off our discussion of MacDonald: “Hello all & welcome! I look forward to meeting you. And I’d love to know, as we prep for our first gathering, if folk are coming to Phantastes for the first time, if you’ve tried it before but faltered, or if you are amongst the rabid re-readers. If you’ve put it off or put it down, then go ahead and share why. If you can’t stop coming back—share that too! The goal, of course, is to convert you all into Lewis-style addicts… Also—let us know if you are new to MacDonald altogether. If you are a selective fan or a die-hard, what’s your favourite MacDonald reading?” Click here to register for this reading group. And click here to join the conversation in our discussion forums. Phantastes  is available in the Rabbit Room Store.

by the Rabbit Room The Habit Podcast is a series of conversations with writers about writing, hosted by Jonathan Rogers. This week, Jonathan Rogers talks with Lancia E. Smith, the founder of a quarterly online magazine called Cultivating and the Cultivating Project, a nurtured community of writers and artists committed to pursuing spiritual maturity and creative excellence. Lancia writes about brilliant people doing brilliantly good things related to faith, character formation, and the creative arts. She is also a photographer and portraitist. In this episode, Lancia and Jonathan talk about the relationship between editing and discipleship, the balance of sensitivity and maturity, and the habit of cultivating wonder. Click here to listen to Season 3, Episode 18 of The Habit Podcast. Transcripts are now available for The Habit Podcast. Click here to access them. Special thanks to our Rabbit Room members for making these podcasts possible! If you’re interested in becoming a member, visit RabbitRoom.com/Donate.

by the Rabbit Room Songs from the Silent Passage is a new collection of essays by various members of the Chrysostom Society (Eugene Peterson, Matthew Dickerson, Luci Shaw, and more) which explores the breadth and depth of Walt Wangerin Jr, a writer who has wandered through a passage and returned with news of a far country. In celebration of release day, we’re excited to share with you an excerpt from Luci Shaw’s essay as well as an interview between Luci and fellow contributor Matthew Dickerson. Matthew Dickerson : When did you first meet Walt? What was your impression? Luci Shaw : I first met Walter Wangerin during a visit to my alma mater, Wheaton College. It was Spiritual Emphasis Week and Walt had been invited as the featured speaker. The place was packed with students and visitors but I managed to get in to the standing-room-only space at the back of the chapel. What impressed me about Walt’s preaching that day was the intensity and the flow of his language. At the time I thought “He’s overdoing it. Too many adjectives, too many words.” But as I listened, overwhelmed by his enthusiasm as story after story rolled from his tongue, I sensed an expansiveness in his understanding of divine grace. He was tall and his face reminded me of a hawk or an eagle, fierce, intense. His first book, The Book of the Dun Cow was followed by a score of other unique, imaginative, powerful books. Matthew : Did your impression change over the years as you got to know him better? Luci : Years later he was invited to join the Chrysostom Society of Christian writers as we had gathered at Laity Lodge in the Texas hill country. At that point he’d been diagnosed with lung cancer, had been through courses of chemotherapy and was now hooked up to an oxygen tank on wheels. It followed him like a puppy as he strode around the place. His wife Ruthanne (Thanne) was with him, her quiet spirit a contrast to his almost fierce intensity. He told stories of his father, the original Walter Wangerin, a Lutheran pastor, and his children. Matthew : Are there any stories about interactions with Walt that stand out as particularly meaningful? Or funny? Or insightful? Luci : More years later, a group of our Chrysostom Society friends were present in the field house of Calvin College to hear him give a keynote speech at the annual Festival of Faith and Writing. His cancer was quite advanced at that point. We’d found a block of seats near the front of the auditorium and before he went up to the platform to speak he approached us and blessed each of us, individually, telling us it might be our final meeting with him. But he survived, pushing back against the disease with a kind of intense power that felt like the hand of God protecting and preserving him, urging him. Matthew : Did you engage with Walt as a fellow writer? Do you think the Chrysostom Society had an impact on Walt’s writings? Or did you see Walt or his writings having an impact on your own poetry? Luci : Walt proved himself to be a prolific wordsmith. Books and sermons flowed out of him in torrents, as well as wild and wonderful poetry. He once sent me a large, untidy manuscript of poems for my response, the same sort of thing Madeleine L’Engle had presented me with for editing and printing. The poems varied widely in skill and scope. Many were quite lovely and powerful, but the collection didn’t hang together as a whole. I gave him some feedback and he took it manfully! Click here to view Songs from the Silent Passage in the Rabbit Room Store. Excerpt from Luci Shaw’s Essay, “Letters from the Land of Cancer” Letters from the Land of Cancer is a brief book about a large concern. It is about time—the time we have left to live on this planet, each and all of us who are mortal. “Terminal” is the appropriate term, when, in the midst of a full and flourishing life, we are jerked to a halt by something that is bigger than we are, that takes over our lives, our thinking, our plans for the future. The book is about the aggressive shock we feel at the announcement that something over which we have little control is invading our bodies and seeping into our minds and souls. For many years I have known and admired Walt Wangerin, the friend who wrote these letters out of the extremity of his cancer, describing his progress through the entire dis-easy process of early symptoms, diagnosis, treatment, and resolution. In one letter, he describes his discoveries as “dispatches,” as if he has gone ahead of us, to some distant front, and must send back detailed descriptions of what is going on out there, what must be prepared for. Though the themes of cancer and dying may seem unduly morbid to the young and healthy, they can, in this small book, offer an understanding of what matters in life and faith. These themes engaged Wangerin’s keen and perceptive mind and, once published as Letters from the Land of Cancer , became a source of insight into how we might view the reason for our life, and our life in God, as well as how we can learn to deal with these mysteries. Having had my own brush with the threat of cancer, I have a personal appreciation of Walt’s predicament, a visceral response to the threat of an illness unto death. We, who started our lives as utterly helpless infants, may find ourselves infantile again, giving our very existence over to our caretakers. And, as Wangerin says, we may need to allow ourselves to be comforted, as a baby is comforted: lifted, carried, sung to, rocked in the consoling arms of our parents. And of our Parent. Fed, clothed, blessed by love in the midst of pain and the questions that accompany it. Wangerin’s illustration of this dependency, given at the end of a sermon at his Grace Church, is memorable. He puts his thumb in his mouth and sucks it, as a baby will! This is the practice of mortality. When Walt first received a diagnosis of cancer, which his physician told him had metastasized to his lymph nodes from somewhere else, he began to document his inner and outer life in the form of letters to his family and friends. He had noticed a swelling in his neck, and after examinations and PET scans, and after becoming acquainted with all the varied arcane devices that penetrate human flesh for discovery, he was informed of his disease. His immediate response, voiced in early letters, was, “This is a new adventure.” But we secretly wondered, “Walt, are you and your doctors setting up a new business— Doctors & Dying, Incorporated ?” The letters came to us at intervals, as personal, almost chatty stories, informal, as if he were in the room with us. And now, in these printed pages, he speaks to us again with a similar intimacy, but speaks to a wider audience. His reflections may mirror our own, but they extend them and fill them with flesh and spirit. He writes with such disarming spontaneity—sometimes from the chair in his doctor’s office as he waits for an appointment—that we feel we are face to face with him. We sense the brush of breath against the cheek as we read his words. This is how true friendship works: Walt was examining what was happening by way of his self-consciousness and his own pastoral wisdom, and passing on his findings to us, his buddies, his community, in a continuing reportage. At the time, we could not know how long the letters would keep coming. Walt tends, in his fiction, to a certain idiosyncratic style, almost as if he were writing prophetic messages similar to the proclamations of biblical prophets. These letters are far more informal, more candid and straightforward, and often decorated with snatches of conversation and imagery. Initially, he did not seem to intend these letters to be published. But now, here they are, for our benefit and understanding. In a sense, he has kept these letters as a journal for himself and us so that his experience wouldn’t get lost in a haze of forgetfulness. He expected bodily fatigue, pain, and weakness, but could not know, between each interval of writing, what the disease or the therapies would do to his mind. Or for how long he would be able to express himself coherently. His powers of description have always been invigorating, imaginative, and are spoken into the air and our minds with magisterial authority and insight. His epistles to the community of friendship retain that power. But at the time he was writing them, we all wondered, “For how long?” Click here to view Songs from the Silent Passage in the Rabbit Room Store. Luci Shaw is a poet and essayist, and since 1988 she has been Writer in Residence at Regent College, Vancouver. Author of over thirty-nine books of poetry and creative non-fiction, her writing has appeared in numerous literary and religious journals. In 2013 she received the 10th annual Denise Levertov Award for Creative Writing from Seattle Pacific University . Her recent collection, The Generosity, was released in August 2020, by Paraclete Press, and a new collection, Angels Everywhere , is scheduled for publication this year. Matthew Dickerson (co-editor and contributor to Songs from the Silent Passage ) is the author of the three-volume fantasy novel The Gifted, The Betrayed, and Illengond (collectively titled The Daegmon War) and the medieval historical novels The Finnsburg Encounter and The Rood and the Torc. He has also written several books about J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, and fantasy literature. He first wrote about the literature of Walterin Wangerin Jr as a chapter in his co-authored book From Homer to Harry Potter: A Handbook of Myth and Fantasy.

by the Rabbit Room Season Two of The Artist’s Creed begins Wednesday, May 19th. Over the course of six episodes, Steve Guthrie and Drew Miller will explore the relationship between the sounding world and the Holy Spirit. They’ll ask what we can learn about God through music, speech, breath, and voice, starting next week with “Episode 1: The Sound Breath Makes.” Click through to hear an excerpt from this first episode. Each episode of this new season centers on a post from Steve Guthrie’s blog series, “Spirit & Sound,” in which he discusses what our sense of sound and hearing can reveal to us about God and his creation—from “The Sound Breath Makes” to “Sounding, Re-sounding, and the Antiphonal Shape of the World” to “The Man Who Read With His Mouth Closed (And the Spirit Who Didn’t).” Click here to listen to The Artist’s Creed. Episode 1 airs next Wednesday, May 19th . Transcripts for Season Two will be available upon each episode’s release.