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Our friend W. David O. Taylor should be no stranger to anyone here. He’s served as the keynote speaker at Hutchmoot, written for the blog, and appeared on podcasts, and we’ve always appreciated his sharp mind, his strong faith, and his generous spirit. David’s latest book, A Body of Praise: Understanding the Role of Our Physical Bodies in Worship, released earlier this year, is an insightful work on the human body and the importance of embodiment. In order to whet your appetite for the book, we have an exclusive excerpt to share with Rabbit Room readers! The Spirit Who Plays Jazz A final aspect of a theology of spontaneity is captured in the language of the Spirit as jazz player. While this particular metaphor is widely used in theological writings about the Holy Spirit, it remains useful for our purposes here too. Jeremy Begbie helpfully unpacks the meaning of the metaphor as it relates to the context of corporate worship. Over against the presumption that only order and disorder might characterize our experience of worship, Begbie proposes a third mode, non-order, and uses laughter as an example. “It is not order (predictably patterned),” he writes, “but nor is it disorder (destructive).” It is instead what might be called non-order or the jazz-factor. Begbie explains at length: Note: You can order A Body of Praise from the Rabbit Room Store here. W. David O. Taylor (ThD, Duke Divinity School) is associate professor of theology and culture at Fuller Theological Seminary. An Anglican priest, he has lectured widely on the arts, from Thailand to South Africa. Taylor has written for the Washington Post, Image Journal, and Religion News Service, among others. He is the author of several books, including Glimpses of the New Creation: Worship and the Formative Power of the Arts and Open and Unafraid: The Psalms as a Guide to Life. In 2016, he produced a short film on the psalms with Bono and Eugene Peterson. He lives in Austin, Texas.

I am by nature a thrifty, proceed-with-planning kind of person. So what exactly is it about a garden center in spring that makes me lose all restraint? Something about a hint of warm air, the smell of dirt, and a “We’re Open” sign by the road makes me immediately shift gears. More specifically, downshift! Because I can’t risk missing this abrupt turn! I’ve just got to hightail it in there and peruse all that green glory. What is this thing that commandeers my being, that makes me throw all normal practices right out of that rolled-down car window? I guess I’ll blame it on the spring air blowing up my nose. It seems to flush the stuffiness of the months of closed-window car trips right out my ears and take any good sense with it! Those full-chested, crisp inhalations are intoxicating and make me hallucinate about those green-tipped trees along the roadway. I’m just sure they are those infamous money trees, and they’re going to share their bounty. That makes it completely fine to buy whatever I want. When it’s cold, it seems that somehow I don’t even notice these temporarily shuttered greenhouses. I want to be out and about as little as possible, so there’s no time for pausing in the brisk air to smell the lack of roses. But somewhere along the journey through slush and frigidness, there is always a magic moment of change. The air somehow feels cleaner and the sun feels like it’s smiling. And as if out of nowhere, there it is! This beacon of windows and glass-walled rooms stands waving its “OPEN” banners like a race track flagman! Every gardener knows the emergency detour that is suddenly created in their soul. Spring itself is a waypoint encouraging us onwards. Gina Sutphin Were you headed to important plans? Well, they’ll just need to be rescheduled. Were you supposed to meet a friend for coffee? Nothing says “I’m sorry for my late arrival” like a potted plant. Were you on your way to work? Surely you’re coming down with a case of Spring Fever, and are likely very contagious. The day has now officially taken charge of its own schedule and must be tended to! After all, it is one of the most Hope-Filled days of the year. And isn’t that really what this is all about to us? We who garden, garden because we hope. We hope in the seed and the labor and time invested. When winter is cold, we hold that hope that the truth of spring will still find us no matter how dark it has been. When all around us feels bleak, we hope in this thing that we know cannot be changed or shaken: that spring, glorious spring, will always come and there is nothing we can do to change or stop it. In a world that has felt so very uncertain, spring is certain. It cannot be moved, cannot be injured or stricken with sickness, cannot be tainted, and cannot be bought. Year after year, it has literally and figuratively stood its ground, pressing through unfriendly soil to spread forth tiny tendrils reaching toward the sun. And that enduring hope is what we all carry inside of us. Spring itself is a waypoint encouraging us onwards. So okay, maybe don’t throw all caution, or financial sense, or promised appointments out the window when the opportunity arises. We do all have a certain level of maturity and character that helps us be mostly reasonable about such things. But just know you’re not alone when you consider hitting the brakes to take that squealing, unexpected turn. And if you do have a moment of weakness and shuck responsibility for the day, you can count on one of us other gardeners to help cover your rubber-laid, tire tracks. After all, we know you weren’t being irresponsible. You were just being Hopeful. And that’s exactly what true Living and Breathing feel like.

I spend a lot of time reading books to my three little ones. Some days my throat grows hoarse from reading lengthy Beatrix Potter books to them, only to find my children waving yet another hardcover book in front of my face with pleading eyes. Eventually, supper must be cooked, and I gather up the books back onto the shelves for another day. After reading a book like Potter’s, I can’t help but marvel at the wonder and imagination hardwired into her. She must have looked at nature with eyes wide open and a mind twirling with questions and what-ifs. What if a dog and a cat operated a dollhouse store? What if a poor and sickly tailor discovered mice had finished the sewing project he had begun? What if there was a mouse who was tidy and particular about her little burrow? I remember thinking that way as a child. I watched a mallard and his mate swim in the pond and believed they not only mated for life but also worked together each year to plan and raise their young. I imagined my horses forming friendships with one another. I saw birds fight for a spot in the bird feeder and made up conversations for them. As I grew, that kind of wonder and imagination faded from view. Isn’t that the way it’s supposed to be: the turn to adult things? There’s a real world out there, and you can’t be preoccupied looking for love stories between toads. Get good grades in every class and start thinking about what you want to be when you grow up—and it better not be an author with her head in the clouds. As a little girl, I faced my nightmares and trials through imagined stories, but as I grew up, I became weary and cold-hearted as I distanced myself from those stories—both the ones in my head and the ones in books. I traded in my fiction for commentaries, theology textbooks, and Bible studies. And while those are good things, I lost something in that trade-off: wonder and child-likeness. What started to bring me back? Kidlit, like Beatrix Potter’s books. But not just any kidlit—good, true, and beautiful children’s books. How do we know the difference? First, we must understand childlikeness and childishness. Childlikeness Versus Childishness When reading kidlit, we may wonder: Am I moving towards childlikeness or childishness? I learned the difference between these two categories from a pair of homeschoolers. Two years ago, I had a two-year-old son and newborn twin boys, so my in-laws hired two homeschooled sisters to help me throughout the workweek with feeding babies, changing diapers, and staying on top of housework. One was a storyteller like me. She wrote entire novels, short stories, and poetry, and she wanted to try her hand at nonfiction as I had done for the past several years. As I helped her learn to write for Christian nonfiction publications, she reminded me of the beauty of stories again. As I read her stories and listened to her talk about them, I felt the wonder I had pushed aside for so long begin to swell again. She had a dream to write novels, and she hadn’t allowed “reality” to crush it. The younger sister, despite the suffering she had seen as well, still carried an untameable joy. I loved listening to her as she talked about climbing trees and watched her make imaginative games with my toddler. I saw something in them that I didn’t see in other teens their ages; they had remained childlike without being childish. What is childlikeness? The childlike person stands firm in who they are, , not pretending to be someone else to impress others. Those who are childlike play with little kids, even if it means looking silly. They can laugh at themselves when the twins puke down the back of their shirts. They trust in God’s goodness even when everyone else shakes their heads cynically. They find beauty even in the most aesthetically displeasing places. I’m still learning this from them, and I’m also learning it through children’s authors like Potter. I’m trying to look at the world with the eyes of a child to see the stories, the beauty, and the jungle gym before me. Most children have yet to be jaded by this world, and good fiction written for children helps us regain that innocence. Choosing the Right Kind of Kidlit Good fiction truly captures the real child experience. On the Worthy podcast, young adult and middle-grade author K. B. Hoyle laments the state of YA books in recent years, and how many of them have become about adults in teenage bodies. These kinds of books fail to capture the wonder that should be found in those books. Again, they embody that childishness that’s trying to fill out adult clothing too soon rather than a childlike quality that’s working toward maturity. As adults, we need the former because we’ve grown jaded and weary of this world. We need to be reminded again of what it’s like to hope and dream, to look up at the sky with innocence instead of cynicism. When they tried to wave the little children away, Jesus told his disciples to let them come to him because “anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it” (Mark 10:14–15). This is a call to receive Jesus’ gift of salvation with unhindered joy and faith. When suffering makes us bitter and cold-hearted, we must find ways to renew our hearts and minds. When we’re becoming more downtrodden, maybe kidlit can help spark that light for us again. Kidlit also harnesses the power of humor and levity. As cynical, weary adults, we take on a solemnity and seriousness that can make us feel heavy and dead. But children’s authors, especially those writing for children and middle-grade readers, must approach their writing with some levity. Their prose must have a lightness to it, and it thrives even more with witty or even silly humor. Some of our beloved and tattered books are both beautiful and hilarious—like The Gruffalo by Julia Donaldson and The Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies by Beatrix Potter. As we get older and more hardened by life, this part of childlikeness becomes less natural. As G. K. Chesterton wrote in his book Orthodoxy: Pride is the downward drag of all things into an easy solemnity. One “settles down” into a sort of selfish seriousness; but one has to rise to a gay self-forgetfulness. A man “falls” into a brown study; he reaches up at a blue sky … It is really a natural trend or lapse into taking one’s self gravely, because it is the easiest thing to do … For solemnity flows out of men naturally; but laughter is a leap. It is easy to be heavy: hard to be light. Satan fell by the force of gravity. With such a natural disposition towards solemnity, we need to make room for books that cultivate this gaiety in us as they draw light into our lives. To move from cynicism and bitterness, we all need not just a bit of wonder and an eye for beauty, but a heart that can laugh. This is the life God created for us: “Light is sown for the righteous, and joy for the upright in heart” (Ps. 97:11). As believers, we have much to be joyful about, and we know laughter is a gift from God. Do we want others to see a dreary or joyful faith? I wonder if kidlit can help lighten our heavy hearts so we can better embody the joy God has given us. Kidlit for All Ages Some of you may not have grown up with a love for reading. Maybe you weren’t exposed to many books—whether good or bad. Perhaps all you remember of reading is being forced to consume dreadful books in school for assignments. You might feel like you’ve missed out. When it comes to choosing literature for children, Leslie Bustard writes in Wild Things and Castles in the Sky, “A steady diet of dumbed-down stories, illustrations, and conversations will not prepare them for all the glorious ways words can be used in times of joy and delight and in times of sorrow and suffering” (p. 9). She goes on, “These young image-bearers of God will be formed by many, many things. Therefore, we must provide the children in our lives with words, conversations, and stories that will plant the seeds of abundance in their hearts and minds … And with these seeds growing in their lives, our children will have deeper roots to draw from in how they love, think and speak” (p. 11). We need to do the same for ourselves; we can change the relationship we had with books and find wonder and formation in the kidlit we missed out on. As you’re rounding out your book list for the new year, don’t feel ashamed for sticking some middle- grade or young-adult books on your list. If you’re a mom or daycare worker reading countless books to little ones, keep your eyes open to the pages. Don’t zone out through the familiar and simple words, but engage your own mind and heart with these pieces of literature. All good kidlit offers something timeless, true, and beautiful to all ages.

If you’re like us, then you’ve got a weathered copy of Watership Down somewhere on your shelves. The classic adventure novel by Richard Adams has been an important read for 50 years, and now we’re excited to see the book receive a beautiful new graphic novel adaptation featuring the work of a two-time Eisner Award-winning cartoonist James Sturm and our good friend and illustrator Joe Sutphin. Today is the official cover reveal for the book and it makes us even more excited to see the final work in full. You can check out the new cover below and pre-order the book here from the Rabbit Room store. And our own proprietor Andrew Peterson has already taken a look and loved what he saw. “I’ll never forget the first time I picked up a copy of Watership Down. I read a blurb on the back that said, ‘I announce, with trembling pleasure, the arrival of a great story.’ I was immediately hooked, and as I turned the last page and sat in the glow of Richard Adams’s masterpiece, I heartily agreed. Translating a great story like Watership Down into a great graphic novel would require a truly great illustrator, and I believe Joe Sutphin has proven to be just that. I’ve walked the real Watership Down, wandered through the churchyard, and stood at the river where Hazel and Fiver and their company escaped—and I can honestly say the next best thing to being there is savoring every frame of art Sutphin crafted for this story. His attention to detail, his dogged determination to capture the look and feel of the English countryside, the care with which he designed the characters we know and love, are all expressions of his dedication to the craft, his respect for Adams’s tale, and his towering talent. I don’t think there’s another artist alive who could have pulled this off. And so I’m thrilled to announce, with trembling pleasure, the arrival of a new and beautiful adaptation of a great story.”

Hutchmoot UK is only a few weeks away, so to celebrate a weekend of conversation about art, music, community, story, and the Great Story, we wanted to do something to include you in a small part of the festivities. We are going to bring you a sneak preview of, “The Psalm Code: Genesis Imagery in the Psalms,” one of the lectures that Andy Patton is giving at Hutchmoot UK. Andy is on staff at the Rabbit Room and is a former worker at the English branch of L’Abri Fellowship. You can find more of his writing at the Darkling Psalter (Andy’s Psalm poetry project), Three Things (a monthly newsletter of three good food-for-thought resources), and BibleProject.com. Though only our members can participate in the discussion live, the lecture will be available to our Rabbit Room Community in the coming months. The Psalm Code: Genesis Imagery in the Psalms Have you ever wondered why God fights with sea monsters (Psalm 74:13, 14), why there are trees in the temple (Psalm 92:12-14), or why God is so often compared to a cliff, a mountain, or a fortress? (Psalm 18:1, 2)? It all goes back to Genesis 1. Genesis is the fertile soil out of which all of the core biblical images grow and the Psalms are the trellis that spreads their fruits out to the sun. We’ll be looking at the Sea of Chaos, the Mountain of Refuge, and the Garden of God. Sign Up for the Lecture Lecture Details—When, Who, and Where Date: Thursday, May 4, 2023 Time: 6:00 pm, Central Standard Time Where: We’ll have the lecture on Zoom. Who Can Join: The lecture and discussion will be posted for free for the whole Rabbit Room community in the upcoming months, but only members get to join the discussion live. Let us know you’re coming by filling out this Google form. How to Become a Member: To become a member, just go to our member portal and follow the instructions. What is Membership at the Rabbit Room? Rabbit Room members make it possible for us to do all the things we do. Membership is about coming together as a community in common belonging and purpose. It’s made up of those who feel called to this mission and people, who recognize that they have a place in this work and want to share in its stewardship. Members get to: Support the mission and help make the work possible. Get backstage updates and advance notice on Rabbit Room happenings. Connect with staff and other members. Share your creative work at monthly Zoom meet-ups. Give input or assistance on current projects and needs. Receive our gratitude through gifts like the annual Member Mug, Hutchmoot Audio Archives, and Quarterly thank-you gifts.

In the spring of 1758, as the pale yellow primroses trumpeted their arrival, a young pastor sat down to write some poetry. Robert Robinson, a twenty-three-year-old pastor serving at the Calvinist Methodist Chapel in Norfolk, England, had lived his early adult years running away from the haunting guilt of his sin. But God, in His great mercy, had saved this young man, and Robert had decided to give the rest of his life to the ministry of the Gospel. On this particular spring day, Robert labored to pen what has become one of the most well-loved hymns of all time: “Oh to grace how great a debtor, daily I’m constrained to be,” the song of “Come Thou Fount” declares. In one of the verses, he wrote: Here I raise my Ebenezer; Hither by Thy help I’m come. And I hope, by Thy good pleasure, Safely to arrive at home. Jesus sought me when a stranger Wand’ring from the fold of God; He, to rescue me from danger, Interposed His precious blood. If you’re anything like me, the mention of the word “Ebenezer” brings to mind a picture of a silver-haired Scrooge with a hooked nose and a snarl across his lips. But that couldn’t be farther from the word’s actual meaning. In its original Hebrew form, the word “Ebenezer” literally means “stone of help”. Robinson borrowed from the Biblical portrait of Samuel and raised his own Ebenezer of verse, bending a knee to all God had done in his life, and all he believed God would continue to do. This Biblical symbol and perspective come from 1 Samuel 4–7, which unfolds a rollercoaster of events for God’s people. Israel had again rebelled against God, and then suffered great defeat and humiliation. Not only had they lost in battle against the Philistines, but they had witnessed the capture of the Ark of the Covenant. They returned home, mourning their loss and grieving their sin. After much repentance, prayer, and fasting, the people of Israel cried out to God for help. And under the guidance of Samuel, the people set out again for battle, this time listening to God and trusting in His Word. The resulting conquest of the Philistines was complete the next time around; God had given the people a triumphant victory. In memoriam to what God had done in that moment, Samuel set up a stone in the place of victory “…and called its name Ebenezer; for he said, ’Til now the LORD has helped us.’” (1 Sam. 7:12) The wise prophet Samuel knew human nature. He knew that, as humans, we forget to remember our sin. We forget to remember God’s help. We move on past our triumphs and internalize the glory for ourselves. Samuel’s Ebenezer forced the people of Israel to stop and remember that it was God who had given them victory in trial. His hand was the initiator, victor, and sustainer of their success. An Ebenezer illuminates God as the hero of our stories. Jodi Hiser Robert Robinson used the words “Hither by Thy Help I’m come”. These words have a connotation of looking into the past while also looking into the future. Samuel did this well. He looked into the past and remembered Israel’s defeat and anguish. He wanted to memorialize their repentance, prayer, fasting, fighting, and victory. But by erecting the stone of remembrance, Samuel also looked toward the future, wanting to remind the next generations to look at that stone and remember God’s faithfulness and power when the next tough trial came their way. The book of Samuel is not the only place in the Bible where we see the memoriam of an Ebenezer. Jacob set up a stone to mark the place where he heard the word of the Lord in the night (Gen. 28:10–19). And Joshua set up a group of stones at Gilgal to mark the place where God parted the waters of the Jordan River (Josh. 3:14–4:7). But before you begin to conclude that the concept of Ebenezer is limited to simple stones, think about Moses, who, while nearing death, was told by God to compose a song to commemorate all that the Lord had done for His people in the wilderness (Deut. 31:19–22). Think about the authors of the Biblical narratives, known and unknown, who were commissioned by God to write their stories, commemorating the events as God had ordained them. Whether by pillars of stone or song or story, we see evidence that the practice of Ebenezer runs throughout Scripture. This is because we need it. An Ebenezer, in all of its forms, grounds us in truth and identity, reminding us that all of our strength, hope, weaknesses, and successes are rooted in the powerful, loving, sovereign hand of God. An Ebenezer illuminates God as the hero of our stories. The necessity of naming God as the hero of our own personal narrative is the very reason we still need this practice today. Through our art, our songs, and our stories, we remember specific acts that God has done in distinct moments of our lives. In fact, God gave us copious amounts of creativity and imagination to mark His hand in many artistic ways. Certainly an Ebenezer is not limited to these forms. It can be any way in which we record the Lord’s mighty deeds, hailing our testimony of God’s faithfulness to His people. It can be any creative marker that commemorates the trials, sufferings, weaknesses, journeys, hope, prayers, help, and successes that we experience. Let’s allow the concept of Ebenezer to be an inspiration in the manifold expressions of artistry that God gives to us. And when we experience a monumental moment in the story of our lives, let us not allow it to pass without marking it and naming it after the Lord. This practice brings not only beauty but purpose to our art as it collectively looks backward in remembrance and forward for the next generations. Our Ebenezers of today can be visual, musical, and literary memories of God’s steadfastness, granting courage for the next generation to believe that God will do what He has always done, and be Who He has always been.

Much has been said about the stages of Holy Week, reflecting upon the final days of Jesus’s ministry and life, but few writers have handled the subject so beautifully as Frederick Buechner. There are reasons we turn to Buechner’s thoughtful work again and again, and it felt right to allow his words to reflect on the very real goodness of Good Friday. From his book The Faces of Jesus: A Life Story, Buechner describes why the word “good” was used to “describe the day of his death”: “God so loved the world” John writes, “that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” That is to say that God so loved the world that he gave his only son even to this obscene horror; so loved the world that in some ultimately indescribable way and at some ultimately immeasurable cost he gave the world himself. Out of this terrible death, John says, came eternal life not just in the sense of resurrection to life after death but in the sense of life so precious even this side of death that to live it is to stand with one foot already in eternity. To participate in the sacrificial life and death of Jesus Christ is to live already in his kingdom. This is the essence of the Christian message, the heart of the Good News, and it is why the cross has become the chief Christian symbol. A cross of all things—a guillotine, a gallows—but the cross at the same time as the crossroads of eternity and time, as the place where such a mighty heart was broken that the healing power of God himself could flow through it into a sick and broken world. It was for this reason that of all the possible words they could have used to describe the day of his death, the word they settled on was “good.” Good Friday. The Faces of Jesus: A Life Story, 1974.

Leslie Bustard is one of those people who is just easy to love. That much became evident when the idea for this video project was suggested as a way to encourage Leslie during her ongoing battle with cancer. People rallied together to create the video you are about to see, and even in writing this introduction, it was hard to decide what to leave out from the tributes written for our dear friend. But here are a few thoughts from those involved: Karen Smith writes: “If you know Leslie then you have undoubtedly been blessed by the warm smile and peaceful aura that seem to follow her everywhere she goes. Infused by the Spirit, she brings an instant calm that makes you want to take a deep breath, pour a cup of tea, and listen to her words of encouragement and wisdom. Through the years we have messaged, hugged at Hutchmoot, and shared prayers and mutual concerns over abnormal test results. When mine came back benign, hers did not. Cancer is a thief.” Elizabeth Harwell says: “In Leslie’s poem, ‘Thursday,’ she describes the day she was told about more tumors in her body. In response to the news, she says with beautiful honesty: ‘I thought of other people praying.’ I loved that line from the moment I read it. I understood what it meant to collapse upon the thought of other people doing the work of prayer for you. It’s courageous to trust others to bear what you cannot. It’s vulnerable to climb onto a mat and be lowered down through a roof. Do your friends have the resilience to not let up? Do they have enough faith to walk through dark valleys?” Leslie’s poetry, like just about everything about her, is vibrant even in the shadow of darkness. By acknowledging what is true for all, and in considering her death and what it must mean, she is giving us the gift of truly appreciating life. So when the idea was suggested of giving back to Leslie by reading her poems aloud, it seemed fitting. She has given so much to us, how wonderful to embody the words she has written. This project, then, is a labor of love for someone who has inspired us all in many ways. I hope that as you see and hear Leslie’s poetry come to life, you get a sense of her heart, a sense of wonder at the goodness around us, beautiful in its frailty. I hope you feel invited into this community that loves each other and lifts one another up, even if just for long enough to enjoy a poem of Leslie’s. For this hour, and hopefully many afterward, may you know the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Featured artwork by Bruce Herman.

“Holy, holy, holy!” With these words, the four living creatures gathered around the throne of God cry out at the sight of the slain lamb in Revelation. Not just “Holy!” But “Holy, holy, holy!” As if speaking it once could not capture the scope of what they were trying to communicate. “Repetition is holy,” my poetry teacher used to say. She taught me to treat repetition like one might handle a sword: it is sharp; it will cut. Use it with discretion and never with haste. Repeat yourself and those words will burn into the minds of your readers. Repeat only those words which you love most. The danger of repetition used without discretion is that it will dull the sword. “Holy” has unfortunately become one of those terms that has lost its luster in many Christian circles. It’s a word we casually use to connote God’s magnificence without doing the work to demonstrate it in detail or mean it with depth. It is easy to sing “holy” in our worship songs, to say he is “holy” from the pulpit. But how is he holy? Is he holy in our hearts? Holy in our minds? Holy in our relationships? The word “holy” means set apart, otherworldly, sacred. Jesus teaches us to pray, “Hallowed by thy name.” That is, “Let your name, O God, be unlike any other name.” Holiness is a central characteristic of God. There is no one like him. Nothing can match his beauty, goodness, and love. The word “holy” becoming trite is tragic because it is antithetical to the meaning of the word and thereby contradicts the intention of Jesus’ prayer — that God’s name should forever be exalted. The danger of repetition used without discretion is that it will dull the sword. “Holy” has unfortunately become one of those terms that has lost its luster in many Christian circles. John Michael Heard Good writers are characterized by their precision and intentionality with language. They say what they mean and mean what they say. Even the nuances of their sentences are carefully placed, leaving room for their readers to roam. A bad writer can write a book and say nothing; a good writer can fit entire worlds into a single word. God is no exception. “In the beginning was the Word,” the Gospel of John begins. When God speaks, all creation listens because his words are significant. The same should also be true of his people. I think this is what Jesus is getting at when he discusses the problem with oaths in the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus urges his disciples to be men and women of their word. “Simply let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’” he says, “and your ‘No,’ ‘No;’ anything beyond this comes from the evil one.” Herein lies a crucial characteristic of our enemy: the devil does not merely want to deceive us into sin; he wants to make our words mean nothing. If he manages this, then our worship becomes hollow and, eventually, our lives as well. Writers are wordsmiths. We can dissect words or fill them. We can parade them around or ignore them. We can even make them up if we like! As such, writers often carry a special awareness of the state of our vocabularies. The meanings of our words change all the time, for better or for worse. The task of the writer, then, is to fill our words with purpose so that they can stand firm in the ever-shifting tides of meaning. And, in some cases, this means bringing back to life those sacred words that may have been buried with time. Do you think those gathered around the throne of God were merely reciting, “Holy,” as though reading it from a book? Certainly not. They were trying to give expression to what they could hardly fathom. Was “holy” sufficient? No. But it was the best that they could muster. When confronted by the glory of God, our words will always and inevitably fall short—if they could do him justice, then our God would be too small. Even so, we still speak because his creative and divine brilliance compels us to offer up the best of what we have to offer: words. Writers, when you look at God, what do you see? Are there words enough to capture it? No? Then for now let one word suffice: “Holy, holy, holy!”

There is a glittering gem of a sub-genre in the darkest recesses of fantasy’s vast, teeming dungeon: LitRPGs. LitRPGs, or literary role-playing games, are pretty much what they sound like. Similar to role-playing games on a computer or tabletop classics like Dungeons and Dragons, the characters in these stories find themselves thrust into a world of dangerous creatures, quests, loot, items, and, of course, leveling up. Like the dregs of any genre, many LitRPGs are bad. The books on this list are not. In moments, some of them even brush against the ephemeral ceiling of greatness. That being said, it does not follow that this genre is for everybody. Readers should these gates with caution, both treasures and dangers await. I scoured the internet and read dozens of litRPGs and compiled this list of the actual five best examples of the genre—several of which I couldn’t find on any other top five list. (Just a note… these are not necessarily in order. I had a great time reading all of them.) My Top Five Best LitRPGs Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman (Support Matt on Patreon) When stepping outside to chase his ex-girlfriend’s cat, Carl watches as every building on earth is suddenly flattened. All over the planet, stairways open up to a subterranean labyrinth filled with traps, monsters, and loot—a dungeon so enormous, it circles the entire globe. Carl and the cat, whose name is Donut, find that they, and everyone else still alive, are contestants in an evil, galaxy-wide game show in which they must fight to survive, and, of course, level up and they descend deeper and deeper. Imagine Survivor with “murder dozers.” (See cover.) Point of Order: Before going on, let’s talk about that cover. If you are anything like me or lots of other people on the internet, you might be tempted to judge the book by it. There is that giant yellow apocalypse font. There is a grinning goblin wearing a pot on its head (piloting the aforementioned “murder dozer”). For some reason, there is a cat running along in the bottom corner. And there is our hero, Carl, who looks like he is fresh out of a Top Gun spinoff series but for some reason isn’t wearing any pants. The cover sure doesn’t say, “Curl up with me next to a fire. I’m a normal book.” But if you give Carl and Donut a chance, they’ll win you over. I see that cover now and think, “Oh. There’s my buddy Carl. Ha. Still not wearing any pants. What a guy.” Dungeon Crawler Carl doesn’t take itself too seriously. How could it when one of the main characters is a sentient cat named Princess Donut who shoots magic missiles out of her eyes? At the same time, however, it has a lot of heart. The story has a moral backbone without becoming moralistic, and a dark, playful streak without becoming lurid. (Okay, sometimes it is a bit lurid, but that is part of the fun. I never thought I would enjoy the recurring joke of an evil AI with a foot fetish so much. It gets me every time.) Carl is the ultimate Everyman anti-hero. He is rough, crude, smart, kind, and practical. Part of the charm of the story is that the bizarre, hostile, and horrific situations Carl is put in only serve to more deeply reveal the ironclad goodness and beauty beneath his gruff exterior. In the words of another fantasy hero worth reading, Carl is good people. If you have the chance, listen to the book on Audible. Jeff Hays, the narrator, is one of my favorites, and Sound Booth Theater makes the audio experience come alive. One word of caution, friends. To say that Dungeon Crawler Carl has some objectionable material in it would be putting it mildly. If you have content sensitivities, this book may not be for you. If you’d like some help thinking through what to do with objectionable content when you encounter them in otherwise worthy books, listen to the fantastic lecture “Encountering the Fall in Fiction” by Lindsey Patton. He Who Fights With Monsters by Shirtaloon (Support Shirtaloon on Patreon) It is fun to see how litRPG authors solve the problem of getting a normal person into a world that functions like a game. Is it an alien invasion (Dungeon Crawler Carl, The Gam3)? Is it a VR capsule that generates a lifelike video game world around them (Life Reset, Awaken Online, Ascend Online, The Crafting of Chess, The Land)? In He Who Fights With Monsters, Jason, the main character, gets sucked into another dimension by an evil wizard’s spell gone wrong. It doesn’t turn out so great for the evil wizard, but Jason finds he quite likes his life in his new world. Jason’s new world is beset by monsters, but he discovers a knack for killing them—and getting himself embroiled in the heart of local political intrigues along the way. The story plays with a delightful irony: Jason is basically a nice, modern Aussie bloke, but the powers he keeps acquiring in his new world are definitely the kind the bad guys usually get. For instance, his familiar is an “apocalypse beast” that takes the form of a bunch of leeches that live in his blood. Yuck. He cuts himself and they spray out on his opponents, eating them alive. If Jason were to leave the creatures free to continue their killing rampage, the leech monster would soon become strong enough to destroy the whole world. Move along, folks, no soon-to-be-evil overlords here. In the typical, down-beat humor that fills the book, Jason named his apocalypse beast, “Colin.” The good news for fans of He Who Fights With Monsters is that it is really, really long. The books weigh in about 600+ pages. I found myself wishing they were longer. Orconomics by J. Zachary Pike (Support J. Zachary Pike on Patreon) This book made me laugh out loud. A lot. The jokes have a meta-level satire to them, playing with language and weaving game dynamics into the story in a way that adds another dimension of fun and hilarity. Gamers out there will experience a deeper level of humor than your average Joe. Unlike the other books on the list, Orconomics doesn’t feature a player from the “real world” coming into the fantasy world. The characters of the story are natives and their world just happens to include things like levels and quests and all the bells and whistles of any self-respecting role-playing game. However, similar to the other books on this list, the story centers around the unfolding narrative arcs of a handful of compelling characters. The story features a washed-up has-been of a main character, Gorm the dwarven berserker, who has fallen from his glory days into the bottom of a keg of ale. Gorm accepts a quest to help a goblin and is dragged out of his personal abyss and into important events happening in the larger world. Along the way, he gathers a motley crew of similar misfits-with-a-heart-of-gold and the stage is set for a thrilling plot, compelling character transformations, and lots of laughs. Here is just a taste of the humor in J. Zachary Pike’s short, but loveable series: “The exact ratio of irony to matter in the universe is known as Nove’s Constant, and by definition, it’s more than you’d expect.” Son of a Liche “It has been said that necessity is the mother of invention. In the same vein, desperation is the father of compromise, panic is the sister of slapdash improvisation, and despair is the second cousin of quiet apathy. By that reckoning, dinner was a dismal family reunion.” Son of a Liche And the series is not without the occasional nugget of wisdom: “A weak mind is a malleable one. Once it is convinced it has been lied to, it begins to lie to itself. Once persuaded that it is hated, it becomes hateful. Once made to fear violence, it becomes violent.” Son of a Liche Awaken Online by Travis Bagwell (Support Travis on Patreon) The first book of the Awaken Online series had me at “high school loser gets bullied and then finds power in a game to fight back against the real-life forces arrayed against him.” The storyline is a classic because it is irresistible. Warning: The next paragraph has spoilers. Read at your own risk. If you want to skip the spoilers, just jump down a paragraph. Not long after the book begins, (another) Jason finds himself (also) saddled with dark powers and is plonked down in a medieval-ish city. Jason chooses the necromancer class (because, why not?) and starts raising undead minions as any self-respecting necromancer would. The situation quickly starts to get out of hand, but Jason is apparently from the “in for a penny, in for a pound” school when it comes to necromancy. Soon a dark god gets involved, people are getting zombified left and right, Jason acquires the in-game AI as a personal pet, and he finds himself the ruler of a newly-minted undead city. And that is just the first half of the first book! OK. Spoilers over. The two things about this story that make me really love it are: 1. The AI can read the player’s memories and builds the story around them to suit the unique places they need to grow as people. What a setup for character development! This could have been a heavy-handed plot device, but I like what Bagwell does with it. 2. Events in the game are constantly influencing and being influenced by real-world events outside the game. As the series goes on, the stakes in both the real world and the game world just get higher and higher. Life Reset By Shemer Kuznits (Support Shemer on Patreon) The book opens with Oren, the main character, sitting in the lap of luxury at the center of an in-game empire he has built. A few brutal twists of fate later, Oren has been stripped of all of his levels, his loot, his stuff, and is locked inside the body of a sniveling, level 1 goblin. He is cast out into the wild, monster-infested hinterlands where he, of course, begins to hatch his revenge schemes. Naturally, they involve building a new empire—this one entirely composed of monster allies—to take back what was once his. It is just good, clean litRPG fun. The series features an interesting (but morally confusing) relationship with one of the goblin NPCs, real-world government plots, dealings with (I’m sensing a theme) dark gods, and all the dungeon crawling you could ask for. If you liked the early Warcraft games and just wanted to be left alone so you could command your little peons to go mine more gold, you’ll like Life Reset. That is basically Oren’s life. Honorable Mentions: Game Lit If you want to be technical about it, litRPG is a sub-genre of GameLit (which is itself a sub-genre of fantasy). No list of this kind would be complete without a few honorable mentions from the parent category. Ender’s Game Skip the movie, buy the book, and stay up late reading as Ender outwits every opponent that crosses his path. Ready Player One Ditto for the movie. The book is much better. Ready Player One is the story of a nobody who rises to prominence because he solves a series of unsolvable puzzles in a high-stakes digital treasure hunt. What is his superpower? He dominates at ’80s trivia. (It does actually make sense if you read the book). Read more from Andy Patton on Substack.

Because, really, I don’t think the two can be pulled apart. I have a new song out today, one that I wrote the morning after my wedding. Throughout our engagement, I’d had plenty of rational fears about the commitment of marriage, but one of my less rational (and more menacing) fears was that the “tragic artist” part of me, which I’d thrown so much of my identity into, would starve or go into hiding. I worried that I’d be too involved with Torrey to keep making art, or that the healing balm of writing would sublimate into conversations over dinner, or wasteful ruminations, or something like that. But this whole song arrived in about 30 minutes, and Torrey actually helped me finish the title and refrain. When responsibility and freedom each come with their own cost, where do I turn for rest? J Lind I think it arrived so fleshed out because it was an idea that I’d been chewing on for years: the tension between responsibility and freedom. Committing to one vocation, or to one person, requires sacrifice—every “yes” is the tip of an iceberg of “no”s, just as going through one door means not going through any number of others. So I tailspin. But in seasons of freedom, of unadulterated choice, I find myself spinning for a different reason. The ocean of possibility, of potential mes stretching out in so many different directions, makes me anxious, and perhaps rightly so. If you aim your arrow just a bit more to the left, it could end up a quarter-mile from where it would otherwise have landed. I sometimes ruminate on how some decision here in my twenties might impact my 60-year-old self—which is helpful in small doses, but soul-sucking in its extremes. So, when responsibility and freedom each come with their own cost, where do I turn for rest? “The Potter and the Clay” is about the complicated dance of freedom and fate that adds so many colors to life. It’s a gift, and a burden, and another example of how the finding falls short of the seeking. You can listen to “The Potter and the Clay” here.

A few years ago, I overheard a friend of mine ask a man from Nigeria what he thought was the strangest part of American culture. Without missing a beat, he answered, “Camping.” He thought it was ridiculous that people who live in nice houses with all the modern luxuries would go sleep outdoors for fun. Why would anyone subject themselves to that? At the time, I had never been camping and had no desire to try it. So in my mind, his question was its own answer. Why subject yourself to that, indeed? But a few weeks ago, my sister and brother-in-law (both avid campers) invited me to go camping with them in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Suddenly that question, “Why go camping?” was no longer rhetorical, and, surprisingly, the answers were compelling—a beautiful place to explore, good company, a new experience. So I agreed to go. My main concern was whether February was really the best time to see how I liked sleeping in a tent. But my sister assured me that they had the right gear and that I would be warm enough. To be fair, if the forecast had been accurate, she probably would have been right, but the low that first night was 14°F, a full ten degrees colder than expected. None of us were warm enough. During the long hours in which I lay awake, shivering, that question returned with full force: Why did I think this was a good idea? The next day, we planned to do a fairly strenuous eight-mile hike. Somehow (we’re still not exactly sure what happened), when we were six miles in, we discovered that we still had four miles left to go. I was really feeling the lack of sleep at that point, and with no hot shower or a warm bed to look forward to, I briefly lost the will to trudge on. But trudging on was the only option. Perhaps fasting, like camping, is an opportunity to see things we don’t normally see—beauties off the beaten path. Jenna Harrington And yet, in the midst of the difficulties and discomfort, we also enjoyed moments of beauty and wonder. Majestic bucks strolled, relatively unconcerned, through the campground. The first night, as we were setting up our tents, a small hog tore past our campsite, squealing in panic, chased by two coyotes. The next day on our hike, a bald eagle circled overhead as we ate lunch. On Sunday afternoon, we watched an otter fish in the river. All weekend, we basked in the peacefulness of a beautiful place and in the glorious views we encountered while hiking. By the end of the trip, I was beginning to understand. Those moments are why you go camping. That’s why you sleep on the cold, hard ground; why you go without electricity and hot showers for a few days; why you hike eight (or ten) miles on just a few hours of sleep. The uncomfortable parts of the trip, I found, were worth it because of the beauty I was able to experience. Even the discomfort itself brought a certain kind of satisfaction, as I grew in my ability to endure difficulty. Here at the beginning of Lent, I have found myself thinking of this season of fasting as a kind of spiritual equivalent to camping. Lent is modeled after Jesus’ forty days (and the Israelites’ forty years) in the wilderness, so it seems natural to understand it as a kind of wilderness journey. And it can certainly sound as crazy as going camping in February. Why in the world would you give something up for six weeks? Especially if you believe that it doesn’t gain you any favor with God. Perhaps fasting, like camping, is an opportunity to see things we don’t normally see—beauties off the beaten path. Of course, just like anything that involves giving up our normal routines, this will involve discomfort. But we twenty-first-century Americans are so unused to discomfort that we are more afraid of it than we ought to be. We often don’t consider that there might be good things that we can only find by first giving up and going without. Maybe there are spiritual equivalents of the coyotes and the otter—things we will never see unless we go out into the wilderness. Maybe there is freedom in relinquishing comfort and ease for a time. Maybe there is joy in enduring difficulty and, as a result, gaining experience and wisdom we didn’t have before. Maybe there is renewed gratitude on the other side of deprivation. The point isn’t to wallow in misery or gloat in suffering as if it makes us more holy. Jesus endured the cross for the joy that was set before him. He tells us to lose our lives because that’s the only way to keep them. Paul wanted to know the fellowship of Christ’s sufferings because what he really wanted was to experience the resurrection from the dead. In the Bible, the wilderness is not usually a pleasant place to be. For the Israelites, it was a place of deprivation, testing, and judgment—a place of bitter water and fiery serpents. For Jesus, it was a place of hunger and temptation. But the wilderness was also where the Israelites were led by the pillar of cloud and fire and where they ate manna from heaven every day. The wilderness was where angels came and ministered to Jesus. Lent is a comparatively mild wilderness journey, but through this season perhaps we too can, in the midst of our discomfort, encounter God.

On March 2-3, 2020, a devastating tornado outbreak tore through western and central Tennessee, destroying businesses and homes and killing 25 people. One of the 15 confirmed tornadoes, an EF3, crossed the Cumberland River and struck East Nashville, damaging or destroying scores of structures. Among those was the home of Eric Peters and his family. But this description is too detached and impersonal. It cannot convey the fear—mortal fear—and shock; the wounds, visible and invisible; the profound loss, both of possessions and their deep meaning; and the shattered sense of safety. It cannot convey the terror of a father reaching his son’s room just in time, diving in to shelter him before the room is destroyed. It cannot describe how three years on, wounds have healed yet scars remain. It took every bit of those three years for Peters to write his 13th studio album, EP. This collection of six songs revisits that terrifying night, shines a brave light into the mines of depression and addiction, and seeks to understand—or at least name—some of the grace that keeps us holding on. “Run Away” opens the EP with an empathetic ear for the frightened hearts who have a tendency to shut people out. The song is a gentle admonition that is earned by a single line: “But you should know, when I run away, I feel the same way too.” EP is in many ways a redemption. It is acute anguish, emotions processed with some passing of time, and testimony of the longer and slower process of healing, all redeemed in songs that can sit alongside you while you grieve. Mark Geil “Same Four Walls” follows with a “last gasp prayer” from the depths. The song feels almost manic-depressive, with deeply personal and plaintive lyrics set to a surprising high-tempo synth beat. Peters calls this “approachable levity,” and it works as a disarming entry into a heart that “got crushed when the walls came down.” A refrain matches the paradoxical nature of the music, and speaks to the complexity of depression: “All I want is to be alone, but promise me you’ll never leave me alone.” “Disappointing Song” is a dear song of understanding from father to son. The tender lyric puts its arm around you and echoes “It’s gonna be alright.” “The Sea is Never Full” finds a tight groove in exploring the truth of fulfillment in Ecclesiastes. “That’s What the Loss Is” feels a few years removed from the tornado. When I hear about natural disasters, I try to pray for the people affected, whether I know them or not. What I too often fail to do is spare a thought for them during the long, long path of recovery. This song is a reminder of that process, full of trauma and full of grace. The standout track on EP is “The Bread,” one of Eric Peters’ greatest songs. Lyrically, it plants us in the terror of the storm: I was there in the moment of silence I was there with you just before Every room in the house exploded And I dragged you to the floor. Musically, the song feels more like the morning after. The neighborhood is devastated. The reality of what has just happened still feels impossible. And people come, and people help each other. There is gentle defiance in Peters’ voice as he invokes “Come, Ye Disconsolate” from his Hymns album: “Earth has no sorrow that Heaven cannot heal.” That community, that “communion in the streets” is one of the shining lights on EP. It’s fitting, then, that the album was formed out of devastation but among friends. Taylor Leonhardt guests on “Run Away,” as does Lori Chaffer on “Same Four Walls” and “Disappointing Song.” Gabe Scott is a powerful addition to “The Sea is Never Full.” Asher Peterson’s production takes some risks while always maintaining awareness of the expressive gift of Peters’ voice. One of the platitudes offered to console those who have suffered tragedy or loss is some form of, “Now you will be able to minister to those who go through similar difficulties.” In the moment, this is often unhelpful, but it is nonetheless well-intentioned. We do hope that the God who promises to work things out for good can somehow redeem our suffering as a gift to others. And He does. Sometimes, it’s enough for someone who knows some taste of your pain to just come and sit alongside you while you grieve. EP is in many ways a redemption. It is acute anguish, emotions processed with some passing of time, and testimony of the longer and slower process of healing, all redeemed in songs that can sit alongside you while you grieve. Eric Peters’ EP is available for download and on all streaming services on March 17. You can pre-order your copy here.

It’s a recent storytelling trend, but the concept might be relevant to reality right now: sometimes, it can feel like we’re all living in alternate universes. We are currently suffering from a starvation of shared rituals, but most people don’t know they’re hungry. It’s no surprise that our moment feels divided and difficult to reconcile; the freedom to choose our own narrative and stream of information brings about an increasingly isolated series of bubble-colonies in an infinite “multiverse” of experience and choice. The West has always been a culture built on the bedrock of individual choice, but an increasingly interconnected world has made the number of individual choices (and possible “universes”) practically limitless. Private schools, curated dating apps, church shopping, overtly one-sided news stations – they’ve all got “individual choice” in common, catering to our own pre-conceived worldviews and moral imaginations. None of these options are sins, but collectively, they can destabilize reality. Many children no longer have an immediate community within walking distance, which pushes them further toward finding algorithmic connections online. Choosing a romantic partner now feels more overwhelming and loaded than ever, despite the limitless access to endless options via dating apps. The local parish church is mostly a thing of the past, which leads to geographically sprawling church communities (much like private schools) built more around shared preferences than shared day-to-day experience or companionship. And we don’t even need to elaborate on the destructive capabilities of our increasingly isolated news/information bubbles. But what if I told you that movie theaters might play a part in beckoning us back to a better world? The Death of a Theatergoing Culture I grew up going to midnight movie premieres. Ya know, when a movie was releasing on a Friday and everyone would line up on Thursday night to see it at exactly 12:00am? Big movies still open on Thursdays today, but they usually have dozens of showtime options starting anywhere from 3 pm to 8 pm to 2 am. Growing up, though, I loved the ritual of midnight movies. Sometimes, my friends and I would take a nap around 7 pm, sleep until 11, and then head to the theater to line up down the block. Other times, we’d just stay up counting down the hours and minutes until the big event movie would be released. If it was something nerdy enough, people at the theater would often be wearing costumes and taking photos and coming ready to cheer and applaud together. Looking back, the last few midnight premieres I went to—Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows Part 2 was the last one, I think—feel almost like remnants of an era where nerdy fans would use internet forums primarily as a staging ground for real, in-person gatherings like book-launches, conventions, fan-musicals, and yes: movie premieres. Today, the relationship is flipped: conventions and fan gatherings still happen, but they feel almost like networking events to further a continued digital/social media existence. That might be a tangent, but the point is this: with the increased options for showtimes – and even the ability to stream some new-release movies near the day they hit theaters – the ritual of midnight fan premieres has declined significantly. And on a bigger scale: movie theaters, in general, have seen a significant drop in attendance in the last few years, sometimes for understandable reasons. Ticket prices, babysitting, and the ease-of-access of streaming platforms have all led to an increased hesitancy to leave the house to experience a movie. Oh, and uh: that whole pandemic thing probably played a part, too. When people do go to theaters, it’s usually for what Martin Scorsese would call “theme park movies”—spectacle-centric blockbusters that feel like they demand a big screen to be experienced properly. Anything below that bar—from romantic comedies to Oscar dramas to A24 indies and mid-budget thrillers—tends to find its primary existence on streaming, in the comfort of the viewer’s home. It’s hard to believe that mid-budget non-sequel films like Juno, Forrest Gump, The Sixth Sense, Saving Private Ryan, Twist, Home Alone, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Napoleon Dynamite, American Beauty, or Fahrenheit 9/11 were once massive box offices successes that drew millions of people out of their homes and out to theaters to just see them together. Half of those movies would flop today; the other half would go straight to Netflix or HBO Max, joining the hordes of “content” options that leave couples swiping through Netflix every night, debating what to watch until they give up and scroll through Twitter. In a world of infinite options on our TVs, the 10-or-so movies playing in a given cinema at a time almost feel a welcome refinement of the potential palette. Even when it comes to watching things at home, the concept of watching a TV program at the same time as everyone else—like the nightly news at 11 or the latest episode of LOST or American Idol at 8 pm—feels almost alien in a landscape where we call the shots on what (and when) we want to binge. The shared ritual, the shared “universe” we once inhabited has been consumed by the limitless curation of our reality through ease of access. Theater marquees become the ever-growing “My List” on Netflix. Radio stations become Spotify playlists. Convenient things are gained, but foundational things are lost. In a world where everything is just another piece of content to consume at your own pace and leisure…ritual dies. Worship dies. Reverence for art dies. And reality fractures. But movie theaters are still just as magical—indeed, just as transcendent—as they’ve ever been. Sure, there are rude guests every once in a while—though I’d argue that the recent prevalence of reserved seating has limited the capacity for spontaneous rowdiness. And sure, tickets are still expensive—though if you get AMC Stubs A-List, Regal Unlimited, or the newly-resurrected MoviePass, seeing one or two movies per month will make the subscription fee pay for itself. But I’m firmly and vehemently planting my feet in the camp that despite all of the hurdles, theatrical experiences are still far more than a novelty. The Culture-Healing Power of The Cinema I believe there are three things that make movie theaters miraculous, even today, and they might sound something like artistic reverence, submission, and worship, and shared reality through ritual. Artistic reverence is easy to describe but increasingly hard to embody; the rise of streaming and at-home viewing has led to a rise in “armchair criticism” and “CinemaSinning” where we watch movies on our laptops and phones—or, God forbid, on our motion-smoothed TVs—pausing to grab snacks and go to the bathroom and check social media and pick out plot holes and Google “ending explained” videos without giving the artistic work a fair shot to be viewed reverently in the way that the artist intended it. Even Wanda Sykes joked about this when she co-hosted The Oscars in 2022, saying “I watched The Power of The Dog three times and I’m halfway through it.” The camera cuts to the film’s director, Jane Campion, chuckling at the jab, but I can only imagine that the suggestion that viewers have been too distracted to even finish your excellent movie must sting a little bit. We’re living in an increasingly cinematically-illiterate landscape, but everyone also thinks they’re much smarter than the artist who made whatever they’re watching. I’d argue that the limitations placed on us during the theatrical experience are healthy, humanizing ones. It offers us the rare, sacred space to give our undivided attention to something that has no practical takeaways or functional utility, but an infinite amount of emotional significance. Houston Coley In an era where the “Hollywood elite” are jabbed constantly, and probably for good reason, it might be heresy to suggest something slightly less cynical, but I will: I think we need to bring back respect for artists as the potential prophets of our era, and that means giving them our attention and concentration in a world where those things have become commodities that every corporation wants to steal. It doesn’t mean we have to like every movie, refuse to think critically about what we’re seeing, or trust the artist’s worldview blindly, but it does mean that we should behave as though what we’re watching is something made by a person (or rather, thousands of people) with vision and purpose and perhaps even prophetic spiritual meaning. This leads us straight into submission and worship: the action of acknowledging something greater than ourselves and, if only for a brief two hours, submitting to where it will take us with awe and wonder. Filmmaker Jean Luc Godard famously summed up the difference between movie theaters and TV this way: “When you go to the cinema, you look up. When you watch television, you look down.” One conveys respect, the other conveys control. Film critic Jim Emerson elaborates on Godard’s quote by saying: “For a movie-lover, the theater is a sort of temple, and the experience touched with religiosity. You look up in hushed awe at the screen…and the darkness dispatches all distraction, leaving only the light and sound emanating from the screen. And then there’s the enveloping scale of the image…Most of all, you relinquish control over the movie by submitting to its (unbroken and continuous) terms, accepting its rules of temporality.” One of the most powerful cinematic experiences of my life was watching Terrence Malick’s A Hidden Life in theaters back at the end of 2019. I remember moments toward the ending thinking, “I can’t believe this is still going.” I remember wondering how long we had left. I remember squirming in my seat and longing to see an end to the suffering of a Christian martyr. The movie is lengthy and slow, but that discomfort is also part of immersing yourself in a story of a man stuck in prison for his faith. If I had watched A Hidden Life at home, I doubt I would have been able to get through it without checking my phone or pausing for a break. But the unyielding pace of the cinema screen meant that this story marched on in front of me, whether I liked it or not. And I was edified by the experience. For modern audiences, the loss of individual control upon entering a movie theater is often a point of annoyance; movie theaters don’t have a pause button or a fast-forward option – and we don’t always control who sits next to us, either. But I’d argue that the limitations placed on us during the theatrical experience are healthy, humanizing ones. It offers us the rare, sacred space to give our undivided attention to something that has no practical takeaways or functional utility, but an infinite amount of emotional significance. For someone with ADHD like myself, this forced concentration is unbelievably helpful…but beyond that, the submission and ‘worship’ of a movie theater allow us to exercise the muscles in our soul that long to connect with something greater than ourselves. Snowballed throughout years of moviegoing, this experience breeds humility, curiosity, and childlike wonder. And that brings us, finally, to shared reality through ritual. Philosopher Byung-Chul Han’s recent book The Disappearance of Ritual delves deep into the ways that the fabric of society has been affected by the lack of sacred rhythms shared with one another. In a description that bears striking resemblance to the movie theater, he says “The Sabbath demands silence; the mouth must be closed. Silent listening unites a people and creates a community without communication . . . The divine commands silence . . . Today’s compulsion of communication means that we can close neither our eyes nor our mouths. It desecrates life.” He goes on to say, “Rituals are symbolic acts. They represent, and pass on, the values and orders on which a community is based. They bring forth a community without communication; today, however, communication without community prevails.” While face-to-face community is sacred, another facet of existence may have been lost in the kerfuffle: side-by-side community.. Houston Coley The idea that movie theaters are a type of community might seem like a silly one at first; we don’t often get to know the strangers sitting around us, and they might seem like an annoyance impinging on our personal freedom to enjoy things with our individual preferences as priority. But even if the worst theatrical experiences—the ones you tell your friends about when you say you don’t want to go back to the theater—might be because of other people harming the moment, the best theatrical experiences are often because of other people elevating the moment. Watching a comedy at home alone just isn’t as funny as watching it for the first time in a crowded cinema with other strangers just as surprised by the punchlines as yourself. Even Martin Scorsese’s bemoaned “theme park movies” are titled as such because for better or worse; they demand a big screen and excite an audience…and the theater’s reaction when Captain America lifted Thor’s hammer in Avengers: Endgame is proof of it. Recently, Avatar: The Way of Water was the same way; Cameron’s 3D HFR vision was one that could not be properly experienced at home, like watching a Broadway show recorded instead of seeing it in person with others. But the necessity of the communal theatrical experience goes beyond riotous laughter and excitement or the football-stadium applause of superhero event cinema. I still remember the first time I saw Bong Joon-Ho’s Parasite in theaters, during the scene when a basement-dwelling character slowly peers his head above a staircase at midnight and makes eye contact with the audience. The collective chill that rushed through the theater was palpable and communal. And when the movie ended and everyone compulsively clapped, moved by the tragic ending and the journey we’d completed, it seemed like we were all a little closer and maybe the world wasn’t quite as divided as it was two hours before. Certainly, if I wanted to start a conversation with any of the people around me, I now had common ground to do so. That’s what shared movie experiences create. Steven Spielberg discusses this ritualistic community much better than me: “I’ve always devoted myself to our movie-going community — movie-going, as in leaving our homes to go to a theatre, and community, meaning a feeling of fellowship with others who have left their homes and are seated with us. In a movie theatre, you watch movies with the significant others in your life, but also in the company of strangers. That’s the magic we experience when we go out to see a movie or a play or a concert or a comedy act. We don’t know who all these people are sitting around us, but when the experience makes us laugh or cry or cheer or contemplate, and then when the lights come up and we leave our seats, the people with whom we head out into the real world don’t feel like complete strangers anymore. We’ve become a community, alike in heart and spirit, or at any rate alike in having shared for a couple of hours a powerful experience. That brief interval in a theatre doesn’t erase the many things that divide us: race or class or belief or gender or politics. But our country and our world feel less divided, less fractured, after a congregation of strangers have laughed, cried, jumped out their seats together, all at the same time. Art asks us to be aware of the particular and the universal, both at once. And that’s why, of all the things that have the potential to unite us, none is more powerful than the communal experience of the arts.” We might be tempted to believe that community and connection are only present when we are looking another person in the eyes and engaging face-to-face. That’s certainly what we tried to emulate when we connected with friends and colleagues over Zoom calls during the pandemic. But while face-to-face community is sacred, another facet of existence may have been lost in the kerfuffle: side-by-side community. Side-by-side community gives us something to engage beyond ourselves, outside our control. It takes relationship and makes it about more than just the exchange of individual experience and already-held opinions. As we sit shoulder-to-shoulder with others beholding something greater together, we are given the gift of a shared reality. And suddenly, after so much disconnection, we’re inhabiting the same universe again.

We’re delighted to announce that our keynote speaker for Hutchmoot 2023 is beloved author Katherine Paterson. Katherine Paterson is the author of more than 40 books, including 18 novels for children and young people. She has twice won the Newbery Medal, for Bridge to Terabithia in 1978 and Jacob Have I Loved in 1981. The Master Puppeteer won the National Book Award in 1977 and The Great Gilly Hopkins won the National Book Award in 1979 and was also a Newbery Honor Book. Her most recent book is Stories of My Life, published by Westminster John Knox Press. For the body of her work she received the Hans Christian Andersen Award in 1998, the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award in 2006, and in 2000 was named a Living Legend by the Library of Congress. She is a vice-president of the National Children’s Book and Literacy Alliance and is a member of the board of trustees for Vermont College of Fine Arts. She is also an honorary lifetime member of the International Board of Books for Young People and an Alida Cutts lifetime member of the US section, USBBY. She was the 2010-2011 National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature. Her books have been a transformative force in the Rabbit Room community since its inception and we’re honored to be able to welcome her to the table for Hutchmoot 2023 this October. Tickets will be released during two windows with half becoming available on Wednesday, March 15th @ 10am Central, and the remainder going on sale Friday, March 17th @ 7pm Central. More speakers, artists, and musicians will be announced in the coming weeks and months. We look forward to seeing you in October. #semifeature

It’s no surprise to hear that Andrew Osenga is spinning multiple musical plates these days. That’s how most people know him as a career musician through his own music, his days with The Normals or Caedmon’s Call, or as a producer and label exec. What is surprising is where the music is coming from these days. There was a season, not so long ago, that Osenga says he thought he was finished—at least in any public-facing way. A trip to Laity Lodge followed a season of uncertainty and provided the sort of imagery that opened the doors to a new well for his music—what he calls finding “an honest muse.” A new album is on the way and a new EP arrives on Friday. There’s also a beautiful new hymns project alongside the community of worship leaders and artists that he’s nurturing through his day job. And it finally feels congruent for an artist who is settling into eldership. Just to start, I’d love to have you tell us about the musical plates you’re spinning these days. My day job is being one of the directors of A&R at Integrity Music where I work with artists making worship music and I oversee an imprint there called Running Club Records, which is kinda like my indie rock roster, with artists like Citizens, Mission House, Sarah Kroger, and Leslie Jordan. And then I oversee a couple of community projects: the Faithful Project and Anchor Hymns. As a musician, I’m out this spring with Matt Maher playing guitar. As an artist, I’m in the process of releasing a record called Headwaters over the course of several months. In between those releases, I’m doing a separate project called The Quiet Hours, which is acoustic vocal Fleet Foxes-y hymns with one mic and one guitar. It’s been a while since you’ve had some original music, right? Headwaters is the first album since The Painted Desert? Yes, and it’s directly related. I made The Painted Desert and then two years ago, I went to Laity Lodge with Sandra [McCracken] and we made a record for her called Light in the Canyon. When I was there, I saw the headwaters of the Frio River. At one point there is nothing, just desert, and then suddenly there’s a big river and everything south of it all the way to the ocean is lush and green. Everything to the north is desert. I thought it was amazing to think that here in this desert, the water is never that far from you. We just aren’t aware of it. I had written The Painted Desert in this season of depression, a dark night of the soul… and I’m not saying everything is better now, but I do know that I’m not there now, and so this season needs a different kind of song. And so these days I’m much more concerned with what I want to communicate to my daughters and so my songwriting follows that thread. What do I want them to know about me and themselves and the gospel? That’s where these songs come from. These days I’m much more concerned with what I want to communicate to my daughters and so my songwriting follows that thread. Andrew Osenga I love that Headwaters picture, so do these songs feel informed by a recognition of that water being close? You said circumstances haven’t necessarily changed, but are the songs marked by at least recognition of the life that’s there? Yeah, the way you said that’s really wonderful. I’ve been going to this Anglican Church for a long time now and you say these liturgies over and over again and often you’re not paying attention to them. Then one day, you wake up and realize, ‘Oh that is deep in my bones.’ This is definitely the most gospel-forward project I’ve done personally. I’m usually more story-songs and slice-of-life poetry kind of songs, so this was a big change for me. Our church already sings a couple of these songs a lot, too, which has been really encouraging. Writing even slightly corporate songs is a lot different for me, but I’ve found myself in this community of people who are serving the Church with songs like this in my job and I’ve been inspired by it. As my kids are growing up in it, I love the thought of them encountering my songs from a place of “we sing these songs at church with all these people that I love and trust and who care about me, and all of them are standing and singing and agreeing with this thing my dad wrote.” That’s better than “I went to this thing and dad was sad again.” Which is what it was like for a while there. [Laughs] Did you notice when that turned for you—when songwriting went from a way for you to emote and process that sadness into something else— It was a very conscious decision. I actually thought I was done after The Painted Desert. The cards in my life have mostly been played, you know? I know what I’m dealing with. I felt like those are the best versions of the songs I’d been writing for a long time, so I didn’t think I needed to write them again. Until something else came along that made me feel like I need to process it. I’ve processed my own melancholy enough for one life! Ha. I realized I’d never processed the way that a community of believers had really profoundly shaped my life. I wanted to contribute to that in a different way. And it really was thinking about my daughters, but I want to be careful there. I don’t want to use them as a marketing tool. It was just the heart impetus of what I was doing for them. After a while, I found out I just really enjoyed it. Some people might not like it, but it feels like it’s an honest muse. I can say that. This feels like such a first half of life and second half of life difference. Yes, 100 percent. A Richard Rohr-ian— Yes, you’re dead on. You made it sound like you were glad to turn that corner away from the sadness or that phase, but was there a grief in being done with that in general? Even as a musical or career turn? Honestly, here’s the thing. I played a few shows this weekend and I have this song called “The Year of the Locust” on that Painted Desert record. It’s one of my favorite songs I’ve ever written and every night, the conversations about that song are something really special. That song impacts people in a deep way and I’m so grateful for it. Yet at the same time, I already have that song, y’know? We have this little photo printer that will print in three colors. It spits out the blue and then goes back in and spits out the red and then it spits out the green. After those three, the whole picture emerges. I feel like I’ve been communicating in mostly one color for a long time and I don’t think it’s been the full story. This is the part of the story that I don’t think is as cool or artsy, but it’s also a really, really true part of my story. Because of my own cynicism or ego or whatever, I’ve just not wanted to go there, but now I’m old enough to let some of that go. I’m also old enough to think maybe I have the tools to do it in a way that feels honest without just trying to regurgitate what others have done. It’s all too common to find art created from that first half of life. So much of pop culture is juvenile and it’s hard to make a career in the arts to even reach that longevity. Is there a part of what you’re doing now that feels important because it’s harder to find points of reference in a way? That’s a good question and I lament that. That’s why I love Paul Simon so much. In his seventies, he’s making records about being in his seventies and not doing greatest hits compilations, whereas U2 is doing their residency and playing their 40 biggest songs. I love U2 but that’s been my criticism: that they won’t grow up and accept that they’re old. That’s what I really want to hear from them, whereas Paul Simon has always been willing to go there. I feel like I’ve been communicating in mostly one color for a long time and I don’t think it’s been the full story. Andrew Osenga Can you tell us about The Quiet Hours? Where does that come from? I had this interesting realization that I grew up in this fundamentalist church where I learned from a lot of really wonderful people a lot of things about Jesus, but I don’t really agree with a lot of that theology now. Yet we sang the same songs then that I sing now in my church here in Nashville. I think there’s something about some of those songs that were true in a way that superseded each church’s theology and maybe even superseded the lyric of the song—more like the essence of the song? There’s some sort of intangible, sacred truth in these songs that we’ve passed down to each generation. I’m just so into that. I’m also sitting at the helm of this project at work called Anchor Hymns, where I’m the producer and director of it, whatever that means. But I’m shaping this community by trying to put new songs like that into the world. So in the midst of all of that, I was in England last year in May and I had the night off in this Airbnb in Brighton on the south coast. It was this super cool building and my bedroom was above this little cafe. I had a microphone in my bag and I set it up and started recording these intimate versions of a few old hymns. I loved it so much. So I decided when I travel, if I have some downtime, instead of watching a movie on Netflix, I’ll keep my mic in the bag so I can grab my guitar and record a couple of hymns in the way I’d play them if I wanted to sing the girls to sleep. And how are you releasing music there? As The Quiet Hours, I did a Christmas EP that came out in November. Then that one I recorded in May will be called Above A Cafe in Brighton and it will come out on March 24. I’m really happy with it. Between my solo Headwaters album, The Quiet Hours, and the Anchor Hymns community projects, I have something coming out every two or three weeks for the rest of the year. It’s fun to have been doing this for 25 years and be more excited about creating and releasing music than ever. You can check out more of Andrew Osenga’s music, tour dates, creative projects and more here. #semifeature

We’ve been hosting Open Hours for about a year now, and it’s become one of my favorite parts of the life of the Rabbit Room. We like having an excuse to get the fire roaring, bake something yummy, light the candles, and set out the mugs, but what we really like is you. So many of you have prayed, donated, and dreamed about this space with us. It’s been special to be able to open the doors and welcome you here. And while we think Open Hours are important because we appreciate you, we think they are fun because we like you. We want North Wind Manor to be hospitable for all of you, but we know that there are many varied definitions of what makes a space “hospitable.” Someone wanting to focus on a project and someone wanting to meet new people likely have different needs from a hospitable space. We’re excited about all of that stuff, so we are expanding Open Hours to better host more of you. Open Hours: Fika Jamie introduced us to the Swedish concept of Fika, which literally means “coffee break” but also carries lovely implications of community, coziness, and intentional pause. That idea was our original inspiration for Open Hours and has been what we’ve tried to cultivate all year. Every Wednesday from 1-4 PM, we open the doors to anyone who wants to visit. Fika feels different every week, but generally, it’s a vibrant hum of conversation, laughter, and music. You’re welcome to bring your laptop or a project, but if you need quiet, be aware that no one is going to tell the kids to stop doing science projects or playing tag. In fact, we might be playing, too. Quiet Hours: Stilla We love the vibrant thing that Fika has become, but we are also excited about the good things that come out of quiet places. New this month, we’re introducing Stilla (Swedish for quiet and peaceful) every Friday morning from 9 to noon. The idea for these quiet hours is to provide a calmer space for deeper focus. Bring your laptop to work remotely, work on a creative project, bring a book, or borrow one of ours. We’ll provide the coffee, and if we can’t help ourselves from playing a game of tag, we’ll make sure we take it outside. Another thing that is true is that many of you will never visit this place. Maybe you live far away, or your schedule is full. God gave you stewardship of a different corner of the world, and you’re faithfully tending that ground. Thank you! We’re so glad you’re “here,” even when you can’t be here. We want this place to be good for you, too, so we are working to expand the ways that we can share North Wind Manor with you. In the coming months, look for more ways to experience some of the special events that happen here, as well as ways to see, taste, and smell some of North Wind Manor’s wonderful ordinariness. You’re leaving this place better than you found it. Thanks so much for stopping by. #semifeature

I was recently asked to look through the children’s books in my church’s small library and resource center. We were a few decades past due for a careful evaluation of our book inventory. The library staff wanted to know if there were books that should be discarded and if I had recommendations for new books. I was thrilled to be able to assist and spend a few hours looking through picture books. I used this library as a child, probably more frequently than the public library. It was open before and after each service, Sunday morning, Sunday night, and Wednesday night. It quickly became our family “meeting spot” when my siblings and I were old enough. While others had library numbers like “462” or “1329”, my parents were so excited to join that their library numbers were “2” and “3”! This made it very easy for us as kids to check out our own books. We joked that number “1” must have been the senior pastor, though we never did find out for sure. While I sat on a library stool looking through the pile of possible discards, the process turned into an emotional journey. While some books were easily retired from wear and tear, others made us laugh with such dated artwork or cheesy titles. Then a nostalgic wave from a few special books made me a child again. I reverently handled works that had not only been well-loved but had been well-loved by me. Mine were the little hands that had left the “lift-the-flaps” limp with overuse. I was the one who’d creased soft covers by trying to cram too many books into my bag. I was the one who’d loosened spines by dropping books into the return bin over and over. I am not sure if this book helped influence those desires or if my developing natural interests made this book a favorite. Perhaps it was a little of both. Chelsea Barnwell One book, in particular, caught my attention. It was a simple story titled Debbie’s Birthday Party. Its copyright was 1969. This book was already decades old before it found its way to this library for me to read. There wasn’t much plot, no problem to solve, or any unexpected turns. Honestly, I didn’t really remember the story. However, as I turned the pages, each illustration perfectly matched an image stored deep in my long-term memory. I hadn’t thought about this book since the last time I checked it out over twenty years prior, but from the feelings it stirred, I must have checked out the book repeatedly and pored over the pages for hours. Since I don’t remember the story or words, but the pictures were instantly recognizable, my guess is that this was a favorite of mine before I could read. It was interesting to note the different activities represented in the pictures: sewing, dancing, and hosting a beautiful party. These are some of my favorite things to do now! I am not sure if this book helped influence those desires or if my developing natural interests made this book a favorite. Perhaps it was a little of both. As I finish the task of winnowing the book collection, I now look forward to the task of recommending new books to fill the empty spots on the shelves. Clear words, a true message, the sweep of an imaginative story, and beautiful language all matter, but I am vividly reminded that the illustrations are just as important. I imagine little children in our church nursery or preschool classes “reading” a book by the pictures dozens, even hundreds, of times more often than their parents or Sunday School teachers are able to read the words to them. The illustrations imprinted in their minds should be beautiful and meaningful, not merely eye-catching. These little ones deserve both good stories and good art, feeding their understanding and imagination.

“I don’t want to be your friend anymore.” Everyone has probably heard some variation of these words at least once in their life – and they feel particularly common between kids on the playground. That’s probably why, when full-grown ColmSonnyLarry offers more or less the same words to his buddy Pádraic Súilleabháin, some folks in the village say, “What is he, twelve?” The words are far from simplistic. The way Colm speaks to Pádraic cuts even harder: “I just don’t like you no more.” Colm says he’s trying to focus on his art, using his time to do something that lasts, and “idle chatting” with someone like Pádraic isn’t helping him with that. It’s hard to deny that rejection as simple as this can get your stomach churning and mind swirling instantly. Why don’t they like me anymore? Is it something I did? Is it something they did? Have I changed? Have they changed? Am I unlikeable? Does anyone like me? The immediate inner turmoil can eventually implode in flame. The Banshees of Inisherin captures that existential implosion with wit and tragedy befitting of Martin McDonagh’s directorial stamp. Ever since Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, I’ve been fascinated by McDonagh’s view of the world, and finally watching In Bruges this year only deepened that fascination. There’s an intense cynicism and darkness to his stories that some might even go so far as to call nihilism, but unlike some viewers, I can’t say any of them have ever left me fully depressed or hopeless. Amid the rubble of broken relationships and comic absurdity of the pain in McDonagh’s work, there’s always a glimmer of love and relationship among pathetic people that beckons toward a deeper reality and core human longing. The endings are always just open enough to imagine a path to healing and a path to even greater darkness. McDonagh’s relationship to Catholicism is particularly interesting to me, too; he’s clearly disillusioned and jaded with the institution, but nevertheless seems unable to escape the pressing moral implications of the character of Christ. Banshees centers a big chunk of its moral and thematic exploration around the concept of “niceness.” Is niceness the same as goodness? Is it a sin not to be nice? What does niceness ultimately accomplish or leave behind when we’re gone? “Ya know who was remembered for how nice they were in the 17th century? Absolutely no one,” argues Colm, “but I’ll tell you something that lasts: Music lasts. And paintings last. And poetry lasts.” “So does niceness!” Pádraic pleads. It’s one of many moments where Pádraic’s earnest spirit compels the audience to side with him. Pádraic’s perceived niceness, though, isn’t entirely as rock solid as it might seem. When the film opens, Pádraic is literally living in an Irish world of sunshine and rainbows. His meaning comes from the day-in-day-out rituals of farm life, a recurring trip to the pub at precisely 2 o’clock, and the few friends in his tiny town—but he’s content with it that way. Or at least, he likes to tell himself he’s content. If there’s one thing Pádraic is resistant toward, it’s self-reflection: “What’s the matter with everyone?” he mutters, after his sister Siobhan asks if he’s ever felt lonely. When Siobhan mentions that she’s reading a “sad” book, Pádraic says, “You should read something not-sad, Siobhan, else you might get sad.” Until Colm’s firm and undeniable rejection, Pádraic has never been asked to confront his own life or happiness, or the nature of his relationships. Colm’s self-reflective existential crisis brings the whole island into confusion and disorder, primarily because nobody has ever had to do any real reflection on their routine lives, nor had they any reason to face rejection in a direct way. The question of “liking” the other people at the pub has never been a real concern; there aren’t many other social options if you don’t. In a modern individualist landscape where we can find niche social circles and communities (especially online) that perfectly suit our unique interests and preferences, the concept of such bare limitation in possible relationships might seem archaic to us. Yet in a sense, for people like Pádraic especially, it allows the freedom to live without feeling a need to impress or seek out. Some might call it passive; others might call it restful. Colm’s decision to question the value of spending time with his neighbors shakes everything off-balance, ushering in a sense of personal choice and boundaries that feels more akin to the way we allocate our time and curate our relationships in the modern western world. That’s not to glamorize the village life on Inisherin, though. The film frequently depicts the discomfort of living in a place where everyone knows (and talks about) you in a way that can often feel downright dystopian. Everything that transpires in the village is watched by someone, either from behind a bar counter, through a window, or across the pond, and this inescapable tight-knittedness breeds claustrophobic insecurity. After the initial rejection, Pádraic’s early pursuit becomes about “going back to the way things were” and preserving the tentative order of the island life he’s known for decades, even if it means repressing or ignoring any negative emotions stirred up from their hibernation. “Well if he’s depressed, he could at least keep it to himself like. Ya know, push it down like the rest of us,” he says. Interestingly, I’ve witnessed a good amount of older people resonating with Pádraic’s resolute commitment to a simple friendship, and a small-but-reasonable amount of young people defending Colm’s firm resolve to maintain his boundaries of “self-care” and pursue his art. I’m convinced that both characters are in the wrong from the start. Both are blinded by their own ego and insecurities and both misunderstand the nature of human relationships. Colm treats his relationships too transactionally; people are only valuable insofar as they add to your life and contribute in some way to your sense of fulfillment or accomplishment by the end of it. Pádraic, though, has never had to do the existential pondering to decipher what kind of relational transaction could ever be occurring in the first place. He just chats about his donkey’s shite without giving it a second thought. It’s telling that Pádraic’s only other friend on Inisherin is Barry Keoghan’s Dominic, again more by necessity than desire. He’s a character even Pádraic finds boring and annoying to be around, mocking and demeaning behind his back as “the dimmest on the island.” Ironic as it is, Dominic is to Pádraic what Pádraic is to Colm: the slightly simpler friend who mostly distracts from the pressing issue in their mind with petty grievances and trivial conversation topics. It’s not hard to imagine Pádraic saying something along the lines of “I don’t like you anymore” or “I don’t want to spend my days chatting with you” to Dominic, especially if anyone remotely interesting were to come along and take his place. Maybe Pádraic isn’t quite as “nice” as he thinks. It might be an oversimplification, but in a sense, there is one person who was remembered for “being nice”, and his face lurks like a shadow in the background of much of the film: the figure of Christ. His portrait hangs on the wall over Pádraic’s bed and watches over all the loneliness that transpires. His presence looms in the hymnal song which plays on the record player when Colm goes out for a walk. The sign of the cross plays a visual role in almost every crucial scene between the two men in the film. And even Mother Mary, also known for her purity and kindness, stands guard at the fork in the road between Pádraic’s home and Colm’s home. Of course, unlike Pádraic’s niceness, Christ’s niceness goes beyond maintaining the passive status quo and brushing the negativity under the rug. Christ is Love, not niceness, and though love and niceness might sometimes look the same, they stem from different sources. There’s another relationship on display in the film, though: the relationship between brother and sister. Husband and wife create a covenant that must not be broken. Friends have no covenant, but maintain their friendship as long as their similarities prove greater than their differences. Brother and sister are a unique bond, different than the others; they are forever connected but never bound. Siobhan is able to encourage and support her brother while also being honest and sardonic with him in a way that only family can be. Eventually, she leaves him to go to the mainland for a new life and doesn’t look back, but she still offers him a bed and house to sleep in if he would like to come and join her. As such, the bond of sibling kinship is the strongest one in the movie. Maybe in another part of their lives, Pádraic and Colm would’ve called themselves brothers. But the brotherhood is broken. Siobhan is the one truly mature character able to make a decision that is best for her without alienating or pushing away the people she loves; she’s not always “nice,” but she cares for people deeply. Christ is Love, not niceness, and though love and niceness might sometimes look the same, they stem from different sources. Houston Coley Siobhan may seem like the person who most embodies love in the film, but if we look closer, there are many moments when Colm embodies love too, even if it’s not “like.” In a very Good Samaritan turn, Colm helps Pádraic up and onto his feet and takes him home after he’s punched in the face by the police officer. And when the officer later accosts Pádraic after his donkey has died, Colm knocks the officer out cold, choosing sympathy for Pádraic’s grief. Even as Colm is cutting off his own body parts to prove he doesn’t care, his actions suggest that he still does—and maybe that’s a discovery for himself, too. When Colm confesses to the priest that he fears that God really doesn’t care about little donkeys, he’s interacting with an underlying concept of the film: the eternal value of seemingly small and simple things. Colm has become a deist in spirit, fearing that there is a God but all He does is sit back and watch. “I wasn’t trying to be nice, I was trying to be accurate,” says Mrs. McCormack, the strangely prophetic old woman whose watchful gaze and portends of death make her the titular Banshee of the film. Mrs. McCormack probably best represents what Colm fears God might be like: concerned with accuracy rather than love, observing but never helping. Colm’s fear that God does not value small things may be what drives him to want to achieve something “great” before his life is out – but in doing this, he begins to lose the simple things that gave his life meaning in the first place. Watching the film for the first time, I could hear the line from David Lowery’s The Green Knight a couple of years ago: “Why greatness? Is goodness not enough?” Ironically, Colm’s pursuit of his great art leaves him completely unable to make it; by the end of the film, the man with no fingers on one hand is left humming a melody that he’ll never be able to play again. Maybe it wasn’t about the art, after all, but about something deeper and more existential. Maybe it was about finding or feeling something real. Colm forsakes niceness but eventually finds that he cannot help but love his friend even when he is thoroughly annoyed by him. Pádraic forsakes niceness and spirals into a vengeful rage, but the death of his donkey and the loss of his relationships also forces him to encounter grief for the first time and frees the negative emotions he’s refused to engage for so long. In his interviews about the film, McDonagh has said that Pádraic and Siobhan lost both their parents to suicide. Given what we know about Pádraic, it’s easy to imagine that he never really properly grieved this loss; the only time he mentions it in the film is when he’s drunk. Now, although he spirals out of control, he finally feels something real. Pádraic’s literal death threat to Colm, and decision to follow through with burning his house down while he’s sitting inside it, is a catalyst for existential change. Colm has been wrestling with his own morality and despair internally for ages, but the walls going up in flames around him as a result of his own decisions force him to decide whether there’s something to live for. Evidently, he believes there is. In a strange sense, though we never witness any reconciliation between Colm and Pádraic, the conflict brings growth for both of them. When Colm says “I suppose burning my house makes us quits,” there’s almost a sense of gratitude or relief in his demeanor. And when he says “thanks for lookin’ after my dog anyway,” and Pádraic replies “anytime,” with a quivering mixture of forced bitterness and tentative hope, it’s not hard to imagine that they’ll be having drinks again in a few days time with far less passivity in their friendship than before. Maybe they’ll find something closer to love—real, honest, brotherly love. That’s my optimistic interpretation, anyway. There’s another way of viewing it, especially through the lens of the Civil War happening on the mainland, that says this is only the beginning of a long and pointless conflict that will never end. But I’m something of a romantic, and I like to think McDonagh leaves things open for us to hope.

Every year on Ash Wednesday, I find myself thinking about my appreciation for and friendship with Father Thomas McKenzie, a dear companion of so many in the Rabbit Room community. Beyond the shared stories and meaningful moments, the most impactful aspect of knowing Thomas was seeing the centrality of Jesus at work in his life. Thomas never shied away from the truth, and it’s what made Church of the Redeemer such a special place during our years in Nashville. Whether you were sharing a meal or listening to a sermon, Thomas had a way of allowing core things to remain at the core (and everything else could fall away). Love is supreme. Christ is victorious. Death is real, but resurrection even more so. For me, Thomas always had a way of bringing the season of Lent into view like no one else. It wasn’t about charisma or theatrics, new ideas or dynamic stories. Instead, it was the authentic and vulnerable ways in which he invited truth in to do its work in his own life and his encouragement for us to allow the same. On this Ash Wednesday, it felt appropriate to post a short sermon from Thomas, who is tragically no longer with us, about the ways in which we participate in a culture of death and a call to allow the Spirit to guide us toward life. You can also listen via Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Matt Conner is a former pastor and church planter turned writer and editor. He’s the founder of Analogue Media and lives in Indianapolis.

One of the most fulfilling musical experiences I’ve had was on stage at the Ryman Auditorium a few years back. It was the first half of Andrew Peterson’s Behold the Lamb of God tour, which was performed “in the round” with a bunch of other artists. After we played our song, “Take This Slowly”, it was time to sit down on stage while the other musicians did their thing. For me, the following 20-30 minutes were magic. Each artist would go up to the microphone and offer their song and craft—something labored over for so long -to an eager audience ready to listen. That audience included me, and I had the best seat in the house. I remember being literally four feet away from Stuart Duncan (a hero of mine and amazing fiddle player for Goat Rodeo and others), Ron Block (legendary banjo player), and Sierra Hull (maybe the best female mandolinist alive) while they played as a trio, performing licks and runs on their instruments that I could never dream of pulling off. Artist after artist would go up to the microphone and offer their song. In that short window of time, I felt a camaraderie I’ll never forget. The evening felt “right”. Somehow, at that moment, it wasn’t anybody’s show. It had become everybody’s show, the audience and artists together. That feeling is something I’ve always wanted more of. Six months ago or so I thought, “What if we did our own tour and brought out our artist friends to play with us in the round like we did on that tour?” Maybe I could get back to that feeling. Maybe the audience could share it too. That’s where the Zion Caravan Tour was born. I can’t wait for this tour. I want it to be special. It’s a grand experiment in a lot of ways and I hope it’s just the 1.0 of future Zion Caravan Tours to come. I’d love for you to come and be a part of the first one—and of course, our fellow artists, John Mark Pantana, Antoine Bradford, and LOVKN, who I can’t wait for you to hear! You can purchase tickets here and use the code CARAVAN for $5 off an adult general admission ticket for a limited time! Check out the full tour dates below: 3/22 – Waco, TX 3/23 – Houston, TX 3/24 – San Antonio, TX 3/25 – Austin, TX 3/26 – Dallas, TX 3/29 – Columbus, OH 3/30 – Grand Rapids, MI 3/31 – Chicago, IL 4/1 – Minneapolis, MN 4/2 – Kansas City, MO 4/11 – Nashville, TN 4/12 – Knoxville, TN 4/13 – Atlanta, GA 4/12 – Knoxville, TN 4/14 – Raleigh, NC #semifeature

“Hey, I just saw the announcement about no Homebound this year. Wondering if there’s any chance there might be a ‘901 moot’ in the offing?” I sent this message to Eddy Efaw, the only person I knew who was involved with Hutchmoot Homebound in 2020 and 2021. All I wanted to know was whether or not someone was already planning a faith and arts conference for Memphis (the “901”, in local parlance). If so, I definitely wanted to attend. Honestly, I wasn’t suggesting we start something, but seeing my message and knowing that no such event was on the horizon, Eddy responded with enthusiasm. He assumed I was proposing that he and I make this our mission, and he was definitely down for it. Wait, what? Was I hearing him right? Did he actually think we could do this? I liked the idea—I liked it a lot—but had to wonder if we might be taking on more than we could handle. As he and I met in a local coffeehouse and hashed it out, all the “W” questions came at us like a blast from a firehose: What did we know about putting on a conference? What was even involved? What kind of sessions should be offered? Who would present? Who would be a good keynote speaker? Where should we plan to have the conference? When would be the best time of year? How should we even begin? We knew absolutely nothing about how to proceed, but the more we talked, the more the concept captured our hearts and imaginations. This could happen. This life-affirming celebration of faith and the arts could be part of our community’s story. What better way to bring together people who found great joy in co-creating with God? It was mid-March 2022, and we were in. Over the next months, God placed key persons in our path who directed us as we tackled the daunting tasks of creating an LLC, obtaining a bank account, designing a website, gathering a team of people to manage various aspects of the conference, figuring out QuickBooks, learning how to use Eventbrite, and much, much more. Turns out, the two of us were a pretty good team, Eddy having participated in Hutchmoot in person multiple years, while I had only attended Hutchmoot Homebound; Eddy being well-acquainted with many artists and musicians, both from Hutchmoot friendships and in Memphis, and I with the experience interacting with lawyers and accountants from my time in corporate America. I think we would both agree that it’s been a wild and challenging journey. Lots of hard work, lots of decisions, lots of just feeling our way, lots of prayer. The destination is now drawing near, and our entire team is beyond excited to offer the first ever Memphis Arts Moot, planned for April 13-15, 2023. We have a wonderful lineup of presenters and musicians designed to help us celebrate the beauty of creation through participation in our own creative activities. Attendees will enjoy a “welcome” dinner and concert by Skye Peterson on Thursday evening. Presentations on photography, writing, gardening, visual arts, culinary adventures, and music are planned throughout the day on both Friday and Saturday. Our Friday evening concert features Memphis native Moriah Jackson. Following the example set by Hutchmoot, meals are an integral, essential part of this conference. We purposely included four meals in the full-price tickets in order to encourage ample engagement around a common table. In order to facilitate attendance by Memphians, we also established a Saturday Day Pass which includes all presentations for that day, plus the Keynote address by John Hendrix and the evening concert by “Son of Laughter” Chris Slaten. Saturday Day Passes are not limited to Memphians and may be of particular interest to those from nearby areas who wish to drive in just for the day. There are also a limited number of Student Day Passes available for Saturday, which include the same access. Meals are not included in either of the Saturday Day Passes. Our planning team is working hard to provide a friendly Memphis welcome to all who attend. Memphis is beautiful in the Spring, with warm breezes and vibrant colors furnishing a feast for the senses. The conference venue in east Memphis is a five-minute drive from Dixon Gallery and Gardens, which currently has free admission, and the Memphis Botanic Gardens. A fifteen-minute drive will bring you to Shelby Farms Park, one of the largest urban parks in the country, complete with a lake with multiple walking and biking trails and its own herd of buffalo. Come join us for a Spring infusion of Memphis passion, faith, and making! It could change your life. Full information and a link to purchase tickets may be found on our website. #semifeature

If you’ve followed along with the Rabbit Room over the last few years, or have been on the lookout for meaningful music, you’ll likely recognize the name (and potentially the tunes of) John Tibbs. Not only have we featured him here on the blog in the past, but he’s been a guest at The Local Show as well. The last few years have served as a real turning point in John’s life with significant life events occurring alongside the seismic global changes that have marked us all. In the aftermath of it all, John says depression set in and the future seemed uncertain and it took some time for the music to come back around. “After the Night” was the first song to “reappear,” a hopeful sign that there was more for the Midwestern native to say/sing. He recently detailed the story behind the song for us here at the Rabbit Room. Check out the song below and John’s explanation in the text below. I wrote “After the Night” in the fall of 2021. It was the first song I’d written since COVID began. My wife and I found out we were expecting our first child one month before the pandemic hit. The inability to tour for 15 months, the stress of pregnancy and birth in a world sheltering in place, the ongoing political and spiritual turmoil, and the adjustments of being a dad … it all felt like too much. Like a square peg being crammed into a round hole, my new world no longer felt in sync with my old one. I wanted to write, but I didn’t know what to say. I wasn’t the same person anymore and writing felt like the old me. How was I supposed to just sit down and write a song? Becoming a father made me feel, more than ever, a deep need to make every single moment count. Was songwriting really how I wanted to spend this gift of the present? In the face of so much sickness and death, in the midst of so much political and social unrest, I am supposed to just sit down and write a song? A song about faith, no less? What do I have to say that hasn’t already been said? Who am I writing for? For most people, the fall of 2021 began to feel like normal again, but I fell into the worst depression of my life. I was figuring out what it was like to be a father, trying to get touring back off the ground, and navigate the small and large details of both of those things. It felt like a bridge was being built between the old and new me. Building a bridge is not easy. Sometimes it hurts. And then one morning in my living room, this entire song showed up in my mind and it was written in just a matter of minutes. It surprised me, a lot like hope does. It caught me off guard. I still had something to say in this new world. In fact, more than ever I now know the importance of hope. Sure, it’s a simple message: Hope is and is to come. But to me, it’s a necessary one, and one that I need to sing. I hope that whatever season you find yourself in today, that you will see the good that is on the horizon and “just keep walking.” Much love and peace to each of you on your journey. Check out more about John Tibbs and his music here. Matt Conner is a former pastor and church planter turned writer and editor. He’s the founder of Analogue Media and lives in Indianapolis.

“On soft Spring nights I’ll stand in the yard under the stars—Something good will come out of all things yet—And it will be golden and eternal just like that—There’s no need to say another word.” -Jack Kerouac, Big Sur If your house is anything like mine, there’s an ever-heightening anticipation for the coming season. We’ve opened the presents of holidays and birthdays. We’ve made hot cocoa and watched our favorite movies. We’ve slept a little longer, indulged our quieter hobbies, and enjoyed the intimacy of cozy fires. But now we’re ready for spring. One of the most exciting and beautiful aspects of the coming season is found in the potential it represents. Shared activities lead to shared stories and the common language that arises from such experiences is one of the most empowering gifts we can ever receive. It is to that end—toward beauty, toward connection, toward shared stories—that we’re excited to share the spring season of The Local Show. For the next three months, we will be opening up the doors of North Wind Manor to the considerable talents of many friends knowing their shared stories will provide encouragement and hope and perspective for those of us in need of spring’s potential. Check out the details for The Local Show’s Spring ’23 season. March 7, 2023 @ 7:30 p.m. C.T. (TICKETS) Andrew Peterson JJ Heller Sandra McCracken Ben Shive April 4, 2023 @ 7:30 p.m. C.T. (TICKETS) Andy Gullahorn Jill Phillips Taylor Leonhardt The Arcadian Wild May 9, 2023 @ 7:30 p.m. C.T. (TICKETS) Jess Ray The River Indigo Paul Demer Cecily Hennigan #semifeature

My first job was working as a landscaper. It was demanding work, demanding because it was hard work in the hot sun, all day long. It also required attention to the smallest detail without losing sight of the landscape in which you were working. It required knowledge about plants and soil, skills for cultivating them, and a willingness to get to know the particular piece of ground with its set of limitations and possibilities. Day after day, the crew would grab our tools and get to work at our site—weeding, trimming, installing beds, planting shrubs, grinding stumps, spreading mulch. Together, we created some beautiful spaces for folks to inhabit. I have had many jobs since then, but I’m still landscaping. When I write or preach or garden, I’m naming and shaping landscapes. I like to think of my mission statement as “providing language and landscape for the spiritual life.” Ministry and creative work (however you define either of those terms) are works of what Wendell Berry called “imagination in place.” They require being rooted in a particular place among particular people, paying attention, forming relationships, and dreaming with God about its possibilities. Like outdoor landscaping, it requires both careful attention to detail and awareness of the wider context. This takes training because our imaginations are not as free as we think; they are captive to powers like consumerism and colonialism. Thankfully, I’ve had some good teachers over the years. One of my favorite teachers was the late musician Rich Mullins. In my own Quaker faith, we don’t talk much about specific rituals that serve as “sacraments.” Instead, we talk about the “sacramental universe” we all occupy. Anyone and anything can be a means of grace. While Rich valued the Lord’s Supper and other historic Christian ordinances, he also had a sense that we live in a “sacramental universe.” Maybe he was shaped by that same Quaker tradition; he attended a Quaker meeting in Indiana as a kid. “Everywhere I go I see you” is something Rich and I can both sing in this sacramental universe. It’s a beautiful truth and an alluring invitation. Wherever we go we can expect to experience divine presence, not only in exotic and exciting new places but also “here in America” where the Holy King of Israel loves us, even here “in the land of [our] sojourn.” We don’t always feel like God is near or always hear God speaking, but most of the time we can assume it’s because we have more to learn about seeing and hearing. Learning is the central task for all spiritual and creative work. “Everywhere I go I see you” is preceded by “everywhere I go, I’m looking.” Rich was always looking. He found beauty in the ordinary. But he also kept looking when he saw things that were broken and painful. He looked without looking away. Anyone and anything can be a means of grace. Andrew Stanton-Henry I moved from Ohio to Kansas to attend college when I was a young adult. I didn’t go to Friends University like Rich but attended another small Quaker college in western Kansas. Like Rich, I was captivated by the landscapes of the Great Plains. The wide-open expansiveness can be overwhelming at first, yet eventually, I fell in love with it and began to experience what Belden Lane called “the solace of fierce landscapes.” Rich’s music, which I had loved for as long as I could remember listening to music, helped me appreciate that landscape. He gave me words to sing and pray and contemplate while inhabiting that specific region. I learned to listen to the prairies “calling out [God’s] name.” Every time I saw a pheasant while driving down a dirt road, I thought of the “fury in a pheasant’s wings.” I also came to understand why Rich wrote so much about the “winds of heaven.” In Kansas, the wind is a wild force. It can’t be ignored and can barely be resisted. Kansans know why wind is such a common metaphor for God in the Bible—and sometimes it’s more than a metaphor. When you are facing the great winds on the plains, you can see why the Psalmist said God “makes the wind his messengers” (Ps. 104:4). If we listen to those divine messengers, just maybe “the howling will take [us] home.” Those winds of heaven intersect with the stuff of earth and “shake us forward and shake us free.” It’s scary sometimes but also liberating because we are set free to “run wild with this hope.” These days, I talk and write about the importance of place and community and rootedness and landscape. In college, those things weren’t particularly important to me, but I think leaving my hometown (and later returning) changed that. It wasn’t only the process of leaving and making a life “on my own” that shaped me. It was witnessing a very different natural and cultural landscape and learning about what Kathleen Norris called “a spiritual geography.” Between Norris’ book Dakota and Rich Mullins’ songs, I learned to love my place and live in it faithfully. I’ve come to believe that ministers and musicians are landscapers, not only because they plant new life and shape landscapes but also because, at their best, they help us learn the spirituality of a place—its history, its landscapes, its inhabitants. They help us see God’s presence and activity in places we previously thought were boring or even barren. They help us practice “imagination in place.” Maybe the metric for good music and good ministry should be this: we finish the song or the sermon or the book and say “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it.” (Gen. 28:16).