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The Artist's Cry

“Through all the world there goes one long cry from the heart of the artist: Give me leave to do my utmost!” –Babette’s Feast

***

Criterion Collection DVD cover for Babette's Feast

I came to Babette’s Feast eagerly. I’d seen it years before – multiple times. I’d studied it in a course and given a presentation on it. I’d read the short story, perhaps even before I first saw the film. I’d read the short story by Isak Dinesen (Karen Blixen) again many times since. I’d taught it in a course. I’d recommended it to friends. I thought a few years back to buy the DVD and discovered to my horror that it would cost me nigh on $50 for a DVD produced in the mid-90s. I bided my time.

Then the word came. The Criterion Collection was releasing a new DVD. They know how to celebrate good art. It was satisfying news. The cost would be reasonable. And I settled in to count the days until I could get my hands on a copy.

***

Early this summer – almost late spring – I sat on my friend Julie’s back porch in Charlotte, North Carolina and we talked about Jeffrey Overstreet’s book Through a Screen Darkly. I was aware of it; I’d followed Jeffrey as a movie reviewer for years. I’d heard good things about the book, but hadn’t yet invested the time or energy to read it.

Jeffrey was on the list of speakers for a conference Julie and I plan to attend this fall called Hutchmoot. I was excited. His book was on the recommended reading list. Julie had begun it.

“I’m loving it,” she said. “I’m wondering if we should think about using it as the next book in our reading group. What do you think?” She sketched out a few ideas of how it could be divided up nicely for discussion. I glanced through the table of contents. I skimmed a few pages. I concurred.

She floated the idea of asking Jeffrey to join the discussion. A book discussion with the author? I encouraged the thought.

***

I got more out of Through a Screen Darkly than I could have imagined getting. It did not just, as the subtitle predicted, look closer at beauty, truth, and evil in the movies; it looked at them in all of art. It challenged me to watch movies differently, to approach art more carefully, to be a better recipient of art, and therefore a better creator of it.

Julie had the brilliant idea of pairing each week’s reading with one of the movies Jeffrey mentions in the section we were discussing. The movies were optional. I did a terrible job of keeping up with them. Interestingly, as I read the book, I found myself watching movies less.

I knew now they deserved my close attention, and the glare of the computer screen and the Facebook alerts coming in on my iPhone should not be constantly present while I experienced them.

But the final week, after we finished all the chapters of the book, I knew I’d watch the movie: Babette’s Feast was planned.

I remember telling Julie when she suggested that we could end with a week discussing Babette’s Feast that the timing would be perfect. The planned week was immediately following the new DVD’s release. Then our discussion got delayed a bit along the way and we ended up with Babette a week later than planned – for me, immediately following a writer’s conference.

***

I keep thinking about art lately. About what it means to create art. About what the role of the artist is. About art in the contemporary culture. About art industries. About the relationship of the artist to the industries.

Ken Gire spoke at the Greater Philadelphia Writer’s Conference where I was on faculty this past week. He reminded us that we as writers are lovers of words. He speculated that there was a time for each one of us when we were reading and something inside of us said, “Follow me.” And now, 20, or 30, or 40 years later, we were there at a conference, pen and sheaf of paper in our hands, in hopes that our words will do for someone else what words did for us.

He called the handing over of a manuscript to an editor a sacred moment. “Something of your heart is mediated in the thin, white, wafer-like paper,” he said. And then he went on to challenge us: “Don’t sell yourself short. Don’t reduce art to paint-by-numbers….Aspire to something true: from the depths of your heart to the depths of another.”

***

I wrote recently that the best thing about Joss Whedon’s new Much Ado About Nothing was that it got made at all – “that a group of friends decided they wanted to do this, made the time for it, and did it well. Limited release or no, it’s encouraging to see that something like this movie can still happen [in the contemporary art industry].”

I called Whedon’s choice to make the movie a risk. He had no financial backer when he chose to make the film. He had no method for distributing it. Sure, he had connections, but there was no guarantee that his art would ever see the light of day.

***

Makoto Fujimura uses the ancient Japanese technique of nihonga in his painting. Nihonga uses precious stones and metals to create the pigments with which the artist paints. Mako’s paintings have colors made from lapis lazuli, from gold, from corals, from malachite.

He points to Jesus’ commendation of Mary in John 12 when she brings the costly perfume and anoints him with it. “That is an amazing commendation for someone like me who tends to work from the heart, who tends to work with precious and costly materials. I remember that the extravagance of Christ’s love for me prompted an extravagant response. Eventually, I came to connect what I do as an artist with Mary’s devotional act. Maybe that is the one act we can look to as the centerpiece for a paradigm of creativity.”

***

I asked Christine if we could approach Babette’s Feast without the distractions. We put our computers in other rooms. We turned off, really off, our phones.

She’d never experienced the story. I had.

It has been years since I watched Babette’s Feast. I almost saw it with new eyes. I knew what was coming, but the visual portrayal was dim and faded in my mind. I watched Babette learn how to make bread and ale soup from the sisters, patiently learning words as she went, and I knew that they had no idea that they were teaching Shakespeare how to write plays.

I watched Babette win the lottery, cash the check, and put the money carefully into a wooden box. I watched her carry the box, clutched close to her heart, to her room, then sit down and look at it. I watched her walk the heaths and beaches. I knew the decision she would make. I knew the sacrifice that was coming.

I watched her thrill as she unpacked the ingredients. I watched her eyes alight as she created the dishes. I saw the industry with which she worked to prepare the meal, up to the very moment the platters went to the table. She did not touch the wine until the guests were in the later courses. Her sharp eyes kept all in order.

And then I experienced again the beautiful revelation at the end of the story, that Babette has spent her entire fortune, ten thousand francs, on the meal the sisters and their friends have just consumed. When they protest that she should not have given away all her money for their sake she gently tells them, “It was not just for your sake.” When they ask if she will now be always poor, she says, “A great artist is never poor.”

Philippa understands, to some small extent, the heart of an artist. She comes closer to Babette and continues to press: “Was this the sort of dinner you would prepare at the Café Anglais?” Babette nods, saying she could make the people happy when she did her very best. Then she quotes Achille Papin, the opera singer who once taught Philippa, “Through all the world there goes one cry from the heart of an artist: Give me leave to do my utmost.”

“But this is not the end, Babette,” Philippa says. “I feel sure this is not the end. In Paradise, you will be the great artist God meant you to be.” She walks forward and embraces the cook. “Ah, how you will enchant the angels!”

***

We sang a song in church this morning that struck me anew.

And I will rise when He calls my name
No more sorrow, no more pain
I will rise on eagles' wings
Before my God fall on my knees
And rise
I will rise

And I hear the voice of many angels sing,
“Worthy is the Lamb”
And I hear the cry of every longing heart,
“Worthy is the Lamb”

***

There is a cry that goes out from the heart of the artist.

It’s the cry that says, “Take the time to experience deeply.”

The cry that says, “Don’t sell yourself short.”

The cry that says, “Take a risk.”

The cry that says, “Extravagant art is worship.”

The cry that says, “It is worth spending everything.”

The cry that says, “Give me leave to do my utmost.”

The cry that says, “Worthy is the Lamb.”

New Guest Post at Greener Trees

I've been taking part in a great book discussion group this summer. We're reading Jeffrey Overstreet's book, Through a Screen Darkly.

This week I wrote a guest post to host the conversation over at Greener Trees.

Here's a snippet:

There is power in great beauty. Beauty heals, it soothes, it allures, it inspires. And when we see it, in a film, in a book, in a moment, it can catch us by surprise and stay with us forever. We can lift it up from the depths of our memory again and again, and every time it draws us toward the Creator of beauty, the Beautiful One Himself.

Click here to read more.

New Guest Post at Story Warren

Have you been introduced to Story Warren yet? It's a delightful place, full of wonderful people who tell wonderful tales and recommend wonderful things. Y'all should head on over and check out one of those links in the previous sentence. Or all of them.

S.D. Smith, who runs the place with his many allies, is a highly enjoyable human being (saving his fault of hating peas). Sam was once described by my friend Laura as "the sort of person who...[will] grow up and be like Dumbledore or Obi Wan or Gandalf – speaking the words that alert you to the power/magic/force that perhaps you were too afraid to hope was real." I can't think of a better description. So when Sam wrote me a note and asked if I'd be interested in guest posting for Story Warren, I was grateful for the opportunity and told him I'd ponder what was in my head and see if anything came to the fore. He responded with "Ponder your brain contents." 

So I did. And then something came to me, and I wrote it down, and I sent it along, and Sam liked it, and today it posted over at Story Warren. Go ahead on over and check it out. Then poke around and read things like this, and this, and this. And then like them on Facebook and keep up with them. 'Cause this is something and you want to be a part of it.

New Guest Post at Everyday Liturgy

I had another guest post go up today at Everyday Liturgy titled, "A Romance It Certainly Is." Here's a snippet:

We cannot avoid the reality of this world. We see its dark underbelly in everything from the news to human trafficking to the person who pushes past us in a crowd without apologizing. This world, and we people in it, are broken, cracked, and bloody.

But as believers, we have a second sight of sorts. We see this world as it once was and as it will be again. 

Check out the rest over Everyday Liturgy!

Boy Blue's Birthday

When you have family living on the far side of the world, and you have a tendency to be forgetful about birthdays, you run into two specific issues:

1. Just sending the requisite "belated" birthday card loses its appeal, because it won't get there for a few weeks after the date. Belated cards are fun and all when they arrive within about a week of the day, but 2-3 weeks and you're pushing it.

2. You feel the need to do something more exciting than just a card because you haven't seen these family members and given them hugs in quite some time.

Solution:

Birthday Videos!

Smartphone technology being what it is, I can now make terrible videos with the best of them. And I have taken full advantage of this form of art in all its cheesy-ness to celebrate the birthdays of family members across the globe.

Today is June 19, the day my nephew Zach, aka. Boy Blue, was born to my sister and brother-in-law five years back. I got to enjoy quite a few of his birthdays in person as they lived not far from here for about four years. But now they've traipsed across the globe again, and so, his birthday video:

The Fall of the Sparrow

I love the idea that God cares about the fall of the sparrow. It's one of those passages of scripture that is pure poetry. As He reminds His disciples they have no reason to fear, Jesus says, "Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father" (Matthew 10:29, ESV). 

The fall of the sparrow. It represents so much more than just a bird falling to the ground.

The fall of the sparrow reminds us that nothing, neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God (Romans 8:38-39).

The fall of the sparrow reminds us that the hairs of our head are numbered (Matthew 10:30), that God clothes the lilies in all their beauty (Matthew 6:29-30), that the ear of a servant is of value even when He's about to be dragged away to His death (Luke 22:50).

The fall of the sparrow is an image laden with meaning.

But sometimes, sometimes we have to be reminded to dredge up the image. To pull it out again and examine its many facets and consider the way the light plays in its depths.

In those moments when we've forgotten to consider the fall of the sparrow, God cares to remind us. We become the sparrow ourselves.

And He shows us, vividly, the truth of His character. He shows care about the fall of the sparrow.

Photo by Loren Warnemuende

Monday a week ago, my nephew Jon lost his Brown Bear. My sister wrote about it on her blog, and shared the sorrow this had brought - not just for Jon, but for everyone in the family. But God, in His grace, also showed kindness and the power of His gift of imagination as they grieved the loss.

It's a beautiful post, and it brought tears to my eyes as I read it. I knew I would miss seeing Brown Bear tucked under Jon-boy's arm the next time I see him. I knew the sturdy little chap would survive, but that losing Brown Bear was a deep pain for him.

And I began to pray. And others prayed, too. For a little boy and his mother. For comfort in the loss. And I prayed that God would bring back Brown Bear.

And God cares about the fall of the sparrow.

The Stories I Rub Shoulders With - New Post at Everyday Liturgy

I have a 1938 edition of Webster's Students Dictionary: Upper School Levels on my shelf. It's my go-to resource for the definitions of words I find in old books. Some of them are words we still have today, but so often their connotation has changed.

Take "charity" for instance. Today, the first definition most people would think of is an organization or system for giving to the poor. It's not a wrong definition at all, but it's not the main focus the word has always held. "Charity" is an old-fashioned word, one that in my 1938 dictionary is primarily defined as "Christian love."

That's a challenging definition. I'm not sure that we could all agree on what "Christian love" looks like.

The secondary definitions begin to give it focus: 2. An act or feeling of generosity or benevolence. 3.The giving of aid to the poor and suffering. 4. Leniency in judging men and their actions.

Interestingly, the organization or institution for aiding the needy doesn't get mention until definition #5.

I've been thinking a lot about charity of late. I've been pondering through the idea, and particularly focusing on the "benevolence" and "leniency in judging men and their actions."

I've been thinking about kindness.

Some of these thoughts formed themselves into a guest post for Everyday Liturgy. Here's a snippet:

Photo by Loic Parent

I read a social media post recently in which the author chastised himself for making snap judgments about the people he was seeing in the airport. I can’t remember who posted it or where, but the author challenged his readers to extend grace rather than judgment toward those we see around us. It was a good challenge, a gentle reminder. But as I thought about it, I realized that my observations of those around me rarely lead to what I would consider judgment.

Read the rest over at the site.

The Race That Knows Joseph

“They’re our kind of people,” Julie said.

It’s the sort of phrase that could be cruel. It could be unkind, exclusive, evasive. But the way she used it, it was none of those things.

"Couple on Two Benches"
George Segal
Source: Sculpture.org

She was referring to what Anne Shirley, as a child, called “Kindred Spirits.” Later, when she grew up, she adopted the term her friend Miss Cornelia used, “The race that knows Joseph.” I have no idea where L.M. Montgomery came up with that phrase. I presume she is referencing one of the biblical Josephs, but I honestly don’t know. I only know that she somehow found the perfect description for “our kind of people.”

The race that knows Joseph are actually a fairly broad and diverse lot. They like all kinds of different things. There does tend to be a bookishness about them, but they’re not limited by those books. There are scientists, athletes, English professors, historians, sea captains, and doctor’s wives…all who belong to the race that knows Joseph.

It’s a bit of an intangible descriptor. There are, after all, two biblical Josephs. I think an argument could be made for either one to be him who is referenced. The Old Testament Joseph, Jacob’s son – he of the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat – was a dreamer and an old soul. He was a gifted manager and strategic planner. Through his life he learned to see the big picture and to glimpse things from God’s perspective. I’d wager this is the Joseph that Montgomery’s Miss Cornelia is referring to, but I often wonder if maybe, just maybe, it’s the other one.

The other Joseph, the New Testament Joseph, of the house and line of David, is a quieter character than the Dream Coat Joseph. We only get a few chapters’ worth of glimpses into this Joseph – who also had a father named Jacob – but they are telling glimpses. He is a man who speaks with angels. A man who rises up and takes his pregnant fiancée into his home, marrying her despite the whispers of the people around them. He is a man who raises a Child he knows is not his own, a Child whose depth and wisdom are confounding to the carpenter. He works hard, and – it seems – he dies early, before seeing how the Boy he raised turned the world upside down.

I think both Josephs would be “our kind of people.” I think they both would find that chord of resonance with the other. But Technicolor Joseph would be up front leading the group, laying out the plan of events, and Carpenter Joseph would be working hard behind the scenes.

Whichever Joseph it is that we know, “our kind of people” all know him. 

“You’re young and I’m old, but our souls are about the same age, I reckon. We both belong to the race that knows Joseph, as Cornelia Bryant would say,” said Captain Jim. 

“‘The race that knows Joseph?’” puzzled Anne. 

“Yes. Cornelia divides all the folks in the world into two kinds– the race that knows Joseph and the race that don’t. If a person sorter sees eye to eye with you, and has pretty much the same ideas about things, and the same taste in jokes–why, then he belongs to the race that knows Joseph.” 

“Oh, I understand,” exclaimed Anne, light breaking in upon her. “It’s what I used to call–and still call in quotation marks ‘kindred spirits.’” 

“Jest so–jest so,” agreed Captain Jim. “We’re it, whatever it is. When you come in to-night, Mistress Blythe, I says to myself, says I, ‘Yes, she’s of the race that knows Joseph.’ And mighty glad I was, for if it wasn’t so we couldn’t have had any real satisfaction in each other’s company. The race that knows Joseph is the salt of the airth, I reckon.”*

*Montgomery, L.M. Anne’s House of Dreams. New York: Bantam Books, 1992. p. 38. (©McClelland and Steward Limited, 1922.)

Hopkins, Kingfishers, and Identity

Photograph by Charlie Hamilton James
Source: http://dailym.ai/14dMwTJ

As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame;
As tumbled over rim in roundy wells
Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell's
Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;
Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:
Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;
Selves — goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,
Crying Whát I dó is me: for that I came.

I say móre: the just man justices;
Keeps grace: thát keeps all his goings graces;
Acts in God's eye what in God's eye he is —
Chríst — for Christ plays in ten thousand places,
Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his
To the Father through the features of men's faces.

 -Gerard Manley Hopkins

I am what I am, and what I am is Christ.

Source: Gerard Manley Hopkins: Poems and Prose (Penguin Classics, 1985)

Leaping

In less than two months, I will not be employed full time. It’s a slightly terrifying idea, but a step I’ve seen the Lord clearing the way for over and over as I’ve walked forward.

I talked with a friend about it a few months ago. I said something like, “I’m going to take a leap and leave this job to pursue other things.” He asked what I would be doing. I said I wasn’t quite sure, some things had fallen into place but much hadn’t. He said, “Well, I guess it wouldn’t be leaping if you knew where you were going.”

Photo courtesy of: http://francescakotomski.com/

That’s the thing about leaping. Knowing exactly where and how you’ll land is not guaranteed.

When I took my current job, I gave a handshake commitment to stay in it three years. That was a big deal for me. Since college, I hadn’t been in one place or one job for more than two years. When year 2.5 rolled around, I was getting pretty itchy. I’d been there a long time. I began to do a little bit of looking around to find out what other jobs were out there that I might be qualified for. And then, right about the three-year mark, my boss died and the University decided to change its name. Personally or professionally, it was not a good time to make changes.

So I stayed through year four. And it’s been a good job. I love the team I work on and I believe in the place I work for. What more could you ask for?

The intersection of gladness and hunger.

Frederick Buechner wrote in Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC that, “The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”

I haven’t found that place yet. And the conclusion I’ve come to in the past months is that I’m not going to when I’m working in a full-time job that keeps me insanely busy, creatively depleted, and emotionally over-invested. It’s a good job, but it is not the right one for me in the long run.

So I’m leaping. I’m stepping out and exploring my options. I’m picking up freelance editing and writing work, I’m teaching adjunct, and if need be, I’ll find something part-time to fill in the gaps (one does, after all, have those pesky things called bills).

But for the first time in a long time I’ve ceased striving. When the panic of the unknown rises, I place it into God’s hands and know He will carry it. He’ll make the connections that need to be made – I’ve been watching Him do so already.

As I leap, will you do something for me? Will you pray with me and for me that God would show me the place where my deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet? I’m closer to that place than I used to be, but I know I haven’t yet quite found it.

Oh, and if you know somebody looking for an editor or proofreader, would you point them my way? Thanks.☺

Bent Branches, Straight Baselines

It’s been just over a month now since spring began – slowly this year in Philly – coming at us in fits and starts. I think it has actually arrived now, though there are still one or two trees that are only just leafing out. But the azaleas and the dogwoods have bloomed, so I think it’s really spring.

This slow spring has drawn my attention more than once – trees that often bear the bright of yellow-green in March still showed their naked limbs well into April. It was as if they wanted to say, “See, here’s my structure. These are my bones. You may not have noticed them this winter when your eyes were cast to the ground watching for ice patches. Look up now; see my angled boughs.”

At the beginning of April, my friend David posted a short piece on his blog titled simply, “On Baseball.” In it he quickly and poetically examined the architecture of a golf and baseball, finishing with these words:

Baseball unites heaven and earth: it inscribes a pattern of clean lines, orbs, and diamonds upon the dust from which we were formed and in which we toil, and the lush green in which we find rest. Upon that heaven-and-earth field, prodigal sons set out on barren base paths; and we watch and wait to see if they will make it back home.

The words arrested me. I love clean lines. I love the straight, the symmetrical. There is beauty in a ballpark. But as the trees bared themselves, I had the realization that straight lines are a rare thing in nature. The Creator’s beauty meanders more than man’s.

And when we humans create without the assistance of our man-made tools, our creations are meandering things too, the image of God creating in the pattern of God. As I began to think it through, I realized that the straight lines and measured curves of architecture echo the straight lines and measured curves of the heavenly throne room – and our ideals of beauty find their fulfillment in the descriptions of that place.

Somehow, we find ourselves caught in the middle, loving both the bent branches and the straight baselines. Caught between heaven and earth. Redeemed yet human. Prodigal sons looking for home.

My first inspirations on this topic formed themselves into an essay for The Curator, the web publication of the International ArtsMovement for which I am now serving as an Assistant Editor.

David’s continued thoughts on the topic have been manifested in a second blog post where he says kind things about my Curator essay and much better things of his own.

Radio Silence

I’m planning on going dark on social media over the next day or so. Partly, it’s for my own sanity; once in a while, I just need a cleanse. Need to stop being bombarded by the constant noise of online interaction. I love it – don’t get me wrong. My extrovert comes out in full force on social media; likes and comments, retweets and interactions are her drugs and she just needs a fix. But sometimes I realize that I’ve been living so much through my online interactions that my soul has begun to fray around the edges. And so I go dark – maybe for a day, maybe for less, maybe for more – and I shut off the noise, and I detox.

But this time it has a secondary purpose. I’ve done this radio silence at this time of year before. It is especially meaningful now, this weekend, more than others.

For this is the time when God went dark.

I wonder what it must have been like on the day of the crucifixion to see the sky growing dark in the middle of the day. I wonder if there was silence in the Temple after the priests heard the veil rent from top to bottom. I wonder how John must have felt, this woman, his Teacher’s mother, commended to his care, with no more chance of hearing the caring tones of the One who brought them together. I wonder if Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea spoke as they took the Christ’s body from the cross and moved it to a tomb. I wonder how Peter longed to hear his Lord speak words of forgiveness of his denial.

There is silence in death. Whatever commotion comes before it, when the last breath is breathed, quiet falls. Whatever grief and keening comes after it, there is a moment – however brief – as the realization settles in, when silence reigns.

There is darkness in death – both spiritually and physically. The eyes close, light no more to enter or exit them. The light that is personality, life, spark – the beaming smile, the sparkling eyes – goes dark. Before candles are lit in memory there is the closing of a casket, shutting out the light.

The Tenebrae service recognizes the darkness of death, the quiet of it. One by one, as the passages walk us through the darkness of betrayal, the darkness of Gethsemane, the darkness of denial, of accusation, of death, of burial, candles are snuffed and the light goes slowly from the room. And in the end, we sit, silent, in the darkness.

I’m going dark this weekend to meditate on the darkness of the death of Christ. The silence of God in a time of need.

I am fortunate to know what John and Mary, Joseph and Nicodemus, Peter and the Priests did not know. I am fortunate to know that light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it. That knowledge changes my purpose as I take part in the silence, as I consider the darkness. Darkness now is not hopelessness. Death is now not an end.

The extinguished light in death is still real. The silence after the death rattle is still real. But I see them differently with what I know about the first fruits from the dead. A walk through a graveyard is a different experience when you know about resurrection.

Russ Ramsey, in “The Last of a Generation,” writes:

Over the years, as this church's property has yielded to progress, the original sanctuary has expanded to add a wing of classrooms, offices, and the small chapel where we gathered to remember Nana. Filling the yard to the east of the sanctuary is a cemetery with ghost-white limestone markers dating back before the Civil War. They stand tall, thin, and rounded. I see one that actually bears the inscription "R.I.P."

When it came time to build a fellowship hall, the land to the west was already developed to capacity. So they built a stand-alone structure on the east side of the cemetery. The strange effect is that for a person to go from the fellowship hall to worship, they have to pass through the center of this garden of graves.

As we walk, my cousin points at a headstone bearing my mother's maiden name-Aspinwall...Just like the others, this headstone offers nothing but a name and a date. Yet for every pilgrim moving between the fellowship of men and the sanctuary of God, these headstones-like a choir half buried, half rising from the dead-sing the same refrain: For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, a time to die, and a time for the life that happens in between…

I don't have all the time in the world. One day I will leave this fellowship of the saints I love so much, and I will step across that threshold into an eternal sanctuary of exultant praise in the presence of the Maker and Lover of my soul. Between the two I will be buried. People will gather and offer words in my memory. They will lay my body down in a grave and my headstone will rise from the dirt and join the chorus in the land of the living, singing: "A time to be born, a time to die, a time to live again."¹ 

Nate Wilson says that in death we are planted, that graveyards are a garden planted with seeds.² “These are seeds, these are human seeds waiting a long time to break the earth, to grow…As Christians with faith, we know that when we walk a graveyard we are walking a Farmer’s field. And we’re not the Farmer. This is not our field. This is Somebody else’s field. This is His crop we’re walking on…the entire globe has gone from one little garden to an entire sphere that has been planted. This world is God’s garden. This world is His field, and there is going to be an enormous harvest. The corn will see the springtime. When the end does come, I think we’ll see an eruption. I think the resurrection is going to come with thunder and it’s going to be more dramatic than any spring has ever been.”³

Where, O Death, is now thy sting? Swallowed up in victory.

I’m going dark for a time this weekend. Radio silence. I am taking time to consider the darkness, to listen to the silence.

For anticipation is part of the gift. Crocuses bloom through dead leaves, making them beautiful again.

Easter is all the more beautiful when examined through the lens of Good Friday. Resurrection morning is coming. It will be all the brighter if I consider what it took to get there.

Notes:
¹ Ramsey, Russ. “The Last of a Generation.” The Molehill, Vol. 1. Nashville: Rabbit Room Press, 2012. p. 189-191.

² Wilson, N.D. Notesfrom the Tilt-a-Whirl. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2009.

³ Notes from theTilt-a-Whirl: A Film Series from Best-selling Author N.D. Wilson. Beloved Independent, 2011.

When Characters Come Calling

I met a boy the other day. His name is Peter. He's about 9 years old. He has a sister named Sam, and a mom and dad. He's cautious, smart, quiet, wise. He reminds me a lot of my nephew. He loves science and he's going to discover the great world of bugs this summer. He will learn that life is not forever what it always was. He will discover that change is difficult and unsteadying. And he will learn that there is magic in the world - in the minutiae of creation, in the wonder of imagination, in the love of family.

One of the people who will speak into Peter's life this summer is a older man named Ben Palmer. I met Ben years ago when he was living a different story. He was in crisis then, and while that is behind him now, I know that much of what I learned about him during that time will be seen in his interactions with Peter this summer. He will be hard-nosed and he will be truthful. He will be deeply broken and utterly renewed. And he will speak words to Peter that "alert him to the power he was perhaps too afraid to hope was real."

Perhaps it is strange to you that I seem to know so much about Peter's future though I only just met him. Don't worry. This prescience isn't wrapped in hocus pocus.

I've had encounters like this before. I once met a young man named William, and before we finished our first meal I discovered he had a whole story to live before I was done with him. And suddenly the name William just wasn't right - not if we were to be spending a good portion of the next few years together. So decided to call him Edmund and he looked much more comfortable with that name.

In Peter, in Ben Palmer, in Edmund, I have the unique opportunity to see the past, the present, and the future all together. I'm fairly certain I know where they'll end up, but I'm not quite sure. You see, they all surprised me when they came calling at the corners of my imagination. They could shock me once again with a sudden departure.

It's an imperfect prescience. They're breathing and living within their own stories. I hope to paint the canvas for them as they take the journey they're on. But I don't yet know what every bump in the road looks like. They may trip and fall. They may meet friends and enemies who surprise me equally when they come knocking with their stories fully formed, reaching back and reaching forward.

I met a boy named Peter the other day. He trooped into my imagination whole-bodied, meditative, and staring at a blank spot on the fridge where there is no summer calendar while he ate his waffles smothered in real maple syrup.

I told you there was magic in this world.


Note: I wish to thank Sam Smith and Kristen Peterson, friends I met last year at Hutchmoot, for their contributions to Peter's existence and Ben Palmer's new story. Hope you don't mind that he's not called "Sam Peterson." You never know when your words will spark someone's imagination. See, I told you there was magic in this world. 

Nothing is Wasted: Redux

Over a year ago, I posted the lyrics to Jason Gray's song "Nothing is Wasted" on this blog. I wrote:

This has become a theme of my week - not because I'm going through anything particular, but simply the truth of it - and its applicability to past and future events. Its been, for lack of a more somber word, "refreshing" to remember that Christ redeems sorrow and pain.

Little did I know that the less than a month later I would be listening to the song, tears streaming down my face, holding tightly to the truths of its words the evening after I sat in the ICU  knowing my friend and mentor in the bed was gone from this earth for ever.

Little did I know that I would turn back to it again and again and again in the past year and a half as life has been wracked with sorrow and loss.

Jason Gray tells the story of choosing "Nothing Is Wasted" as the new single off his album A Way to See in the Dark in a new post at The Rabbit Room. It's a story of how God worked in the hearts of a group of people to point them to use this song rather than another because they knew it was the song people needed to hear most. Like He knew I needed to discover it in late October 2011, when I wasn't going through anything hard, but just before the onslaught.

Go read the story. Listen to the song.

Know that in the hands of our Redeemer, nothing is wasted.

I Write Stories During Sermons

A couple of weeks ago my friend Thomas posted a link on his blog to an article he'd written for SermonCentral.com. The title was, "You Preach, I'll Doodle."

It is a great article that looks at preaching in light of varied learning styles and multiple intelligences. I thought it was good enough to share. I did so, tweeting it with the statement: "I write stories during sermons."

The tweet led to a "tweet-versation" with Thomas, expanding on my original statement. It culminated in a suggestion that I might write something about it as a guest post for his blog, Everyday Liturgy, in response to his article.

And that's how, today, I have a snippet of a post to share with you. Head on over to Everyday Liturgy to read the whole thing:

"I sit under the preaching of my pastor or other teachers, and I fully intend to keep my mind on what they’re saying. I have out my notebook and my pen for the purpose of recording the points and insights they plan to make from the text. But I have characters teeming inside my head at all times, paused in the living of their lives until I choose to awaken them again, just waiting for their next course of action."

By Design: Book Review (ish)

Almost a year ago I began working with Dr. Martha MacCullough, Distinguished Professor Emeritus at Cairn University to shape her manuscript on educational philosophy into a book. I learned a lot about the editing process, educational philosophy, page layout, and the awesome name pairings of educational scholars (seriously, "Chubb and Moe"? "Long and Frye"? "Bigge and Shermis"? I came to the conclusion they should either open pubs or start law firms). It's been a long, crazy journey, and once or twice I wasn't sure we'd ever get this thing done in time...

But last week, just in time for the first classes to use it, By Design: Developing a Philosophy of Education Informed by a Christian Worldview showed up from the printer, looking all spiffy.

The educators who have reviewed the book are singing its praises already. I'll let you read their notes rather than giving you my own, as I put too much work into this one to be objective, but I think we can look forward to it being useful and helpful for Christian educators around the globe in the future. For now, though, it's a matter of getting the word out. By Design is available for sale now from the Cairn website and will be available in other venues soon. Check out the first chapter on the site, and tell your Christian friends who teach – whether it be in a Christian school, home schooling, or even in public schools – that this is a resource for them.

Book Info:
By Design: Developing a Philosophy of Education Informed by a Christian Worldview
by Martha E. MacCullough, Ed.D.
Cairn University, 2013
ISBN-13: 978-0-615-74352-3

The Gospel According to Eliot

This winter, I'm taking part in a virtual reading group hosted by Greener Trees. We're going through the book The Art of T.S. Eliot, by Helen Gardner. I adore Eliot's Four Quartets, so Gardner's examination of Eliot's work through the lens of that great work has been right up my alley.

I was asked to write a guest post for Chapter Three of Gardner's book, "Poetic Communication." In the chapter Gardner looks at the methods Eliot used to communicate ideas through his poetic medium. I was struck by the artful way Eliot uses words to examine spiritual concepts, without ever being "churchy." He wrestles with and through the difficulty of finding the right words for his ideas. An excerpt:

"And in spite of all this, Eliot chooses to write. He attempts to use words to communicate. Not only that, but in Four Quartets Eliot attempts to communicate ideas which are spiritual, deep, broad, and resonant. He compounds his own struggles, reaching – as those of us too timid to try it might say – perhaps higher than he should. Helen Gardner puts it this way: “He is not intentionally writing obscurely in order to mystify, or to restrict his audience to a few like-minded persons with a special training, but is treating a subject of extreme complexity, which is constantly eluding formulation in words."

You can read the rest at Greener Trees.

There’s a Drought in My Hymnal

This morning, on Facebook, I posted the following as a status update:

So, I always feel a bit perturbed when we sing hymns of the early 20th Century in Church. It is not that I dislike singing hymns, just that I've never thought the first half of the 20th Century particularly fertile soil for hymn-writers. I think to myself, "There are so many great old hymns of the church, why are we singing this or that one?"

I had to laugh, then, when I came across this line, written by Helen Gardner in The Art of T.S. Eliot published in 1949, describing the Modern Era: “An age which has hardly produced a hymn which can be sung without embarrassment...”

I know just what you mean, Helen. 

Image from Church Music Today

It started a surprisingly long thread of comments, one of which was my own further thoughts on the matter. As I wrote it, and its length grew, I thought, “I should turn this into a post.” (And now you know how I come up for material for this blog.)

But it began with a friend asking for some examples of early 20^th Century hymns that I found lacking. I was in the midst of a phone conversation with mi madre when I read it and we got going on the topic.

Her comments: “That whole period was very internally focused. There’s a lot of ‘I, I, I’: ‘I Come to the Garden Alone,’ ‘I Love to Tell the Story,’ ‘I Will Sing the Wondrous Story.’ Others: ‘Showers of Blessing,’ [perhaps my least favorite] ‘What a Friend We Have in Jesus.’ There’s another one that goes, ‘Does Jesus care when my heart is pained too deeply for mirth and song?’ Many are the hymns of the late 19th Century tent meetings and gospel awakenings and the early 20th Century modernist/fundamentalist controversy.

“Often you have what was at that time a rather daring rhythm; they have syncopation and swing to them – so they are very singable. They are the songs that built the Sunday night Gospel meetings in churches – often they were evangelistic meetings because the church had gaslights or electricity when individuals didn’t. The services were lighter, the preaching evangelistic, and there was lots of music. Even as late as when I was a child [1950s] the evening service was called the ‘Evangel’ or the ‘Gospel’ service. But by then the people who came because it was a novelty were gone. By then the Sunday evening service was full of those who came regularly on Sunday morning.”

Mom got me thinking about my Grandma Givens’ stories about her courtship with my grandfather. They met as Mennonite teenagers in 1936 and all of their “dates” were Sunday evening gatherings at all the various Mennonite churches in Lancaster County for singing nights. My mom reminded me that in the later Little House on the Prairie books (1890s), they start up an evening “singing club” at the schoolhouse and it’s where all the young people go. Even today that is the tradition among the Amish.

We have an incredible tradition within the Christian church of singing. I don’t want to put that down in any way. I think our contemporary culture is reaping the blessing of this tradition in the music that is being produced by contemporary pop and folk artists. Look at the participants in and winners of singing competitions on television in recent years; across the board, the majority of the stand-outs were raised in church. Bands like The Avett Brothers, Mumford and Sons, The Last Bison (who you should seriously check out), The Fray, OneRepublic, Owl City – heck, even Katy Perry – grew up singing in church.

I love the moments around the piano that my family would gather and sing together. I love the times for singing in a worship service. I love that we sing in times of joy and in times of sorrow This is not just the American church – it is universal, it is historical. Dr. Brian Toews, Provost at Cairn University, pointed out once that, "What became very clear [to me] teaching the wisdom literature is that one thing unique about Christianity is that in the midst of trouble, Christians sing."

I love the tradition of song in the Christian church. My issue is with the musical and lyrical mundanity and shallowness of the early 20th Century. The richness of the truly old hymns – both musically and lyrically – and the beauty of some more contemporary works far outweigh that period in my mind.

In the course of the commentary on my Facebook page, another friend mentioned her frustration with hymns written after 1960: “Apparently, people forgot how to sing in harmony ‘cause it feels like everything was written in unison.” Another was frustrated with the musicality of mid-19^th Century American hymn tunes. There’s probably quite a bit more to be said on the topic, and I would by no means consider myself an authority on the subject. What are your thoughts?

Peter Nimble and His Fantastic Eyes: Book Review

“Adventure ho!” reads the author’s inscription on the first page. Jonathan Auxier is a friend of a friend who lent me her signed copy of Peter Nimble and His Fantastic Eyes for a read. Auxier wasn’t wrong. From the first page, Peter Nimble rollicks forward through adventure with barely a missed beat along the way.

Peter Nimble is an orphan, blinded by a raven, found as a baby floating in the river by sailors, who turn him over to the town magistrates, who name him and leave him to fend for himself. He takes up with a family of cats under the porch of an alehouse until the whole lot are found by the tavern owner, scooped into a bag, and tossed in the river. There Peter’s innate skills as a thief show themselves when he looses the knots and swims to safety.

And that’s in the first two pages.

Even better, this line comes at the end of it: “Until this point, you have been witness to Peter’s rather typical infancy—probably not unlike your own.”

Peter’s career as a thief takes off, and by age ten he’s well-known enough to capture the attention of those who know that goodness is not the same thing as following the law, but something much deeper and much greater altogether. His encounter with them sets him on the journey of the story – with a cursed knight, Sir Tode, as a sidekick – to find the vanished kingdom and answer the plea for help they sent out.

A giant dogfish named Frederick, thieves and criminals in deserts, an unkindness of ravens, a king who keeps children for slave labor and makes their parents forget about them, an army of gorillas, sea serpents, and a ten-year-old princess with a temper fill in the rest of the pages of Peter’s adventure.

Auxier’s writing style is extremely clever, with comments throughout that parents will probably find as funny as their children. Comments like these and the fact that he does not shy away from portraying real violence and real evil probably skew the book slightly older than its ten-year-old protagonist, but smaller children could enjoy it being read to them. There are complicated relationships between children and adults, but in general, once all enchantments are broken, there is mutual respect and love on both sides. Peter is a delightful hero – one who does not think too highly of himself, except once, and then he finds that working without the aid of his friends is much more difficult than working with them.

The book itself is gorgeous, with cover illustrations that hint at the adventures within without giving away too much. Auxier himself drew the illustrations at the start of each chapter. The text is set in a font that’s easy to read and lovely to look at. The effort put into book design makes holding it in your hands an honor.

In the end, the reader is left with a sense that all is well and a hope that perhaps, if the fancy strikes him, Jonathan Auxier could tell us more about Peter’s adventures.

Book Info:
Peter Nimble and His Fantastic Eyes

By Jonathan Auxier

Amulet Books, 2011

ISBN: 978-1-4197-0025-5