The Rabbit Room

Rabbit Trails #7

Click through for this week’s edition of Jonny Jimison’s Rabbit Trails. Read More ›

Spontaneous Human Combustion—What a Stroke of Luck!

When I was a boy, I read a comic book about which I remember only one scene: the protagonists are being menaced by a bad guy with a gun. They get backed into a corner (literally, if memory serves, not figuratively), and just when it is obvious that there is no way they could possibly escape, the bad guy bursts into flames right before their eyes. One protagonist turns to the other and says, “Spontaneous human combustion: what a stroke of luck!”

Read More ›

Review: Rebecca Reynolds’ Courage, Dear Heart

I’m a slow reader, and it’s rare that a writer comes along with a voice so captivating that I can’t stop reading. I finished this one in less than 24 hours (a real feat for me), and I’m just about to slip it onto my shelf of favorites right in between what I consider its spiritual forebears: Annie Dillard’s Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, and Robert Farrar Capon’s The Supper of the Lamb. Read More ›

Rabbit Reads Book Group: Culture Making, Week Two

Welcome to Week 2 of The Rabbit Reads Book Group – Culture Making. This week, we’re looking at Chapters 3-5.

A couple weeks ago while preparing for this read-through of Culture Making, I posed two questions on the RR Forum: “What do you think of when you hear the word ‘culture’? And what was your relationship to culture when you were growing up?” The answers weren’t surprising…

Read More ›

An Interview With A. S. Peterson: Frankenstein (Part II)

In case you haven’t heard, A. S. Peterson (aka Pete Peterson) has written an adaptation of Mary Shelley’s classic Frankenstein for the stage. In Pete’s own words, “this is not your mama’s Frankenstein.” Show up to the play and you’ll find an eloquent Monster, theological questions of creation and death just as abounding as questions of scientific progress, and a Victor Frankenstein indelibly shaped by the drama of his family.

Read More ›

Two Laws

Two scenes stand out in memory: one a place of beginning, the other a place of understanding. In the first, a nineteen-year-old girl sits alone in her car on a summer afternoon, while the boy she loved walks away. She is hurting, and the feeling of rejection is intolerable. She is disgusted with herself, so she uses her pain as a catalyst for change—she will finally take control of her health.

Read More ›

God in the Dark: Rilke’s Prayers of a Young Poet

I would like to beg of you, dear friend, as well as I can, to have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themselves.

–Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

Read More ›

Back To School Bundles: Rabbit Room Store

The season of school is now upon us! To celebrate, we offer you a few of our favorite Rabbit Room books at reduced prices. Click through to learn more.

Read More ›

Rabbit Reads Book Group: Culture Making, Week One

Welcome to Week One of The Rabbit Reads Book Group: Culture Making. This week, we’re looking at the Introduction and Chapters 1 and 2. If you haven’t read all of that yet, no worries! Feel free to jump into the conversation whenever you can.

Imagine for a moment that you’re an Earth human walking on Mars. What would you think on this alien world? You’re wandering around (not too far from whatever hypothetical spaceship you took there), encased in a suit of Earth materials, breathing Earth air. You might drag your boot through the red dust to leave a mark, test out the gravity, examine rocks. Maybe you thought you understood what you were getting into, but the foreign sky and landscape show all your studying from worlds away barely scratch the surface of what Mars is.

Read More ›

Let the Children Play

In an early chapter of Henry and the Chalk Dragon, La Muncha Elementary School receives a visit from two mysterious people whom Henry hears referred to as “Bored Members” and who walk around in dark suits and glasses a la The Matrix, write things in their notebooks, and terrify the creatively repressed and desperately sycophantic principal.

Read More ›

The Gift of Imagination

Just the mention in some Christian circles of Modern (capital M) Art (capital A) will guarantee glazed eyes, knowing smirks, and a handful on the edge ready to pounce.

Someone may well mention the infamous “pile of bricks” bought for a fortune by London’s Tate Modern and they’ll pour scorn with words like “even my five-year-old could do that.” It won’t cut much ice to argue that their five-year-old could not have done that (as Susie Hodge has argued in her intriguing if a little uneven book from 2012, Why Your Five-Year-Old Could Not Have Done That.) Neither will it help much to mention that the Tate Modern was the UK’s second most popular attraction in 2017, and that is despite being a decommissioned 1940s Power Station and containing only artworks made since 1900. Something about that place must be connecting with people! But let’s leave that to one side for now.

Read More ›

The Lifegiving Parent: A Review

“…And that’s why I never read parenting books anymore.” – Recently spoken by a dear friend and mother of four.

We had been discussing the particular challenges we were facing raising teenagers. My friend is a diligent mom who takes seriously the calling of raising children. Why had she sworn off reading books that promise healthier, well-adjusted and happy children?  I knew the answer without further probing. I felt similarly. After two decades of parenting, I know I should be more ______ (you fill in the blank with your “should be;” patient or demanding, laid-back or scheduled, creative and fun or thoughtful and serious), but at the end of the day, regardless of the books I’ve read and the podcasts I’ve listened to, I’m still stuck with me. Which often feels defeating. Which is why my friend doesn’t read parenting books anymore. She’s tired of feeling defeated.

Read More ›