The Rabbit Room

Thanks, Tyler. Yes. Sometimes we take the role of Tompkins in our own life. That’s one of the problems with false messages when they are so prevalent in our culture: we start to believe them.  It’s good to read Leaf by Niggle regularly to remember the deeper truth.

I have a fantasy literature projects that I’m not sure I will be able to “finish”–or, more accurately, that I’m afraid I couldn’t get published–but which I think is really beautiful, and which I have invested a lot in. The books is a sequel to my 3-volume fantasy novel that includes The Gifted and The Betrayed and Illengond. It is set in the…[Read more]

Recovery and consolation?

Walter Wangerin’s Dun Cow series has done that for me.  The Book of Sorrows has moved me very deeply. It takes a lot of emotional energy for me to read it. (It is aptly named.) But it really is so profound, and moves me to weeping in the grief.

(I have said many times that if there are no books or movies or music that…[Read more]

A few of the scenes that I have found especially moving (in a variety of ways)–all of which have brought me to tears at some time or another (or likely multiple time):

• The deep sadness when the inspector and drive come to take Niggle on his journey, and he hasn’t yet finished his painting–in part because of a needless illness acquired when he…

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Hi all. I’m Matthew Dickerson. I live in Vermont. During the early days of the pandemic, I was sheltering with my wife, two adult sons, one daughter-in-law, and one daughter-in-law-to-be (who has since dropped the “to-be” portion of that). For 22 hours in July after the wedding we were empty nesters. No my father has moved in with us.

I have been…[Read more]

The wonderful thing about a beautiful and well-written story like “Leaf by Niggle”–and one that was so personal to its author–is that it can move us all in different ways. Although I do believe that words have meaning, and there are what one might call “meanings” in the story that transcend personal responses (which is to say, there are some…[Read more]

Lots of great ideas above, that I think capture many aspects of this.

One thing I always think of is that, as a human artist with limitations of finitude, all he could do was work with paint on canvas. His work had only a secondary reality, but wasn’t really “alive” so to speak. I think a big part of what he sees as a gift is the giving to his…[Read more]