The Rabbit Room

The last couple years have been a slow journey away from finding my identity and worth in my work, and turning instead to creative endeavors that I feel the Lord’s presence in. Though I’ve never actively practiced Lent before, I initially was curious to simply pick up Guite’s collection and have that alone be a touchstone and a reminder to take…[Read more]

The image that most “redressed an imbalance in my vision” was in, Malcom’s Ash Wednesday:

He sees the slow destruction of those trees,
He weeps to see the ancient places burn,
And still you make what purchases you please
And still to dust and ashes you return.”

This verse was particularly potent for me. Working in a very fast-paced work…[Read more]

Ross, this two lines of Guite’s are also the ones that stood out to me most from this section: Preparing for Lent. The image of humility in the acceptance of the ashes, and its implications as the starting place of hope, is a powerful one. Thanks for sharing!

I have never before walked through the Lenten season with any sort of practice. Reading The Word in the Wilderness and taking the time to mull over the collected poems stems from a desire I’ve had to set time aside in a hectic modern life to be, to reflect, and to rest. Also, as @ksofield said so well that…

…this season is also a time I am…[Read more]

Hi Lorna, I am sorry to hear of your loss. Since a low point in my own life a couple years back, I have also been on a journey to learn more about what it is that God is calling me to in this season and beyond. I have a strong feeling it has something to do with using the creative gifts he has given me, however great or small. It’s great to be…[Read more]

Malcom, are you able to identify one or two poems that have most moved or changed you? Can you share what it was about them that so moved you? Thanks for co-hosting this group for us!

Hello all! I’m Tyler, and I hail from the St. Paul, MN area. I joined this group for two reasons:

1) I have always loved good words, carefully chosen and crafted to tell a good story, whether poetry or prose
2) Lent has never much been a part of my Christian experience, but I would like to make this time of anticipating the coming Easter more…[Read more]

Thanks for sharing this personal experience! What a great example. Niggle didn’t even have to personally confront his Tompkins, but I’m sure he would’ve beamed at your response to your editor.

The voice of Tompkins in my life has often been my own. Somewhere along my journey I picked up the wrong ideas and began to think more along the lines of…[Read more]

Not to mention the fantastic Tales of a New Creation talk you gave @jennifert, yes, some of Sam’s insights particularly resonated with me. Specifically, his encouragement to modesty really struck home with me. I have a strong tendency to measure myself against others, and to weigh my worth in what I find in the measuring. I appreciated Sam’s…[Read more]

Very inspiring to hear of everyone’s Trees, or what might some day become them! For myself, while I write some poetry at times (small paintings I tack on to my larger picture), the Tree that I see in my life is what I hope will become a great (expansive) fairy story.

@sarabaumgardner, thank you for sharing about the tension you experience between…[Read more]

The Councillor’s description of flowers as only “digestive and genital organs of plants” makes me think of Lewis’ toolshed analogy and differentiation between looking at something and looking along it. While neither is made to be inherently wrong, either on its own can be misleading. Tompkins appears misled by exactly this: the view that looking [Read more]

The few times I have read this, I have also leaned towards the thought that Tolkien was representing the judgment of the Father and the grace of the Son through the First and Second Voices respectively, but the thought that the shepherd could represent the Holy Spirit actually hadn’t occurred to me. Thanks for sharing the perspective, @kenpriebe!…[Read more]

There are some incredible thoughts being shared here!

@mdickerson, I love the connection to Aulë’s dwarves in the Silmarillion.

@amy-creighton, I was always a bit torn on what exactly was being said in “It’s a gift!”, I couldn’t make up my mind, and you helped give words to my thoughts. I have to agree that both are being said:

• “It’s a gift…

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Thanks for saying so, Dave. I resonate strongly with that thought. The past couple of years for me have been characterized by a battle between devoting excessive time, energy, and identity to my career, and reinvesting in and exploring my own creativity and the ways that I can actively reflect the image of my Maker. In other words, I have been…[Read more]

The thought of the gospel story as a true fairy story is one that is still sinking in for me, and seems to only do more good the further into my understanding it goes. This mindset itself has been helpful in recovering (thinking of Tolkien’s Recovery) the gospel from itself in a very real way for me, placing it in a new light, reminding me of its…[Read more]

Lewis’ The Last Battle comes to mind, specifically the end in which Narnia comes crashing down on itself. The scene is heart wrenching for all the beauty that being lost, but “joy beyond the walls of the world” comes in stepping with the characters through the door: the discovery that all that was once though beautiful was a mere shadow of what w…[Read more]

“The land seamed full of creaking and cracking and sly noises, but there was no sound of voice or of foot. Far above the Ephel Duath in the West the night-sky was still dim and pale. There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he…[Read more]