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Editor's Note: Part of  Mark Meynell's 5&1 series on classical music . Taking a different theme each post, the 5&1 series offers five short pieces (or extracts) followed by one more substantial work. by Mark Meynell Fairy tales are a serious business. In fact, they're almost too serious for children, which is probably why children of all ages adore them. click for playlists Tolkien accepted the point made by the great fairy tale anthologist Andrew Lang: "He who would enter into the Kingdom of Faërie should have the heart of a little child." However, he was adamant that while this entailed some aspects of childhood (like innocence or wonder), it should never imply childishness. "It is the mark of a good fairy-story, of the higher or more complete kind, that however wild its events, however fantastic or terrible the adventures, it can give to child or man that hears it, when the “turn” comes, a catch of the breath, a beat and lifting of the heart, near to (or indeed accompanied by) tears, as keen as that given by any form of literary art, and having a peculiar quality." (From On Fairy-stories) With such potential for drama and danger, it is then no surprise that fairy tales have inspired composers. To get us in the mood, here's a little Humperdinck (no, not the British crooner who stole his name). Stop, Hocus pocus (Act III, Hansel & Gretel, 1893) Engelbert Humperdinck (1853-1921, German) Jane Henschel (Witch), Philharmonic Orchestra, Sir Charles Mackerras (cond.) Hansel & Gretel is one of better known of the mediaeval stories collected by the German Brothers Grimm. It contains so many of the archetypes we love: abandoned children impoverished by famine, brooding forests, cannibalistic witches, spells, and treasure. So here is a tiny clip from Humperdinck's beloved Christmas opera. Be afraid... Fun fact: the composer Richard Strauss conducted the première in 1893! 1. The Procession of the Fairy Tales (#22 Sleeping Beauty, 1889, Op. 66) Pyotr Illyich Tchaikovsky, (1840-1893, Russian) Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Mark Ermler (cond.) The roots of the Sleeping Beauty stories are probably French, and they clearly chime with the mediaeval tradition of chivalry and courtly love. Various French writers retold the story (like Charles Perrault in the 17th century), as, of course, did the Brothers Grimm. So when Tchaikovsky was commissioned by the St Petersburg Theatres to write another ballet (after his first, Swan Lake , in 1875), he jumped at the chance to set it. These ballets are now two of the most popular in the repertoire (despite Sleeping Beauty lasting nearly 4 hours!) Forces of good and evil compete throughout the story, the evil fairy Carabosse casting a spell on Princess Aurora as a result of not receiving an invitation to her christening. She will prick her finger while spinning thread at 16 and die. The good Lilac Fairy tries to reverse it, but manages only to make her sleep for 100 years. After which a handsome prince will kiss her... By this section, the tensions have more or less resolved and we are heading to the grandeur of the royal wedding of Aurora to her Prince. Here, various fairy tale characters assemble in a grand march to play their part in the celebrations. 2. Le jardin féerique (from Ma mère l'oye) Maurice Ravel (1875-1937, French) Steven Osborne, Paul Lewis (piano duet) A very different mood now. The sharp-eyed will have spotted that this piece has appeared before (in the Calls of the Birds ). However, in my defence, this is the first repeat of the entire 5&1 series, and this is a very different arrangement. Ma Mère L'Oye (Mother Goose) was in fact originally conceived by Ravel as a piano duet; it is scored for 'four hands' meaning two performers at one piano rather than on a piano each. This is the last of five movements, translated 'The Fairy Garden', but unlike the previous ones, its origins are unknown. It opens with slow, measured paces, as if we have just set foot in the garden and begin to explore. It gradually gains colour and detail, although the pace is unwavering. About half way through, the harmonies start shifting and it builds up into the most glorious climax, with glissandos (rapid slides) at the top, as if we're now surrounded by butterfly-like fairies. 3. Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks (Op. 28, 1894/5) Richard Strauss (1864-1949, German) Lucerne Festival Orchestra, Riccardo Chailly (cond.) We're back in medieval Germany now and follow the exploits of that classic prankster and all-round cheeky-chappie, Till Eulenspiegel. His surname literally means Owl-mirror, but in certain dialects it has rather more dubious connotations. Put it this way: a fair number of his pranks concern ... er ... excrement. Strauss composed this tone poem (a short orchestral piece intentionally depicting a painting or narrative) only a year after conducting the Humperdinck première, so perhaps that inspired him to mine fairy tales too. In only 15 action-packed and joyful minutes, we accompany Till's adventures as he rides from fields to towns, upsetting market stalls, jeering at pompous clergy and academics, flirting with adoring girls. He is given his own motifs that are repeated at various points, the first one on the horns conveying his winking humour. However, he cannot be allowed to get away with this mayhem indefinitely, poor chap, and so he has his eventual comeuppance. He is tried and hanged for his crimes, all of which is depicted in the score. But his spirit lives on because, after all, Till's demise hardly resulted in the cessation once and for all of such prankery! 4. 'Auf Einer Burg' (#7, Liederkreis, Op. 39) Robert Schumann (1810-1856, German) Matthias Goerne (baritone.) & Eric Schneider (piano) Schumann was a troubled and broken soul, sustained above all by the devotion of his truly remarkable wife Clara (herself a brilliant composer in her own right). He suffered from bouts of dark mental anguish, but out of this he could still create music of the most sublime depths and simplicity. 1840 became what he termed 'his year of song' and this number comes from a song cycle (the literal translation of Liederkreis ) of poetry settings depicting the landscape, in true Romantic fashion. In a Castle was written by a contemporary, aristocratic man of letters, Joseph von Eichendorff. The song is sedate, offering ample space to conjure up the scene in our minds. The piano accompaniment is sparse while the melody is almost childishly simple. It's not going to fire up the adrenaline; this is a slow burn. But for those with ears to hear, there are startling subtleties to send shivers down any spine. The original poem had four stanzas, but Schumann sets them in pairs. On occasion, the piano seems marginally out of harmonic sync with the singer, but listen out for the steady development of intensity from lines 5 and 13. Then, on the words Jahre (years) and munter (merrily) he sets a deliberate, if muted, dissonance (the singer's top C clashes with the piano's left-hand D). For we certainly don't expect the the knight to be centuries-old, while the musicians' merriment is enitrely out of keeping with the devastating final word. Not all fairy tales get a 'happy ever after'. 5. Hello, Little Girl  (from Into the Woods) Stephen Sondheim (1930-2021, American) Robert Westenberg (Wolf) & Danielle Ferland (Red Riding Hood), Original Cast NB clip is from the 2017 movie with Johnny Depp as the Wolf (whereas the playlist is of original cast) Chesterton wrote, "Fairy tales do not tell children the dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be killed." Tolkien once said "A safe fairy tale is untrue to all worlds." For the fairy tale to work, the dangers must be real. Stephen Sondheim was clearly enjoying himself when combined a medley of Grimms' fairy tales in his 1987 musical Into the Woods . In this clip, Little Red Riding Hood comes face-to-face with her terrifying antagonist. It's unnerving how many child-eating horrors live in German forests! But it does permit Sondheim to relish the salivating, predatory wolf and contrast it with the bright yet canny innocence of the little girl. Brilliant! The Firebird  (1910) Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971, Russian/American) Orchestre Symphonique de Montreal, Charles Dutoit (cond.) In folklore common to many Slavic countries, heroes are often given the almost impossible quest to retrieve a Firebird's feather. No it's neithert r a car, nor a browser, but a magnificent creature whose stunning plumage has the brightness and intensity of flames. A single feather emits sufficient light to fill a great hall (obviously). Prince Ivan catches the Firebird's feather (by Russian artist Ivan Bilibin, 1899) The version that the Russian emigré composer Stravinsky used for Diaghilev's commission (for his Parisian-founded company Les Ballets Russes) , imagines the Firebird as a female human/bird hybrid. Prince Ivan captures her, but to reward his willingness to release her, she grants him a feather. This is just as well because he subsequently encounters the dastardly but immortal Kaschei who has kidnapped thirteen princesses, no less. What a complete rotter! But because Prince Ivan possesses the feather (and obviously knows how to use it), he defeats Kaschei without killing him. Thus the princesses are liberated! Hurrah! Thank goodness there was. a dashing prince on hand (plus feather). Naturally, Ivan marries the most beautiful and this is something about which she was undoubtedly delighted. The ballet lasts around 45 minutes and contains gorgeous melodies with swooping strings and romantic tension. Until Kaschei appears in the 11th movement, it feels much more like the great Russian works of the Nineteenth Century than other, modernist works for which Stravinsky is famous. But the music builds to bring the archetypal battle of good and evil to its thrilling conclusion. Epic! Mark Meynell is a writer, pastor and teacher based in the UK and he's been involved with the Rabbit Room since 2017. He has been involved in cross-cultural training for the last 25 years and is passionate about integrating life, theology and the arts. He blogs at markmeynell.net . If you’ve enjoyed this article or other content coming out of the Rabbit Room, you can help support the work by clicking here. Our weekly newsletter is the best way to learn about new books, staff recommendations, upcoming events, lectures, and more. Sign up here.

This is the first in a weekly series that will seek to break down the mists and myths that put people off the vast treasure house that is classical music. Each time, I’ll take a theme and choose 5 pieces or excerpts (from over 600 years’ worth of music) and then round it all off with one larger work. Hence 5&1 from 600! You can take photos or paint en plein air to capture the experience; and I suppose the seriously committed might take out a drone with iMax cameras to make it fully immersive. But music is uniquely able to evoke being out in the natural world, which is why composers have been obsessed with it since time immemorial. 1. Cheerful Feelings On Arriving In The Country (from Symphony No. 6 “The Pastoral”; Op. 68, 1808) Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827, German) The Orchestra of the 18th Century, Frans Brüggen (cond.) Who better to start with than the one whose 250th anniversary is this year? Beethoven’s 6th is much loved for good reason. Unlike most of his works, he actually provides narrative descriptions for each movement. So this is not abstract or “pure” music but is what is technically called “programme music.” That means the composer has particular images or experiences in mind with each musical development. This first movement then captures the sheer relief of escaping from urban bustle into the countryside; we can feel his sense of being able to breathe again and the warmth of the early summer sun as we wander through land bursting with life. The Lark Ascending (1914) Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958, English) Iona Brown (violin) , Academy of St Martin in the Fields, Sir Neville Marriner (cond.) Inspired by George Meredith’s poem of the same name, Vaughan-Williams’ standalone piece for violin and orchestra is sublime. He was renowned for his encyclopedic knowledge of old English and other folk-songs, and the orchestra transports us back into a rustic (dare I say, Shire-like?!) world that would have sung them. But our focus is on the skylark, portrayed by the violin circling and rising high into the atmosphere. Here are the opening lines of Meredith’s poem to give an idea of what the composer was getting at: He rises and begins to round, He drops the silver chain of sound, Of many links without a break, In chirrup, whistle, slur and shake. Im Frühling / In Spring (D.882; poem by Ernst Schulze, 1826) Franz Schubert (1797-1828, Austrian) Matthias Goerne (baritone) , Helmut Deutsch (piano) Schubert is one of the finest song-writers in musical history, certainly when it comes to settings of poetry. He wrote hundreds of songs and this is one of his most loved. As he goes on his solitary meander, the singer in this deceptively simple song (with its gorgeous piano accompaniment) gets all nostalgic in the places he and his lost love would linger in. Everything is as lovely and beautiful as he remembered. . . but nothing can ever be the same now that she is no longer with him. Follow along with the translation here . Swans Migrating from Cantus Arcticus (a Concerto For Birds And Orchestra, Op. 61, 1972) Einojuhani Rautavaara (1928-2016, Finnish) Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Hannu Lintu (cond.) The arrival of music technology opened up possibilities for all kinds of composers, not just for prog rock or DJ mixing. Now you didn’t need to settle for merely evoking the natural world; you could bring it right into the concert hall. So like many great Scandinavian composers, Rautavaara’s piece brilliantly captures the experience of the frigid north. This piece, from nearly fifty years ago, is spell-binding. The third movement is particularly special, whisking us to a land familiar to few people but a magnet for vast multitudes of migrating birds. Duo for the Bride and her Intended, and Coda (from Appalachian Spring, 1944) Aaron Copland (1900-1990, American) New York Philharmonic, Leonard Bernstein (cond.) While perhaps best known for his Fanfare for the Common Man (which he then brilliantly incorporated into his 3rd Symphony), Copland is credited with crafting the archetypal sound of the American West, copied and emulated in countless movie and TV soundtracks. But he was far more versatile than that. This is from a ballet suite (in 8 parts) about a very simple story of a young couple getting married and building a homestead in the middle of nowhere. It thus becomes a classic parable of the American dream. The 7th part is built around variations of the old Shaker tune, “The Gift to be Simple.” But this movement has a wide range of emotions, capturing both the excitement and nervousness of young marrieds as they start out in uncharted land. An Alpine Symphony—an orchestral tone poem (Op. 64, 1915) Richard Strauss (1864-1949, German) Berlin Philharmonic, Herbert von Karajan (cond.) This is a big one! You’ll need 50 minutes of time to get the whole thing and an orchestra of 125 players to perform it. But I guarantee it is time well-spent! This is one of the greatest examples of programme music ever written, but I suggest you don’t follow Strauss’s description of each of the 22 sections. Instead, with the knowledge that it depicts a whole day’s hike in the Bavarian Alps starting before dawn, listen and picture it for yourself. You can then compare it afterwards with what Strauss thought he was doing listed here . For music tech nerds, this recording was the first commercial CD ever made!

Editor's Note: Part of  Mark Meynell's 5&1 series on classical music . Taking a different theme for each post, the 5&1 series offers five short pieces followed by one more substantial work. The playlist choices are occasionally not found on YouTube, so alternatives are provided here. by Mark Meynell From a sports perspective, this has been Spain's year. On the very same day (14th July), Carlos Alcaraz successfully defended his first Wimbledon singles title, and Spain won the soccer UEFA Cup for an astonishing fourth time. click for playlists So let's indulge in aural armchair adventures once again. Having dipped our toes in the sound worlds of Latin America and France in the summertime , let's enjoy a brief immersion into some of the cultural treasures of the Iberian Peninsula. 1. Asturias: No 1, Prélude Isaac Albéniz (1860-1909, Spanish) Romain Nosbaum (piano) Our first entry was not given its title by the composer (he called it Prelude), nor does it have anything to do with The Principality of Asturias (one of the seventeen semi-autonomous regions in modern Spain, which lies on the country's northern, Atlantic coast)! Furthermore, the Spanish composer Isaac Albéniz did compose a suite for piano to depict several parts of the country, but this piece was not one of them. Still, it has often been included in the suite and given the name Asturias in order to fit in. Whatever its origins, it was written to evoke the flamenco guitar style on the piano. It opens with a riveting example of pianistic dexterity: machine-guy like repetitions requiring both hands to work feverishly on a single note. Interestingly, it has been frequently arranged for guitar, despite being too complex for completely faithful transcription. It feels wildly dramatic and gives the perfect musical thrill to get us going. 2. Rapsodie Espagnole: 2. Malagueña (1907) Maurice Ravel  (1875-1937, French) Boston Symphony Orchestra, Seiji Ozawa (cond.) Maurice Ravel has been heralded as one of France's greatest composers, but he was born close to the Spanish border to a French father and Basque mother brought up in Madrid. As a result, he was deeply conscious of his Spanish and Basque heritage, and this was expressed in various compositions. Perhaps his best known work outside the classical world is his Bolero (of hypnotically repeated theme-fame, guaranteed to drive the mildest of temperaments into the abyss). But his true Iberian colors are on display in his Rapsodie Espagnole, one of his earliest pieces for orchestra, composed in 4 sections. A Malagueña was a Flamenco dance associated with the city of Malaga. This movement is highly evocative of the southern region (albeit in quite an idealized way) and is full of vitality and joyful excitement. I just love it. 3. Concierto de Aranjuez: I. Allegro con spiritu (1939) Joaquín Rodrigo Vidre (1901-1997, Spanish) Pepe Romero (guitar) , FM-Classic Radio Symphony Orchestra, Luciano Di Martino (cond.) If there was one instrument that embodied the spirit of Spain it must surely be the guitar. Rodrigo is perhaps not so widely-known outside his native Spain, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if some of the big tunes from his guitar concerto, or the Concierto de Aranjuez to give its formal title, were not familiar in some way. Aranjuez is the location of King Philip II's glorious palace and gardens, later improved by Ferdinand IV in the eighteenth century, and so is one of the country's great treasures. Yet Rodrigo had been almost blind since he was three and composed in Braille. Somehow, he is able brilliantly to evoke the breathtaking sights and sounds of the place, capturing both its grandeur and charm in his utterly beguiling music. He composed it in Paris in 1939 as the likelihood of the outbreak of war grew ever greater, but it seems to evoke a more idyllic, romanticized Spanish past. The challenge for any performance is to sustain the (unplugged) solo guitar's audibility over a full orchestra, but Rodrigo's writing allows it to soar. The overall effect is sublime. 4. Cançó de Bressol de la Mar Arianna Savall (1972- , Swiss-Catalan) Arianna Savall, Petter Udland Johansen & Hirundo Maris Catalonia is the region around Barcelona and like the Basque region further to its west, it has long asserted its own unique historical and political identity through its unique language and culture. Arianna Savall is the daughter of renowned Catalan Baroque musician, Jordi Savall, but she has made a reputation as a great musician (as harpist, singer, composer) in her own right. For the last fifteen years, she has co-led a medieval/baroque fusion ensemble with her Norwegian partner Petter Udland Johansen called Hirundo Maris (meaning sea swallow ). This is a gorgeous contemporary song whose Catalan lyrics and music were both written by Savall. She sings a lullaby to an unnamed prisoner, whose cell perhaps overlooks the sea, to distract him from his predicament. She comforts him with the beauties and serenity of the moonlit ocean, to encourage dreams of a different reality. Every time I hear it, the sheer gorgeousness of Savall's effortless upward leap when the word Dorm (sleep) is repeated makes my heart skip a beat. 5. Carmen, Act II: Votre toast, je peux vous le rendre... Toréador, en garde! Georges Bizet (1838-1875, French) Thomas Hampson (baritone) , Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse, Michel Plasson (cond.) Crowds gather for a bull-fight, macho toreadors strut their stuff, beautiful señoritas swoon over rival infatuations—so far so clichéd! It's all there in Georges Bizet's 2nd and final opera, Carmen . Yet all is not as it seems. Bizet, like Ravel, was French, but unlike Ravel, he had no family connection to Spain, which is perhaps why Spaniards dismiss the opera as a French caricature rather than a fair representation. Indeed, he himself felt the opera was a complete failure and died only months after its premiere from a heart attack, aged just 37. He had no sense it would become one of the most frequently performed operas in musical history, not to mention the various adaptations, movies and spinoffs (such as the musical Carmen Jones ). The plot was deemed scandalous at the time, since it revolved around José, a naive soldier seduced by the fiery femme fatale Carmen. In true melodramatic fashion, Jose later kills her in a jealous rage when she goes off with the glamorous toreador Escamillo. In this track, we hear Escamillo seriously burnishing his machismo credentials and Jose discovers what he's really up against. Noches in los Jardines de España Manuel de Falla (1876-1946, Spanish) Javier Perianes (piano) , BBC Symphony Orchestra, Josep Pons (cond.) I. En el Generalife. Allegretto tranquillo e misterioso II. Danza Lejana. Allegretto giusto III. En los Jardines de la Sierra de Cordoba. Vivo Those unfamiliar with Spanish history are often unaware of its mediaeval Islamic past, a time when much of the country was ruled by Arab dynasties. That legacy is still felt in Spain, both in terms of the linguistic residue in Spanish as well as their architectural masterpieces, such as Granada's Alhambra Palace or the city of Córdoba, south-east of Granada. Dawn on the Charles V Palace, Alhambra, Grenada (by Jebulon) Manuel de Falla was a near contemporary of Isaac Albéniz, born in the deep south in Cadiz but later grew up and was educated in Madrid. The lure of Paris was strong, however, and like so many of his fellow-countrymen, he was drawn by its creative energy and stayed for seven years. He returned home shortly after the First World War began in 1914 and completed this suite for piano and orchestra soon after. His aim was to evoke the exoticism and beauty of Arabic Spain, drawing on typical rhythms and harmonies from the south. The Generalife scented gardens are those of the Alhambra and its Islamic origins are suggested by repeated musical patterns which resemble the geometric designs so common in Islamic buildings. The second movement throws us into the world of traditional dance, while the third whisks us away to Córdoba. Having a piano soloist combined with orchestra might suggest de Falla was writing a concerto; however he is aiming to craft 'symphonic impressions' with his instruments, and when we listen with eyes closed, it is not hard to be transported both in place and in time. From the opening bars, there is an air of mystery and foreignness, but I for one cannot help but be lured in to soak it all up. Mark Meynell is a writer, pastor and teacher based in the UK and he's been involved with the Rabbit Room since 2017. He has been involved in cross-cultural training for the last 25 years and is passionate about integrating life, theology and the arts. He blogs at markmeynell.net . If you’ve enjoyed this article or other content coming out of the Rabbit Room, you can help support the work by clicking here. Our weekly newsletter is the best way to learn about new books, staff recommendations, upcoming events, lectures, and more. Sign up here.

Editor's Note: Part of  Mark Meynell's 5&1 series on classical music . Taking a different theme for each post, the 5&1 series offers five short pieces followed by one more substantial work. The playlist choices are occasionally not found on YouTube, so alternatives are provided here. To listen to the playlist for this post, follow these links to Apple Music , Spotify , or YouTube . The 23-year old poet John Keats described the fall, or as we say in these parts, the autumn, as a "season of mists and mellow fruitfulness" in his masterpiece To Autumn . His wander through the countryside south-west of London inspired him; the poem bursts with nature's harvest-time profligacy and appeals to all five senses. But there is an inherent melancholy: nothing lasts, as the leaves turn, temperatures drop and nights lengthen. The fourth and final verse opens: "Where are the songs of spring? Ay, Where are they? / Think not of them, thou hast thy music too..." Of course, by telling us not to think of spring's songs we can't help but do so. He insists, however, that autumn has its own—the sound of 'mourning' gnats, bleating lambs and birds chirping in gardens. This is the true symphony of autumn. Then, as if in sympathetic step with the season itself, Keats would die of tuberculosis in Rome only 18 months after writing the poem. But the season's bitter-sweet abundance, colors and pathos have inspired musicians for centuries, with the result that there is more than enough to choose from this month. 1. Prelude and Song: See My Many Colour'd Field (from The Fairy-Queen, 1692) Henry Purcell (1659-1695, English) Roderick Williams (baritone) , Gabrieli Consort, Paul McCreesh (cond.) Purcell was a musical genius, his death a tragic loss at only 35. He created this semi-staged operatic drama not from Edmund Spenser's epic of the same name (known to Rabbit Room regulars from Rebecca Reynolds' mammoth undertaking ) but Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream . Instead of setting the play to music, he composed 'masques' for each act. These were very popular in the seventeenth century and involved ornate if mannered music, song and dance. So here, in the 4th Act, the classical sun-god, Phoebus (often identified with Apollo) introduces the four seasons, each of whom has a moment in the spotlight. Autumn is clearly quite pleased about the varieties of color and fruit he brings. 2. 'Otoño porteño' (Autumn in Buenos Aires, 1969) Astor Pantaléon Piazzola (1921-1992, Argentinian) Jonathan Morton (violin & cond.) , Scottish Ensemble The season remains unchanged, but we have flown 7000 miles to the other side of the world: Argentina. Piazzola was a performer (of the concertina-like bandoneon ), musical arranger and composer in his own right, renowned for transforming the traditional tango almost beyond recognition. His Four Seasons of Buenos Aires is a case in point: despite owing some inspiration from Vivaldi, each is a tango and is scored for a cabaret band. But of course, because he lived in a different hemisphere, he gives a nod or two to Vivaldi's Winter, but includes it in his Summer! In Autumn, there is a riot of activity, color and intrigue. If you're new to Piazzola, I suspect you will never never have encountered anything quite like it before; it is certainly hard to categorise. But you will hopefully find its joie de vivre is irresistible. 3. Approach of Autumn (from Adam Zero: a one-act ballet, 1946) Sir Arthur Bliss (1891-1975, English) English Northern Philharmonia, David Lloyd-Jones (cond.) Back into the northern hemisphere and to England again, but a generation before Piazzola. Arthur Bliss was a Londoner with an American father and English mother. He served in the First World War with distinction and spent some time in the States until the war broke out once more. The rest of his life was spent in Britain and he was prolific, in all forms of music, not least for the stage. Adam Zero was a one-act ballet premiered in April 1946 in a bombed out London. It all gets quite 'meta', retelling the cycle of human life by means of a company of dancers creating a ballet. Adam is the principle dancer who experiences the seasons of life, only to be replaced at the end by his understudy before he dies. Autumn, as you'd expect, comes towards the end. The music evokes the mists and murk of shortening days, but the season is obviously functioning metaphorically: hence the undercurrent of foreboding at what will inevitably come to us all. 4. The Fall of the Leaf: Theme and Variations (1963) Imogen Holst (1907-1984, English) Steven Isserlis (cello) We've not had much solo instrumental stuff on the 5&1 playlists so far, apart from keyboard music. So this may come as something of a challenge, but please give it a go. Bach was the great master of works for unaccompanied instruments, and there are moments in this that hint at his legacy. Imogen Holst was the only child of Gustav Holst, of The Planets fame which we have already encountered , and a musical all-rounder. She composed this for her friend Pamela Hind O'Malley, describing it as a set of 'three short studies for solo cello on a sixteenth-century tune'. In the variations, we can at times hear the wind prising autumnal leaves free from their branches. But the key is the central movement, tinged with an aching sadness. Despite having 5 distinct sections, the whole lasts only around 9 minutes, and while strings tend to play only one line, there are all kinds of ways to add, or hint at, harmonies. This is a beautiful evocation of the season composed with astonishing economy. 5. Autumn Ola Gjeilo (1978- , Norwegian) The Choir of Royal Holloway, Rupert Gough (cond.) It's about time we had some more singing. Ola Gjeilo has become highly-regarded in choral music circles far beyond his native Norway. Based now in Manhattan, Gjeilo particularly excels in writing for voice and for solo piano, relishing gorgeously scrunchy chords and atmospheric wistfulness. But then, if you lived close to the Arctic Circle, the thought of Autumn carries particular poignancy, if not heaviness. Yes, the season brings great beauty, but the further north you go, the shorter the season becomes and you are led inexorably towards permanent night. The text here is a poem Gjeilo commissioned from his frequent collaborator, the American poet Charles Anthony Silvestri. To prompt him, he sent images of Vestmarka, a Norwegian national park close to where he grew up and in which he would go on long treks. It's a beautiful setting of a poem that even has the faintest of echoes of Keats. Autumn Gardens Einojuhani Rautavaara (1928-2016, Finnish) Helsinki Philharmonic, Vladimir Ashkenazy (cond.) It's no surprise that other Scandinavians treasure the autumn while it lasts. Rautavaara was a Finnish composer whose music was profoundly influenced by his environment; we've met him before in his Cantus Arcticus , right back in the very first 5&1 playlist of nature-inspired music . In this 3-movement work for orchestra, his lens is focused on a garden, which becomes a microcosm for the season's impact. Poetico : there are still traces of summer's beauty as this first movement opens. It is crafted around a theme he used in an opera to set the words ' like a butterfly in the garden of black autumn' . The music gradually gets denser before drifting without a break into... Tranquillo : as it's title suggests, this is calmer and more atmospheric, perhaps suggesting the fading light of the high north. Giocoso e Leggiero ('Playful and light'): those are not words traditionally associated with this time of year, but the composer seems to be making a determined effort to enjoy the moment. Shimmering strings suggest floating leaves and dappled sunlight, leading to a resounding conclusion, in what is perhaps a solemn dance to see off the last of the summer. However, rather than trying to trace some kind of narrative or 'program' for the whole piece, allow yourself to be swept up in its arctic atmosphere. Mark Meynell is a writer, pastor and teacher based in the UK and he's been involved with the Rabbit Room since 2017. He has been involved in cross-cultural training for the last 25 years and is passionate about integrating life, theology and the arts. He blogs at markmeynell.net .

Editor's Note: Part of  Mark Meynell's 5&1 series on classical music . Taking a different theme for each post, the 5&1 series offers five short pieces followed by one more substantial work. The playlist choices are occasionally not found on YouTube, so alternatives are provided here. To be honest, I've felt quite ambivalent about nightfall for years. Most of the time, it brings much needed relief and rest from the rigors of daytime; a chance to catch one's breath and reflect, perhaps to enjoy the company of a few close friends, then eventually, of course, to sleep. However, there are seasons when the hours of darkness represent everything but those joys. On occasion, I have even come to dread them. It is no accident that many of the psalmist's most plangent or urgent cries took place in the early hours. So my fellow insomniacs, Cranmer's weighty prayer for light towards the end of the service of Evening Prayer is therefore precious. For the night's perils and dangers are as likely to be psychological as physical. As we might expect, then, that ambivalence is richly reflected in music. To listen to the playlist for this post, follow these links to Apple Music , Spotify , or YouTube . 1. There Will Be Rest (2008) Frank Ticheli (1958- , American) Voces8 Voces8 is a British a cappella group, made up of—yep, you guessed it—eight singers. They are internationally celebrated for their diverse repertoire, crystal clear diction, and above all, superhumanly precise harmonization. In this track, they sing a scrumptious setting of a poem by American poet Sara Teasdale (1884-1933) which powerfully articulates everything we might hope for after an exhausting day. (We first encountered her in playlist #10 ) Frank Ticheli creates a wonderful sense of serenity out of an opening that seems very slight: essentially a cluster of notes ascending a scale. But it quickly unfurls into a glorious dream, a longing for cosmic stillness to counteract 'my lonely mind.' Ticheli manages to create in sound what Teasdale was desperate for in words. So beautiful. 2. Nocturne No. 10 in Eb (1816) John Field (1782-1837, Irish) John O'Conor (piano) Nocturne No. 20 in C# min (1830, KK IVa/16) Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849, Polish) Stephen Hough (piano) The French word 'nocturne' simply means 'nocturnal' or 'at night'. It was Frédéric Chopin who is most associated with compositions given that name, but he was not in fact the pioneer of the form. That accolade goes to the much lesser known Irishman, John Field, who lived a generation earlier. So it seemed a good idea to place one from each side-by-side. Both wrote compositions for solo piano and both crafted them as deeply private meditative expressions. They both evoke and create an atmosphere of mellow intimacy, often with a little melancholy. It is easy to imagine a candlelit nineteenth-century living room with the meandering, seemingly improvised, melodies echoing from the piano around a darkened home. Field's nocturnes are gentler and simpler than his musical heir's, but still affecting. Chopin discloses far deeper emotional turmoil in his pieces, but the effect is to ratchet up the poignancy of his aching melodies. 3. La Noche de Los Mayas I Silvestre Revueltas (1899-1940, Mexican) Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela, Gustavo Dudamel (cond.) For many, night-time is no more peaceful than day-time, especially if they must work shifts or find themselves embroiled in some emergency. We travel to Mexico now to the score by violinist and composer Silvestre Revueltas for the 1939 historical movie of the same name, about the fall of the Mayan civilisation. Like much cinematic music today, it was later arranged into a suite for concert performance. This is the first movement. As we might expect, the music captures the mood of film noir melodrama, although I for one would never have guessed its subject matter from listening. But Revueltas does establish the foreboding and anxiety indigenous people felt as the Conquistadors arrived on the continent. Their own perils and dangers in the sixteenth century were all too real. 4. Peace Piece Bill Evans (1929-1980, American) Bill Evans (piano) We're on to jazz now, but here for very good reason. This is a legendary track by a remarkable pianist. Bill Evans played with scores of great musicians, including Miles Davis's band when they recorded the sublime A Kind of Blue . But the origins of this piece are disputed, despite Evans's claim to have completely improvised it in performance. It doesn't really matter how it came to exist because it is glorious. It is clearly jazz, but in form and mood it has barely left the drawing rooms of Field and Chopin. Musically it is very simple: constant repetitions of the briefest of chord sequences in the left hand, over which the right hand wanders and meanders in ever-evolving ways. And that's it! But there is musical alchemy here; it is so much greater than the sum of its harmonic parts. 5. Still, Glowing (2008) Judith Weir (1954- , British) BBC Symphony Orchestra, Dalia Stasevska (cond,) Dame Judith Weir, to use her full title, became the first woman to be appointed Master of the Queen's/King's Music in 2014. It brings no official duties these days, nor even a salary, only an expectation that you (might) compose something for the odd big event. Perhaps. It's music's equivalent to being made Poet Laureate. Judith Weir is a prolific composer who has written 11 operas, many orchestral and choral works, as well as all kinds of miniatures for individual instruments. This piece is based on a sequence in one of those operas The Vanishing Bridegroom , and in her own words, her "one and (so far) only attempt writing 'ambient music'." In that respect, it is not representative of her style, but it works partly because of its startling economy. This piece is scored for a reduced orchestra—no brass and only a few keyboard percussion instruments—this creates the feeling of being suspended in time and space. I love the title too. It suggests the still warm embers left from an evening round a fire pit and perhaps alludes to the music's slowly undulating, warming and cooling pulse. Verklärte Nacht, Op. 4 (1899) Arnold Schoenberg  (1874-1951, Austrian/American) Isabel Faust  (violin) , Swedish Radio Symphony, Daniel Harding (cond.) If you know anything about Arnold Schoenberg then you are almost certainly alarmed by his inclusion in this playlist. He is notorious for being an uncompromising musical theorist early in the twentieth century, pioneering so-called 'atonal' expressionist music. It certainly takes a lot of getting used to, and by general consensus, was quite the musical dead end. However, this string sextet is one of his earliest works and barely hints at the style he subsequently developed. It is inspired by Richard Dehmel's poem of the same name (meaning 'Transfigured Night'). This describes the forest walk on a moonlit night by a young couple. She comes with a dark secret which she eventually has the courage to share: she carries another man's child. After an agonising wait, the man finally forgives and accepts his lover, and the piece ends in a spirit of exultant but delicate restoration. As you listen to the five m ovements, try to trace the emotional journey as it unfolds. BONUS!! Sleep (2000) Eric Whitacre (1970- , American) Eric Whitacre Singers, Eric Whitacre (cond.) After all that turmoil, it's vital to calm nerves and lower heart rates. Otherwise, sleep will forever remain elusive. So we return to the choral world by means of a piece with rather an awkward history. It was originally commissioned as a setting of a Robert Frost poem. But because it was still in copyright and the Frost estate refused to grant publication rights, Whitacre asked his friend, the poet Charles Anthony Silvestri to write an alternative text. He has said that he far prefers this version anyway now, and has no plans to reissue it with Frost's words (now that they have fallen out of copyright). Here is the perfect vehicle for wafting the listener off to the Land of Nod. One final note about our starting point. We can't leave Sara Teasdale's gentle but affecting poem without mentioning the fact that, a few years after writing it, she would end up taking her own life. The depression and loneliness that dogged her for years finally became overwhelming. The poem's yearning, therefore, has a darker, more agonising resonance. But the very fact that Ticheli (as well as several other composers) set it so affectingly for choir, itself the very expression of shared human experience, is a hopeful thing. Someone suffering the worst mental torment might now listen to this and know both that there is beauty in the world and they are not alone. Even in the loneliness of a dark night. Mark Meynell is a writer, pastor and teacher based in the UK and he's been involved with the Rabbit Room since 2017. He has been involved in cross-cultural training for the last 25 years and is passionate about integrating life, theology and the arts. He blogs at markmeynell.net .

by Kate Gaston "Right now, at this very moment, in the exact place you happen to be, you’re surrounded by real people. You live where you live. This is your superpower." After almost a decade of cross-country moves—with all that tearing up of tender roots and transplanting every two to three years—by the time my family landed in Nashville, I was jonesing for a home of our own. A house with a yard. A neighborhood with sidewalks. And neighbors walking on those sidewalks who’d know my name and stop to say hello. In the fullness of time, we did indeed buy a house with a yard in a neighborhood with sidewalks. And yes, our neighbors do walk on those sidewalks. And, occasionally, they stop to say hello. But mostly, they stop to let their dogs pee on my zinnias. Our house has a small front porch, and in the afternoons, I enjoy sitting outside, sipping coffee and reading. On one such afternoon, not long after we moved into our new home, I was in my usual spot when I heard a noise. It seemed to be coming from the house next door. It was my neighbor’s front door knob, wiggling back and forth ineffectively, being turned from the inside. After much jiggling, the doorknob finally caught, and the door creaked open. Out shuffled an old man leaning on a walker. A frizzy nimbus of sparse white hair sprouted from his head. This, as I was just about to find out, was Joe. I turned, waved, and said hello to the man. He didn't appear to hear me, intent as he was on checking his mailbox. It was empty. I’d also come to find out that Joe’s mailbox would almost always be empty. That fact didn’t deter him from making the arduous journey every day. Giving a little huff of disappointment, the man turned his walker back toward the front door for his return voyage. This was the moment he spotted me on my porch, and his eyes lit with delight. He crooned—yes, literally crooned—“HellooOOoooo!” I waved and said hello a second time. He stopped and turned toward me with a half-expectant, half-vacant gaze. My parents raised me right, so I couldn’t just turn back to my reading. Not with this little man chirping and crooning at me as he shuffled along. So, I put my book and coffee down and walked across my driveway, stopping below his front stoop. Here, I’d make yet another discovery: even from this meager distance, and with me bellowing at him at a volume flirting dangerously close to disturbance-of-the-peace levels, Joe still couldn’t hear a thing. He nodded agreeably as he pretended that he could hear me, then volleyed back a string of questions that were only marginally related to anything I’d said. These were not your garden variety questions, easily answered with a head shake or nod. They were not the sort of questions that could be answered at all when one member of the conversation is mostly deaf but pretending not to be. It would go a little something like this: Joe: Do your parents root for Bear Bryant? Me: No, not really. Joe: What? Me, screaming: No, not really! Joe: Do you know where Mike Pence is from? Me, still screaming: Not the first clue! Joe: Do you like Cracker Barrel? Me: Good biscuits. I’d give it a 4 on a 10 scale. Joe: What? Me, cranking the volume up another notch: Good biscuits!!! Joe: What? Me: GOOOOOD!!!! *deep breath* BISCUITS!!!!! Joe: *Nods vaguely* At last, Joe reached the end of what I’d come to find out was his repertoire of questions. Then, without missing a beat, he concluded our first meeting by asking if I’d run over to Burger King for him. He’d take a Whopper, fries, and a sweet tea. With that, he shuffled back inside his house. I cast a wistful glance back at my coffee, my book, my peaceful porch. Then, I drove down the street to Burger King and got the man his food. Though Joe can’t hear much, he possesses a super-sensory ability for catching me on my front porch. Every time he does—and I mean every time—our visits follow a familiar pattern. His front doorknob starts jiggling from the inside, and Joe makes his way, slowly, treacherously, out onto his front stoop. He sees me and croons hello. I wave a friendly greeting from my porch, then turn back to my book, hoping against hope that he’ll read the social cues and let me read in peace. No dice. Our Liturgy For the Imposition of Neighborliness continues to play out, with Joe squawking a question about vice presidential trivia at me and me screaming an answer back at him. Of course, Joe can’t hear me, so I’m obliged to put my book and coffee down, walk over to his porch, and have a high-volume conversation about Mike Pence’s hometown. (It’s Columbus, Indiana, in case you’re wondering.) Usually, our exchanges end with Joe asking what I’m cooking for dinner and if I’d bring him a plate. Here’s something I’m not proud to admit. One afternoon, a few weeks into our relationship, I heard the telltale sound of Joe’s front door knob jiggling. In those precious seconds before he could get his door open, I grabbed my phone, held it up to my face in a way he couldn’t fail to notice, and—heaven help me— pretended to be having a conversation. He waved, gazed forlornly in my direction for a few moments, then shuffled back into his house. I understand this behavior disqualifies me from heaven. It’s just that, sometimes, I want to be able to read on my front porch in peace without having to think about Mike Pence. It’s not that I don’t like Mike Pence. It’s not that I don’t like Joe. However, interacting with Joe is uncomfortable and highly inefficient. Here’s the rub. Joe is my neighbor. Not just in the vague, hand-wavy, New Testament sense of the word. Joe is my neighbor in the sense that he literally lives next door. Though Joe tells me he has kinfolk, they live far away and don’t visit very often. Joe can’t leave his house because he can’t navigate the steps on his walker. Joe orders pizza delivery every couple of days, which is, I think, how he gets through the week. I’ve taken dinner over to him a handful of times, and once, when I opened his refrigerator, its emptiness broke through the thick layer of apathy that had iced over my heart. Joe, my neighbor, is hungry and alone. Why am I telling you this sad story? Because this story illustrates something about the reality we exist within. Welcome, dear reader, to modernity. Modernity is the period of human existence we currently inhabit, yes, but it’s more than that. It’s come to be characterized by mankind’s giant strides forward in rational thought, individualism, and industrialization. Modernity is, as David Foster Wallace so aptly put it, the water we’re swimming in . Great minds have spilled seas of ink on the colossal woes of modernity. Charles Taylor has traced modernity from its genesis and written the whole sordid tale within his book, A Secular Age . If you’ve got a month or two of spare time, it’s a profound read. Or, if you only have an hour, Andrew Fellows boils down the dark magic of modernity in this lecture . It’s all well and good for philosophers to wax eloquent on the subject of modernity; that’s what they’re paid to do. It is enough for you and I to simply recognize its fruit. Modernity is a cultural juggernaut that causes us, among other things, to lean away from people who desperately need us to lean in. It is a subtle force that conspires to isolate and alienate us from our neighbors. It moves us away from shared meals, away from conversations. It builds walls between us and the sights, smells, and needs of our neighbors, insulating us from the inefficiencies and discomforts of interacting with them. I’m not saying modernity is all bad. People used to die from infected toenails, for crying out loud. Give me those sweet, sweet antibiotics, baby. And life before anesthesia? Before Tylenol? No, thank you. How about deodorant? GPS? Insta-Pots? All good things. But despite all its advances, there’s rot in the golden apple of modernity. This isn’t a surprise. We’re all familiar with its darker elements. Rip-roaring loneliness. Debilitating anxiety. Neighbors who don’t know each other’s names. Kids who have forgotten the way to Neverland. Siloed political parties, social media echo chambers, and, worst of all, cyber trucks. The problems are so big, so far-reaching, most of us can’t really even grasp how we got here. Perhaps you’re like me, and the overwhelming problems feel, well, overwhelming. Perhaps, also like me, you feel your efforts are so meager, so paltry, that you’re tempted just to close your eyes and let modernity do whatever terrible and soulless thing it's going to do. It would be easy to roll over. It would be simple to put our heads down, to allow the alienation and isolation of our cultural moment to continue unchecked, to dash into our homes as soon as we hear our neighbor’s door knob jiggling. Robert Farrar Capon, in his pithy little book The Third Peacock: the Problem of God and Evil , said: “Man is…just one more insignificant piece of stuff lost in a crowd of vastly bigger but equally insignificant pieces…he cowers like a skid row bum on the doorstep of an indifferent creation. He longs for a square meal and a kind word, but he’s afraid to believe it when he hears it.” Here, then, is the gift you and I have to give. It’s the ability to offer that square meal and a kind word to the person standing in front of us. We can swing wide our doors and welcome whoever happens to be standing nearby. We can invite people in. Why? Because our neighbors need us. They are hungry, and they are alone. Inviting people into the raw, unfiltered truth of our lives is not easy. It’s actually really, really hard. For one thing, it forces us to kiss efficiency goodbye. Efficiency is a lovely thing. But when it comes to building relationships, it’s not a helpful metric. Sometimes, it can actually hurt the process and the people involved. Let’s get real for a minute, shall we? We get impatient when the wifi is slow. When Netflix buffers, our blood pressure spikes. We get huffy when people don't respond in a timely manner to the text we’ve sent them. And by “timely manner,” I mean, like, right now. Such is our need, our addiction, to immediate gratification. Waiting makes us twitchy. Building relationships with other humans is the equivalent of old-school dial-up. It requires us to be in close proximity. We emit weird, unnecessary noises as our social modems attempt to connect. Our communication is slow, ponderous. It is fraught with misunderstanding and often unstable. When interacting with other humans, we are forced to wait, to slow down, to move at what feels like a glacial pace. Meeting people can be rough, can’t it? Introducing yourself. Deciding whether you should offer a handshake or a hug. If it’s a hug, should it be a side hug? Or full frontal? Or maybe just a fist bump? Immediately realizing the fist bump was a terrible choice. Forgetting the other person’s name the instant after they’ve said it. Trying to make intelligent conversation while wondering if your face looks weird. Wondering if you are smiling enough. Or smiling too much? And what should you do with your arms? Just let them, what, dangle there? The whole process is fraught with danger. Yes, meeting people and actually talking to them is inefficient and uncomfortable. But despite the social anxiety inherent in those moments, it’s worth it. Why? Because you can’t possibly know what’s going on under the surface until you ask. You won’t ever know if that person is suffering from debilitating loneliness or barely concealing the fact they’re on the brink of crisis until you pause, lean in, and ask the first question. If you find yourself succumbing to a dull apathy—modernity’s trademark move—toward the soul standing in front of you, pause. Yes, pause, and consider, for a holy beat, that perhaps it’s no coincidence you’re standing where you’re standing, and that person is standing where they’re standing. A pause might suddenly inspire you with a question that leads to those deeper, more vulnerable waters. A pause might open a much-needed door; it might be the gateway for a wary, care-worn soul to know they are safe in your company. Pausing, for some of us, makes us uncomfortable. A pause makes us feel inefficient. A pause can feel like a sucking, social vacuum which begs, screams, bellows to be filled because the milliseconds of conversational silence feel like pain. Some of us are on the opposite end of the spectrum. It’s the action of initiating and leaning into the conversation that feels uncomfortable. Especially with strangers. Beginning a conversation with someone we don’t know? Excruciating. But let’s talk about that discomfort, shall we? Discomfort feels bad, so we try to avoid it at all costs. But does social discomfort actually hurt us? Nah. It doesn’t. I’m sorry to be the person to whip this particular Band-Aid off, but sometimes discomfort is required for growth. We can tell our skittish amygdalas to chill out. We can remind ourselves that even though it feels like we might die if we say hello to a stranger, we actually won’t. Why all this talk of inefficiency and discomfort? Because we’re about to veer into some granular realities about welcoming other humans into your mess. To proceed down this path, you will sometimes be required to take many holy pauses and let the silence stretch a few beats longer than you’d prefer. Sometimes, you might be required to speak up, to be the first to ask a question. Regardless of which direction relationship-building takes you, you will be required, sometimes, to turn your back on efficiency and embrace some awkward, hard stuff. What kind of awkward, hard stuff? We don’t have time for anything like that. We have jobs. We have spouses. We have kids. We are in bowling leagues. We own chinchillas. We bring donuts to work on Monday. We have people relying on us to show up. We’re just too busy to offer much else in the way of relational capital. Right now, at this very moment, in the exact place you happen to be, you’re surrounded by real people. You live where you live. This is your superpower. You know the people you know. Some of us know many people. Some of us move in smaller circles. Expanding the breadth of your social circle isn’t what I’m getting at here, so introverts, take a breath. What I’m highlighting is the reality that all of us already exist in a specific social context. Sometimes, the places seem boring, and the people are annoying. Even so, choose to belong to those people. Know their names and faces, their histories. Belong to that place. It is precisely when we belong to real people and real places that our fragmented souls are mended and our wounds of isolation are bound. As we engage with others, in all their humdrum, inefficient, awkwardness, the seeds of human flourishing take root. Perhaps it would help you to spend a moment thinking about those circles you move in. If you’re the type of person who likes creative interaction with what you’re reading, grab a pencil and a sheet of paper. If you’re the type of person who finds instructions like this annoying, feel free to roll your eyes and skip down a few paragraphs. Okay, got your paper and pencil? Draw a circle in the middle of the page, and write your name in it. This will be the hub of the wheel, so to speak. Now, elsewhere on the page, draw another circle, and label it with the location you spend the majority of your time. Connect this circle back to the first circle with a straight line. Continue drawing circles and connecting them back to the original circle, labeling them with each place you spend time in a day, week, month, or year. Get specific. Make a circle for your favorite coffee shop, your local library, the yoga class at the Y, the grocery store, your favorite roller rink, your bike route. These places, these circles, are where God has placed you. You might wish you were somewhere sexier. Maybe you’re desperately praying for God to lead you elsewhere, anywhere, other than where you are. That’s fine. Pray away. But right now, recognize he’s put you exactly where you are. Belong to that place. Be loyal to it. Treat the people you see in that place with curiosity and kindness because of all the other places you could both be on Earth, you are where you are. As you drew your circles, did you notice some familiar faces springing to mind? The barista with the cool tattoo who makes your latte? The librarian who knows your taste in books better than you do? As those faces pop up, ask yourself, do I know that person’s name? If you’re anything like me, you probably feel it’s intrusive to ask people their names or to strike up a conversation. In those moments of social anxiety, remember this little humdinger of truth and take courage: deep within each of us (including that barista with cool tattoos), we all still carry around our inner middle schooler, complete with our braces, acne, and insecurities. And we are all of us just waiting, praying, to be asked to dance. Granted, we might not actually get on the dance floor. But it’s nice to be noticed. Okay, so you’ve thought about your circles. You’ve visualized the faces. Now, identify the barriers. The barriers will be hard to spot. Why? Because they usually blend into the wallpaper of our lives. What are the things we place between us and other people that protect us from having to belong to those people? Our houses? Do we welcome people into our homes, or do we use our homes as fortresses of solitude? What about our privacy-fenced yards? Our cars? Do we opt for the automated check-out? Or return library books in the dropbox instead of at the front desk? Oh, here’s a good one: Do we pick up our phone hundreds of times a day? Do we reach for them at red lights, in waiting rooms, in line at the grocery store, and at the dinner table? Do we look at them while our children are sitting next to us, asking us questions, trying to get our attention? Yes, our screens are delightful, intoxicating little barriers, aren’t they? Noticing the barriers is a nice place to start. You can’t begin to dismantle them until you know what they are. Go ahead, give it a good, long think. Now, let's start tearing the barriers down. This step will look different for all of us, depending on our temperaments. Here’s a suggestion for your consideration: Go out of your way to run into people. Build in time for relational collisions. Daniel Coyle, in his book  The Culture Code , defines collisions as “serendipitous personal encounters.” In the context of group cultures, these collisions are “the key driver of creativity, community, and cohesion.” Could you make small, intentional changes to increase the number of collisions with the people in your circles? Could you walk the same route in your neighborhood, increasing the chance that you’ll meet the neighbors who live along that route? Or go to the same coffee shop and force yourself to finally ask the barista’s name. Then, greet him by name the next time you see him. Or, if you forget his name, be honest about having the short-term memory of a goldfish. Laugh, and let that small act of vulnerability set the stage for more interactions in the future. Sit on your front porch instead of the back porch. Wave hello when people walk past. Better yet, plant a garden in your front yard. Gardens are like catnip for neighbors. People will come out of the woodwork. They’ll volunteer advice, make fun of your weird sunhat, offer you plants and seeds from their own gardens, and share equipment with you. Use this momentum to start a neighborhood Borrowers Club where people can share resources with each other, be it rototillers, snow skis, or pickleball rackets. If eating food is something you enjoy, host a Taco Tuesday and invite a couple of folks to join you. If others catch the vision, perhaps they’d even be willing to bring a dish to share or even help host the dinner. It doesn’t have to be a large gathering or especially elaborate. Get creative. Go ahead and live that fascinating life you’re already living. Eat good food. Drink good wine. Take unnecessarily meandering walks. Tell cringy jokes. Light candles. Be quiet sometimes. Pour the coffee, brew the tea, and uncork the whiskey. That’s one of the beautiful parts of being made in the image of God; each of us possesses a unique approach and boundless creativity when it comes to figuring out ways to enjoy life. You’re already doing it in all its messy, chaotic glory. Capon, again from The Third Peacock , underscores the fact that our messy lives and chaotic means are our most powerful, potent tools. He wrote, “The whole mixed bag of clever schemes, bright ideas, and gross stupidities is all we have. To be the body of the mystery is to be the body of something you cannot take in hand as such. Accordingly, you take in hand what you can and then relax and trust the mystery to work through you.” Martin Luther agreed: “God doesn’t need your good works, but your neighbor does.” When you sense the stirring of that subtle cultural force enticing you, luring you, lulling you into leaning away from those who desperately need you to lean in, take note. Allow yourself, occasionally, to pause and to be inconvenienced for the sake of your neighbor. Within these holy collisions, consider the inefficiency and occasional discomfort as part of the high calling of our existence as salt and light. Within the colliding, beauty hides. It’s there as we greet someone when we’d rather remain silent. It’s in the struggle as we commit a name to memory. It’s in each conversation we choose to enter when we’d rather not be bothered. These small, hospitable acts are hard. They are awkward. They take time. And let’s be real, we’ll mess it up sometimes. I don’t always love Joe perfectly. Sometimes, as you know, I don’t love him very well at all. But relationships are a continual act of creation. Show me any creative endeavor that can be mastered without struggle. Creation is a cyclical path, encompassing both ebb and flow, failures and successes. Embrace the slower path, then. Lean in, friend, and put your elbows on the table. It’s within those meandering, messy moments of life together that we experience true flourishing. For your further reading and listening pleasure: David Foster Wallace: This is Water Charles Taylor: A Secular Age Andrew Fellows’ lecture: Community As a Subversion of Modernity Robert Farrar Capon: The Third Peacock: The Problem of God and Evil Daniel Coyle: The Culture Code: The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups If you were born after 2000, this is for you: The sound of dial-up internet.  (Yes, we used to have to listen to that whole thing every time we wanted to check our email.) Need some conversational ideas or inspiration? I can’t promise you either of those things, but I give it a go in these articles: Is Zeus Dead Yet?: A Guide to Having Better Conversations  and Let’s Get Coffee: Navigating the Angst of Existential Loneliness. An Alabama native, Kate was homeschooled before it was even remotely considered normal. She completed her undergraduate degree at Bryan College and went on to graduate school at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. For eight years, Kate worked as a PA in a trauma and burn ICU before ping-ponging across the nation for her husband’s medical training. She and her family are currently putting down roots in Nashville, Tennessee. Today, Kate enjoys homeschooling her daughter and tutoring in her local classical homeschool community. She also finds deep satisfaction in long, meandering conversations at coffee shops, oil painting, writing, and gazing pensively into the middle distance. You can read more of her work at her Substack: That Middle Distance . For more resources on art and faith, sign up for our other newsletters: Poetry , Music , and Articles . To support the work of the Rabbit Room, join us by becoming a member. Your membership helps fund everything from publishing new books  to new podcasts , events , poetry , articles , theatre productions , conferences , and more . Membership  is vital to our flourishing, and we’d love for you to participate. Click here to join or learn more .

by Cindy Anderson Whether you have had weeks of snow with temperatures in the teens or are beginning to see hints of spring, most of us are still experiencing shorter days, which can feel long and dreary. This winter-themed list is the perfect remedy for the winter blues. The titles center on the cold months and celebrate family, community, nature, and time together. They are the perfect reads to gather your kids and enjoy with a cup of tea or some hot cocoa. Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost Robert Frost's poem, "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening," is brought to life by Susan Jeffers's delicate line illustrations. She adds the perfect amount of color throughout the pages, drawing our attention to every detail of the forest and its wildlife. Recommended for ages 4-9 Owl Moon by Jane Yolen Late one evening, a girl and her father go for a silent walk through the forest, hoping to spot an owl. With simple beauty and poetic words, this book shows the special relationship between a daughter and her father as they experience the forest on a winter night. Recommended for ages 2-8 Snow by Cynthia Rylant Cynthia Rylant creates a lyrical winter world by describing the types of snow seen throughout the day. This book celebrates winter, family, and friendship—a perfect cozy read. Recommended for ages 3-8 Snow Horses by Patricia MacLachlan I have mentioned this book on previous lists, but I am adding it here because the pages are awash with snowy detail, making it the perfect winter read. I love the celebration of family, community, youth, and long-time friends remembering their childhoods. It is a favorite book by a much-loved author. Recommended for ages 4-9 A Long Road on a Short Day by Gary Schmidt This is a short chapter book with an old-fashioned feel. Mama wants a brown-eyed cow to have milk for the baby. So, on a cold, snowy day, Papa and Samuel travel throughout the countryside to barter with neighbors to get what they need. Recommended for ages 6-10 A Toad for Tuesday by Russell Erickson Reading this 50th-anniversary edition of A Toad for Tuesday is a delight. Warton, a toad, ventures outside his winter burrow to visit his Aunt Toolia. During his travels, he is captured by an owl who saves him until Tuesday to become his special meal. During the days of waiting, the owl and toad become genuine friends—a charming winter adventure. Recommended ages 6-10 Stories of the Saints: Bold and Inspiring Tales of Adventure, Grace, and Courage by Carey Wallace Since Saint Valentine’s Day and Saint Patrick’s Day are soon upon us, I recommend this beautiful book. Although not all churches celebrate saints in the same way, their stories are valuable. “These stories have been told for generations, some for thousands of years. In this book, they’ve been dramatized but always based on tradition or history. They come from many sources, but they are among the best loved and most endearing stories in the world because of the truth they contain.” The illustrations are bold and stunning; my favorites are Saint Francis, Margaret of Scotland, and Saint Jerome. Recommended for ages 8-all ages Cindy has been an educator for over 30 years, including work in environmental and nature education. She consistently uses stories and books, including picture books, with all of her students from elementary to high school. Most recently, she taught high school humanities, as well as creative writing and science classes for middle school. On any given Saturday, you can find her in her garden, the local farmers market, and her local library. For more resources on art and faith, sign up for our other newsletters: Poetry , Music , and Articles . To support the work of the Rabbit Room, join us by becoming a member. Your membership helps fund everything from publishing new books to new podcasts , events , poetry , articles , theatre productions , conferences , and more . Membership is vital to our flourishing, and we’d love for you to participate. Click here to join or learn more . Photo by Miriam Przybylo on Unsplash A Winter Book List For Kids

by Randall Goodgame It was unseasonably warm in Nashville this week. Inspired by the prospect of spring, I sowed a tray of candelabra primrose seeds. They make a gorgeous flower, both delicate and showy, with whirling white blooms that tier upward. This is my third year to plant candelabra primrose. And – you’d never know it from my garden. Thankfully, failure sows many crops: knowledge, skill, experience, patience. And for gardeners, success has quite the upside. We bear witness to tiny, slow-motion explosions of God’s most colorful creations. This is not a gardening article, but flower gardening is a lot like scripture song writing, which may be why I love them both so much. Last fall, The Rabbit Room published the Scripture Hymnal , a collection of 106 word-for-word scripture songs written specifically for congregational singing – by myself and a dozen other writers. For over a decade, I’ve witnessed the transformational power of singing scripture through Slugs & Bugs – the children and family music ministry I’ve been running since 2010. And now, the Scripture Hymnal brings that opportunity to the corporate Church. Of course, singing scripture is an ancient practice. Thousands of years ago, the psalms were simply David’s songs. Those scriptures were born as music, and psalm singing remains standard practice in most liturgical churches from Nashville to Nepal. And yet, what the Scripture Hymnal offers is decidedly new. These songs span the whole Bible, including many passages that were not originally written as lyrics. They are stylistically diverse, indexed as traditional, contemporary, or children-and-family worship. And most importantly, they are beautifully singable. This whole project would die on the vine if the songs didn’t work, so in 2023 we gathered a group of thirty-odd worship leaders from in and out of Nashville to pick apart every song. Those worship leaders provided feedback that lifted the whole project. They affirmed songs that were already working, but they also inspired changes as small as a half-step key change, and as large as entire sections re-written to ensure congregational singability. All of that rigor was right and proper. Because if these songs are truly congregational, truly beautiful, and useful and singable, then the Scripture Hymnal is nothing less than a dangerous weapon for spiritual warfare, new and ancient, “with divine power to destroy strongholds.” It makes me want to sing: Hey devil! Get behind me!You’re gonna get under my feet! - CeCe Winans “Hey Devil” Think of how you learned all the song lyrics you know by heart. Your brain doesn’t care if it’s learning Ecclesiastes or Eminem. Memorable music makes the words stay put. And the more of God’s word that we have stored away, the more the Holy Spirit can bring it to mind when we need it. According to a 2019 Lifeway survey, more than half of church-going Christians don’t read the Bible even once a week. A church that uses the Scripture Hymnal provides a significant onramp for getting the Bible inside the biblically illiterate. And for the daily Bible reader, these songs offer a source of refreshment and renewal into the gospel they already know so well. In addition to its biblical engagement/memorization value, the Scripture Hymnal offers an alternative to the disappointing transience of the modern worship song. For so many churches, worship songs that were exciting and new four years ago have vanished today. Likewise, most new songs we are singing today will cycle out within a few years. There are wonderful exceptions, like Sandra McCracken’s We Will Feast In The House of Zion . But in general, the lack of a consistent canon of songs has crippled the modern church like lazy sins of omission. Familiar songs, when they find their power in truth and beauty, connect churchgoers from generation to generation. They root in the mind of the wayward wanderer, and her own tears welcome her back when she finds the courage to return to church and hears a familiar refrain. And finally, these kinds of songs inspire true singing . Have you ever been in a worship service where the congregation all of a sudden sings twice as loud? It’s always because the leader finally added a song like “Come Thou Fount” or “Crown Him With Many Crowns” or “We Will Feast In The House Of Zion” to the worship order. Those songs arouse our passions because They are easy to sing They brilliantly articulate a strain of thought that we long to express They are artistically beautiful And that is the bar we’ve set for the Scripture Hymnal . Every song won’t work for every congregation, but every congregation can find multiple songs that will fit their aesthetic. Of course, all art is personal. Preferences are subjective. But beauty also has a standard, and humans as a group know it when we experience it. Which brings me back to the garden and writing scripture songs. In 2022/2023, I was writing a scripture song every week. And my little family was going through the most difficult time in our history. What started as weeks and months of pain and hardship eventually became years and felt like an eternity. Whenever I got overwhelmed or hit a writer’s block, I took a break and pulled weeds in the garden, still muttering the scripture through the materializing melody. Many times, I realized I had found the melody when I started to cry. The words of scripture would score my soul like a hard rake on dry soil, and when the right melody appeared, it felt like fresh rain. And I wept. Of course, in any scripture passage, all the meaning is already there in the words. Singing doesn’t create more meaning, but it does add something. For me, it brings the meaning inside me in a way that reading doesn’t achieve. It brings the understanding down into my body, into my heart. Sort of like the difference between seeing a picture of a hand and holding a hand. Writing scripture songs feels like flower gardening because the beauty feels revealed rather than created. I don’t make anything in the garden, but I participate – by sowing seed and keeping the soil moist and carefully transplanting and keeping the weeds down. Eventually something beautiful emerges. And I feel the same way about writing scripture songs. The words are already there, and deep down I think the melodies are too. So, why a Scripture Hymnal? Because the most important word in a life of faith is remember. And scripture songs help me remember the gospel like nothing else. So folks that don’t read music can enjoy it too, we’ve recorded every song in the hymnal, and there’s a QR code inside that connects you to the recordings. We’re also releasing the songs in albums of 10-12 songs at a time. And last week, we released Scripture Hymnal Vol 3. All the songs are produced by Kyle Schonewill, and you will recognize many friends of the Rabbit Room among the singers and players. Vol 1 Apple Music Vol 2 Apple Music Vol 3 Apple Music Randall Goodgame is a songwriter, TV show host, and leader of the Slugs & Bugs universe. The Scripture Hymnal is available via Rabbit Room Press, for more information, visit www.scripturehymnal.com . For more resources on art and faith, sign up for our other newsletters: Poetry , Music , and Articles . To support the work of the Rabbit Room, join us by becoming a member. Your membership helps fund everything from publishing new books to new podcasts , events , poetry , articles , theatre productions , conferences , and more . Membership is vital to our flourishing, and we’d love for you to participate. Click here to join or learn more . Photo by Elena Mozhvilo on Unsplash

Editor’s note: today’s guest post is a poem (and its introduction), inspired by a passage in Isaiah, that weaves together water imagery found in Scripture and includes a sea monster. What more do you need to know? by Isabel Chenot In that day, Yahweh will visit, with his sword, fierce and great and strong, Leviathan, the swift serpent, and Leviathan, the wriggling serpent, and he will kill the Monster which is in the sea. —Isaiah 27:1, translated by Alec Motyer, Isaiah by the Day The dark, chaotic flood was the first thing to be subdued when the Spirit of God moved on the face of the deep. The first subduing word was “Light” (Genesis 1:2,3). But the flood was unleashed again to destroy the morally devastated creation (Genesis 7). After that God promised never again to abandon his floating world to the forces of chaos (Genesis 9:11-17). Water continued to play an important role in the story of redemption. As in the creation narrative when the first dry land appeared, the sea was subdued when God led Israel out of Egypt. They walked dryshod through the depths of the Red Sea, as through the wilderness (Exodus 14, Psalm 106:9). “Many waters cannot quench love,” a wise man wrote, “neither can the floods drown it” (Song of Solomon 8:7, KJV). Concurrent with this theme of water as the element of chaos runs the theme of monsters, from the first chapters of Genesis. Unsurprisingly, after sin and death corrupt the “multi-colored, multi-form” (Edna St. Vincent Millay) creation, the sea becomes the home of terrifying creatures. The prophecy of Isaiah uses these symbols in a section that draws on a historical present to penetrate into the future. In a series of cyclical visions (chapters 13-27), the work speaks about chaotic powers that seek to shape human history, about God’s great victory over them in the prophesied Christ, and about the individual believer’s experience: the life of faith in an unstable, often violent world. In places, Isaiah’s world history achieves almost an aspect of fairy tale: as above, when a sea dragon is slain with a magic sword. Unsurprisingly, the cyclical vision of history in Revelation draws heavily on this section of Isaiah. Revelation too speaks in what we conceive as fairy tales: a princess and a dragon, a monster rising out of the sea, a rider on a white horse, a magic sword. The monster vomits a sea that tries to swallow the princess and her child, but the earth helps her (Revelation 12:15-16): “Many waters cannot quench love.” “He will kill the Monster which is in the sea”—it speaks of a created world that holds no threat to the heir. Over the summer, my husband took me to a few parks by Lake Michigan. One afternoon, we wandered, winding up at a nearly deserted stretch of the clear, gentle water, visible to its sandy bed. When the sun came out, the whole transparent vision (as far out as my eyes could translate) became a mass of shifting gold lines over sand ridges, a net thrown every instant by light. My husband snapped a cell phone image. I cried. Later I wrote a poem—my own sort of inadequate photograph. I wanted to have it for the same sort of keepsake. I understood something of that first word spoken again—not just over the world’s dark flood but over the individual. “Let there be light”—and there was light. As it filigreed the lake around me, a net drawing every shifting instant to awe, I felt almost fearless with vision of what will be. No more mental illness, no more torment of memory, no impure thoughts, no obsessions, rage, dishonesty, pride, despair. Then You will kill the monster in the sea: the bitter sea will feel land gently— a trustful child turning in long fought sleep. So in eventual eased breathing, all of sky’s hues will come to rest: each ridge of sand perfectly visible through fathoms, each little fish around wading feet. I will wade out of my depth— to see colored stones and creatures, glittering, sunken leaves— no fear of monsters, or of nightmare, or of drowning. For this I know, the sea will be pure light around me. What further could be emblemed from what is known for sheer tremoring clarity— pellucid green, wavering winged pink, shattered glass rainbows under every ripple’s corrugated seams? Of the last margin’s infant gold and blue— when illumined sea touches dim land, tracing from memory— a trustful child fingering bedclothes, turning again to dreams.

A year and a half ago, the Rabbit Room started a poetry newsletter on a relatively new platform called Substack and it has been a smashing success. In the 18 months since the poetry newsletter launched, 7,000 people have signed up to join the newsletter. We’ve published more than 100 poems that were read over one million times—including dozens of newly commissioned poems new and familiar poets. Ben Palpant interviewed a score of the most important contemporary poets of faith for the newsletter and next month, those excellent interviews are becoming a book called An Axe For the Frozen Sea, published by Rabbit Room Press. It is one of the many Rabbit Room projects quietly generating a lot of fruit, and it has been a joy to watch the community tell us over and over that they are reading more poetry than ever before. Last month, we launched two more newsletters on Substack, one dedicated to finding, sharing, and continuing to build a community around music and the other dedicated to thought-provoking nonfiction articles . Here they are: Music Newsletter | Articles Newsletter “Culture is not a field that Christians are free to leave fallow, trusting that the soil will bear good fruit and remain free of weeds. We have to go out and till the soil, plant the seeds of better stories, and gather our communities around the fruit that grows.” Why Substack? People do not use the web in the way they did in 2007 when the Rabbit Room blog was launched. Today, we expect the best of the internet to come to us, not the other way around. Yet, more and more, algorithms drive what we see, what we read, and (to a greater degree than we like to admit) what we think. We have more choices than ever when it comes to what we read, yet less choice. The web has become a very noisy place. Substack isn’t a miracle solution that will erase the negative aspects of those changes, but it does provide a way to outflank the algorithms and cut through a lot of the noise by putting the agency back into the hands of the reader, the listener, and the community. Substack combines two things: a blog and a newsletter. Each time we post a poem to the poetry newsletter , everyone who has signed up gets that poem in their email inbox immediately. That simple function lets readers select the voices they want to hear and lets creators of every stripe connect directly with the people who want to hear from them without needing to cater to the ever-changing whims of algorithms. Platforms Come and Go, Vision Remains Platforms come and go because technology and culture are constantly reshaping one another. The Rabbit Room is not married to any single platform. We’re married to a vision. We are going to use whatever platforms and tech tools will help us cultivate and curate story, music, and art to nourish communities for the life of the world. Why? Because The stories we tell one another and ourselves matter. Culture is not a field that Christians are free to leave fallow, trusting that the soil will bear good fruit and remain free of weeds. We have to go out and till the soil, plant the seeds of better stories, and gather our communities around the fruit that grows. And that is what the Rabbit Room is all about. Andy Patton is the creator of the Darkling Psalter , a collection of creative renditions of the Psalms paired with new poems. He holds an M.A. in theology from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He works for the Rabbit Room and is a former staff member at L'Abri Fellowship in England. For more resources on art and faith, sign up for our other newsletters: Poetry , Music , and Articles . To support the work of the Rabbit Room, join us by becoming a member. Your membership helps fund everything from publishing new books to new podcasts , events , poetry , articles , theatre productions , conferences , and more . Membership is vital to our flourishing, and we’d love for you to participate. Click here to join or learn more . Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

by Timothy Jones Once I was struggling to discern next steps in what God was calling me to do. (Well, there’s been way more than one time.) Over the years I’ve woven in and out of writing, editing, and pastoring, in ways that have felt both exhilarating and risky, even scary. At this juncture I wrote in my journal, “All I can do, Lord, is wait and allow you to fit all the pieces together. Help me to know that you are working everything out according to your will. Use today to allow me to believe again in your goodness.” During that time I often came to God with my hands figuratively clenched with worry. As I still do, I got antsy. I would mentally fidget. But that morning in prayer I was able to open my fist a bit, to hand over my worries and anxieties to God. Sometimes during that time I would pray a verse from Psalm 5: “In the morning, O Lord, you hear my voice; in the morning I lay my requests before you and wait in expectation.” (Psalm 5:3) That helped. We can get smothered by the routine and the demands that cloud our view and don’t really give life. We can lose perspective and let a nonstop video reel run in our minds with all the possible downer outcomes. For me, at least, this happens especially in the “in-between” times, those spans when our plans have to wait--can only wait. I’m not very good at this. I’d rather see things happen, make things happen. But there’s more than one way to wait. Waiting is not doing nothing. It is not the same as being passive. It is readying ourselves for something more. Second only to suffering, someone has said, waiting may be the greatest teacher. So we listen. Which is how the season of Advent helps. The word Advent, when associated with the church calendar, means appearing or coming or arrival. Advent tells us to prepare—to make room for, paradoxically—the One who has already come. We get encouragement to pay attention to a larger view We get conditioned to a more hopeful outlook. These Sundays and weekdays leading to Christmas have us waiting for one who is yet to arrive in all his fullness, and maybe we forgot to look ahead to. How can we learn as we wait and prepare and watch? Advent reminds us that there is much already happening in God’s realm. Think of it that way, and we might feel more liable to watch while we wait. We can ask God to stand our hearts at attention. We cultivate in our souls an attitude of alertness to see the presence of Christ in our midst. “Life is just a bunch of stuff that happens,” says Homer Simpson. But not if we watch this drama of Jesus’s coming unfold across the stage of history in a little town in the Galilean countryside, in Jerusalem, and finally in history’s grand finale at the end of time. One problem, though, is how we get caught up in ways that make Jesus’s coming harder to see. We live in times, someone said, more characterized by “Blah” than “Ahh.” Our expectations get dulled by doomscrolling. We settle for just getting by or looking out for ourselves more than looking up and around for something Larger. But Annie Dillard, in an out-of-the-way magazine interview, once said, “If there is a God it is not an insignificant fact, but something that requires a radical re-thinking of every little thing.” Even the seemingly small matters: the prospect that attracts us or the fear that nags at us. This is a time to get ready for the infinite God of all things to become the God of everyday life, even the “every little thing” that stirs up our longing impatience. Companies of angels will announce and celebrate the coming birth, but before Jesus comes to us we may have to focus our eyes to catch the glimpses that keep us going. And when it comes to staying awake while we wait, sometimes we need help from others, too, other folks who are also waiting and watching. A body of fellow seekers and waiters. We need not wait and watch alone. We can’t, really. A church small group was discussing, “Why stay in the church?” as recounted by pastor Tom Long. The conversation took place some years ago, before scandals and abuses of power seemed only to intensify the question. But “I’ll tell you what keeps me coming to this church,” one man said, with everyone seeming to lean forward in their chairs to hear what he’d say. “It’s strange, I know,” he went on, “but I get the feeling here, like nowhere else, that something is about to happen.” Something good, he meant. That well describes the hope at the heart of Advent. At the heart of all of life. An unseen Reality is at work, about to happen again. Much of our waiting is, of course, filled with our preferences. Our “wish lists.” Our “I need, I need” moments, like the character in What about Bob? We have this clear idea of how we want things to work out: this job, that neighborhood to live in. We’d like one relationship to end in romance, another needy person to go away and stop bothering us. But our goal in prayer is not to make things happen on our timetable. At such times, we can tell ourselves, as the saying goes, “Don’t just do something; sit there.” Sit. “Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him,” as Psalm 37:7 puts it. We do not tame or manipulate God by a spiritual practice or particular intercession. Being still in God’s presence is a way to recall that wider angle, a way to be ready. Prayer primes us to receive a gift we cannot do without. And those who faithfully wait “listen for the sounds and silences of God,” writes philosopher and author Cornelius Plantinga. They also, he might have also said, listen amid the times God seems absent or slow. “They quiet themselves into a kind of absorbency, a readiness to hear the word of God, and also the voice of God, and even some of the silences of God.” Even work at staying put during the apparent inactivity of God. There’s plenty of ways to be glib about all this. We can all supply our own stories when waiting was difficult. We usually see waiting as an inconvenience but sometimes it’s nothing less than a heartache. If waiting is, like suffering, one of our greatest teachers, it’s also one of our severest. I’m thinking of seemingly intractable situations. Moments of horror or panic or deep regret. Still, we keep watching. A woman I know wrote a book titled Graceful Waiting, dealing with her struggles to be patient with God when terrible things happened. “My waiting was anything but graceful,” she told me. “The grace was on God’s part.” That takes some pressure off. To wait means to stop trying always to steer precisely our little boat. Not that that’s easy. Not when we try again and again to put our hand back on the rudder. But God’s grace comes alongside. Waiting while relying on grace helps us see One whose outline of our lives chafes for a moment, who may not work out his plans on our lined-out schedule, but who still waits in the wings, eager nevertheless to hear our whispered longings. “Whenever you pray,” writes the late priest Henri Nouwen, “you profess that you are not God and that you wouldn’t want to be, that you haven’t reached your goal yet, and that you never will reach it in this life, that you must constantly stretch out your hands and wait again for the gift which gives new life.” We ask for grace, for a divine assist, for a gift to help our souls awake to an awareness that, while alert, is not agitated. And in Jesus something happens. Year after year. God, season after season, draws near. Advent reminds us how in Jesus God became a child born amid quiet surroundings. How this birth even carries sometimes hidden, sometimes extravagant effects. Born of Mary, he showed up on the premises to, most of all, make things new and better and more hopeful. Even with Advent’s sober side, even with life’s lengthy waits and the longings that characterize some seasons, we open ourselves to the possibilities of expectant joy. We cultivate a sense that something is about to happen. And we hear an encouragement to be willing to wait for it. Timothy Jones is a writer and Episcopal priest who lives near Nashville. He once worked as an associate editor at Christianity Today magazine. Over the years he has written several noted books on prayer. He's written for Ekstasis magazine, Fathom magazine, and The Christian Century. He blogs at  revtimothyjones.com  and is writing a forthcoming book on the Trinity, This Question of Love. For more resources on art and faith, sign up for our other newsletters: Poetry , Music , and Articles . To support the work of the Rabbit Room, join us by becoming a member. Your membership helps fund everything from publishing new books to new podcasts , events , poetry , articles , theatre productions , conferences , and more . Membership is vital to our flourishing, and we’d love for you to participate. Click here to join or learn more .

by Mark Meynell Douglas Adams has a unique place in literary history: he was the first to make science fiction funny. His breakout The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy started life as a BBC radio series in 1978 and it made his name. I remember borrowing a friend's set of the cassettes and almost wore out the tape. Adams remained consistently hilarious and provocative until his early death in 2001 at only 49. A Big Hand Please He went on to rewrite the scripts in novel form, which then inspired a further four novels to form A Trilogy in Five Parts . The second novel, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe , transports us by means of a 'time bubble' to the viewing platform at Milliways restaurant. There, diners can enjoy the finest cuisine in the cosmos (while being serenaded by the likes of the band Disaster Area , whose performances are so loud they must perform from an orbiting ship) and observe the future collapse of the entire universe. This happens on a nightly basis. Now, Adams was a vocal atheist and religion was a regular target of his humour. In the book, Max Quordlepleen, the Milliways host, welcomes the various parties to the restaurant and he spots a party of twenty devotees of the Church of the Second Coming of the Great Prophet Zarquon. The spotlights turn to their table while Max goes on to say: "There they are, sitting there, patiently. He said he'd come again, and he's kept you waiting a long time, so let's hope he's hurrying, fellas, because he's only got eight minutes left!" They squirm; the multitudes guffaw. Then with faux-contrition, Max adds: "'No, but seriously though, folks, seriously though, no offense meant. No, I know we shouldn't make fun of deeply held beliefs, so a big hand please for the Great Prophet Zarquon...' The audience clapped respectfully. '... wherever he's got to!' He blew a kiss to the stony-faced party and returned to the centre of the stage." (Restaurant at the End of the Universe, p81) No prizes for guessing who that's aimed at. And after two millennia, who can blame him? What's the point of waiting? It's never going to happen now, surely? Which rather scuppers Advent, doesn't it, the season most characterized by waiting in the church year? The Cosmic Joke If there's one play to embody how much Western culture has been transformed over the twentieth century, a strong case can be made for Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot , which he first wrote in French 1948-9 and then in English for its London premiere in 1955. I've been thinking about it recently because it's enjoying a successful revival in the West End, with Ben Whishaw as Vladimir and Lucian Msamati as Estragon. It is such an ambiguous work: funny but cold, humane but despairing, intensely individualist but cosmic in significance. The two protagonists make resolutions but never move a muscle. Of course, the play's running gag is the reason Vladimir and Estragon are on stage at all. They're waiting for the mystery man of play's title (incidentally, it's unlikely Beckett was representing God since he first wrote in French whose word for God is Dieu). They can't remember if they've met Godot and so have to ask. And they don't know why they must wait for him, but still, they wait. And then, when he fails to arrive, they agree to come back tomorrow. Later, they discuss hanging themselves. After all, the only object on stage is a dead tree (although it somehow gains a few leaves for the second act). But they don't have rope. So they agree to return tomorrow with rope. Vladimir: We'll hang ourselves tomorrow. (Pause.) Unless Godot comes. Estragon: And if he comes? Vladimir: We'll be saved. But moments later, the curtain falls with them motionless. And we know that Godot will never come. Which means...? Out of the Gloom So far, so gloomy. I grant you that, so far, this is less than inspiring and certainly not standard Rabbit Room fare. But consider the Isaiah text that is so familiar at this time of year and so significant for its meaning: The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned. ... For to us a child is bor n... (Isaiah 9:2, 6) Think of the context for these expectations: "darkness ... the land of deep darkness." But there will be a birth, a child unlike any other. It's easy to see why it's such a seasonal passage. But we skate too quickly over the darkness. Perhaps, this year of all years, when the world feels more turbulent than ever, we need to take care not to. We need to recognize the darkness for what it is. In the northern hemisphere, Advent means winter: low temperatures, little sunlight, long nights. It is a time of gloom, of greyness, of darkness. And it seems interminable. So we must wait. Waiting... It is no accident that life's darkest moments are often associated with the darkest hours. They are moments of confusion, lostness, despair even. And it's natural to wonder why it is like that. Must it be like that? As Bono cries out in Yahweh , "Always pain before a child is born... why the dark before the dawn?" Because sometimes, the dark feels like it will never end. We yearn for the light, like the night guards of Psalm 130: "I wait for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning, more than watchmen wait for the morning." Of course, nobody is going to bat an eyelid if someone longs for sunrise. We know it well enough. The sun always comes up. But what if you're waiting for something that has never happened? Like when you suddenly start building a huge boat in the middle of a desert because you're convinced that one day everything will be several feet underwater? Noah's friends assumed he was a few fries short of a Happy Meal. And they scoffed. Who wouldn't? What if you are determined to believe that because the Son entered time and space once, he will therefore do it again, but this time with glory on a global scale. What if you believe that this is as certain as the rising of the Sun? It sounds as ludicrous as the return of the Great Prophet Zarquon. But that is what the darkness does. It makes the light seem inconceivable and impossible. It even distorts our sense of time, making it feel as if everything has slowed down, perhaps because we cannot get a sense of our space. But the Sun will Rise. And the Son will Come. That is why I love the bridge to U2's " Yahweh " : Still waiting for the dawn The sun is coming up The sun is coming up on the ocean This love is like a drop in the ocean Mark Meynell is a writer, pastor and teacher based in the UK and he's been involved with the Rabbit Room since 2017. He has been involved in cross-cultural training for the last 25 years and is passionate about integrating life, theology and the arts. He blogs at markmeynell.net . For more resources on art and faith, sign up for our other newsletters: Poetry , Music , and Articles . To support the work of the Rabbit Room, join us by becoming a member. Your membership helps fund everything from publishing new books to new podcasts , events , poetry , articles , theatre productions , conferences , and more . Membership is vital to our flourishing, and we’d love for you to participate. Click here to join or learn more .

Editor's Note: Part of  Mark Meynell's 5&1 series on classical music . Taking a different theme for each post, the 5&1 series offers five short pieces followed by one more substantial work. The playlist choices are occasionally not found on YouTube, so alternatives are provided here. To listen to the playlist for this post, follow these links to Apple Music , Spotify , or YouTube . Early on in 5&1, we made a brief dip into the wonders of music written for Advent . So this time, we'll do something a little different. Strictly speaking, only one of these pieces is seasonal, but each reflects an aspect of Advent that I explored in a recent post , especially that sense of anticipation or yearning for light felt by those walking in darkness. 1. Eternal Source of Light Divine (Birthday Ode for Queen Anne, HWV 74) George Frederick Handel (1685-1759, German/British) Alison Balsom (trumpet) , Iestyn Davies (counter-tenor) , The English Concert, Trevor Pinnock (cond.) Handel was a German composer (born in the same year as J. S. Bach) who first visited London when around 25, little knowing that the city would be his home for the rest of his life. Queen Anne was on the throne when he arrived in 1711 and he quickly found himself swept up in the whirl of court politics and musical commissions. Two years later, he offered one of his most sublime early works for the Queen's birthday, although unfortunately there is no record of her actually listening to it! She apparently had little interest in music. The piece is a secular cantata (ie a work made up of several short sections, using different instruments, solo singers and choir). Queen Anne's opens with this gorgeous appeal to Sun's creator to ensure it was especially sunny ("to add lustre to this day") for her big celebration (rather necessary in an English February!). It is simple but magical as the two soloists gently cross-weave in between the slowly shifting harmonies. As a musical invitation to bask in sunlight, there is nothing to beat it. This arrangement has one singer, the counter-tenor Iestyn Davies, with the other part arranged and played by superstar trumpeter Alison Balsom. 2. Andante tranquillo (from Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta, Sz. 106) Béla Bartók (1881-1945, Hungarian) Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, Susanna Mälkki (cond.) Of course, the people that Isaiah observed walking in darkness would not have necessarily enjoyed their predicament very much. Like the psalmist's night watchman longing for dawn, they would have been unsettled and yearning for light. So this next piece conveys something of that darkness-induced anxiety. Bartók was a Hungarian composer of particular genius, one who felt the political turmoil of the first half of the twentieth century acutely. He was fiercely opposed to Nazism and despaired at Hungary's incorporation in 1940 into the Tripartite Alliance (between Germany, Italy, and Japan) and fled that year with his wife to the USA. He never really settled, constantly preoccupied with homesickness and worry about his health. He would die in New York soon after the end of the war. Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta was written in 1937 (a celesta is 'bell-piano': instead of hitting wires, hammers controlled by a standard piano keyboard strike tuned metal plates). This opening movement is full of unease, if not dread, but it is more a lurking sensation than something fully fledged or rounded. In dark times, it can often be helpful to find articulations of that darkness as well as alternatives to it. 3. O Radiant Dawn (Strathclyde Motets, 2007) Sir James Macmillan (1959- , British) Apollo 5 Now for the one genuinely seasonal work, one of Macmillan's 14 Strathclyde motets, written between 2005 and 2010 for the Catholic chaplaincy at Glasgow's University of Strathclyde. Here he sets a mediaeval Advent liturgy for unaccompanied choir to music that might initially sound as ancient as its text. However, there are subtle harmonic hints early on that more going is on than first meets the ear. Think of this as a perfect miniature, structured as a kind of a bible sandwich. The central section is a setting of short Isaiah 9 passage for just the soprano and alto lines. Before and after it, the whole choir sings the mediaeval words, which are a prayer flowing out of the Isaiah imagery. Macmillan takes care to let every single word sound clearly throughout. But, the magic comes from small devices that draw our attention. Listen out for what he does with the words: death , light , shone , and especially come . It is a masterclass in expressing Advent yearning 4. Isoldes Liebestod (from "Tristan and Isolde", WWV90) Richard Wagner (1813-1883, German) Gewandhausorchester, Andris Nelsons (cond.) Some may find this inclusion incongruous, if not actually offensive. Wagner is controversial (his vicious antisemitism was part of his appeal for the Nazis) and his life and worldview almost as divergent from Christian orthodoxy as it is possible to be. And yet... It is indisputable that he was a musical phenomenon, one whose innovations uniquely paved the way for twentieth century music. We are actually still in the Middle Ages, however, because Tristan and Isolde is an operatic setting of a twelfth-century romance. It has it all: love, lust, potions, passionate yearning, murder and self-sacrifice. The crucial thing here is that Wagner employs unresolved harmonies that create a constant sense of tension, extending it through the entire opera (which usually lasts just under four hours!). You'll be relieved that this is just an excerpt from the very end, when the music resolves at last , as Isolde is finally united with her beloved Tristan by dying and collapsing onto his dead body. That melodramatic, harmonic consummation provides a profound foretaste of the ultimate consummation, which is of course what Advent is all about. 5. Aspiration, Lento, con risoluzione (Symphony No. 1, "Afro-American") William Grant Still (1895-1978, American) Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Neeme Järvi (cond,) It has been a long-time in coming but at last there is growing recognition for the brilliance of African-American classical composers, such as Florence Price, William Dawson, and William Grant Still. All three were associated with the Harlem Renaissance in the 1920s and 30s. Still's 'Afro-American' symphony was the first to be written by an African-American and performed by a first-class orchestra in the USA. It uses many of the standard features of the western classical symphony but incorporates some classic blues harmonies and rhythms. This, the final movement, is titled 'Aspiration', and as such, expresses yet another form of yearning. Still avoids the more predictable chord progressions of western music, but instead weaves through various keys as a jazz musician might. We don't always know where we're going, but we are always carried by the kind of optimism that helps people to persevere through the toughest of circumstances. Lux Aeterna (1997) Morten Lauridsen  (1943- , American) Chamber Choir of Europe, I Virtuosi Italiani, Nicol Matt (cond.) The full-length work this month combines words from the Requiem mass with other liturgical texts inspired by light. Lauridsen was playing with various ideas on these lines but the final prompt to compose this work was the passing of his mother in 1995. It quickly became a firm favourite of choirs far beyond his native Pacific Northwest. Inspired by the great legacy of Renaissance choral music, each of the five movements flows seamlessly into the next one, creating a choral tapestry of sounds. The climactic Alleluias are just marvellous. Introitus In te, Domini, speravi O nata lux Veni, Sancte Spiritus Agnus Dei - Lux Aeterna The accumulative effect is one of serenity and security, inspiring the listener to find comfort in gospel hope, in the light that is promised to the people walking in darkness. Byron Adams, commenting on the piece's impact, sums it up: The ecstatic 'alleluias' that follow express a joyous sense of acceptance reminiscent of the final words of Thornton Wilder's novel, The Bridge of San Luis Rey : 'All those impulses of love return to the love that made them ... there is a land of the living and a land of the dead and the bridge is love, the only survival, the only meaning? Mark Meynell is a writer, pastor and teacher based in the UK and he's been involved with the Rabbit Room since 2017. He has been involved in cross-cultural training for the last 25 years and is passionate about integrating life, theology and the arts. He blogs at markmeynell.net . For more resources on art and faith, sign up for our other newsletters: Poetry , Music , and Articles . To support the work of the Rabbit Room, join us by becoming a member. Your membership helps fund everything from publishing new books to new podcasts , events , poetry , articles , theatre productions , conferences , and more . Membership is vital to our flourishing, and we’d love for you to participate. Click here to join or learn more .

Happy New Year, dear friends. Here is a liturgy for all the beautiful things you will bring into being this year—both works of art and works of living. by David O. Taylor O Holy Trinity, I offer to you all of my heart, mind, soul, and strength this day. In your mercy, hear my prayer, O Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. A MOMENT OF SILENCE IS KEPT. O Father, you who are the Creator of all things: I praise you this day and I place myself before you in silence. Speak, for your servant is listening. A MOMENT OF SILENCE IS KEPT. I praise you, O God, for being the Source of Life, the Architect of Creation, the Originator of all good things in Heaven and on Earth. I praise you for making me in your image. I praise you for making me fearfully and wonderfully so. (GESTURING TO EACH PART OF YOUR BODY) Bless now my hands and my feet, my head and my heart, my eyes and my ears, my mouth and my nose. (WITH HANDS OPENED IN SUPPLICATION) Grant me fresh ideas, O God. Fill me with new vigor. Order my steps. Bless my work, so that you may fulfill your creative purposes in and through me. I pray this in the name of the Infinitely Imaginative One. Amen. A MOMENT OF SILENCE IS KEPT. O Son of God, you who are the Word made Flesh, I praise you this day. I praise you for sanctifying the earth in your Incarnation, confirming thereby the goodness of the physical world of wood and stone, wind and water, fire and flesh, metal and matter. (WITH HANDS OPENED IN A GESTURE OF SUPPLICATION) Deliver me from fear, O Christ. Save me from the hour of trial. Rescue me from the pride of life. Great Carpenter, teach me, guide me, aid me in my work today. I pray this so that I may become an agent of your gracious and recreative purposes for this world that you so love. I pray this in the name of the One who is the Icon and Beloved of God. Amen. A MOMENT OF SILENCE IS KEPT. O Holy Spirit, you who are the Lord and Giver of Life, I praise you this day. I praise you for sustaining all things in being, energizing them with vitality, and ushering them to their future and final state of glory. (WITH HANDS OPENED IN A GESTURE OF SUPPLICATION) Purify my soul, O Spirit. Scour my heart. Re-order my mind. Strengthen my body. I pray this so that I might be freed to be playful in my creative labors today as befits my status as a beloved child of God. I pray this in the name of the One who revives and restores me and will bring to completion the good work that he so lovingly began in me long ago. May it be so, O Holy Trinity. Amen. A FINAL MOMENT OF SILENCE IS KEPT BEFORE THE DAY’S CREATIVE LABORS ARE BEGUN. For more resources on art and faith, sign up for our other newsletters: Poetry , Music , and Articles . To support the work of the Rabbit Room, join us by becoming a member. Your membership helps fund everything from publishing new books to new podcasts , events , poetry , articles , theatre productions , conferences , and more . Membership is vital to our flourishing, and we’d love for you to participate. Click here to join or learn more .

by Kate Gaston On a muggy day in June, my husband and I schlepped our earthly belongings from a moving van into our new apartment. We’d rented a gingerbread-style Victorian house in the heart of a coastal New England town. Small towns in Connecticut know how to do charming, and our new home was off-the-scales. Which made it all the more ironic that this idyllic setting would serve as the backdrop for our lives to devolve into, well, a bit of a dumpster fire. Moving is hard. There’s no two ways to slice it. Moving cross-country to a place we’d never been, in which we knew not a soul? Harder still. We’d uprooted from a tightly-knit community for my husband, David, to begin an Infectious Disease fellowship at a fancy institution. We’d been warned the hours of fellowship would be brutal. But with blind optimism, perhaps the only means by which people pursue medical careers, we figured we’d be okay. We were not okay. Previously, we’d been that mildly insufferable family who sat down together around the dinner table each night. But with a husband working 90+ hour weeks, that tradition died a tormented, scrabbling death.  A month or so after arriving in our new city, I hurried my daughter through breakfast on a Sunday morning, and drove us to a local church she and I had been visiting. I’m no stranger to visiting churches, but this was the first time I’d done it without my husband by my side. This would mark the third week in a row I’d visited the same church, and as I pulled into the parking lot that morning, I promised my friendship-starved heart I wouldn’t leave without getting another woman’s contact info. A phone number would suffice, but if I could make a concrete plan to meet up with her for coffee? Even better.  I’m well aware the first few weeks of church visits are an unofficial sizing-up period. The visitor maintains the right to cut and run. The congregation will be polite, but noncommittal. However, when a visitor shows up for three weeks running like I was about to do, it sends a message. Commitment is in the air. It’s game on.  Clasping my daughter’s hand, we entered the sanctuary. I surveyed the room, weighing my seating options. There was a subtle strategy involved in my choice of pew. It was not random. Certainly not. Choosing a pew too far toward the back of the sanctuary would signal a desire for anonymity. Choosing a pew too close to the front might be perceived as too eager. I wanted the Goldilocks zone. I chose a pew on the righthand side of the room, midway toward the front. My choice, I told myself, expressed a level of commitment and intentionality but without any ambitious overtones. Presbyterian ministers are not known for their brevity, so I had ample time to survey the congregation, noting a few women in my vicinity who possessed potential for friendship. Finally, the service drew to a close. After the benediction was given, I slowly, oh so slowly, began to gather my Bible, pen, and notebook. This slowness, like the choice of pew, was intentional. If I moved too quickly, I’d be ready to walk out of the sanctuary before anyone had the chance to notice me, much less work up the courage to talk to me. My daughter, unencumbered by the colossal weight of social dynamics, scampered through the thicket of legs toward the refreshment table.  The organic moment I’d orchestrated was stretching, stagnating into an inert, airless space. There I was. Still sitting alone. Mortification bubbled through my bloodstream. My heart lurched into a rollicking gallop. Paralyzed by indecision in that moment—that critical, pivotal moment! —I prayed someone, anyone, would approach me.  I stood, glancing around. Those women I’d sized up as friendship potential? Gone. Vanished into mauve-carpeted oblivion. Everywhere I looked, clusters of smiling, happy church people turned in upon themselves, closing rank, forming impenetrable social barricades of pleated-front khaki pants and tasteful sundresses.  Panic streaked through my mind. Was there something repulsive about my appearance? Had the hem of my skirt hiked itself up during the sermon? Was it now, at this very moment, tucked into the waistband of my underpants? Be cool, Kate, I thought, and glanced down. Things looked fine from the front. I ran my hand quickly along my rear, performing that classic wedgie-check maneuver known to skirt-wearers everywhere. But no. All hemlines were accounted for. Nothing in my appearance warranted pariah status.  By this point, I’d been standing alone for two full-bodied minutes, grinning in the vacant manner of church ladies and lunatics. It occurred to me I had two options. I could boldly move into the crowd, and strike up a conversation with a stranger at random. Or I could grab my kid and hightail it for the exit. Before I go on, I need you to understand something about me. I am an extrovert, sprung from the loins of generations of extroverts. My forebears set the standard for church small-talk everywhere. In my childhood, seldom did a Sunday morning pass when ours wasn’t the last car in the church parking lot. Conversation is my birthright.  Conversation, my parents taught me, is like a game of tennis. One person serves the ball, the opening question, and the game begins. The other player receives the ball by answering the opening salvo, but then must return the ball back over the net with a question of their own. Each person continues offering this give-and-receive, and if both parties play effectively, the result is the sustained volley of a satisfying conversation. I chose option one. Squaring my shoulders, I marched into that crowded church foyer. If conversations are like tennis matches, I was Federer. I was Agassi. I was Venus and Serena. That foyer? My Wimbledon. I was firing shots over the net like my life depended on it.    I might as well have been serving tennis balls at a herd of antelope for all the good it did me.    My bucket of tennis balls—my conversational arsenal—was spent. I was looking down the barrel of another friendless, interminable Sunday afternoon. And that’s when I spotted her. Across the foyer, I recognized a woman I’d chatted with the previous week. She was my last chance, my only hope for that friendly coffee date I’d been longing for. But she was already moving toward the exit. I grabbed my daughter, elbowed my way through the milling crowd, and out the door. I spotted her climbing into her minivan. I dashed toward her car, and, like a woman unhinged, knocked on her window.  The woman’s eyebrows raised in baffled confusion as she powered down her window. With a self-deprecating chuckle which I hoped communicated I wasn’t trying to murder her, I said, “Hey! Sorry to be awkward! I’m Kate? We met last week? I’m new here? Could I get your phone number? Maybe we could grab coffee sometime?” The woman smiled tightly. She gave me her phone number. She was careful not to make eye contact as she rolled up her window.    I never called her. The whole interaction left me feeling like a big, needy weirdo.    In 2023, the Surgeon General released a 70-page advisory, citing loneliness as a public health crisis. He’s not wrong. Data has been piling up, pointing to a host of morbidities associated with loneliness. The definition of loneliness, according to the American Psychology Association is “a discrepancy between one’s desired and achieved levels of social relations.” This definition makes loneliness seem, well, not so terribly bad. But when you find yourself alone on that barren tundra of social isolation, and you encounter loneliness in the wild, it’s worse, so much worse, than any definition can convey. Loneliness is a mix tape of humanity’s least favorite emotions: sadness, isolation, emptiness, anxiety, longing, despair, boredom, and a sense of being overlooked or forgotten. Smush those emotions into a ball, toss them into the warm, dark, moist environment of the human psyche, and what grows will be loneliness. Loneliness makes you chase people down in parking lots. Loneliness is a steady drip, drip, dripping of psychic pain. Loneliness is a sad clown handing you a balloon filled with heartache.  It’s theorized that loneliness is a vestigial social organ, an evolutionary hanger-on. As humans climbed out of the primordial sludge, we found ourselves profoundly vulnerable, easily picked off by predators. No claws. No teeth. Just soft, squishy, defenseless morsels. The constant threat of being eaten drew humans together, forming a community based on mutual protection. To find oneself outside the protection of the tribe, alone in a perilous world, would have been catastrophic. Eventually, just as hunger makes us seek food, the pangs of loneliness would begin to act as a psychic flare, compelling us to seek the protection of relationships. Though there is less risk today of being devoured by wolves, it is hypothesized this fear of social alienation still haunts our DNA.  I would like to suggest there is something deeper at play, something more complex than an evolutionary trait. Consider with me, for a moment, the Trinity. It’s surprising to me that no license or registration is required to write about the Trinity. I mean, I need a license to catch fish, but not to write about one of the stickiest, most mysterious aspects of God. I’ll tread lightly here, hopefully staying on the happy side of heresy.  The Trinity—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—existed outside the confines of time. And within their infinite existence, the three enjoyed perfect oneness, perfect communion, perfect community. If humanity is made in the image of God, it would follow we reflect this same capacity for call-and-response, this same need, desire, and delight in relationship.  Paul F.M. Zahl, in his book Peace in the Last Third of Life: A Handbook of Hope for Boomers, riffs on this very idea. With wry wisdom, Zahl writes of that split between our true self and false self. The true self is that part of us that is eternal, the imago Dei, the soul. That eternal part of ourselves is born looking for connection with God. Though we spend a tremendous amount of money, energy, and time searching for fullness through any number of other distractions, Zahl writes, “…the star to which your true self was unendingly looking to tie its wagon…was actually God, is God, and will always henceforth be God.” No one from that church ever invited me out for a cup of coffee. However, the events of that fateful morning were not without benefit. They led me to create what I’d come to call Kate’s Rubric of Social Responsibility. Whenever I encounter another human, and I’m attempting to decide who is responsible for beginning the conversation, I ask myself this series of simple questions:    Have I been in this room/building/space before?  Do I know more people in this room than the other person appears to know?  If asked, could I direct someone to the bathrooms?  If asked, could I direct someone to the paper towels?  If asked, could I direct someone to the coffee?    If the answer to any of these questions is yes, the responsibility to begin the conversation with the other human is on me. If, however, the answer to any of these questions is no, I progress to a slightly more complicated rubric. Stay with me. It gets tricky here. I ask myself the following two questions:    Did I put on my own pants this morning?  Did I tie my own shoes today?   If the answer to either of these questions is yes, the responsibility to begin the conversation is still on me.  In short, dear reader, introduce yourself to the new person. You will be able to identify this person by the brittle grin on her face and her propensity toward obsessive wedgie-checking. That new person might still be using GPS to find her way home. That new person might be lonelier than she’s ever felt in her life. That new person might be in your church on a Sunday morning in a state of desperation. Whatever the case, it’s likely that new person doesn’t have the emotional margin to stage elaborate courtship rituals to win your friendship. Do the hard thing. Welcome that person. Yes, you’re busy. Yes, it will be uncomfortable. Yes, it will be awkward. But do it. It’s on you. Not the new person. You.  We aren’t required to be everyone’s best friend, but exercising some imagination and extending ourselves toward welcoming the outsider is on us.  Beware the numbing lure of social comfort. Rarely is a social barricade the result of malice. Your participation in the barricade will almost never be a conscious choice. Often the strongest social barriers are constructed out of nothing more than casual indifference, built upon a foundation of apathy.  If you’re reading this and you’re the new person, there are some concrete things you can do to combat loneliness. First, get yourself to a place where humans gather. Throw yourself into the path of other humans. Don’t wait around for people to notice you. If I’ve learned anything from moving across the country multiple times, people aren’t good at noticing the new person. Are you sporty? Join a kickball league. Do you play games? Find the local game cafe. Do you enjoy eating food? Reading books? Cross-stitching cats on pillows? Find other people doing these things and sit down with them. Eat with them. Read with them. Cross-stitch with them.  After you’ve thrown yourself in the path of other humans, go a step further. In his book The Gift,  Lewis Hyde writes, “Spatial proximity becomes social life through an exchange of gifts.” To that end, show up early and make the coffee. Volunteer to re-inflate the kickballs. Pass out the bulletins. Set up chairs before the meeting. Fold up the tables after the meeting. Bring a plate of cookies. Wash dishes after the meal. These acts of service are, in fact, gifts. And it’s true that the gifts of service you offer will transform spatial proximity into social life. Yes, you’re busy. Yes, it will be awkward. But do it, and do it consistently. Side-by-side labor is the golden ticket for building relationships.  This admonition cuts both ways, too. As hosts, we must pay attention to the warp and weave of the hospitality we offer. When we welcome lonely people into our space, of course, we want to communicate that we’ve considered their needs and comfort. However, if there’s no chink in the organizational armor, nowhere to allow a newcomer the chance to contribute, hospitality can actually be hindered. If every task is buttoned up tight, it gives newcomers nowhere to offer their own gifts of service. Frictionless spaces can cause guests to feel that literally nothing is required of them. But that might actually be an impediment to welcoming the stranger.  This will sound strange, but sometimes you must welcome the lonely by giving them something to do.  My family has moved twice more since our time in New England, finally coming to rest in Nashville, Tennessee. Though our first year was challenging in the ways all new places are challenging, it helped to remember that moment, years ago, standing alone in a church parking lot. Experiencing loneliness offered me a chance to grapple with my understanding of hospitality. And now, when I enjoy the richness of community, the fellowship is sweeter because I’ve experienced its absence.  I have been the stranger. Now I am called to welcome the stranger.  An Alabama native, Kate was homeschooled before it was even remotely considered normal. She completed her undergraduate degree at Bryan College and went on to graduate school at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. For eight years, Kate worked as a PA in a trauma and burn ICU before ping-ponging across the nation for her husband’s medical training. She and her family are currently putting down roots in Nashville, Tennessee. Today, Kate enjoys homeschooling her daughter and tutoring in her local classical homeschool community. She also finds deep satisfaction in long, meandering conversations at coffee shops, oil painting, writing, and gazing pensively into the middle distance. You can read more of her work at her Substack: That Middle Distance . Footnotes   Surgeon General Advisory: https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/surgeon-general-social-connection-advisory.pdf      American Psychology Association definition of loneliness: https://dictionary.apa.org/loneliness   Contemporary Psychoanalysis quotes: Fromm-Reichmann, F. (1990). Loneliness. Contemporary Psychoanalysis , 26 (2), 305–330. https://doi.org/10.1080/00107530.1990.10746661 ]   Dr. Freida Fromm-Reichman in an article for Contemporary Psychoanalysis states, “Loneliness seems to be such a painful, frightening experience that people will do practically everything to avoid it…”   Perlman, D., & Peplau, L. A. (1984). Loneliness research: A survey of empirical findings. In L. A. Peplau & S. E. Goldston (Eds.), Preventing the harmful consequences of severe and persistent loneliness  (pp. 13–46). National Institute of Mental Health. For more resources on art and faith, sign up for our other newsletters: Poetry , Music , and Articles . To support the work of the Rabbit Room, join us by becoming a member. Your membership helps fund everything from publishing new books to new podcasts , events , poetry , articles , theatre productions , conferences , and more . Membership is vital to our flourishing, and we’d love for you to participate. Click here to join or learn more .

by Matt Conner Skye Peterson was in search of an adventure. As a songwriter born to a songwriter and a family steeped in multiple artistic expressions and encouragement, Skye tapped into the wisdom of the trade rather quickly in her own journey. Near the top of the list was the emphasis on experience over education, at least when it came to songcraft. The songs would flow from there. All The Difference (2024) is the resulting recording, a body of work informed by an overseas adventure of living in a castle, immersing herself in the Scriptures, and committing herself to a community near Carnforth, England. Skye’s newest set of songs asks tough questions while dodging easy answers and wrestles with the faith she’s been handed. Just as in her previous work, Skye’s compositions feel like beautiful, honest companions for the sojourner committed to an authentic journey. We recently sat down with her to hear more about the experiences behind the album, the value of vulnerability, and the artists she’s into most these days. Matt Conner: Growing up in such a musical family and with friends and neighbors so much a part of the industry in Nashville, was it always clear you’d want to make music of your own? Did you ever kick against that idea? Skye Peterson: I knew that I've always loved writing songs and I've always loved to share them. I knew that would never stop happening regardless of whether or not it was my career path. I have always written to process and to pray—for other people, for my sake, and also for God. So there are lots of different reasons I would write. Over the course of the last couple of years of actually doing it for my job, I've seen these other kinds of motivations sneak in there—approval or attention or money. As a kid growing up, it was almost this selfish thing. Something bad or good has happened to me, so I'm going to sit down at the piano and write a song about it. I do think being surrounded by songwriters and musicians allowed it to never be a question in my mind that it was possible to follow it as my actual career path. Which is cool, because anywhere else in the world, I don't think it's a given that you could do it for work. I went to Bible school in England. I didn't go to music school on purpose, because the songwriters I loved most in the world didn't go to music school. They just wrote a bunch of songs and experienced a lot of life and wrote about that and got better the more they did it. That was the advice that was given to me by my dad and several others. They all said, ‘Don’t go learn how to write a song in a class. Go and experience some life, live somewhere else, and do a hard thing. Then that will be your teacher. It’ll teach you how to write songs.’ Also, it was a Bible school, so of course you’re hearing all sorts of Bible stories and having lots of really good yet hard conversations. You're meeting Jesus all over again and in all sorts of new and surprising ways. That’s a lot of material to work with. MC: By the way, where was the Bible school? SP: It was called Capernwray Hall and it was in Northwest England, kind of in the middle of nowhere. MC: That experience, that's still pretty recent for you. What did you expect that to do for you in advance and how much of that was true on the other side? SP: I expected to leave with more answers about God and how God works, and I think I left with more questions. Part of their philosophy, I think, is that they don't want to give you the answers. They want to teach you how to ask questions and how to actually think about things, instead of just teaching you the information. So that was surprising. I left with a clear understanding that I was loved, and also a bigger understanding of how broken I was. Both of those things got bigger simultaneously. You also read through the whole Bible while you're there, and there are only 60 students who are all in your same kind of life stage. Everyone's asking the same questions. It was so healthy for me to be able to actually ask those things and to learn how to have grace for myself and be brave enough to accept that God is a mystery, and maybe mystery is good for us. Maybe not knowing means there's more room for faith and trust and belief rather than certainty, knowledge, and assurance. MC: It feels like all those themes are wound through these songs. Does that make this set of songs like the proper unpacking of that whole year? SP: I think that year influenced a lot of these songs for sure. The album centers around God's consistency and God's kindness. One of the things I wrestled with over that year and the years following was the idea that God is either irrelevant to the world or unkind to the world and the people in it—and I didn't like either of those options. God's been slowly proving me wrong since I knew how to articulate those fears of mine. The album follows a steady theme of his consistency—that whenever I mess up or I don't understand, it doesn't mean that he's not here or close or kind. I had these big expectations of what God speaking to me would be like. We hear lots of those big stories—a burning bush, a pillar of fire, these very obvious, in-your-face, hard-to-ignore things. To be honest, most of the moments I feel God speaking to me have been as small as a daffodil in my front yard or a kiss on the cheek from my husband. These small, ordinary things I now attribute to God’s kindness rather than coincidence. And they're actually not small at all. Daffodils—time after time, year after year—keep coming up again and getting bigger and better and more beautiful. They’re these literal little miracles that come out of the ground. It doesn't make any sense, and that's why it's so good. So a lot of the album is about learning how to see him, how to view ordinary things as not ordinary. MC: There's a real willingness in these songs to frame yourself in a lesser way— you’re not the hero at all. It’s documenting a humble moment or admitting what you need to unlearn. Is there any way that you're uncomfortable with putting yourself out there for public consumption? Do you ever think about the way you’re framed in these things? SP: My dad always said, “If you're the hero of your own story, you're telling it wrong.” And that voice has been in my head for a long time, telling me how to be honest in my music and not in an uncomfortable way. This album might be that. What’s been on my mind a lot lately is how it's easy for Christian artists to be dishonest. Whenever you're a songwriter, you can sum up the three-and-a-half best versions of everything you've gone through and put it to beautiful music. You're not singing about the whole time. And so I've wanted to paint the whole picture of what my faith experience has been like, which doesn't have to be like everyone else's. The scariest song for me to put on that record was the song called “Calling You My Lord.” I mean, the first verse is, “I'm positive I need you / I'm pretty sure I want you / but I don't know if I can really say I trust you.” That’s just like straight-up scary to admit. Yet whenever I played that song live, I've seen a lot of people nodding along. MC: Are you surprised when that happens? SP: Yes, I am. It's easy to feel alone when you're doubting. I just don't think that's the case. I think it's easy to put on a brave Christian face and I think that can be good to do sometimes—to put your body in a posture like, “No, I'm going to believe this, even though deep down I have a hard time believing this. I'm going to say out loud that I believe this.” My goal is to lead these thoughts somewhere else. Ultimately, I hope that these songs point back to the cross, to what Christ has done and how he's redeemed those questions, and how he actually is the answer to every question I have. So that song kind of admits that I have a hard time believing in him and then it ends with, “But I'm still here and I'm still calling you my Lord and I'm not going anywhere.” I'm staying here. Regardless of all of my doubts over the years, there’s been the steady heartbeat of God's love that has been impossible to ignore. It's like my lifeline; it keeps me going and I don't know why. Why do I keep writing songs about him if I don't love him, if I don't really mean it? Do I really mean it? I think I do, because I keep writing songs about it. MC: What does the cutting room floor look like on this? Were there a lot of songs to choose from for this or do you pick a few and then really hone in on them? SP: I pick a few and hone in on them. This album was kind of slow to make because I wanted to choose the right songs. I waited until I wrote the next right song to record it. So the songs are probably written within like eight or nine months. We'd record them one at a time after I had written them, so there aren’t a lot of unfinished ideas lying around. MC: What do you want people to take away from listening to this album? SP: I want people to take away that God loves to give us gifts and that God is a lot more generous in his gift-giving than I think we often give him credit for. And so I hope that not only is this record one of those gifts from God, but I also hope that it will help them see that God is everywhere, regardless of whether or not we see it. I think that God's gifts are still given even if they aren't received at the moment. MC: We talk a lot about lyrics and themes and things like that when we're talking with artists in the Rabbit Room, but can you take me through some musical touchpoints for you? SP: I love Anais Mitchell. She's like my songwriting hero. MC: So have you seen Hadestown ? SP: I have. It’s really good. Well, sad but good. So Anais Mitchell is huge. I like Phoebe Bridgers, but I also love Sandra McCracken and Sara Groves and Jess Ray and Taylor Leonhardt. Those kinds of Christian artists I think are really great and are more in line with what I love to actually write. Listening-wise, I mainly listen to Anais Mitchell and Jon Foreman lately. MC: Anything else that you would want people to know about the album? SP: I would love to say Asher Peterson recorded or produced the record. He was a big part of choosing the songs and bringing them all to life. Also, Ben Shive produced a song and my friend Jon Guerra produced a song too. I would love people to know that it wasn't just me. It's a team effort. Listen to All The Difference Skye Peterson is a singer-songwriter based in Nashville, TN. All The Difference (2024) is her second full length album. Her new project “Fielder,” a duo with fellow sing-songwriter Addison Agen, is putting out its first single later this year. Matt Conner is a former pastor and church planter turned writer and editor. He’s the founder of Analogue Media and lives in Indianapolis. You can hear more from Matt on The Deepest Cut podcast and The Resistance . For more resources on art and faith, sign up for our other newsletters: Poetry , Music , and Articles . To support the work of the Rabbit Room, join us by becoming a member. Your membership helps fund everything from publishing new books to new podcasts , events , poetry , articles , theatre productions , conferences , and more . Membership is vital to our flourishing, and we’d love for you to participate. Click here to join or learn more .

by the Rabbit Room Editor and Contributors We polled Rabbit Room friends and contributors and sourced a slew of recs for our annual “best-of” post. Here are the songs, shows, books, articles, poems, and movies that kept us turning pages late into the night, fired our imaginations, and took our breath away this year. Poetry Let’s start with poetry. If you subscribe to the Rabbit Room poetry Substack , you’re familiar with these poems already. These are some of the most-read and best-loved poetic gems we’ve shared this year: Anna A. Friedrich’s series of poems inspired by the lives of Elijah and Elisha Tania Runyan’s Advent poetry series Mischa Willett’s “Dream At Bethel” Angela Alaimo O’Donnell’s poem “Flannery’s Writing Advice” Anna A. Friedrich’s “The Matrix of Tea Is Water” If you want even more poetry, Mischa Willet has more than enough poetry recommendations to fill your reading list for 2025, too. ( Or anthologies, if you prefer. ) Books I Cheerfully Refuse by Leif Enger Why Everything That Doesn't Matter Matters So Much by Andi Ashworth and Charlie Peacock The Word Made Fresh by Abram Van Engen Mythmakers: The Remarkable Fellowship of C.S. Lewis & J.R.R. Tolkien by John Hendrix Lightfall: The Dark Times by Tim Probert It was a banner year for our very own Rabbit Room Press with Jonathan Roger’s 20-anniversary re-release of the Wilderking Series , Randall Goodgame’s Scripture Hymnal , Lanier Ivester’s Glad and Golden Hours , Every Moment Holy Vol. 3 pocket edition, and A. S. Peterson’s A Christmas Carol and The Hiding Place theatre scripts. Articles We had the honor of publishing the work of scores of writers and thinkers this year. Here are a few of our top posts from 2024. “Is Zeus Dead Yet: A Guide to Having Better Conversations” by Kate Gaston “On Caregiving and Creativity” by Heather Cadenhead “The Age of the Slash: How One Band Learned to Have Fun Wearing Lots of Hats” by Chris and Jenna Badeker “Lessons In Repurposing Trauma from The Bear, Season Three” by Daniel Jung “Poetry’s Mad Instead” by Abram Van Engen “The Three Layers of Conflict In Community” by Andy Patton` “‘What Was I Made For?’—Billie Eilish as Gen Z Icon” by Liz Snell “A Fellowship of Burning Stars: The Hidden Beauty of Creative Community” by Amy Baik Lee “A Conversation With Poet Scott Cairns” by Ben Palpant “The Consoling Alchemy of the Humble Winter Soup” by Lanier Ivester Songs Feast on these beautiful and profound songs from some of our favorite musicians. Hope Newman Kemp, “Keep on Going” Taylor Leonhardt, “Belly of a Whale” Zane Vickery, “Hydrangea” Wild Harbors, “Break My Heart” The Porter’s Gate, Jon Guerra, and Sandra McCracken, “The Kingdom of Jesus” Charlie Peacock, “Get Yourself Some” Kacey Musgraves, “The Architect” Skye Peterson, “God is in no hurry” Addison Agen, “What Would’ve Changed” Jon Foreman and Joy Oladokun, “In Bloom” Vampire Weekend, “Hope” Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, “As the Waters Cover the Sea” The Scripture Hymnal, “Those Who Trust In The Lord” Leon, “Ain’t Got Nothing On You” Jess Ray, “Deserve” Listen to these songs and the rest of the list on our “ Best of 2024 Playlist .” Shows The people we asked mentioned a handful of great shows, but these three kept coming up in the responses time and time again. The Bear season 3 ( read Daniel Jung’s article on trauma in season 3 ) Rings of Power season 2 All Creatures Great and Small season 5 Movies And last but not least, here are three blockbusters and one relatively unsung gem of a Flannery O’Conner bio-pic: Wildcat Inside Out 2 The Wild Robot Wicked part 1 For more resources on art and faith, sign up for our other newsletters: Poetry , Music , and Articles . To support the work of the Rabbit Room, join us by becoming a member. Your membership helps fund everything from publishing new books to new podcasts , events , poetry , articles , theatre productions , conferences , and more . Membership is vital to our flourishing, and we’d love for you to participate. Click here to join or learn more .

by Jonathan Rogers In The Horse and His Boy , four travelers attempt a daring escape from the land of Calormen, a society marked by slavery and tyranny. Calormen’s cruel hierarchy requires the powerless to abase themselves before the powerful, and the powerful to abase themselves before the even more powerful. A peasant boy named Shasta, a high-born girl named Aravis, and two talking horses light out for “Narnia and the north,” where Shasta will no longer be a slave, the horses will no longer be livestock, and Aravis can’t be forced into an arranged marriage with an old man. As our protagonists travel north, away from the land of slavery and toward the land of freedom, they change. They cease to understand themselves and others in terms of their place in a hierarchy; instead, they learn to see themselves as free people of intrinsic worth and dignity dealing with other free people of intrinsic worth and dignity. As the outward landscapes change, their inward landscapes change as well. Is that symbolic or what? Well, sure. The parallels between inner journeys and outer journeys are symbolic. But there are lots of different kinds of symbolism that work (or fail to work) many different ways. It has been my experience that when we talk about symbolism, we tend to emphasize those aspects that are least relevant to a person who wants to write fiction. Most of us learned to talk about symbolism in literature class. I should know: I have gotten myself mixed up in hundreds, maybe thousands of literature classes, both as a student and as a teacher. When I was a schoolboy, I loved symbolism. It provided endless opportunities to talk smart and impress my English teachers. In an effort to recapture my boyish enthusiasm for symbolism, I asked ChatGPT to write me a short essay about the symbolic connections between inward and outward journeys in The Horse and His Boy . (I hope you won’t judge me harshly for resorting to AI; when it comes to literary interpretation and writing advice, I have found that the robot thinks exactly like a smart but inexperienced and unoriginal high-schooler). Here are some characteristic passages from the robot’s essay. Passage 1, on the fishing village where Shasta grew up: At the story's outset, Shasta lives as a slave in a fishing village in southern Calormen. This setting symbolizes his initial state of bondage, both physically and spiritually. The oppressive heat, the smell of fish, and the tyrannical rule of the Calormenes all represent Shasta's lack of freedom and self-understanding. Oppressive heat and the smell of fish are certainly aspects of Shasta’s misery, but there’s no natural connection between these things and a “lack of freedom and self-understanding.” Oppressive heat and the smell of fish could just as easily call up happy memories of summer fishing trips. And the Calormenes’ rule isn’t a “representation” of Shasta’s slavery, but its main source. As for the idea that the Calormenes’ rule represents Shasta’s lack of self-understanding—I don’t even know what that could mean. Passage 2, on the city of Tashbaan: Its crowded streets and oppressive atmosphere create a sense of claustrophobia that reflects the internal struggles of the characters. Maybe. But I would say that’s one of the less interesting or relevant things one could say about Tashbaan’s crowded streets. Passage 3 , on the desert landscape: As the characters leave Tashbaan and enter the desert, the landscape becomes a powerful symbol of their internal challenges. The harsh, unforgiving environment represents the difficulties they face in shedding their old identities and preconceptions. The desert's emptiness provides a blank slate upon which they can begin to redefine themselves, free from the constraints of their former lives. In each of these passages, the robot treats symbolism as hidden meaning, the kind of thing a casual reader wouldn’t notice. Indeed, these examples suggest that the symbolism isn’t something one notices at all, but something one asserts or makes a case for. You could argue that the harsh, unforgiving environment of the desert represents our protagonists’ internal difficulties. But why are we arguing at all? Nothing about that argument adds to my understanding of the characters or helps me inhabit the story more fully. And if in the claustrophobic streets of Tashbaan, I see a hidden meaning related to our protagonists’ inner struggles, I might miss the more overt meaning, which is also more interesting. Tashbaan’s chaos and claustrophobia result from the fact that there is only one traffic law in Tashbaan: “everyone who is less important has to get out of the way for everyone who is more important.” The crowded streets are a natural symbol for the inequities of Calormene society because they are the direct result of those inequities. In literature class, you learned to approach a work of fiction with subtlety and nuance. But if you want to write fiction, you have to attend first to the glaringly obvious. Here’s the glaringly obvious truth about the connection between the characters’ inner journey and outer journey in The Horse and His Boy : it works as a literary symbol because it reflects the way things work in the real world. When a slave travels away from his place of enslavement toward a place where no one is a slave, his social status literally changes. It is only natural that his sense of self would change as well. When a high-born girl leaves behind all the trappings of her social status and takes off across the desert, her sense of her own worth can hardly help but change. A symbol is a visible sign of an invisible reality. Some symbols are arbitrary: we all agree that a gold band on the left ring finger means a person is married. We could have just as easily agreed that married people wear special hats. If Martians ever visit Earth, it will take them a while to figure out that the gold band is a sign of marriage. But they will catch on pretty quickly that smoke is a sign of fire. The connection between smoke and fire is natural, not arbitrary. Arbitrary symbols may be of some use to you as a fiction writer. Our robot said of the characters’ crossing of the river into Archenland, “ The act of fording the river can be seen as a kind of baptism, washing away their old identities and preparing them for their new lives in the north .” I’m willing to give the robot that one, even if it is a bit of a Jesus-juke. I feel obliged to point out, however, that the river-crossing works as a baptism symbol because it works first as a natural symbol. When our protagonists cross the boundary river, they are literally leaving behind an old way of living and stepping into a new life. A million invisible realities are at work in the world, all at the same time; those invisible realities always create visible signs. Supply and demand create full shelves, or empty shelves, or high prices, or low prices. Erosion creates gulleys. Love leaves tangible evidence everywhere it goes. So does selfishness. On any city street, you can observe the concrete results of urban planning, greed, neighborliness, neglect, civic pride, and a hundred other invisible forces all working at once. If you want to write fiction, you have to get serious about the complex inter-workings between the visible and the invisible—not just in literature, but in the world. We live in a dizzyingly complex system of symbols. Seek first to harness the real-world energies of sign and meaning; start with the symbols that work in the world God made. If they work in the real world, they’ll work in your story. If you complete that work and you still want to add nuance and hidden meaning—well, I don’t suppose anybody can stop you. Editor’s note: If you want to learn more about writing from Jonathan, his new online creative writing class Writing Through the Wardrobe: The Horse and His Boy starts Tuesday, January 21. Find out more and register at TheHabit.co/Horse . Jonathan Rogers is the host of The Habit Membership and The Habit Podcast: Conversations with Writers About Writing . Every Tuesday he sends out The Habit Weekly , a letter for writers. (Find out more at TheHabit.co .) He is the author of The Terrible Speed of Mercy: A Spiritual Biography of Flannery O’Connor, as well as the Wilderking Trilogy, The Charlatan’s Boy, and other books. He has contributed to the Rabbit Room since its inception. For more resources on art and faith, sign up for our other newsletters: Poetry , Music , and Articles . To support the work of the Rabbit Room, join us by becoming a member. Your membership helps fund everything from publishing new books to new podcasts , events , poetry , articles , theatre productions , conferences , and more . Membership is vital to our flourishing, and we’d love for you to participate. Click here to join or learn more .

Editor's Note: Part of  Mark Meynell's 5&1 series on classical music . Taking a different theme for each post, the 5&1 series offers five short pieces followed by one more substantial work. Occasionally, playlist choices are not on YouTube, so alternatives are provided here. To listen to the playlist for this post, follow these links to Apple Music , Spotify , or YouTube . On 27th January 1945, the death camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau was liberated. Nobody could have had any illusions about Nazi anti-semitism because its policies had been explicit about it long before attaining power in 1933. But few could ever have conceived of the extent of the Nazis' determination, sophistication, and savagery until the reality began to be laid bare. This date was therefore designated as International Holocaust Remembrance Day at a meeting of 46 governments in Stockholm in 2000. The sheer scale of loss is inconceivable (map from Anne Frank House ) In 1933, roughly nine million Jewish people living in Europe and Eurasia, of whom the largest populations were: 1 million in Romania 1 million in central Europe 2.5 million in the USSR 3 million in Poland. By 1945, two out of every three were dead. By 1950, Poland’s Jewish community numbered just 45,000. What sometimes gets forgotten amid the myriad horrors of the Shoah  (Hebrew for Holocaust) is the systematic obliteration of entire cultures. Shtetls  (Yiddish for 'small towns') with predominantly, or entirely, Jewish populations were scattered across the east. In a world in which pogroms might flare up and result in massacres, these communities provided relative security out of which all kinds of cultural expression might flourish. Core to them was often a rich musical life, with the violin at its core. This playlist seeks to commemorate that heritage. 1. Ukrainian Dances (arr. by Kosmos) Anon (trad. folk) Kosmos Ensemble Nothing evokes shtetl life quite like a klezmer band. These were made up of folk musicians on various stringed instruments plus an accordion or two, as well as some percussion or whatever else was to hand. They fulfilled a vital social function as well as obviously providing fun and entertainment. So they might take part in weddings and other festivities, but also (as this track brilliantly illustrates) lead the community in exuberant and even riotous dancing. You can hear the call to the floor in the early bars with some gathering chords, followed by a lilting rhythm (for the first minute or so) that lulls everyone into a false sense of security! And then everything takes off, going at quite the lick. This track is a lot shorter than it would have been in real life, so it can only give a flavor. But the sense of fun is infectious. [Full disclosure, Kosmos Ensemble ’s violist and sometime violinist is my 2nd cousin, Meg Hamilton!] 2. Kol Nidrei (Adagio for Cello, Op. 47, 1880) Max Bruch (1838-1920, German) Alisa Weilerstein (cello) , Staatskapelle Berlin, Daniel Barenboi m (cond.) Max Bruch was a brilliant all-rounder: a celebrated violinist and conductor as well as composer (he started writing music at only age nine!). A contemporary of the great Johannes Brahms (in fact only 5 years his junior), he shares some musical similarities with him. His 1st Violin Concerto (from 1866) is one of his most beloved works and is still regularly performed: it’s definitely worth your time. Kol Nidrei  is another masterpiece. In Aramaic, the title means ‘All vows’ , and is taken from the evening liturgy for the start of Yom Kippur , the Day of Atonement (the Jewish ‘day’ starts at sunset). As an instrumental composition, we obviously hear no words. But Bruch’s choice of cello as soloist is deliberate; it’s often regarded as the instrument closest in tone and heart to the human voice. Kol Nidrei has two sections, each constructed around what would have been a familiar Hebrew melody. In the first, the cello is like the synagogue cantor leading the service with the accompaniment following its lead in response. The second develops the melody from a popular setting of one of Lord Byron’s Hebrew melodies. It is a deeply affecting piece, successfully evoking so many different, even conflicting emotions. Yet there is a grim irony to its subsequent history. Bruch was a Protestant and not Jewish. But because of this piece in particular, which seemed to evoke the Jewish soul so effectively, Bruch was written off by Nazis and other anti-semitic extremists as ‘obviously’ Jewish. As a result, Bruch’s work was largely forgotten in German-speaking regions in the twentieth century, just like that of his Jewish contemporaries. 3. To Life ( L’Chaim ): from Fiddler on the Roof (1964) Jerr y Bock, music (1928-2010, US) ; Sheldon Harnick, book (1924-2023, US) Chaim Topol  (as Tevye) , Motion Picture Orchestra, John Williams (cond.) Now for a very different mood! The 60s musical Fiddler on the Roof  is a classic of shtetl life (set in the fictitious Anatevka ) amid great poverty and hardship. Tevye is a milkman trying to be faithful to God while eking out a living and ensuring his five daughters marry well. But his personal struggles are set against the backdrop of Tsarist Russia in around 1900. The threat of eviction or pogroms is all too real; in fact, the show ends with Anatevka’s Jewish residents given three days to evacuate. The family will be split up, with some leaving for Poland, some for the USA, while others have been exiled to Siberia. This number comes early in the 1st Act. Tevye has agreed that Lazar, a wealthy butcher recently widowed, may take his oldest daughter’s hand. They have met in the local bar and everyone is soon joining in the celebration with this exuberant toast L’Chaim - To Life!  The mood is so contagious that some Russians who happen also to be drinking even join in the fun. At that point, the music reflects their Slavic cultural background with balalaikas and cossack dances. The track concludes with a glorious convergence of the two cultures. Some criticized this element, and indeed the whole musical, as rather rosy-tinted. The novelist Joseph Roth even described it all as ‘shtetl kitsch’. Only others more qualified than I can evaluate that. What is clear, though, is that this music captures something wonderful about the human, and particularly Jewish, ability to find joy and flourishing even in the darkest of circumstances. 4. Scenes from Jewish Life: I. Prayer (1925) Ernst Bloch (1880-1959, Swiss/American) Paul Marleyn (cello) , John Lenehan (piano) Once again, a cello stands in for the human voice, in this arrangement accompanied by the piano (although Bloch did write an orchestral version). Like Bruch, Ernst Bloch demonstrated remarkable musical talent at an early age, learning the violin and composing from the age of 9. But unlike Bruch, he actually was born to Jewish parents, in his case in Geneva. He emigrated to the USA during the First World War and naturalized in the 1920s. While many of his works followed the conventions of abstract music (such as string quartets, orchestral works and solo pieces), he often wrote music with explicitly Jewish themes. His Scenes from Jewish Life  is a set of three short pieces written while on holiday in New Mexico: Prayer , Supplication and Jewish Song . This, the first, uses the kinds of harmonies and musical structures common in both Jewish and some Arabic music (for music geeks, these are known as modes – variants of musical scales – such as the ‘phrygian dominant’ mode!). Even if you don’t know the technical jargon, though, these modes are instantly recognizable and immediately transport us into a different world. Prayer’ s opening melody feels improvised at first, much like someone finding their way in prayer. The accompaniment then echoes the same lines. This is followed by a second theme (at around 1:30), again led by the cello. It initially feels a little less lyrical perhaps, more fragmented. But the combination of the two themes is a miniature masterpiece of concision. It is haunting, searching, probing; just as so many of our prayers can be.   5. Main theme from Schindler's List (1993) John Williams (1932- , American) Itzhak Perlman (violin) , Boston Symphony Orchestra, John Williams (cond.) The Oscar-winning score for Schindler’s List  is arguably one of Williams’ greatest achievements. He is, of course, a brilliant melodist who has created some of the most iconic themes of late twentieth century cinema. He has an encyclopedic knowledge of the greatest orchestral music ever written and has plundered the best of them to give his work color and atmosphere. But there is something so uniquely affecting about this track (even if one hasn’t seen the film, I suspect). It seems to gather the agony of a whole people in the solo violin’s melody – it just had to be a violin; no other instrument could have had the same depths of cultural resonance – evoking prayers and tears, pain and fear, isolation and lostness all at the same time. It is a single voice of grief, not just for the six million slaughtered in the Shoah, but for an entire way of life and culture now gone forever. [The eagle-eyed will have noticed this is not John Williams’ first appearance on the list: he orchestrated and conducted the score for the Fiddler on the Roof  movie. Plus Itzhak Perlman will forever be associated with the score and was ideally suited to premiere it: he was born in Tel Aviv in 1945 to Polish Jewish parents who had thankfully emigrated there in the 1930s.] Symphony No 13, 'Babi Yar' (Op. 113, 1962) Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich (1906-1975, USSR) (1906-1975, USSR) Alexey Tikhomirov (bass) , Chicago Symphony Orchestra & Chorus, Riccardo Muti (cond.) Admittedly, Shostakovich’s 13th Symphony is a Leviathan. Apart from the 2nd (taking ‘only’ nine minutes), each movement lasts roughly a quarter of an hour. So many will not be able to manage the whole thing in one sitting (though the rewards for trying are great!). Written during the so-called ‘Khrushchev Thaw’ when criticisms of the former Stalinist era were actively, albeit briefly, encouraged, this symphony nevertheless demonstrates the composer’s considerable moral courage. Babyn Yar ( Babi Yar  in Russian) is a ravine on the outskirts of Kyiv in Ukraine. During the almost three, terrifying years of Ukraine’s Nazi occupation (between 1941 and 1944), it was drenched in blood, primarily of executed Jewish Ukrainians but of others as well (such as Romanies or resistance fighters). Thousands were rounded up and forced to march along one of the city’s grand boulevards to the ravine. On arrival, they were ordered to strip and then line up on the ridge, where they were slaughtered by machine gun fire. It is estimated that in the first two days alone, over 33,000 people died there, joined in the following months by another 70,000. It was the first mass killing of the Shoah. When the Soviets recaptured the city in 1943, they investigated the horrors of Babyn Yar, providing evidence that would be presented at the Nuremberg war trials of 1946. But for years under communist rule, nothing identified the site of such an atrocity. This infuriated a young Russian man of letters, Yevgeny Yevtushenko (1933-2017), enough to spur him to write an extended poem (published in 1961) despite not being Jewish himself. It begins very simply: No monument stands over Babi Yar.  A drop sheer as a crude gravestone.  I am afraid. Today I am as old in years  as all the Jewish people. Now I seem to be a Jew. Here I plod through ancient Egypt.  Here I perish crucified on the cross,  and to this day I bear the scars of nails. Yevtushenko excoriates the Nazi regime for its crimes, but courageously, then criticizes the USSR for its own dark record of anti-semitism. Shostakovich was so moved by the poem on its publication that he immediately started to set it to music. He later surprised the young poet by phoning him out of the blue for permission to do so (even though he’d already finished one movement!). He had no idea that the great composer even knew about him. But poet and composer shared a deep humanity as well as a lifelong loathing of anti-semitism. Each of the symphony’s five movements is a setting of a different poem by Yevtushnko. This essay gives more information about each movement . It is a stunning declaration of resistance to human evil and ignored injustices. I have visited Babyn Yar a couple of times and looked along what remains of the ravine (a huge landslide completely changed the landscape in 1961). A memorial does stand there now. But there was something particularly obnoxious about the way it became one of the earliest targets (because of the adjacent TV tower) of Russia’s February 2022 invasion, supposedly to rid Ukraine of ‘Nazis’. The gruesome irony was not lost on Ukraine’s Jewish president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, as well as several of the friends I spoke to afterwards. Mark Meynell is a writer, pastor and teacher based in the UK and he's been involved with the Rabbit Room since 2017. He has been involved in cross-cultural training for the last 25 years and is passionate about integrating life, theology and the arts. He blogs at markmeynell.net . For more resources on art and faith, sign up for our other newsletters: Poetry , Music , and Articles . To support the work of the Rabbit Room, join us by becoming a member. Your membership helps fund everything from publishing new books to new podcasts , events , poetry , articles , theatre productions , conferences , and more . Membership is vital to our flourishing, and we’d love for you to participate. Click here to join or learn more .

by Houston Coley Time present and time past Are both perhaps present in time future, And time future contained in time past. If all time is eternally present All time is unredeemable. What might have been is an abstraction Remaining a perpetual possibility Only in a world of speculation. What might have been and what has been Point to one end, which is always present. -T. S. Eliot. Four Quartets Somehow, time has already dragged us into 2025. Personally, I’ve had two majorly impactful viewing experiences over the holidays: seeing Interstellar in its theatrical IMAX re-release for the 10-year anniversary, and watching A.S. Peterson’s new stage adaptation of A Christmas Carol for Rabbit Room Theatre here in Nashville. Interstellar in IMAX was a positively transformative experience; I’d always appreciated the movie on its technical merit, but suddenly on this viewing, I finally felt connected to the beating heart of it. Nolan’s movies have often been accused (I think, usually wrongly) of being overly heady and intellectual—but for my money, Interstellar is his most emotionally earnest work by far. On the other end, Peterson’s adaptation of A Christmas Carol was exactly what I’d hoped it would be and more: a faithful and elegant rendition of deeply beloved source material, but much more than that, an adaptation which acknowledges and continually eludes to the theological and even cosmic undertones of Dickens’ original work. This is a Christmas Carol adaptation that makes reference to Gerard Manley Hopkins and Genesis 1 and C.S. Lewis in equal measure. I’ve been revisiting both the published play and the original novella ever since. A Christmas Carol has been part of my life (and my understanding of the holidays) from a very early age, and there’s so much that I love about it: the eeriness of its peculiar seasonal ghost-story premise, Dickens’ prickly reflexive dialect and sense of humor, its rich capacity for diverse adaptation, its completely timeless resonance. Much of my appreciation since childhood, though, has always stemmed from the simple fact that Carol is one of the earliest “time travel” stories in modern literature. Of course, the time travel in A Christmas Carol doesn’t work quite like Back to The Future or Doctor Who ; Scrooge has no ability to alter the past, but he has been granted the chance to briefly revisit it and observe for his own sake. Time travel is more or less where the inspiration for this piece begins. One of the more confronting moments for me while seeing this particular stage production of Carol was when Scrooge watches his younger self deciding to pursue his lust for financial gain even if it means his fiancée, Belle, has resolved to leave him. In Peterson’s adaptation, our older Scrooge stands between the two former lovers, begging his younger self to make a different choice: “Go after her, you fool!” he pleads, trying desperately to alter the deeds which have already been done and achieve a different outcome. He seems hopeful that his shouts and petitions will somehow pierce the veil between past and present, but it is no use; The Ghost of Christmas Past prods, “he cannot hear you from here. Would he have heard you then?” It was in this moment, watching the scene unfold in the theater, that I came to a sudden realization: I was still watching Interstellar . Interstellar is, you’ll probably be surprised to learn, a story not unlike A Christmas Carol. Indeed, the moment that had hit me so strongly while watching Dickens’ masterpiece was almost the same one that affected me most while experiencing Nolan’s. In one of the penultimate sequences of Interstellar , Matthew McConaughey’s Cooper observes his own interactions with his daughter Murph through a rift in time, allowing him to peer through a bookshelf to witness the very day he decided to go to space and leave her behind: “Don’t go, you idiot! Stay! Don’t let me leave!” he bellows into the void, trying to get his younger self to make a different choice. But much like A Christmas Carol , Nolan’s Interstellar has already made it quite clear that the past is unalterable. Indeed, even when Future Cooper does manage to send a message—"STAY"—using morse code through the rift, it still fails to convince his younger self to change course. As the audience, we’ve known since the beginning that this was inevitable; we saw Cooper receive this message and dismiss it as a “ghost” at the start of the movie. What has happened has happened. If the past were different, he wouldn’t be where he is now. These are but the shadows of things that have been, and they cannot be altered. This helplessness at being removed from time and left unable to affect change in the physical world is identified in the original Christmas Carol text as the key point of grief and torture for the spirits wandering the earth like Jacob Marley: “The misery with all of them clearly was that they sought to interfere, for good, in human matters, and had lost that power forever.” These spirits have lost their ability to live in time, doomed to dwell in eternity without experiencing the dignity of intervention. That lack of agency experienced by the wandering spirits in the present is the same sensation Scrooge experiences when he revisits his own past, realizing that time is indifferent to his regrets. It’s a deeply human experience that we all face at one point or another, regardless of our ability to actually time travel; we all must eventually reconcile with the passage of time and the knowledge that the clock can never be turned back to fix our mistakes. The past, for us, is “frozen and no longer flows.” This harsh reality of time is maybe best demonstrated by one of the most harrowing sequences in Interstellar . When McConaughey’s Cooper and Anne Hathaway’s Dr. Brand get stranded out of their depth on a water planet where time flows differently, due to their own foolish and momentary decisions, they end up losing 23 years on Earth in what for them feels like mere minutes. Stuck waiting on the ship to recover, Cooper desperately tries to come up with a pseudoscientific way to “somehow gain back the years.” Brand rolls her eyes at his naivety: “Time is relative,” she says, “it can stretch and it can squeeze…but it can’t run backwards. It just can’t.” Only a few scenes later, one of the film’s most iconic moments occurs when Cooper sobs through 23 years of video messages from his two children, watching them both age beyond him and eventually grow disillusioned with the hope of his return. Time has left its insoluble mark, and while “gaining back the years” might be one of our core human desires, it is not in the cards for any of us. Time cannot run backwards. And yet… In both Interstellar and A Christmas Carol , higher beings than ourselves offer mere mortals the chance to bend time and space for the sake of a grand redemption. In A Christmas Carol , these higher beings are the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future—and that of Jacob Marley, who seems to have exerted some small agency by “procuring” these visitations for Scrooge at great cost. With the help of the spirits, Scrooge is able to fly across both time and space to witness, observe, and maybe even change. Interstellar is not dissimilar. In this story, mysterious and ethereal “higher beings” have constructed a “tesseract” within a black hole—a physical, kaleidoscopic realm allowing Cooper to traverse time and space to peer through his daughter’s bookshelf at every moment from infinity. The past cannot be changed—and indeed, it does not change—but perhaps a message can be sent to the present, if Cooper’s daughter Murph is still out there listening. It is emblematic of Interstellar ’s somewhat less-theistic worldview that the “higher beings” who constructed the tesseract are initially thought to be aliens, but by the end are speculated by Cooper to be humans themselves at some future state of evolution or progress. Earlier in the film, Hathaway’s Dr. Brand speculates about these beings: “To them, time might be another physical dimension. To them, the past might be a canyon they can climb into and the future, a mountain they can climb up. But for us, it’s not.” I mention that Interstellar is less-than-theistic, which may be true in its unabashed humanism, but in other ways the story is still distinctly transcendent. Anne Hathaway’s famous speech about love as “the only force that transcends both time and space” is more than just words; it’s the core of the movie. In both Interstellar and A Christmas Carol , hope for the future lies not in the past, but in the present—and indeed, specifically in a combination between the present and the cosmic reality of love. It is fitting that this would be the case, especially in A Christmas Carol. Christmas itself, after all, is a cosmic inflection point—the moment that Christians believe God himself entered into The Present for the cause of love. This is the higher being who can climb into the past like a canyon and scale the future like a mountain, and he gives it all up to become a child who will someday be crucified. The spiritual journey through time undergone by Scrooge on Christmas Eve was hardly the first of its kind; it was on the original Christmas Eve, that night of nights when Christ was born, that time itself was first upended for mortal redemption. The God of the vast universe entered into time and became a human being, temporally subject to time’s reality—and therefore, the reality of death—but not ultimately bound by it. Not unlike Interstellar , new stars and strange sights appeared in the mysterious night sky. Frightening beings descended as messengers from other realms. Earth touched eternity, if only for a moment. An extradimensional God entering our world and incarnating himself in the limited confine known as “The Present” is no small thing. It makes one think that how this God carried and expressed himself in his limited years as a human being living in time must be vastly important to understanding how we are meant to live in time as limited human beings. And not just that: it suggests that God himself deemed it useful and even beautiful to inhabit time as a medium for his good work. In Burnt Norton , the first poem of T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets , Eliot muses, “ What might have been and what has been point to one end, which is always present.” The cosmic meaning of The Present is baked into Eliot’s work, particularly in The Four Quartets —and it’s baked into A Christmas Carol , too. This is why, despite the novella’s timeless social relevance to class and wealth and generosity, I believe it has even broader universality to the daily human experience. If Scrooge felt helpless and stripped of the ability to enact change upon the world around him both when he revisited the past and when he glimpsed a potential dark future, he experiences the liberating freedom of the opposite when he returns to his life in the present, realizing that “best and happiest of all, the time before him was his own, to make amends with.” Scrooge’s joyful, childlike spiritual rebirth upon waking up to find that it is still Christmas morning is far more than simply a tale of a man “learning to celebrate holiday cheer.” It is one of the most compelling pictures in literary history of a human being recognizing the agency and liberation of living in the physical dimension known as The Present. There could be no more symbolic day to receive that gift than Christmas morning. It is this very transcendent power found in The Present that C.S. Lewis wrote about in The Screwtape Letters: “The Present is the point at which time touches eternity. Of the present moment, and of it only, humans have an experience analogous to the experience which [God] has of reality as a whole; in it alone freedom and actuality are offered them.” Far from being a prison or a limited plane of existence, our ability to live and breathe and have our physical being in The Present is no small gift—and it is what makes us different than mere spirits or ethereal phantoms. In physical body, in spiritual word, in practical deed…we have supernatural agency that they do not. Of course, the reality of The Present is not the only reality in the world. Were that the case, perhaps Scrooge would have never been redeemed. It is only through encountering the Past, Present, and (eternal) Future that Scrooge finds himself reshaped and reborn. At the end of the book, he proclaims, “I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future! The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me!” It is no coincidence that Scrooge is describing a trinity of spirits; living in this tension between past, present, and future is only ever remotely possible through something divine. The frozen past and the ethereal future can only ever be fully known to God; to truly live with an awareness of both of them means finding a way to reconcile their realities in the fleeting and eternal entry point of The Present—the “still point of the turning world.” Part of the hope offered by both A Christmas Carol and Interstellar lies in the truth that though time marches on and the past cannot be undone, the reality of love still provides an opportunity to redeem what was once thought to be forever broken. In Interstellar , though McConaughey’s Cooper knows he cannot change the past, he still sends a coded message through the tesseract in the hope and faith that his (now adult) daughter Murph will be listening in the present. Cooper’s hope is well-founded. Despite Murph’s seemingly permanent disillusionment with her father’s disappearance, she still has enough belief in his love for her—and her love for him—that she returns to her childhood bedroom with a completely irrational “feeling” that he might be seeking to communicate with her. He is. And Murph’s enduring faith that her father loves her ultimately enables her to receive his message and save the entire human race. Cooper is miraculously rescued and returned just in time to reunite with his daughter before her peaceful death—and to receive the gift of more life still before him, allowing him to once again venture out into the unknown to save Dr. Brand. Scrooge, meanwhile, wakes to find that, “The spirits did it all in one night! Of course they can!” He has not missed Christmas morning, the dark shadows he witnessed have not come to pass, and he too has the whole future set unwritten before him. Ebenezer finally reconciles what was once lost to time and heals the wounds of his past by making profound amends with the people in front of him. He treats his employees with dignity and kindness. He reaches out in relationship to his nephew Fred and his wife—a little present glimpse of the youthful romance he once cast aside, and the living memory of the sister he once loved. And perhaps most poetically: he becomes “a second father” for Tiny Tim, a poetic reflection of the lonely little boy he once was, and an opportunity to embrace and forgive his former self. By the time both stories meet their ends, grace abounds. The Past, immutable as it might sometimes seem, may yet be redeemed in the fantastical realm of The Present. Houston Coley is a writer, documentary filmmaker, and self-described “theme park theologian” currently living in Nashville, TN. He is the artistic director of a nonprofit called Art Within. For more resources on art and faith, sign up for our other newsletters: Poetry , Music , and Articles . To support the work of the Rabbit Room, join us by becoming a member. Your membership helps fund everything from publishing new books to new podcasts , events , poetry , articles , theatre productions , conferences , and more . Membership is vital to our flourishing, and we’d love for you to participate. Click here to join or learn more .

A Liturgy for the Wrapping of Christmas Gifts by Wayne Garvey and Douglas McKelvey O Great Giver of All Good Gifts, I sit amongst rolls of wrapping paper, tissue, bags, and bows—presents spread before me, ready to be concealed in shrouds of joyful mystery, and nestled for a time beneath the tree. This brief veiling of gifts from the wondering eyes of those who will receive them is an act intended to heighten excitement, and to kindle hopes—hopes that might find fulfillment when these festive secrets are finally revealed. There is always in us that which delights in surprise. And while these gifts might provide a passing happiness, I pray they would also stir the hearts of their recipients in some deeper way, as small echoes of a greater grace. For you first lavished upon us your astonishing love in the person of Jesus. You wrapped your gift, O God, in the form of a baby. And then, in that baby-become-man, you unveiled glory upon glory: Miracles. Marvelous words. Deeds of compassion and mercy. Strong promises. Death defeated. Life eternal. The revelation of yourself as a dear father, longing to adopt us orphans as daughters and sons! Indeed “We love, because God first loved us!” In our giving of Christmas gifts we but seek to imitate your generosity. So let our stumbling attempts to mirror the eternal charities of your own lavish heart, be undertaken in a spirit of glad celebration and as an act of worship. Christ, you are the gift of God who gave all, gives all, is all. So let these my small presents be offered in great love, and received as humble expressions of a holy hospitality, and reminders of a divine kindness. HERE THE READER MAY WISH TO PRAY SPECIFICALLY FOR EACH LOVED ONE AS THEIR GIFT IS WRAPPED. Now may the lives of all your children be ever more marked by a loving generosity manifest in daily acts of practical service to others, O Lord. And may my own heart in particular be kept less and less like a wrapped and sealed mystery, but be freely offered instead as an open gift through which the radiant love of Christ is made ever more visible. Amen. A Liturgy for Missing Someone (Advent Version) by Douglas McKelvey ALL STANDING AS ABLE, WITH EMPTY HANDS CUPPED. LEADER: We willingly carry this ache. PEOPLE: We carry it, O Father, to you. PARTICIPANTS NOW SIT OR KNEEL IN A CIRCLE. You created our hearts for unbroken fellowship. Yet the constraints of time and place, and the stuttering rhythms of life in a fallen world dictate that all fellowships in these days will at times be broken or incomplete. And so we find ourselves in this season, bearing the sorrow of our separation from ___________. S P E A K T H E N A M E O F T H E A B S E N T P E R S O N H E R E . F O R A DV E N T O B S E RVA N C E , S P E A K T H E NAME OF JESUS. We acknowledge, O Lord, that it is a right and a good thing to miss deeply those whom we love but with whom we cannot be physically present. Grant us, therefore, courage to love well even in this time of absence. Grant us courage to shrink neither from the aches nor from the joys that love brings, for each, willingly received, will accomplish the good works you have appointed them to do. Therefore we praise you even for our sadness, knowing that the sorrows we steward in this life will in time be redeemed. We praise you also knowing that these glad aches are a true measure of the bonds you have wrought between our hearts. Now use our sorrows as tools in your hand, O Lord, shaping our hearts into a truer imitation of the affections of Christ. Use even this sadness to carve out spaces in our souls where still greater repositories of holy affection might be held, unto the end that we might better love, in times of absence and in times of presence alike. We now entrust all to your keeping. May our reunion be joyous, whether in this life or in the life to come. How we look forward, O Lord, to the day when all our fellowships will be restored, eternal and unbroken. T H E F O L LOW I N G S EC T I O N M AY B E A D D E D D U R I N G THE FIRST & SECOND WEEKS OF ADVENT. O come, O come, Emmanuel! Christ our King, how we long for your return. O come, O come, Emmanuel! Christ our Shepherd, how we pine for your voice. O come, O come, Emmanuel! Christ our older brother, how we miss you. Make haste, O Lord. Return to us! Amen. T H E F O L LOW I N G S EC T I O N M AY B E A D D E D D U R I N G T H E T H I R D A N D F O U RT H W E E K S O F ADVENT. Remembering, O Christ, that you regarded our helpless estate and came to dwell among us as the promised fulfillment of all holy desires, we turn our hearts now to remembrance of your works. SILENCE IS KEPT. You came to us, O Lord, as a lantern in our darkness. Now illumine our way. You came to us as a song in the midst of our sorrow. Now kindle our hope. You came to us as a balm on the bed of our sufferings. Now be our healing. You came to us as a shelter amidst the violence of storms. Now grant us peace. You came to us as mercy in the place of our shame. Now be our righteousness. You came to us as a king upon the fields of our defeat. Now be our salvation. You came to us as a child in the midnight of our despair. Now be our God. Remembering these manifold joys and blessings of your first advent, how our hearts long to witness the glories of your promised return. Come quickly, Lord Jesus! O come, O come, Emmanuel. Amen. A Liturgy to Mark the Start of the Christmas Season by Douglas McKelvey LEADER: As we prepare our house for the coming Christmas season, we would also prepare our hearts for the returning Christ. PEOPLE: You came once for your people, O Lord, and you will come for us again. Though there was no room at the inn to receive you upon your first arrival, We would prepare you room here in our hearts and here in our home, Lord Christ. As we decorate and celebrate, we do so to mark the memory of your redemptive movement into our broken world, O God. Our glittering ornaments and Christmas trees, Our festive carols, our sumptuous feasts— By these small tokens we affirm that something amazing has happened in time and space— that God, on a particular night, in a particular place, so many years ago, was born to us, an infant King, our Prince of Peace. Our wreaths and ribbons and colored lights, our giving of gifts, our parties with friends— these have never been ends in themselves. They are but small ways in which we repeat that sounding joy first proclaimed by angels in the skies near Bethlehem. In view of such great tidings of love announced to us, and to all people, how can we not be moved to praise and celebration in this Christmas season? As we decorate our tree, and as we feast and laugh and sing together, we are rehearsing our coming joy! We are making ready to receive the one who has already, with open arms, received us! We would prepare you room here in our hearts and here in our home, Lord Christ. Now we celebrate your first coming, Immanuel, even as we long for your return. O Prince of Peace, our elder brother, return soon. We miss you so! Amen. A Liturgy for the Preparation of a Meal by Wayne Garvey and Douglas McKelvey LEADER: O Bread of Life, PEOPLE: Meet us in the making of this meal. As we perform the various tasks of washing, chopping, sifting, mixing, simmering, baking, and boiling, let those little acts coalesce into an embodied liturgy of service— an outworking of love offered for your purposes, that through us, your tender care might be translated into the comforting and cheery language of nurturing food and drink offered for the benefit of others. Let us invest in this preparation a lovingkindness toward those who will partake. Let us craft this meal with a care as would befit any endeavor touching eternity. Meet us in the making of this meal, O Lord, and make of it something more than a mere nourishment for the body. Make it the center of a sheltered space where grace freely flows. Let the slow savoring of these foods give pause to those who will soon partake, prompting them to linger long at table, taking rest from the labors of the day, engaging in good conversation. Let the comforting qualities of the dishes we prepare, become catalysts for a rich fellowship, a warm consolation, and a fruitful increase of holy affections. May this meal serve to remind those who share its pleasures of the goodness and the hope that infuses all creation. Unto that end, let us labor creatively, with imaginations engaged, knowing that we are cooks in the kitchen—yes— but we are also agents of a deep eternity, whose prepared meals might feed more than the body, nourishing also the hearts and hopes of those sometimes-weary souls who are well-served by our labors. Amen. A Liturgy for Feasting With Friends by Douglas McKelvey CELEBRANT:  To gather joyfully is indeed a serious affair, for feasting and all enjoyments gratefully taken are, at their heart, acts of war. PEOPLE: In celebrating this feast we declare that evil and death, suffering and loss, sorrow and tears, will not have the final word. But the joy of fellowship, and the welcome and comfort of friends new and old, and the celebration of these blessings of food and drink and conversation and laughter are the true evidences of things eternal, and are the first fruits of that great glad joy that is to come and that will be unending. So let our feast this day be joined to those sure victories secured by Christ, Let it be to us now a delight, and a glad foretaste of his eternal kingdom. Bless us, O Lord, in this feast. Bless us, O Lord, as we linger over our cups, and over this table laden with good things, as we relish the delights of varied texture and flavor, of aromas and savory spices, of dishes prepared as acts of love and blessing, of sweet delights made sweeter by the communion of saints. May this shared meal, and our pleasure in it, bear witness against the artifice and deceptions of the prince of the darkness that would blind this world to hope. May it strike at the root of the lie that would drain life of meaning, and the world of joy, and suffering of redemption. May this our feast fall like a great hammer blow against that brittle night, shattering the gloom, reawakening our hearts, stirring our imaginations, focusing our vision on the kingdom of heaven that is to come, on the kingdom that is promised, on the kingdom that is already, indeed, among us, For the resurrection of all good things has already joyfully begun. ALL PARTICIPANTS NOW LIFT THEIR GLASSES OR CUPS May this feast be an echo of that great Supper of the Lamb, a foreshadowing of the great celebration that awaits the children of God. Where two or more of us are gathered, O Lord, there you have promised to be. And here we are. And so, here are you. Take joy, O King, in this our feast. Take joy, O King! GLASSES ARE CLINKED WITH CELEBRATORY CHIME, AND PARTICIPANTS IN THE FEAST SAVOR A DRINK, ADMONISHING ONE ANOTHER HEARTILY WITH THESE SINCERE WORDS: Take joy! CELEBRANT: All will be well! PARTICIPANTS TAKE UP THE CRY: All will be well! Nothing good and right and true will be lost forever. All good things will be restored. Feast and be reminded! Take joy, little flock. Take joy! Let battle be joined! Let battle be joined! Now you who are loved by the Father, prepare your hearts and give yourself wholly to this celebration of joy, to the glad company of saints, to the comforting fellowship of the Spirit, and to the abiding presence of Christ who is seated among us both as our host and as our honored guest, and still yet as our conquering king. Amen. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, take seat, take feast, take delight!

by Jonathan Rogers In twenty-plus years of writing for a living, I have learned two things: When I need to jump-start a project or get big chunks written, it's really helpful to get away and get significant time alone.  Significant time alone can pull me into a whirl-hole of self-absorption that makes it nearly impossible to jump-start a project or get big chunks written. For me, it is the great paradox of the writing life, the need to be alone competing with the truth that the inside of your brain can be a neighborhood you don't want to be alone in.  You're there at your desk, trying to work out the next sentence, and before you know it, you're thinking about yourself instead: your failures, your ego, your word-count goal. You speculate on how you're going to feel when you make your goal. You get a jump-start on the self-loathing you'll feel if you fall short. You wonder what people are going to think when they read what you've written. You wonder if anybody will even read it. You question whether anything you've ever written was actually good. You buck yourself up, remembering that, yes, you've written plenty of good pieces–a few brilliant ones, in fact. Which makes you suspect that you've already used up all your brilliance. Then you ponder Edgar Allen Poe, who died penniless and alone in a Baltimore gutter. You'll never write as well as Edgar Allen Poe. In short, it takes about forty-five seconds to decide that you're the piece of garbage that the universe revolves around.  If you're going to be a writer, you need alone time. I think of it as going into a cave. I know I have to go into the cave. But I can only go there because I know there are people just outside the cave who are pulling for me, people who need the work that I can only do in the cave. Over at The Habit Membership, the online writers' community that I host, we talk a lot about giving one another a little more courage. Even if writing requires that you get alone, it's not really something you can do alone. With all that in mind, we're putting together a writing getaway that is quite different from the twice-yearly "Habit Writers' Weekends" that we have hosted at the Rabbit Room's North Wind Manor. The Focus Retreat, presented by The Habit, will convene at the beautiful Scarritt-Bennett Center in Nashville, Tennessee, March 16-20, 2025 (that’s Sunday afternoon through Thursday afternoon). The idea of this retreat is simple: you’ll have four days dedicated to focused work on your current work-in-progress, whether it’s fiction, nonfiction, or poetry. You'll have big chunks of time to write, punctuated by three check-ins a day (at breakfast, lunch, and dinner) plus evening events designed to keep the fountain of creativity flowing. Four days away from your day-to-day responsibilities. Your only responsibility is to write. We’ll provide: A comfortable, modest single room with a bed and desk (you’ll share a bathroom with the writer next door). Three meals daily in Scarritt-Bennett’s paneled dining room (except for two special dinners out.) Evening events with Nashville writers and songwriters to spark your creativity. Daily group activities to inspire and energize you. A supportive community of writers sharing this creative journey. Daily Schedule  Morning: Inspiration and Preparation 7:30 AM – Breakfast Together: Start the day with coffee, conversation, and camaraderie in the dining hall. 8:30 AM – Morning Group Check-In: After a few words of challenge and encouragement from me, you’ll share your writing goals for the day with your small group and draw inspiration from your fellow writers. 9:00 AM – Focused Writing Time: Settle into your dorm room or one of the beautiful Scarritt-Bennett campus spaces to dive deep into your work. Afternoon: Quiet Progress 12:30 PM – Lunch Together: Take a break to recharge with a shared meal. 1:30 PM – Writing Workshops (Optional): Attend a brief teaching session or writing exercise led by me. 2:30 PM – Continued Writing Time: Spend the rest of the afternoon making progress on your project. Evening: Connection and Reflection  6:00 PM – Dinner Together: Enjoy a delicious meal and connect with your fellow writers over the day’s progress, discussing the day’s challenges and victories. 7:30 PM – Evening Group Activity: Our evening activities will be designed to spur your creativity by connecting you to Nashville’s unique creative culture.  I’ll bring in local writer friends for conversation and a workshop or two (Katy Hutson Bowser, for instance, has already agreed to come share insights from a book she’s writing about play and creativity). One night we’ll attend an in-the-round performance by Nashville songwriters. Our last night together will be devoted to a read-aloud in which you’ll have the opportunity to share an excerpt from the piece you’ve been working on all week. (This is completely voluntary, of course; nobody will be required to read their work aloud!) Special Highlights An evening at North Wind Manor: One of our evenings will be spent by the fire(s) at the Rabbit Room's North Wind Manor. Optional One-on-One Meetings: Throughout the retreat, you’ll have the opportunity to meet privately with me to discuss struggles, brainstorm ideas, or get some direction for your work. The Community You won’t be alone on this journey. You’ll be part of a supportive small group of like-minded writers who will check in with you throughout the day, offering accountability and encouragement. This retreat is perfect for writers looking to: Escape distractions and immerse themselves in their craft. Find a balance between solitude and meaningful connection with other writers. Reignite their passion for writing in a serene, supportive setting. The price of the Focus Retreat is $1650, but if you register by December 9, the price is $1499. Half the payment is due at registration, and the remainder is due by February 1. If you have questions about whether the Focus Retreat is a good fit for you, don’t hesitate to send me an email ( jr@thehabit.co ). If it’s helpful, I’d be glad to set up a short Zoom call to discuss. Registration for the Focus Retreat is limited to 20 writers, so register early to secure your spot! [Registration link]:  https://thehabit.co/register/the-habit-focus-retreat-2025/

by Daniel R. Spanjer All people know that they need salvation, even if the salvation for which they hope is that of a meal when they are hungry. Human beings are vulnerable creatures who need sustenance and protection in order to survive. We fear deprivation, which ultimately leads to our greatest fear—death. The solution we seek is salvation. The world knows to look for salvation from the powerful. Men of strong families who possess physical might have in their hands the ability necessary to save people. In the ancient period, the strength of a person was indicated largely by his or her birth. The firstborn son of a family became the family’s leader. In addition, tribes with the longest lineage and noblest heritage were naturally considered the most capable. National strength was squarely founded on the strength and loyalty of family members. This principle was best exemplified in the dynasties that served as political backbones for most ancient societies. Each king rested on his relationship to a great ancestor who established the family line. The authoritative power of family lines and male birth was not the recourse of an ignorant people. In a time when military strength relied on pure manpower, the loyalty of kin and the backs of men determined the fate of nations. People considered that the gods determined birth order and ancestry, but the influence of a god only confirmed what was then common sense. Yahweh shattered the world’s political expectations. He claimed to be the king without heritage, the king who did not need the strength of men. He owned the cattle on a thousand hills, despite the human beings who claimed to possess them. Yahweh’s power did not rest on any heritage or lineage; Yahweh’s reign was not contingent on human strength. His royal position and almighty power came from his nature alone.  Not only did Yahweh reign in a way that seemed foreign to pagans of the ancient world, but it also appeared strange to his own people. He cared for his people in ways that seemed counterintuitive by ancient, as well as modern, standards. The world perceives the ability to rule as contingent upon power, fame, and heritage. God asserted his right to rule by caring for the poor and protecting bruised reeds. Yahweh does not need powerful men to protect his rule. Rather, Yahweh called his people to love him first, then to pursue justice for the weak. While the reign of all other kings is confirmed by the strength of family and the subservience of the outsider and the foreigner, Yahweh confirms his power by calling his family to become servants to the outsider.  In keeping with worldly views of power, cultures tell stories of great heroes who serve as examples for the people. But the people whom the Scripture set forward as examples were the lowest, not the greatest. God called leaders like David, the youngest and least-respected son of Jesse. He exalted Joseph, Jacob’s youngest and least-respected son, who suffered rejection and even imprisonment.  It may be that the greatest hero of the Bible is Job, who refused to be disloyal to Yahweh even though Satan reduced Job to a childless, disease-ridden heap of a person. With Yahweh’s permission, Satan stole Job’s strength, his wealth, and, most cruelly of all, his own children. Job’s sons had made him important as they promised to continue his family line forward. Despite losing everything and becoming the most pitiable of all people in his day, Job did not turn from God. Job is the Bible’s hero, the model citizen of Yahweh’s kingdom, despite his human flaws. The Bible reverses every worldly expectation by reimagining power as weakness and justice as mercy. For God, the virgin of no social influence or power, from a poor family, served as the lineage of his great King. Mary was the virgin fiancée to a poor member of the tribe of Judah. While the pattern of God’s plan to save his people is consistent in the selection of Mary, his work was once again a surprise. By every measure, she was the bottom of society. Yet her womb became the very seat of the universe’s king. The birth of the king through Joseph’s poor, virgin fiancée reconfigured the hope of God’s people. Their king would not come with the trappings of worldly kings. With all their armies, chariots, and men, these kings are petty. They seek the world’s acclaim as they follow its rules for power. In the unlikely birth of Jesus, Yahweh remade creation according to its original design—a world under the reign of the good King. Christ’s birth turned history back on itself. All human history had moved the world back to the disorder of Genesis 1:1. Jesus, however, began bringing the ruined world once again under his good reign. Sin ruined human relationships, which then devolved into injustice. Yahweh’s king would establish justice between people. He would restore love between his people, who would then abhor the injustices of broken societies. The fall unleashed disease and evil that worked all life towards death. Jesus would turn the disorder of illness into the order of health, and the disunion of death into eternal life. Jesus’ reign would not be evident by the standards of normal human expectations, rather it would. His reign would in fact issue from the life of one who had no influence or power in society.  He exalted the virgin’s womb. In Luke I, it is written: In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. And the virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, “Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you!” But she was greatly troubled at the saying and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be. And the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” And Mary said to the angel, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?” And the angel answered her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God. And behold, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son, and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren. For nothing will be impossible with God.” And Mary said, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.”  In choosing to come to his people through the humble station of a poor couple, who belonged to the poorest tribe of Israel and lived in one of the meanest of Israel’s small towns, Yahweh bankrupted the world’s expectations. But he also thwarted his own people’s expectations as well. Some families of Israel had remained loyal to the temple despite Roman oppression. Their proud heritage of loyalty to the Jewish way of life granted them great social influence in Palestine. Yahweh could have chosen to bring his king through any number of strong and noble families. It stands to reason that so many leading families of the Sanhedrin rejected Jesus on the grounds of his lineage.  Jesus’ lineage was more than a strange coincidence. Jesus preached mercy to sinners, touched lepers, and spoke to prostitutes. At the same time, Jesus castigated Israel’s influential leaders, who wanted a king like every other nation—a man of strength with a powerful lineage. Jesus, however, humbled himself to the social reputation of being Mary and Joseph’s son. He loved the poor and died a criminal’s death. Jesus upended the world’s false claims to power when he rose from the dead and confirmed that his kingdom of love, mercy, and justice stands over and against every human claim to power. Excerpted from  Advent is the Story: Seeing the Nativity throughout Scripture —a collection of readings for the Advent season by Daniel R. Spanjer and published by Square Halo Books. Daniel is currently the principal at Veritas Academy. He has a B.A. in History from Nyack College, a M.A. in theology from Reformed Theological Seminary, and a Ph.D. in history from the University at Albany, SUNY.

Before becoming a parent myself, someone shared the oh-so-helpful statistic that surveys show that most couples report that the happiest days of their marriage were before having children. It was not a heartening statistic to hear as a newly-married-but-as-yet-childless person. Now six years into parenting three children, I can attest that the reality of navigating the ups and downs of parenting is so much more complicated than that statistic made it seem. We waited eight years before having children and, yes, those years held many joys to which we have since waved bye-bye. Joys like choosing when you want to wake up, jauntily walking out the door when it is time to leave the house, or not needing to check your sweaters each time you wear them to make sure they haven't picked up any new stains from food or... other things. As with most things, Michael McIntyre sums it up nicely. This season of life has held new joys of its own though—and new sorrows. It has been harder than I could have imagined, but I can also see that in the difficulty, the best parts of me have grown and the worst parts of me have been revealed and peeled away. Sometimes when I walk through the door, three little beings scream my name and walk/crawl over to me for a hug. Other times, however, I walk in while two or more of these little angels are screaming at, hitting, stealing from, or otherwise menacing one another. Sometimes I feel that I should read Ellie Holcomb and Douglas McKelvey's "Liturgy for After a Fight Among Siblings" before coming home and have Andrew Roycroft's "Liturgy for After a Child's Meltdown" or Hannah Greer's "A Liturgy for Responding to a Child's Needs" at the ready for soon after arrival. My oldest son started kindergarten this year and watching him ride his bike to school on his first day brought on a peculiar melange of feelings that I hardly have words for. It was a bright sadness, to say the least. Yet I know it is but a foretaste of what is in store when my children grow up and leave the house. I imagine that I will return to this post to read Heidi Johnston's "Liturgy for Contemplating the Empty Bedroom of a Child Who Has Left Home" on that day. On the whole, parenting is a delightful, strange, and maddening mixed bag. But did I leave my happiest days behind me when we had our first child? Definitely not. Has there been a trade-off of one kind of joy and one kind of suffering for another? Certainly. One thing is beyond doubt, parents need all the support they can get. So parents, to that end, we offer these liturgies gratis and with our blessing to help you through all the many ups and downs you will encounter on the way. Each of these liturgies is taken from Every Moment Holy Volume 3 from Rabbit Room Press . You can find more liturgies like these at EveryMomentHoly.com . Liturgy for After a Child's Meltdown by Andrew Roycroft Lord, as this present storm subsides, as we process our own agitated emotions, even our exasperation at this meltdown, help us to breathe out again. Soften this wounded hush into readiness to hear your voice, to show your mercy, to offer your grace, to model your love. All-seeing God, the hurt we feel is not unknown to you. Jesus, great High Priest, you are not unsympathetic to our distress. Blessed Holy Spirit, who brooded over formless ruin, come to us with your creative peace. We bring our child to you now overtaken by emotion, overwhelmed with frustration. Calm them, we pray. Root them ever more deeply in our unconditional love. Steady their ragged breathing and raging thoughts. Blossom their budded fists into opened hands. Where gospel conviction would lead them to your grace—our grace—let it do its work. Where harmful guilt would drive them to the brink, draw them back. Let your love shown through us become their safe place, their nearest shore. Thank you for the gift of our relationship with [child's name]. Thank you that our love gives them a sheltered space in which they can express their heart, their fears, their hurts and confusion, rather than choking those emotions down till they become a quiet poison in their veins. Help us to be steady for them in such moments, not reacting abruptly or unpredictably from our own old wounds—even when we feel overwhelmed by this child’s outburst. We bring ourselves to you, O Christ. We are sinners. We have raged against others in the past. We have raged against you. Forgive us. O Lord, we confess our failure in our handling of these circumstances. A MOMENT OF QUIET REFLECTION AND REPENTANCE MAY BE OBSERVED. Where we have spoken to our child with unbridled tongue, cleanse us, and re-season our speech with grace. Lord give us the courage to confess our sin to our child without justification or reservation. Help us to mean our repentance; help us to model it for them. In the present chaos of these emotions, remind us of your covenant, and help us to embody that same love to our child today. O Lord, as our child will come to us conscious of what they have done, cautious of our response, enable us to stand with open arms in the path that our child takes home, to welcome them, help them, teach them, and guide them. Take us beyond the symptoms of this meltdown and lead us to what is really the matter. May this present stress serve over time to strengthen our bonds of love. Help us to walk in the way of the cross and let your reconciling power be at work here. O Lord, help us! Work your gospel into this moment. Grant that I and my child would not only experience recovery through these hours, but that together we would discover your redemptive grace in new and healing ways, knitting our hearts even more closely than they were before this flare of emotion. Amen. A Liturgy for Contemplating the Empty Bedroom of a Child Who Has Left Home by Heidi Johnston Eternal, unchanging God, meet me here in this moment as my spirit hovers over the bittersweet emptiness of this place that once echoed with noise and life and laughter and possibility. Help me see the space before me as the next proper stage in this, the story of my child, and of my child within our family, and of our family within your greater story— the end of which will not be changed by circumstance or undone by the passing of time. Give me grace to look back with gratitude and not regret, treasuring the memories that come so easily to mind. ONE MIGHT PAUSE HERE TO REFLECT AND GIVE THANKS. Thank you, Father God, for the privilege of loving and nurturing this child over so many years. Forgive my countless failings. Use them only as reminders of your grace. If, in our home, there has been any delight in you, any hunger for your Word, any love for your people, may such things take root even now, growing ever deeper and spreading farther for the extension of your kingdom. As we move into this new season, teach me to accept with gladness the independence that has always been the end goal of parenting—in the knowledge that the bond between parent and child will not end with this letting go. Even as I acknowledge my changing role, help me to be a faithful supporter, always offering an open door and a listening ear, and, above all, remaining fervent in prayer. Thank you that my love for this child, although at times I imagine it unmatched in all of humanity, is but a shadow of your own never-ending love which follows them now where I cannot, and knows all that now remains hidden from me. Give me the courage to entrust to your care that which was never mine to keep. Bless and protect your child through all that is to come, captivating their heart and sustaining them with hope. Grant them wisdom and discernment and the courage to live well in the light of all that is eternally true. ONE MIGHT PAUSE TO PRAY FOR ANY SPECIFIC CHALLENGES NOW FACING THEIR CHILD Just as this child was always yours, so also is this empty space, to do with as you will. Breathe now into this void, showing me how to best use it for your glory. Are there others in need of nurture and care, who, for even a short season, may find refuge in this space? Or perhaps it will become a sanctuary, dedicated to your service in other ways. A place where I, or others, may use or hone or explore whatever gifts and talents you have entrusted to us for the building of your kingdom. ONE MIGHT PAUSE HERE TO PRAY FOR GUIDANCE AND WISDOM And now, with fondness for all that is past and anticipation of all that is yet to come, help me embrace this new season without fear, looking always ahead to that day when we will see that no ending was what it seemed; when all our stories finally merge into one epic tale of your relentless faithfulness, and we find that we are forever home, delighting to dwell in the rooms you have prepared for us. Amen. A Liturgy for Long Hours Caring for an Infant by Leslie Eiler Thompson I am so tired, Lord. This young life requires such constant expenditure of my energies and affections, till I feel drained of both. But you, O Jesus, knew in your own flesh the constraints of the human condition, for you also experienced the weariness of long hours tending endless needs. I beg now your provision of grace as I face the coming hours. I long for the moment when sleep finds me, but till then, I pray your strength would be at work even in my weakness. Now fill my empty cup again, with patience and with peace, that I might pour it out for my child, in joy. Amen. A Liturgy for Responding to a Child's Needs by Hannah Greer O Father, I abide in the beautiful truth that I can come to you expectantly, knowing you will hear me and answer me. You bend to listen to my pleas for help and comfort and guidance and strength. You carry me always. You never tire of it, and I depend upon your dependability to comfort and hold me. And yet, sometimes the voices of my own children become so continuous and exhausting and overwhelming. I am so easily put out and wearied by the whining, tugging, grabbing, and crying to be continually held and attended to. In my humanity, I am confronted with my many limitations. I am so easily given to selfishness, exhaustion, tedium, frustration, and irritation. My back aches and my neck and shoulders are aflame from hoisting small children up again and again and again and balancing them on my hip while trying to accomplish my tasks for the day. How easily my sin can twist the joyful blessing of holding a child into drudgery and a wearisome task. Is this not what I prayed for, Lord, when I asked you to fill my arms with children? I am so like the Israelites, who complained though you rescued them from their enemies, who complained though you rained manna from heaven and provided water from a rock. Yet you never tire of coming to the aid of your children. Father, give me the capacity I need to respond lovingly to my children who cry out to be picked up and held again and again. Remind me of the blessed truth that while I hold my little ones, you hold me. Let me display to them what it looks like to joyfully lay down one’s life for another. Help me to show them that while I will fail them at times, you will never fail them, and you will always hold us fast. Amen. A Liturgy for Giving Your Child Bad News by Janel Davis O Lord, in a few moments I have to tell my kids one of the worst things I hope they will ever hear. Have mercy on us, O Lord. I know you love them more than I could ever love them. Help me remember that truth as I watch the pain cross their faces, and also in the coming months as I shepherd them through the grief that is sure to follow. May this moment of awful revelation not become a memory that might uproot their budding faith, but rather one that plants it deeper within them, turning their young hearts to you in the midst of their dismay and giving those gospel seeds the resiliency they need to flourish for a lifetime, no matter the suffering or the circumstances they experience in their lives. Help me not to fall apart as I tell them, Lord. Help me hold my emotions together so that I don’t scare them, but also let me open enough of a window into my own sorrow that they might see that it is okay and good to grieve, to weep, and to express their feelings. Sovereign Lord, this news is so awful my children likely won’t even understand some parts of it. And I’m not sure quite how to explain it. Grant me wisdom, insight, and understanding to communicate just enough that they might comprehend this heartbreak in an age-appropriate way, but also such that no horrid, graphic details would lodge in their dreams and imaginations. I rely on you, Holy Spirit, to be my counselor, nudging me toward what to tell and what to hold back. Let me be sensitive and responsive to your voice that I might in this moment become a conduit of your wisdom and your love for my children. There will almost certainly be a loss of innocence in learning of this news. My children will begin to understand hard truths about life and humanity. Till now I’ve tried to guard their hearts from things too dark for them to deal with. I’ve tried to show them the flourishing and the beauty of your good creation. Now they will also hear of the horrors that followed on the heels of the fall. Lord, may they know that you are still good. May they better see why the news of your coming kingdom is such a great hope. May they begin to learn how you will subvert even this evil, somehow using it for the good of your people and for your glory. I entrust their innocence to your hands. Lord, our great Healer— redeem the trauma this brings to our lives. Let your redemption be active in ways we cannot even imagine. Redeem the shock and the wounds we will feel. And redeem the wreckage in the lives of those affected most directly. Do not let this trauma lodge for long in our bodies, spirits, or minds, O Lord. Make us resilient. Let our faith become more rooted and fierce in the face of storm and darkness. Give us a grit that would glorify you, using even this experience to make our lives more sheltering for others in their sorrows. Hold us, heal us, and comfort us, Lord Jesus. We entrust you with all that is good and all that is awful in our lives. Be near us in the hard conversation soon to happen. Be our balm and our guide, our counselor and our shepherd, in the hours and days and months that follow. Amen. Our weekly newsletter is the best way to learn about new books, staff recommendations, upcoming events, lectures, and more. Sign up here.

We like to keep things fun here at ye ol' Rabbit Room. For instance, a few years ago at Hutchmoot , the Rabbit Room's annual conference in Franklin, TN, we decided to make a deck of cards with puzzles on them (and adorable rabbits). We hid the puzzle cards around the conference and everyone worked together to find them and solve the puzzles. Now it is time to share the love. Call it an early Christmas gift from your friends at the Rabbit Room. Here Is How the Game Works: Print the puzzles out. Hide them around your house. Call a bunch of friends/family members over. Find them. Solve them. Make merry. Word to the Wise the First : You can play the game collaboratively or break into teams to see who can find and solve the most. Beyond that, just make up the rest of the rules as you go! Word to the Wise the Second : The difficulty level of these puzzles ranges from "My kid could solve that!" to "Are you kidding me? I'm not an AI." We recommend teaming up for the stumpers. Have Tylenol at the ready for any brain cramps. Without further ado, you can download all the QR codes that lead to the puzzles here . Or if you want to skip the QRs and go straight to the puzzles, here are the files. And if you really want to skip ahead... here is the answer key . And just so you don't have to go to the effort of clicking in order to see what you're getting into, here are a few sample puzzles. Our weekly newsletter is the best way to learn about new books, staff recommendations, upcoming events, lectures, and more. Sign up here.