deeper.1: peter s beagle's the last unicorn

(Deeper: Part 1. For more of the idea behind this, check out last Friday's intro post.)

"That's different. Haggard and Lir and Drinn and you and I -- we are in a fairy tale, and must go where it goes. But she is real. She is real."

The best fantasy tales are so much more than mere escapism. The best, the ones you remember forever, actually teach you more about reality than the most gritty piece of realism you can imagine. The best are set in another world as solid as the one you stand in, but leave you aching, for another time or place, or maybe they open your eyes to the magic and mystery of the one you call home.

Children know this, and maybe that's why Madeleine L'Engle said we should write our books for children if they're too difficult for adults. And certain tales leave marks on our souls long after we've grown up. For me, one of the first was The Last Unicorn.

I didn't read the book when I was little, but my sister Sherri and I were obsessed with the animated movie from 1982. Sure, looking back, it had cheesy 80s music and sub-par animation, and yeah, the obsession may have just been that unicorns are cool and pretty, but there was still something special about it, and a lot of fellow 80s kids seem to agree. Now that I'm older, I realize it had nothing to do with the art or the music. Everything hinged on the story.

It goes like this: "A unicorn lived in a lilac wood, and she lived all alone." (Before you read any further, re-read that line, out loud if you can do it without embarrassing yourself. It's the proverbial "once upon a time" that opens the book, but there's something mysterious, poetic, rhythmic, lovely and sad all at once.) This doesn't bother her until she hears some woodsmen discussing a time when unicorns existed, and it piques her curiosity. She exists, but humans don't seem to know that, thinking the unicorns either the stuff of old fairy tales or a creature from a far off, purer time. So the unicorn sets out on a quest to find out why she is the last.

I read this book for the third time recently. I love Beagle's lyrical writing; it feels very old-fashioned high fantasy in some parts, perfect for the mood of the story, but can turn contemporary and quirky at the turn of a page. Though it appears to be set in a fairy tale world, an odd anachronism now and then (like a character talking about field-recordings or reading a magazine) pulls the story back into our own. As the characters ruminate, fight, love, and grow, fantasy and reality are turned upside-down. In a shadowy world where magic is nearly forgotten, she is the rare, real, and true thing.

But what I find most remarkable is how on this journey no one comes through unchanged. In the unicorn’s quest, a bumbling wizard finds his true magic, a rough and forgotten woman is made beautiful and noble, and a lazy prince becomes a hero. Even the unicorn isn't quite the same... still immortally herself, but changed by love. Deeper. I won't spoil the ending for you, but I have to say it grows more bittersweet every time I return to it.

There’s a part of us, no matter how grown up we are, that still longs for mystery, even though the world is stripped of its magic, and I believe that’s why The Last Unicorn lives on and so many 80s kids have fond memories of this story. The unicorn is awakened to the reality that there’s a whole world outside her lilac wood that doesn’t know her and needs her magic, but I’m more drawn to the human characters who are transformed by her presence and let themselves get swept up in her fairy tale. And I don’t want to sermonize this, but when I read the scene where Molly first sees her, greeting her with a curse (“It would be the last unicorn in the world that came to Molly Grue.”) and tears, the hope in her eyes reminds me of my own rescue, by a faith that there’s more to the world than the dirt and buzz of everyday life, and a hope that there's still a little magic in this old world yet.

"The unicorn was weary of human beings. Watching her companions as they slept, seeing the shadows of their dreams scurry over their faces, she would feel herself bending under the heaviness of knowing their names. Then she would run until morning to ease the ache; swifter than rain, swift as loss, racing to catch up with the time when she had known nothing at all but the sweetness of being herself..."

The Last Unicorn is available at Amazon.com or your favorite bookstore. There's also a gorgeous new graphic novel version out, illustrated Renae DeLiz and Ray Dillon. I haven't read it yet, but I'm going to steal it from my sister very soon. :)

What's a story you loved at a kid that still affects you now?

around the internets link dump

Confession: sometimes while I'm doing important things at work, I take a break now and then to poke around Google Reader. (When I don't have time to do that, I unleash the power of Twitter's star/fave button so I can mark things to read later.) This is probably why I catch myself in a writing mood when I'm doing other things, but hey, breaks are good now and then, and one must read to write, so....

I thought it'd be fun to share some of the interesting links and blog posts I've found this week. (I must say, I stole this "stuff I'm reading" post idea from Alise Write, a blog I've recently discovered and started lurking around. Thanks Alise!) So here we go...

• Oh, where do I begin with this one? Rachel Held Evans calls for Better Conversations about Biblical Womanhood (Part 1 and Part 2) in response to Tim Challies' response to her earlier post "Thou Shalt Not Let Thyself Go." Confused? Start with the last link, and work back for the whole story. The question: are wives responsible to "stay attractive" so their husbands won't cheat, or is that one more example of unnecessary pressure to conform to a body image? And how far should Christian women go to be attractive without being provocative? Fascinating conversation. (I'm curious to know what my married friends make of all this, since I do not have to worry about "being attractive" for anyone right now. :))
  
  
• I did, however, enjoy this insightful and articulate response to the debate by Tim Ricchuiti. A little long, but worth a read, even if you don't want to dig through the other four posts in this debate. (A quote: "It seems to me that the last thing these mostly western, mostly American, mostly evangelical Christian women need is another article telling them all the ways that they’re not concerned enough about their appearances.")
  
  
• Okay, enough of that. Head on to my favorite, The Rabbit Room, for a video of the first ever Rabbit Room Live concert featuring Eric Peters. So nice of them to make this available for those of us who couldn't be there. Things like this make me want to move to Nashville.
  
  
• On music closer to home... Orlandoans! (and those willing to travel) Rumor has it there's a great music festival coming our way this November. Intriguing article from Dig Under Rock speculating about the status of Orlando Calling and a wish list of artists to perform. Arcade Fire? Radiohead? Fleet Foxes? Um, yes please! (and AF has never played Florida? What?! So wrong.)
  
  
• Love this poetic retelling of the Prodigal Son, A Man Had Two Daughters, from Becca at The Little Boots Liturgies. So beautiful.
  
  
• Finally, on the creative front... Good Writers Revise Their Writing by Robert Lee Brewer. Why you should put that genius first draft away and revisit it. Preferably multiple times.
  
  

Read/watched/listened to anything interesting this week? Or have some links from your blog to share? Let's hear it!

deeper: an introduction

photo © 2006 Alexandre Duret-Lutz | more info (via: Wylio)I am nerdypassionate about a number of things. Little things like funny words and good coffee and an irrational dislike for tomato soup. Big things like Jesus and hope and stories. Two really big things for me are books and music. If you've known me for any period of time, you totally saw that coming. :)

As you've also seen if you've been here for a while, I like to write reviews, and between a growing to-read pile and iTunes library, I feel like I'm in a constant stream of newness. It's an exciting place to be, not to ride the wave of trends, but to always be on the lookout for new discoveries and favorites. There comes a time though, where it just gets overwhelming.

Not so long ago while coming off a busy time of music writing, I was driving and listening to some new release or other, and I felt a little lost. For all the first time reads I've pushed through and the new music skimming by on my iPod for a listen or few before I move on to the next shiny new thing, I found myself missing that feeling of total, blissful immersion in something familiar, something I knew I loved.

Does that make sense? It's the album that you can't take out of your CD player for days because the first song is as good as the last and demands a repeat. It's the book you read five times but you pick it up again because the words are as meaningful as they were the first time. It's that movie you've seen so many times you spontaneously quote it because some random situation reminds you of a scene. That's what I craved.

So I dedicated the rest of the week to some favorite albums. (On CD, for repeatability.) And I picked up a fantasy novel I'd already read twice and enjoyed every minute in that familiar world. It was awesome. I recommend it.

It also gave me the motivation to introduce an idea for the blog that's been brewing a while...

Presenting: Deeper.

Deeper is what I hope will be a quasi-regular review series on Divinest Sense, not of the latest or necessarily the greatest, but of the books and albums (or authors and artists) that have stirred up something deep in me for whatever reason. Instead of just a "I like/hate this and here's why you should too" review, my goal is to dig below the surface to figure out why it means so much to me, and my hope is that it might inspire you to discover something new and examine your own favorite art. In the future, assuming this isn't an epic flop, I'd love to have some guest posts on the subject too, so it's not just me pontificating all the time. And yeah, so maybe I can find some new favorites. See how this works?

In Blue Like Jazz (a book that will no doubt get the Deeper treatment at some point), Donald Miller wrote, "Sometimes you have to watch somebody love something before you can love it yourself. It's as if they are showing you the way." People have shown me the way quite often. I hope I can do that for you.

This introduction has gone on long enough, so Monday, I'll be sharing the first actual Deeper review. Hint: Monday is my sister's birthday, so it'll be on something that meant a lot to us both as kids. Something magical and sparkly.

Hope you enjoy, and that we can stir up some great conversations in the process! I'll leave with this question... what are the most meaningful books, music, or movies you've experienced? What stirs your soul, what do you keep returning to, and what would you want everyone to know about? Share in the comments!

saving joy.

"Why would the world need more anger, more outrage? How does it save the world to reject unabashed joy when it is joy that saves us? Rejecting joy to stand in solidarity with the suffering doesn't rescue the suffering. The converse is true. The brave who focus on all things good and all things beautiful and all things true, even in the small, who give thanks for it and discover joy even in the here and now, they are the change agents who bring fullest Light to all the world."
~ Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts

(choose joy.)

hello sunshine.

There are less than 15 minutes left of Friday. After two hours of trudging through online traffic school (barf. don't get a ticket, kids.), surely I can surrender five to write?

Presenting the return of Five Minute Fridays! Five minutes. One topic. As many words as possible, unprocessed and unedited.

It's fun! Join the party over at The Gypsy Mama (especially if you're in a time zone where it's still Friday). This weeks topic: When Seasons Change

***

Myth: There are no seasons in Florida. Yes there are. Snowbirds and Lovebugs.

Okay, so maybe there are no seasons in the traditional sense. Leaves aren't alive with color in the fall, and snow doesn't fall in the winter. But there are seasons if you have the eyes to look for them, the subtle shift that tells you one time has passed and another is coming.

It's the warming gold of the light or the occasional red tree in the midst of green that says autumn is coming to turn down the lights on another year. It's in the gradual warming of the spring, the blossoming azaleas and little birds piling their nests in secret places, or the unpredictable squirrels dashing and leaping through the trees. Maybe the calendar says the seasons change, so we will it, we look for it.

When seasons change here, it's more of a gradual melting than anything. Today, I would swear it's summer, even though the calendar says there's a month of spring to go. The dense humidity and the heat that begs for a drive to the beach. Here, summer makes the most dramatic entrance of all her seasonal sisters, with sunburns and superhero movies at her side.

Even though I don't have "summer vacation" anymore (if you have it, enjoy it), and even though fall will always have my heart and spring will always be beautiful... there's still something about summertime that stirs the Florida girl in me.

Hello sunshine.

srsly. (a monday night brain dump)

So at some point, this blog got way too serious for its own good. That kind of annoys me. Maybe I'm just in a serious place right now, pondering serious things, but I miss writing the random, lighthearted life stuff that nobody really wants to read.

Honestly, after my Restore Unity post, I've been feeling a bit drained... so let's just have a random Monday brain dump, shall we? Feel free to ignore the following 10 things... (but at least make note of 2, 4, and 6)


1) What do you talk about when you have nothing interesting to talk about? The weather! It was surprisingly cool this morning. Considering it's already feeling like brutal humid summerland here, I'm rejoicing in rolled-down windows.

2) Got The Monster in the Hollows in the mail this weekend. Huzzah! I'm itching to start it, but I really wanted to re-read North! Or be Eaten first. After I finish The Hobbit. And a book I borrowed from a friend. And....

3) Sometimes I wish I could take a few weeks off, hole up in a cabin somewhere with my To Read pile, and finish them all. If only...

4) Bright Eyes. I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning. The soundtrack to my morning drive today. So good and often sad, I nearly cried a few times, but mostly just enjoyed the wonderful writing and wondered how Conor Oberst does it. This is my first introduction to his music. And um.... why haven't I listened to him sooner?

5) I used "wonderful" and "wondered" in the same sentence. I will never write like Conor Oberst.

6) I am also delighted that Burlap to Cashmere is back and jealous of Twitter friends that saw them in concert this past weekend. Look here for a new song, "Love Reclaims the Atmosphere." (love the title!)

7) Seriously guys, if you're reading, I'm really curious if you have any suggestions for this little corner of the web. What would you be interested in reading about? I feel like I'm in a blogging slump and would be grateful for your ideas.

8) Entertaining the idea of moving to Wordpress too. Thoughts on that?

9) I'm sleepy. I have nothing left to type here. I could be responsible and work on traffic school (oh ho! There's a story....) because I know that would put me to sleep, but I won't. I'm going to make some tea, read about hobbits, and go to bed.

10) This will most likely look really dumb in the morning. :) Good night, world.

do. love. walk. (#restoreunity)

photo © 2006 Jeff M for Short | more info (via: Wylio)In some ways, I suppose there are fringe benefits to growing up in the Christian faith but not necessarily deep in the church. For us, it was simply the thing you did on Sundays: small, quiet, Baptist, with dress clothes, hard pews, old pianos and the dry, ancient smell of hymnals. Maybe things were calmer then, or maybe at such a young age I just didn't know anything about church politics and theological drama. Christians were Christians. Easy enough.

In high school, I got my first true taste of another side when I visited a friend's more charismatic church. For a mild-mannered Baptist girl, it was like stepping into another dimension, and at first, it was amazing. By then, I was hooked on CCM and questioning some of the stronger ideas I'd discovered, and besides, the church of my younger days seemed stuffy, boring, and smelled of potlucks and old lady perfume. I wanted life, and this church felt... well, they felt! Clapping, dancing, joyful singing!

Yes, I thought, this is what Christians are supposed to look like. Happy, dangit.

It wasn't until they got to long, awkward silences and slightly frightening praying in tongues that I fully realized I was in foreign territory. Turns out this wasn't for me after all, and I found myself just as disillusioned with their concept of worship. I've had a lot of fascinations since then -- the Reformed passion for sound doctrine, the Emergent embrace of mystery, the rich history and ancient symbolism of the liturgy -- and though I've now settled in a church that feels like home and developed a nostalgic soft spot for pews and hymnals, I've come to see a kind of beauty in them all.

What is it about the people of God that makes us such a fragmented, patchwork group where the austere and emotional, the intellectual and earthy, the thinkers and feelers can all be part of the same family? Perhaps the answer's in the question.

We are a family.

A huge, sprawling, beautiful, dysfunctional family, under the head of Christ, scattered to the ends of the earth, but somehow -- somehow -- a complete body he uses to accomplish redemption.

We have our pockets of smaller families, mini-cultures, and when we cross at reunions, we may look at that crazy uncle or snobby cousin and wonder how we could possibly be related. But look closer. There are common quirks, similar features, a holy DNA that binds us with people we'd just as soon never meet, only gathering because of blood relation and Grandma's chicken and dumplings. (Assuming we're a weird Southern family. Insert your own reunion food of choice here.)

There's a reason Jesus, weeping and sweating blood in Gethsemane, prayed for us to be one. For centuries, we've fragmented and fought over many things, the important and the trivial alike, as families often do. Not all Christians are like this; thankfully, there are many, many thoughtful, nuanced, wise and loving believers who recognize that we can be united and civil without agreeing on everything, and they strengthen each other with their perspectives.

But what do we do when things get heated, when we blow up Twitter with theology wars or get in long, frustrated arguments over everything from proper reactions to a terrorist's demise to pop song lyrics? How do we scrounge together something resembling unity, so the world might see not just the two-faced broken humans we are, but the light that enters to make us something more, priests and royalty?

There's a hint, I think, tucked in the back of a book by one of the minor Prophets, long before Jesus prayed for his people on a night the world would never forget:

He has told you, O man, what is good;
And what does the LORD require of you
But to do justice, to love kindness,
And to walk humbly with your God? (Micah 6:8)

Do -- fight injustice, pursue truth and speak it in love, perhaps even give each other the benefit of the doubt and a fair listening ear before tossing a stone.
Love -- value kindness, seek understanding, and (to borrow a line from two songs) "love mercy more than being right."
Walk -- in the quiet knowledge that none of us are all right, in the truth that none of us have it all together, but by some miracle, grace doesn't leave us as it found us.


All that's required. Bigger than politics, theology, differences and debate.
This is what holds a family together.

***

(my sign! every rally needs one.)

And this is my humble contribution to the Rally to Restore Unity synchroblog hosted by Rachel Held Evans this week. If you resonate with this, I encourage you to check out some of the other posts at Rachel's blog (so much great writing!), and perhaps contribute to the Rally’s Charity:Water campaign. Because we can all agree on clean water, right?

twenty-four hours.

photo © 2009 Beverly | more info (via: Wylio)Twenty-four hours later and I still don't know what to feel.

Last night, as Twitter buzzed with word that the President was going to make a national security" announcement, then exploded with the news of Osama bin Laden's death, I learned that it's possible to feel every emotion on the spectrum at once without imploding. (not completely anyway)

Dread. Shock. Joy. Fear. Relief.

Grief?

Most startling was finding in the flood of opinions and emotions, from patriotic rejoicing to something like outrage, the only thing I could drum up was sadness. Some kind of deep, oppressive melancholy that kept me awake and followed me into the morning. It was confusing. Overwhelming. And honestly, it ticked me off.

I watched the towers fell on TV almost ten years ago. I remember sitting in my English class, a room full of brokenhearted people, too wounded for any word beyond "why?" We flew our flags and cried out for justice. So this should be good news! Maybe not the end, but an end regardless.

So... why? Why the hurt? Why can't I just feel elated like everyone else... or even angry like the rest of everyone else?

I don't have any answers tonight; things are just barely clearer to me now. I'm overwhelmed by the constant barrage of news and opinions. I won't presume to tell you the "proper" response, because I don't know about you, but I'm tired of watching people condemn each other either for taking joy in revenge or for being too soft. I won't even say I can't understand how people are reacting, because I get the joy and I get the pain and it's too soon to draw any conclusions.

But the closest thing I have is this:
If we rejoice, let it be for justice, not vengeance.
If we mourn, let it be for a fallen, broken world where war and hate exist at all.
And no matter how we feel or process, don't look down on each other, guard your words, think before you tweet/blog/open your mouth, and express all you say with compassion and understanding toward each other.

This is only semi-edited. It doesn't resolve, and I'm okay with that. It's okay to not know.

And it's okay to feel conflicted sometimes.

In light of all this, I'm really thankful for Jason Boyett's honest and equally conflicted post today. If we're really honest with ourselves, I imagine most of us can relate to his progression of "miscellaneous thoughts."