A Feast and a Wedding

Late last night, Sherri and I arrived home after a weekend in Nashville at The Rabbit Room's annual Hutchmoot conference. I can't begin to describe how much this weekend means to me without dropping clichés, but maybe they're cliché because they're true. I can try. I woke up early Monday and started writing this, trying to sort out my thoughts. Semi-coherent as they are, I hope this will at least give a glimpse into the spirit of the event.

Photo by Chris Yokel

Last morning in Nashville, third floor, Baymont Inn. Our room must face east, because every morning the sun practically forces its way through the darkening shades, able to fill the room with light if we just pull back the darkness enough to let it. I'm sitting at the desk for the first time this weekend, letting a sliver of sun be my writing light.

And my heart overflows.

As I heard many say over and over, this place is an "embarrassment of riches." How do I began to talk about this weekend without saying everything I said last year, everything everyone said before? I can't. But this year, things were somehow different.

Last year, I came with a fuzzy notion of what to expect, and barely knowing only two people. I'd had some conversations with Jason Gray here and there, and I'd at least met Andrew Peterson a few times. Otherwise, there was no real world interaction with any of the people from this blog I'd been following for several years, a terrifying idea for someone like me. I picked up my name tag and folder, chatting with Shauna long enough to figure out she was one of the Petersons, then ducked into the shelves of used books and pretended to shop for 30 minutes. It wasn't until I met Ashley and Ryan, two other first timers, we mutually appreciated her superhero shirt and my plaid Chucks, and we founded our "New Kids" table at dinner that I could feel my heart at ease.

I left Hutchmoot 2011 with a small group of new friends, even feeling a kinship with people I was still meeting after the end. But this year, it was like coming home or a family reunion. Even those I met for the first time felt like people I'd known forever, through their words and art and conversation in the Facebook group. Maybe the best part was carpooling back and forth between the hotel and the church, cultivating meaningful friendships along the way.

And I am reminded these things matter. Everything matters.

Recently, Kristin Tennant wrote about online communities before she headed off to her own weekend gathering at STORY Chicago. She wrote about the paradoxical benefits and traps of online friendships, but ultimately concluded they do matter, that they are not somehow lesser things.

It's no stretch to say I love the people of The Rabbit Room. I find their rhythm and their hope infiltrating the way I see the world. I find their kindness and depth and humor and beauty in their creations. Time and again, I've been encouraged by their words. Even if we can't be a part of each others lives physically and daily, I would never discredit the power of their friendship, because it's real, because they are real, not just names and avatars.

Still, when you can hug someone you'd only seen in pictures, hear the voice behind words on a screen that have given you hope, or feel the warmth of a living, breathing person next to you, sharing food and laughter and, yes, a few tears, some kind of longing wakes up.

If it's true God will resurrect and remake the universe and us, and we won't be unrecognizable wisps of smoke, but who we are, just more fully, and if it's true there is something more real than what we see now, that Jesus was able to walk through doors because he was more real than the door, and we are ghosts upon the earth, groaning under the curse and waiting for the day of redemption, then for me this was a taste of the hope to come. We walked through the walls of our geography and keyboards and lifted our very real voices to sing the Doxology together.

Praise God from whom all blessings flow. How beautiful to think that we will one day share in this forever.

This year, more people came than before and space was tight, so the church set up a massive striped tent for an outdoor dining hall, strung with lights and nestled in the green warmth of the backyard. If I had to settle on a favorite place of the weekend, this might be it. We raised our glasses and ate and laughed. At one meal, friends at my table called it Thanksgiving.

On Saturday night, sharing our final meal in the cooling evening air, I watched twilight descend and dim and thought, "I sure hope there's a tent in heaven. And Chef Lewis' apple crisp."

"And we dream in the night of a Feast and a Wedding..."

Rich Mullins & a Legacy of Grace

It's strange how you don't recognize just what an influence someone has held on your life until many years later. To look back, to see your journey and the way others have left their marks along the way is profound, and in some ways, a little sad.

Today is the 15th anniversary of Rich Mullins' death. Those who have been immersed -- or at least dipped -- in the Christian music scene have heard the name, perhaps even the songs or the stories. He's something of a legend now, bigger than life and memory. I had only discovered my local Christian station Z88.3 a week or so before, and I was a 14-year-old at the height of my "Jesus Freak" era, looking for something to give voice to my intense spiritual passion.

I was listening to the morning show when the news broke. Songwriter Rich Mullins died in a car accident on his way to a show. They followed the story with "Awesome God." I hadn't heard the song in a few years, my only real memory of it being my fifth grade class singing it for a chapel service, all proper in our dresses and ties until we had to pantomime "thunder in his footsteps and lighting in his fist." And yet, the song had left some sort of mark on me that I didn't realize.

Oh, the guy who wrote "Awesome God" died? How sad.

Shortly after, my mom picked up a copy of his sort of hits collection Songs, and I discovered a side of this writer that was far wider and deeper than "When he rolls up his sleeves he ain't just puttin' on the ritz." I wore the CD out. Sure, the songs were a mix of the stunning and the cheesy, but I loved it. It was unlike anything I'd heard, from the hammered dulcimer flourishes to the haunting drums and chant in "Calling Out Your Name." If I hadn't discovered his music then, I wonder if I would have found the taste for poetic folk songwriting that colors my listening now.

But perhaps, more than anything, I am thankful for the grace I learned, even indirectly, from his work. It led me to read The Ragamuffin Gospel by Brennan Manning, a book I can honestly say changed my life, even if I was too young to really know what "bedraggled, beat up, and burnt out" meant. The lyrics on his posthumous release The Jesus Record wouldn't make sense to me until after I stumbled through my own doubts and could empathize with the cry, "Well I memorized every word you said / Still I'm so scared I'm holding my breath / While you're up there just playing hard to get."

I've come to learn that Rich was not a saint. He was sort of that weird rebel of Christian music, a scruffy barefoot ragamuffin that raised eyebrows even as he wrote such moving songs. I wonder what 14 year old me would have thought of him. And yet I regret never having the chance to meet him or at least see one of his concerts, because I can tell from the stories people who knew him tell that I would have liked him now.

So much has changed in 15 years. I work for that radio station that made the introductions. I've muddled through the dark, with grace to light my way. My own prayer could very well be, "I can't see how you're leading me, unless you've led me here / Where I'm lost enough to let myself be led." These songs have helped light the path, and I am grateful.

I have a hard time pinning down a favorite song to share, but I'm always drawn back to "Calling Out Your Name." There's something about the poetry of comparing God's glory to "the fury in a pheasant's wings" that gets me every time.

This thirst will not last long.

"...the Lord takes by its corners this old world / And shakes us forward and shakes us free / To run wild with the hope / To run wild with the hope"

Miscellany Links. Remembering How to Write.

Is it possible to forget how to write? Because I haven't done anything here in almost a month, and it feels weird. I had a couple posts in the queue -- decent ones actually -- but now they're a little bit dated. Ho hum.

So as August/September is prone to be, things have been crazy. Really crazy. In the week between conferences, between living out of suitcases and nurturing my two vocation-passions (radio/music and writing/creativity) I thought I'd pop back in to say hello and share a few things I've written for other places. If you haven't seen them before, please enjoy them and pretend I posted something new. :)

JFH has been keeping me rather busy... a couple of music reviews and an interview, with more on the way! Autumn is a full season for good music releases, so I direct you to these for now...

• Andrew Peterson - Light for the Lost Boy: My second ever 5 star review... first that earned the score after months of deliberation. This record is a gem, and I can't recommend it enough. I left out the part about how the second half made me weep in my car. (the best part, I've been told)
• An interview with Mr. Peterson, in which we talk about the new record, songwriting, Hutchmoot, and Bon Iver. Or perhaps more accurately, 40 minutes of mutual nerdiness with one of my writerly heroes. Such a privilege.
• Derek Webb - Ctrl: The trippy and wonderful new record I already plugged here. I spent way too long puzzling out the significance of Sacred Harp samples and the ties with his side project Sola-Mi - Nexus. That was either research or procrastination. You decide.

Already have a few more reviews in the works, so even if the blog is scarce... at least I'm writing things like that. 

Art by Lauren Dubinsky for
The Good Women Project

Also, I'm pleased and a little freaked out to mention that a month or so ago I had my first piece published at The Good Women Project. I didn't plug it here because it's one of those personal stories I'm stupidly neurotic about sharing, but after too many people got wind of it and asked me to email the link... well.... here you go. Yes, I wrote about singleness. No, it's not whiny. (I hope.) 

A quote: "The proverbial 'One' is someone who will help me be holier and more human than I am on my own. Not a white knight to rescue me, but a broken, lonely wanderer to come alongside and teach my pride to die." Okay, I'm a little bit proud of that line. Mostly, I'm grateful for the good conversations this story sparked with friends and strangers alike.

So there you go. I wrote. I miss writing. These times of losing touch come and leave me a little lost, but in time it comes back around. To new folks who have dropped by from Good Women and other places around the Internet, welcome. I hope you find something meaningful here.

To my dear friends and readers that stick around through the dry spells, you rock. Thank you.