Nathan came to David after he sinned and told him a story. It’s a passage of scripture I can rarely get through without tears. As a kid and teenager, I used to wonder at my visceral reaction and search my own heart for sin.

But as I’ve come to know myself, I’ve realized that most of the time, that clenching I get in the pit of my stomach and the salt water that pricks at my tear ducts is more about the story itself than what’s going on in my own heart.

A powerful man abused his power at the expense of a weaker person.

That is just not right. And I know it in every fiber of my being.

I heard that story recounted three or four times in the past few days. It was held up as an example of “stealing past the watchful dragons” of the human heart and overcoming the defenses we build.

Russell Moore said, “Nathan is not giving David an argument, but an experience.” He’s taking the king into the story and letting the story do its work. Because that’s exactly how stories work–and the abstraction doesn’t do the same thing.

Nathan’s encounter with David is about speaking truth to power through art. Heidi Johnston reminded us that stories, in addition to giving us “a glimpse of beauty and truth we otherwise might miss…also present us with realities about ourselves we might otherwise deflect.”

There is a fine line between art that carries in it resonant truth and art that clobbers a message home. To navigate alongside that line and still remain on the better path is not a work for the faint of heart.

But it is a good work.

I have seen debates in our current cultural context between the camp that says, “Create beauty, create good, create true things–that is the way to shift a culture. That is the way to make a change” and the camp that says, “No, the problem is here and now. We’ve got to make an argument–maybe even fight as dirty as ‘they’ do–to have any impact at all.”

What if both are right?

We live in a disenchanted world. The mud and slime that is unearthed and slung about in accusation is ugly and disgusting.

Is it possible that art can both raise our eyes up from the mud into beauty and mine that mud for clay?

Can story both show a glimpse of what ought to be and challenge what is?

Can a tale about a man who loved his single ewe lamb change a king’s heart?

We know the Story that can reenchant the world. It is full of blood and stone and grace and truth.

Let us make art of both.

A Man, a Plan, a Canal

by Carolyn Clare Givens

Date: December 25, 2008
Time: 0510 hours
Officer Making Report: Kevin N. Ivek
Incident: Confiscation at routine security screening, International Terminal
Reason: Potential weapon
Description of Confiscated Item: Ice pick with wine bottle cork on sharp end.  Stanley brand. 6 ¼  inches long. Clear yellow transparent handle with painted red accents.
Action Taken: Perpetrator questioned and released to board his flight.  Item confiscated.

Officer Kevin N. Ivek finished filling out the form and handed it to the officer behind the confiscations desk, who looked up from thick book with onion-skin pages. The confiscations officer was studying English or something in college, one of those really useful degrees. He had those glasses with thick plastic black frames, which were probably supposed to make him look cool and studious. His uniform shirt was as wrinkled as the pre-creased polyester could get. Kevin watched the confiscations officer look over the form. He had really wanted to write down that the perpetrator was a complete moron who couldn’t comprehend that an ice pick was a potential weapon or that he thought covering the tip of it with a cork from some vineyard in Virginia mitigated the fact that he was trying to get a sharp, pointy object on the plane. Unfortunately there was no place on this form to describe the perpetrator’s idiocy.  That was the responsibility of the officer who’d questioned the guy.

“Ha!” the officer behind the desk barked out a laugh. “With your middle initial your name’s a palindrome.”

“A what?” Kevin asked.

“A palindrome. You know: ‘a man, a plan, a canal, Panama’?”

“Huh?”

“It’s the same backward and forward. A palindrome,” the officer said.

“Oh,” said Kevin.

“Wouldn’t it be cool if the word ‘palindrome’ was a palindrome?”

“I guess so.”

“Like ‘mondegreen.’ ‘Mondegreen’ is a mondegreen.”

“I have no idea what that means,” Kevin said.

“It’s when you hear—”

“And I really don’t care,” Kevin added.

“Oh, sorry.”

“Do you have everything you need?” Kevin asked.

“It’s all here, Officer Ivek,” the confiscations officer said.

Kevin watched the officer toss the ice pick into an open box sitting next to him on the desk. Inside was the night’s collection of a vegetable peeler and t-wrench. Kevin turned his back on the chatty desk officer and walked back toward the screening area. As he passed the customs officer’s lounge, a snatch of conversation caught his ear.

“You’ll never believe who just came through,” a man said.

Kevin stopped to listen. He always stopped to listen, just in case it was her they were talking about. If she ever came through he was sure he’d hear about it.

“Who?” another officer asked.

“This guy just came in on the flight from Ecuador dressed as Santa Claus. Fake beard, red suit, carrying a little plastic Christmas tree in one hand and one of those pop-up electric Coleman lanterns in the other,” the first officer said.

Kevin sighed. It wasn’t her.

“Ecuador? Ugh. I always hate those flights; you always get somebody trying to bring in produce.”

“Yeah, trying to explain to the guy in front of me that he can’t bring in his cucumber and lima beans but the last guy could have two dozen roses…”

“I know!”

Kevin continued on his way, the conversation fading out behind him. He opened a door and passed out into the screening area. One or two passengers were disemboweling their carry-on luggage to get to their computers and quart-sized bags filled with three-ounce-bottles of liquid. Kevin could never understand why people seemed to keep those items at the bottom of their carry-ons when they knew they’d need to pull them out.

Mike Becket on the x-ray machine saw Kevin enter the screening area.

“Hey, Ivek, get back out here! My kids are waiting for me – presents under the tree, you know.”

“Sorry, Mike,” Kevin said. He approached to take over the scanning and told Becket about the talkative confiscations officer.

“Well, I’m off then,” Mike said. “Your turn to break in the new kid.”

Kevin looked up at the kid returning from the entrance to the screening area. His fat, pimply face seemed to be squeezing out of the top of a still-creased blue polyester-cotton mix shirt, the embroidered patch on his shoulder sticking out flat and stiff. “The new kid,” Kevin said.

“He’s not so bad,” Officer Becket said. “And you’ve got a slow morning.” He looked down at the sheet and read off the schedule, a flight departing at eight and one at nine forty.

“See you,” Kevin said. “Merry Christmas.”

Becket left, and Kevin sat back on the stool to wait for the trickle of people who thought you still should show up three hours early for an international flight on Christmas morning. Kevin knew they wouldn’t be busy. He’d have time to think about her, to remember her golden eyes, to bask in her smile.

The new kid stood at attention behind the metal detectors, wand in hand, looking as professional he could with his pimply face and too-small shirt.

“Kid,” Kevin said. “You can relax.  It’s Christmas morning.”

“Yes, officer,” the kid said, not moving.

“Seriously, you’ll pull a muscle.”

“Yes, sir.” The kid spread his feet apart a step and put his arms behind him.

A passenger set his bag on the conveyor belt and Kevin pushed the button to take it through the x-ray. The man stepped through the metal detector, and nothing happened. Kevin saw the outlines of books and a cell phone in his bag. The man’s loafers were neatly placed next to the bag in a bin. The pennies showed up black on Kevin’s screen. He pushed the button and the bag came out on the other end of the machine. The man picked it up and set his shoes down on the floor. Slipping his feet into them, he took a step before turning back.

“Always this empty on Christmas?” he asked.

“Yes,” Kevin answered.

“Hey, you guys got any packaging tape? I’ve got a book with a tear in the cover I wanted to fix. Keep forgetting to pick it up.”

“Kid?” Kevin looked over at the new kid, who was standing at attention once again.

“No sir, just masking tape.”

“Sorry, mister.”

“No problem. Thought I’d ask.”

The man walked toward the gates. Kevin closed his eyes and imagined her walking up to the conveyor belt and taking off her sandals for the security check. He opened his eyes to the sight of the kid’s pimply face. Trying not to shudder, he gave the kid a look. Immediately, the kid flushed from fat neck to hairline and stood at ease.

“Officer Ivek,” the kid said. “Have you worked Christmas morning much?”

“Every year,” Kevin said.

“Really?”

“I request it.”

“Is it always this slow?”

“Has been for seven years.”

Kevin didn’t encourage the kid to talk. He wanted it quiet. He had seven years of Christmas mornings to think about. Seven years. For a moment he wondered if he’d still know her after all this time. He closed his eyes again and the doubt fell away. He didn’t even have to try; her form came before him in an instant: a golden mane of curls falling over her perfectly tanned shoulders, a yellow sundress, the color of a lemon, clinging to her perfect figure, tied round her slim waist with a piece of green twine, her legs tapering to delicate ankles. She was lovely, but it wasn’t until she’d smiled that Kevin’s heart had been caught. She came alive when she smiled, alive in a way that Kevin was sure he’d never been. He’d thought about her every day for seven years, but Christmas mornings were the worst – or maybe the best. Kevin wasn’t sure whether seeing her in his mind’s eye was a torture or a pleasure.

A young family came up to the screening area and began to shed coats and bags into the plastic bins.

“No, Zachey, you can’t carry that through,” the mother was saying to her son. “You have to put your tape measure in the bin.”

The father took the tape measure out of the little boy’s hand and set it on the far side of a bin. The boy started to wail, and his mother tried to comfort him.

“It’s just for a minute, honey! I know, I know, it’s hard to give up your new present even for a minute.”

“Just get through, Celia,” her husband said.

The woman walked through the metal detector as Kevin pushed the button on the conveyor belt.  The boy followed his mother and ran to the edge of the belt for his new toy. He paid no attention as the alarm went off on his father and the new kid began to wand him. The mother handed the boy his tape measure and he began using it on the leg of a table. The new kid finished with the father, and the man gathered his things together and tried to get his wife and son moving toward the gate.

The boy began to scream again when his father picked him up, and Kevin was glad to hear the cries fading into the distance a few moments later. At least their gate was far away. He looked at the table leg the boy had been measuring. It was probably thirty-six inches, Kevin thought. He wondered why there was a plastic footer on it. The janitorial staff must have been proud of their shiny floors.

Kevin closed his eyes again to find her. He looked for her in his mind whenever there were screaming children or disgruntled passengers. She was his refuge.

“So, Officer Ivek,” the new kid said, “you’ve been working TSA for seven years?”

“Yeah,” Kevin said.

“What’s the strangest thing you’ve confiscated?”

Kevin thought about it for a moment. “Candle snuffer,” he said.

“What?”

“It looked like a hammer, so we pulled the bag. Turned out it was pewter candle snuffer.  Probably would have broken if they’d tried to use it as a weapon, but we confiscated it anyway.”

“And why do you always work Christmas mornings?”

Kevin thought about telling the kid to shut up and mind his own fat, pimply business, but decided to answer. “Good money,” he said; then he closed his eyes again and watched her approach his desk as she had that morning.

He’d worked seven years of Christmas mornings just in case she came back. Seven years at security in the international terminal just in case she traveled somewhere else. She’d been going to the Bahamas on that trip. He could remember her destination, her dress, and her smile, but he had no memory of her name.

Kevin opened his eyes and saw Spinelli get up from his stool up at the entrance to the screening area. He walked toward them.

“I’m bored to death up there,” Spinelli said. “Anyone wanna change?”

“I will,” Kevin said. “You can talk to the new kid.”

Getting stuck there with Spinelli would be worse than the new kid. The guy reeked of garlic, even though it was only seven o’clock in the morning. And he’d talk. He always talked. Kevin walked to the desk at the entrance to the screening area. He slipped on the blue gloves and picked up the highlighter and UV light.

A man came through and Kevin took his boarding pass and ID. He glanced it over, looked at the man and initialed it, KI. Between passengers he let his mind wander, imagining everything he’d say to her if she ever came through again. How he’d catch her attention with his wit. Automatically he wrote his initials on the boarding passes, KI, KI, KI, as people came through, but his mind was seven years in the past and a lifetime into the future all at once.

He smelled a light, delicious perfume and automatically reached his hand out for the woman’s boarding pass and ID. Sarah H. Aras, Panama City, Panama, he read.  Then he looked at the picture on the passport and snapped to attention. He lifted his eyes and met hers. Her golden curls surrounded her perfect face and framed a set of honey-colored eyes. She was wearing blue this time, but the light fabric still clung about her slim form like it belonged on her. Then she smiled, and her whole person was suddenly alight. All over again, Kevin felt that he didn’t know what being alive really was, and that he never could know until she was a part of his life. In an instant, seven years of imagined greetings flew through his head. He tried to open his mouth and say something charming, but nothing would come to his tongue. There was a pause as he drank in her presence, then, finally, language came to his lips:

“A man, a plan, a canal—”

“Panama,” she finished for him, laughing a little.

“With your middle initial your name’s a palindrome,” he said.

She smiled. “It is.”

He wanted to tell her that his was, too. Or that he really didn’t care about any of that and wanted to sweep her away to an island in the Pacific with him; that her smile was the light of his life, the thing he’d been hoping to see again for seven years, but the words wouldn’t come.

“Goodbye, Miss Aras,” Kevin said.

“Bye,” she said with another radiant smile. “See you.”

Sarah H. Aras turned away and moved into the screening area, and Kevin N. Ivek watched her go.

“I’ll see you,” he whispered.

“If your ambition is to leave a legacy,” Rich Mullins said, “you will leave a legacy of ambition.”

I went to Hutchmoot this weekend. That makes eight years now of going to a place that reminds me who I am and reminds me over and over of the scandal of the gospel: that the King of the Universe became a carpenter’s son and lived and died and rose again for you and me.¹

“God did not abolish the fact of evil,” Dorothy Sayers wrote, “He transformed it. He did not stop the Crucifixion; He rose from the dead.”

We looked carefully at what it means to be part of a creative community, how the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love.

“When you find something you love,” said Bailey McGee, “you want to be a part of it.”

We forget sometimes that we live in a Kingdom economy, one without scarcity. A flourishing Christian community is wonderfully counter cultural. In the Kingdom of God, when one of us wins, we all win. But the key to this kind of community is a heart of service—whatever gift we have, we use it to serve others.²

“What do I have,” Doug McKelvey challenged us to ask ourselves, “that I can use to serve this vision?”

It’s not just about creativity, either. This Kingdom economy shows up when we love, too. God is love, and when we love he fills us up ever more with love.

“Any form of prejudice goes against the grain,” Odessa Settles said, “because I don’t believe that’s what God intended.”

God intended love, service. Don’t forget the alien, he commanded Israel, for you were once aliens. Don’t forget the slave, he said, for you were once slaves. The wounds are deep, all around. And those who must repent of a lack of love, a lack of service are standing today side by side with those who were not loved, who were not served, creating together for a new world.³

“Music is the needle,” Suzanne Tietjen said, “that drags the suture to the wound, to do the work.”

We all get spiritual formation—our will, our loves, our desires, all of them are formed. But we live in this achingly beautiful and tragically broken world, so we get spiritual malformation. And it is only Christ-centered spiritual formation that allows us to be re-formed. The more we look like him, the more truly human we become.⁴

You didn’t know Grandma Givens, but going by that definition, she was one of the most human people I ever met. The other day she would have been 101 years old, but she celebrated that birthday with the Jesus she spent her life following. She walked on this earth for 100 years and was the joints, the ligaments, the ear, the elbow, all the “less honorable” parts every single day.

“Our hospitality shall be our protest,” said Betsie ten Boom.

We finished the weekend with a reading of A.S. Peterson’s The Hiding Place. It’s been decades since I read the book, but I remember it often sitting by Grandma’s chair over the years.

“I can think of no better work than making our home a refuge for those in need,” Caspar ten Boom said.

“If the Germans can learn such hate,” said Betsie, “think of how they could learn to love.”

You didn’t know my Grandma. She didn’t leave too large a footprint in the world. But Betsie ten Boom did. She loved. She loved people. She loved God’s Word. She described it as “A promise that the lightning crack of justice has already struck and we live in the silence before the thunderclap.”

And she had a sister, Corrie—a passionate, driven, transformed woman who told her story, and her sister Betsie’s story. Who learned that forgiveness is never efficient, that it must be a scandal.

You didn’t know my Grandma, but I hope you get to know Betsie, for Grandma was so much like her.

¹Andrew Peterson, “Honesty, Truth, and Beauty: A Celebration of the Music of Rich Mullins.”
²Doug McKelvey, “Midwife Crisis.”
³Buddy Greene and Odessa Settles, “We Help Each Other See.”
⁴Carolyn Arends, “The Arts as Allies in Spiritual Formation.”

I thought that was a genius idea, and not too hard to pull out of my hat, so here’s a list for you all. Bonus, I couldn’t limit myself to 10, so there’s Honorable Mentions, too. Read on through (photos are links to reputable sites for purchasing) and drop me a note in the comments with your favorites that I’ve probably never heard of.

Fiction

The Blue Sword, Robin McKinley

I mean, it’s a Newbery Honor Book, so someone knew about it, but I’m always surprised how few of my friends know this fantasy novel. Perfect for girls ages 9-14, and delightful far beyond those ages. One thing I love is that McKinley’s fantasy world in this one is reminiscent of the Frontier Provinces of the British Raj in the late 19th century.

The Far Pavilions, M.M. Kaye

Speaking of the Frontier Provinces of the British Raj in the late 19th century…this one dives in whole heartedly. Kaye grew up in India and her love of the country seeps through her novel. She also manages to interweave exposition on complex political machinations, daring adventure, love stories, and murder plots. For late teens or adults (there’s a non-graphic, but grown-up love scene/storyline).

The Man in the Brown Suit, Agatha Christie

My favorite Christie detective is neither Poirot or Miss Marple. It’s not even Tommy and Tuppence who I love more than the famous-er ones combined. It’s Anne Beddingfield, who witnesses a mysterious death and relies on the knowledge she has about head shapes from her father’s studies in phrenology to track a mystery man through a mystery of missing diamonds all the way to South Africa.

Stargirl, Jerry Spinelli

Stargirl’s magical. She is a unique character and you only discover how unique as the story goes on. Maybe you know her (I mean, the book cover says it was a NYT Bestseller). But if you don’t—in case you don’t—I have to introduce you. Leo Borlock’s life is changed when Stargirl enters Mica high school. Great for teens and adults. Bonus: the new Disney streaming service is coming up with a movie version.

The Bird in the Tree, Elizabeth Goudge

There are many not famous Elizabeth Goudge books. There are some that are better known, and my friend who runs Elizabeth Goudge Book Club over on Instagram has plenty of recommendations. This one is never the first one I hear people talk about. And yet, if I’m telling you books that you don’t know about I have to give you The Bird in the Tree. It’s stuck with me in ways I don’t know how to explain. For grown-ups definitely, for thematic reasons.

Non-Fiction

(I like my non-fiction pretty narrative, so there’s lots of memoirs here. See the honorable mentions for a few more straight up non-fiction books.)

The Piano Shop on the Left Bank, Thad Carhart

Thad Carhart’s memoir is one that I will never get out of my head. He fell in love with playing piano as an adult in Paris. This book is a love story to relearning lost things, to pianos, to craft, and to friendship. This is one of very few books in my life that I picked up because of the cover. I wanted to know what was behind that curtained window. I was more than rewarded for my curiosity.

Love and War in the Apennines, Eric Newby

Eric Newby regularly chose adventure over complacency—and wound up as a travel writer because of it. He also had a terribly dry British sense of humor that KILLS me. But this is the story of an adventure he didn’t choose: his World War II service and capture in Italy. On the day the Italians surrendered, the guards came into the villa where the British Officer POWs were held and told them they were leaving and the gates would be open, but the Nazis would arrive soon. One problem, though: Newby had sprained his ankle a few days earlier and couldn’t keep up with the escape.

The Places in Between, Rory Stewart

Rory Stewart walked across northern Afghanistan in January 2002, beginning two weeks after the Taliban fell. His journey is captivating, and his encounters in village after village are eye opening. The Afghanistan we encountered after 9/11 was very similar to the one I read about in The Far Pavilions or in another Eric Newby book, A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush from the 1950s. It is a place utterly foreign and endlessly fascinating.

Notes from the Tilt-A-Whirl, N. D. Wilson

The subtitle of this book is “Wide-eyed Wonder at God’s Spoken World,” and it opens my eyes to see the world around me differently, remembering that God spoke it into being—and he continues to speak its existence. With deep, funny, charming and dang-well-written observations and insights on, y’know, everything, Wilson takes us on a carnival ride through world in the changing of a year with our eyes wide open.

Struck, Russ Ramsey

Russ Ramsey has awesome books. Many of them are retellings of Scripture’s stories and beautifully point back to the Word. This one points to the Maker, the Healer, and the Wounded One who walks with us. Russ got a blood infection that damaged his heart and required emergency open heart surgery. Struck was written in the midst of the pain, the depression, the sorrow. It is the first steps (hard as they are) in the path toward healing, wholeness, and health.

Honorable Mentions:

These Honorable Mentions are here for a couple of reasons. Some are OTHER books by authors above that didn’t make that list, not because they were lesser, but because they were probably a LITTLE more likely to be known.

Some are books by familiar names. You probably know something they wrote, but you might not know THIS one.

Some are just dang good books that I had to cut because I was limited to 10 and so I decided everyone gets a trophy.

You’ll notice more kids and YA books in the fiction part of this list than above. Above, I was trying to be judicious, but the reality is that most of my favorite books were written with a younger audience in mind.

All of them, though, are books that have stayed with me. Many are books that I’ve read more than once.

Non-Fiction

Scribbling in the Sand, Michael Card

The Boys in the Boat, Daniel James Brown

The Advent of the Lamb of God, Russ Ramsey

Life in the Big Story, Heidi Johnston

Reading Lolita in Tehran, Azir Nafisi

Fiction

The Song of Glory and Ghost, N. D. Wilson

The Lost Prince, Frances Hodgson Burnett

Beware the Fish!, Gordon Korman

The Perilous Gard, Elizabeth Marie Pope

The Blue Castle, L. M. Montgomery

But something remains. There is a deeper magic from before the dawn of time, one that is hard to understand and still harder to explain.

My soul needed restoration after the past few months, and Hutchmoot provided it. While my inner Asian was satisfied with Japanese cookies, Vietnamese sandwiches, and Chinese food, the part of me that’s even more inner than that was sated with songs and words that pointed me to what is true.

Come broken and weary
Come battered and bruised
My Jesus makes all things new
All things new
            –Andrew Peterson

“When we get what we do and who we are tangled up, we lose connection with our deep gladness.” –Lanier Ivester

“I don’t have to know how God is going to use me for God to use me. I just have to put my hand to the plow and do the work before me.” –Jennifer Trafton

I’m over my head and lost
And no, there’s no way I’m able to pay back the cost
But this I call, this I call to mind
That I’m not alone
And I can come back home anytime
So I’ll go, to the storehouse I’ll go
To the storehouse of mercy, I’ll go
            –The Gray Havens

“We are given the role of subcreators of beauty, but we are never given the role of subcreators of truth.” –Heidi Johnston

Once, I drove down the turnpike and lyrics from a song reminded me that I didn’t have to work so hard, I could rest easy, and a burden was lifted from my shoulders.

Once, I sat in a room at an old church in Nashville and heard an author say that the best stories end with a signpost on the final page that says, “The story goes on…that way,” and I saw that the truest stories—including the ones we live—never end.

Once, I listened to a chef tell the story of his favorite Christmas of Chinese takeout from the mall food court with his father and I was reminded that the stories are true.

This felt like First Hutchmoot 2.0 in some ways. For every hug, every word, every note, every work of art—I am grateful. I am restored.

I’m a no-Christmas-before-Thanksgiving hardliner, but this year I found myself wishing for Christmas to come, faster, faster. As if by wishing I could hurry it along. As if I could push myself forward, even just a few seconds faster than ordinary time goes, to Christmas.

I know a lot of people who are weary this year. Weary of the battles, the disappointments, the violence, the bile that seems to be spewing out everywhere. Some people look back. They think of another year, another era. They may be looking through rose colored glasses or they may actually be right that things used to be better. But I’m looking forward, not for rose-colors but for twinkle lights.

It’s dark out there.

We’re entering the tenebrous season of Advent now. Pushing through the weeks of expectant waiting for the King’s arrival. He won’t come like we expect him, though. He never has. We wanted a conquering ruler and he came as a little baby, ready to live a fragile human life and then lay himself down as a blood sacrifice for the sins of the world. It wasn’t what we expected.

The light shines in the darkness.

We might expect Christmas to arrive with blinding brightness and bombastic fanfare, but it often comes with a night like this one, where we drift off to sleep in the room with the tree. The twinkle lights are just tiny points of brightness, but the whole corner is aglow with them.

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

I need a little bit of hope this year. I need the light shining in the darkness. I need what Advent and Christmas mean. I’m pushing toward Christmas this year, pushing forward to the twinkle lights shining in the darkness. They’re small, like a tiny Savior born in a manger. They’re steady, like a kind carpenter who took Mary as his bride. And they’re bright, bright as the eyes of a young mother looking down at the Hope of the World in her arms.

It was almost November, nearly six years ago. The glory that is October in Philadelphia had spent itself and we were in the grey days of late autumn, when the remaining leaves are matted along the curbs, waffling between slimy decomposition and brittle trash gatherers depending on the weather.

The CD player in my car still still worked back then and I’d burned a copy of the special edition of Jason Gray’s new album, A Way to See in the Dark, so I could listen as I drove. My tires turned over the familiar concrete and asphalt of 413 between home and work and work and home and I heard it for the first time: “Nothing is wasted. Nothing is wasted. In the hands of our Redeemer, nothing is wasted.” I wrote out the lyrics of the song on my blog and said to a friend, “I don’t need it right now, but I know I have in the past and I know I will again.”

One month later I lay on my bed listening to the song as tears made their paths down my cheeks. I’d just returned from the ICU where a dear friend, hit by a car, lay in a bed from which he would never rise. It was the start of my year of hell and the beginning of a fog of tragedy and brokenness which would only begin to lift eleven months later as I made my way for the first time to the gathering of the community which introduced me to Jason Gray—The Rabbit Room.

On the airplane flying to Nashville, I read these words in N.D. Wilson’s Notes from the Tilt-a-Whirl: “The coffin can be a tragedy, but not for long. There will be butterflies.” A healing from the hell year began that day. At that Hutchmoot—my first—I met people who changed my life. I heard stories that reignited my imagination, and I made a decision that I would come back, resident nomad that I was. I had found a home.

On Sunday afternoon of Hutchmoot 2017, Jason Gray took to the stage to sing “Nothing Is Wasted” as part of a liturgical journey in which we moved from fear to grief to hope to service to community to work to praise.

I had spoken on lament just a few days earlier and talked about the turn in it—from remembrance of pain to remembrance of God’s faithfulness. From the dirge to the second line. From sorrow to joy. From grief to hope.

It was the very turn I experienced a year after I heard Jason’s song for the very first time. The turn that altered my life’s path and opened new avenues for relationship, community, creativity, fulfillment, joy. It was the turn that moved me to a new place. It was the turn of my life, the pivot, that set me where I stand today.

And Jason sang just at the moment the liturgy turned from grief to hope: “From the ruins, From the ashes, beauty will rise. From the wreckage, from the darkness, glory will shine.”

And I stood in the ICU, over the bed of my friend who I could see was already gone. I got the phone call that my boss had died, just three weeks after the cancer diagnosis. I watched my professor’s mind taken from him by the brain tumor. I read the vicious responses to change that I had to sift through every day at work during that year. I walked again through those months of the year of hell that I can barely remember and I saw that ruins, ashes, and brokenness are the seedbed for beauty—for we have One who redeems all things and in His hands nothing is wasted.

And we went to a concert at the high school of a band from Palmer/Wasilla called Foreign. I LOVED them. Their music had alternative rock influences with the fun of ska, and it was all delightful. I bought an album that night and it became the soundtrack of my year.

I took it to college and started introducing people to it–I played it at nearly every open dorm. I used a snippet of the hidden track that was a singing answering machine message as my voicemail recording for much of my freshman year. I took it with me that summer to the Bible Conference where I worked and shared it around there–trying to explain to people that when I said I loved the band Foreign, I was not talking about Foreigner. My sophomore year, a girl from Alaska came as a freshman. I asked her if she’d ever heard of Foreign and she was a fan. We geeked out together for a bit, and then listened to the music.

Fast forward seventeen and a half years to this morning in Nashville.I was going to do breakfast with some friends still around after Hutchmoot. We were debating our restaurant choice, and as we stood on the sidewalk in front of our choices, another guy from Hutchmoot, Casey, came walking up the street. He was looking for a quiet morning and so didn’t plan to join us, but he stopped to chat for a few minutes. I’d met Casey the first day, but hadn’t talked long. Later, I ran into Pete, who I’d met in previous years, but never really had a long conversation with. This year, we remedied that lack and got to know each other a little. He said he’d grown up in Alaska, and I mentioned I’d lived there. We found a few commonalities, and Pete also mentioned that Casey was a friend he grew up with.

I didn’t see Casey again all weekend until this morning, so as we chatted I mentioned that Pete had told me they grew up in Alaska. I said I’d lived in Glennallen and Casey recalled he knew the place.

“I was in a band when I was in high school, and we played out there.”

I blinked at him a moment, the gears of memory clicking into place. He looked about my age.

“What band?” I asked.

With a little hesitation in his voice, Casey answered, “Foreign.”

My friend Jason was standing nearby, and he stated later that my squeal was supersonic. I’m going to blame the sudden loss of noise as I expressed myself to the fact that my voice is a bit hoarse from all the talking this weekend.

I’m typically pretty chill when it comes to meeting minor celebrities (I’ve never met any major ones, so I have no data there). Just a few hours after this encounter I practically ignored Danny Gokey next to me in a coffee shop.

But I actually asked Casey if I could hug him. I was so excited. I told him all about it.

“I haven’t felt this famous since high school,” he said. Then he asked which album I got. I said it was the one with the globe on the front. And he said this: “So you don’t even have the second one.”

SECOND ONE. They came out with two albums. I only have one. And now I know guys from the band who can hook me up with the one I didn’t know about.

And yeah, I said “guys.” Because after he told me about the second album, Casey said that they made it right before they broke up. I asked if he’d kept in touch with them. “Yeah, definitely,” he said. He mentioned one of the guys is still a close friend who now lives overseas, and another still lives in Alaska. “And Pete, of course,” he said.

“Wait, what?! Pete was in the band, too?” I asked.

Oh, yes. He was.

I got home a couple of hours ago and pulled out the album again. I haven’t listened to it in years, but I still know all the words. I was singing aloud to the cats just a few moments ago. It’s still a good album, and I still love it. And Casey tells me the second one was way better.

I often say that I “meet” my characters, and that’s the best way to describe how it often happens: they arrive in my imagination, not fully formed, but with an essential essence. That was what happened with Smuggins. He showed up that day with an eager desire to serve, but a lot to learn along the way.

The way took quite a few years. Every so often Smuggins would make another appearance in my imagination and have another adventure, getting to know the King and himself better. And for the last few years he’s been sitting around, his story written, but untold to all but a few. One problem that Smuggins has is that his story falls “between the shelves.” It doesn’t fit into one single category, which makes marketing it a bit of a struggle. And no publisher is going to take a risk on something that’s hard to market. Especially in the over-stuffed children’s lit market.

But Smuggins kept tapping on my shoulder, asking me to share him with a broader audience. He would remind me of the moments he and I learned lessons about serving the King together, and the tears he sometimes brought to my eyes as he learned about the King’s friendship, his forgiveness, his justice.

Telling Smuggins’ Story

So earlier this year, I made a decision—it is time for the rest of the world to meet Smuggins. And since his tale defies categories, I decided to self-publish Smuggins’ story. Self-publishing is a lot of work, but I’ve got some very gifted friends who I was able to call on for expertise and assistance. I’ve relied on their wisdom and input as we’ve gotten the ball rolling on this project.

The most exciting element, to me, is that illustrator Stephen Hesselman has agreed to help bring the story to life with pen and ink illustrations that we will strew throughout the book. My imagination is not highly visual, so I’ve been delighted to see Stephen bring faces to my characters and details to my places.

In order to do this well, Smuggins’ story still needs some polishing. And as this is a side project, that will take some time. So I’ve settled on a release date of early March 2017, and we’re working toward that goal.

I can’t wait for you to meet Smuggins like I did in that classroom so many years ago. And I hope you’ll join me in working to get the word out about him and his story as we move toward publication. If you’d like to follow the journey, please sign up for my eNews, where I’ll be sending out updates about the process. Also, follow this blog, like my page on Facebook, or follow me on Twitter or Instagram. Even better, follow Stephen on Instagram so you can see some snippets of his illustrations—as well as all his other great work.

Thanks for your support!

Fox & Sons Books closed its doors this week, the latest in the long line of big-box brick-and-mortar bookstores to bow to the ever-expanding Amazon.com. Fox rode the wave longer than most, in part because of its CEO’s savvy choices to get into online sales early on.

Joe Fox was an early adopter of the internet side of the book-selling business, telling ACME News in 2000, “I’ve been intrigued by the internet for a long time. I even met my wife in a chat room!” Fox has been married to Newbery Award-winning children’s author Kathleen Kelly for more than 15 years. Fox Books actually put Kelly’s independent bookstore out of business before the two found their spark, but the couple seem to have put all that behind them. The New York-based Fox & Sons Books went on to become one of the nation’s more notable big-box chains, in part because of its owner’s business philosophy: “Go to the mattresses.” Joe Fox fought, but in 2015 Fox & Sons Books posted losses in all four quarters, and the company’s death was inevitable.

One of FoxBooks.com’s most outstanding features was its online customer service, known for its tagline, “Quicker than an F-O-X.” That feature will stand former CEO in good stead for the future, as Amazon agreed to purchase the customer service arm of the business for $2.2 billion earlier this year. Joe Fox also has significant investments in an elevator company. He cryptically explained that business choice in a 2010 interview, “Let’s just say an hour in an elevator changed my life.”