Here’s an excerpt:

VANCOUVER, Canada — Meet the thirteen “radical hostesses”  — women who have journeyed through hard times, and often life on the streets, and who are now reaching out to share their growth and healing with other women.  Throughout the Olympics, these hostesses have given tours of their community – the Downtown Eastside, welcomed and served visitors in the sacred space of the Great Room, and gathered women from the street to enjoy some of the creative artists that perform almost daily.

Hands down, the Great Room was for us the most powerful place to minister. We performed full-length versions of “Street Lullaby” (a call into God’s peace) and “Dream” (a story of sin and deliverance), and the ladies responded afterward by telling us how much both pieces met them where they were. We prayed with them and worshiped with them.

It really struck me that we could come from such different backgrounds, yet our plight of fallenness and need for redemption is the same.  I told the ladies before we did “Dream” that it’s a story they might recognize as their own, and it’s also my story, and Carolyn’s. And it was really special to see how well these truths could be communicated through poetry, storytelling, and dance — through the beauty and the power in these art forms God has given us.

The article also includes a few pictures from our visit and this recap from their point of view:

Yesterday afternoon Rachel Starr Thomson and Carolyn Currey of Soli Deo Gloria Ballet — a poet and a ballet dancer — came to the Great Room to share their gifts with us, and it was absolutely beautiful. Combining music, spoken word and dance, they shared an amazing message about the journey of life, full of joys and sorrows, despair and hope, and ultimately healing and freedom. During the performance, the poet asked, “Are these chains on my soul? I cannot crack this death. I cannot find the way.” The dancer twirled and leapt as these words and music filled the Great Room in response, “My chains are gone, I’ve been set free. My God my Saviour has ransomed me. And like a flood, His mercy reigns, unending love, amazing grace”.

Amazing indeed.

(The poet who says “Are these chains?” in a pained voice is me. The dancer in blue and black is Carolyn. We were performing “Dream,” our piece on deliverance and getting “back to the garden.”)

Yesterday in Hebrews 13:20-21 (yes, I just finished the book), I read this:

Now the God of peace, that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you perfect in every good work to do his will, working in you that which is wellpleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ; to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.

Now, Hebrews is very clear that Jesus’ sacrifice has already perfected us in the sense of wiping away our sins and giving us the right to enter God’s presence, both now (through prayer and a life of faith) and in eternity.

So why, the perverse mind asks, do we need to be made perfect in good works? Why would we want to? Why undergo chastening, difficulty, doubt, challenges? Why bother becoming mature and pleasing to God if He’s accepted us already anyway?

There are so many ways to answer that question. But here’s what jumps out to me:

The result of Jesus’ being “made perfect” even though He was already God’s Son was salvation offered to the entire world, the conquering of death and hell, the robbing of the devil’s power. It was my life. It was your life. It was all that is good and glorious.

If God wants to also put us through a perfection process, teaching us to obey and please Him in practical everyday life, you can bet there’s glory on the other side. You can bet that God’s purposes are bigger than we see now. Why bother becoming perfect? Because perfection in good works is what God made us for. It’s what makes us fully human, fully alive. It’s glory, power, pleasing, joy, and incredible relationship.

The perverse human mind asks such silly questions.

Still, life = crazy is a normal equation for me, and for all my siblings, and thankfully for Carolyn as well. We were raised crazy. That is, our lives were never especially settled, smooth, or predictable. Our parents followed God’s call down strange and wonderful paths, made some mistakes along the way, and taught us to roll with the punches.

This really came in handy in Vancouver. When Carolyn and I landed in Abbotsford, there had been a mix-up and no one was there to pick us at the airport. We waited a few hours, but hey, no problem! I marked a lot of extra papers in the time. Our performing schedule changed daily, but that was really no biggie either. (We found it all pretty relaxing because there was always someone else telling us what to do.) Our transportation got messed up a lot, but the worst we ever had to do was wait and make a few phone calls at a pay phone.

My point is that I’m grateful for all the craziness growing up, for the training in flexibility, adaptability, and a general attitude of believing that things will work themselves out. They do. And God is still in control, so stress is ultimately pretty pointless.

Now to apply that philosophy to the home front as I catch up on work and deal with some financial snags …

Raven’s Ladder is the third book in the four-book Auralia Thread, a startlingly poetic, deeply spiritual fantasy series that begins with Auralia’s Colors and Cyndere’s Midnight.

The story dawns on a displaced people: The people of House Abascar, led by the young king Cal-Raven and his faithful guardsman Tabor Jan, have moved into a network of caves after the collapse of their house in a cataclysmic earthquake. Cal-Raven dreams of building New Abascar according to his childlike dreams, filling it with the beauty glimpsed in Auralia’s colors and following the footsteps of the Keeper, a strange forest creature he has come to revere almost as deity—but which remains mysterious and out of reach.

An unexpected encounter with the Keeper charges Cal-Raven’s faith and sends him on a journey to find the perfect settling place for his people. But even as he travels into the north, a menace from the ground threatens the caves, and Tabor Jan is forced to lead the people out. The refugees are discovered by Bel Amica’s beastman-hunting Captain Ryllion, and they have no choice but to accept the hospitality of House Bel Amica—a wealthy and exotic house which, under the influence of the follow-your-heart moon-spirit religion, has become a sort of Vanity Fair.

The Bel Amican heiress Cyndere and her faithful attendant Emeriene do what they can to care for the refugees, even as Tabor Jan and Cal-Raven fight to keep Abascar from losing its identity in Bel Amica’s seductive pleasures and the religion of the Seers. But theirs are not the only endeavours in the Expanse. The Seers are slowly spreading their power, and in the wastelands to the east, cursed Cent Regus beastmen are rising to new power.

There, in the ruins of House Cent Regus, Cal-Raven’s faith will sustain its greatest blow.

Raven’s Ladder is rich, powerful, and thought-provoking. Its prose is beautiful; its plot is riveting. This is not a stereotypical fantasy, wherein the good king and his beautiful followers battle the bad king and his beastly ones. In the world of the Expanse, beauty and beastliness mix, and it’s anyone’s guess which will rise to the top. Cal-Raven’s journey is one of faith that any believer will relate to, from the first flush of infatuation into discouragement as he is challenged to hold onto hope despite all odds. In the confusing tangle of emotions, exhaustion, and half-truths that is life, the beauty of art and the power of storytelling point the way back home.

I can still feel the atmosphere of this book weeks after reading it. House Bel Amica is stunningly rendered, exotic and exciting, with its hanging mirrors, ocean air, and rich food. It’s a beautifully seductive place. But the religion underlying it, a message of following your heart, is also seductive, and we watch as this frighteningly familiar mantra (seen any Disney movies lately?) leaves the best of men wide open to deception and turns heroes into monsters.

The characters are extraordinarily human, from the fiery idealist Cyndere, who rebels against the excesses of her house in her desire to help the lost and accursed, to the awakening beastman Jordam, who thinks in metaphors and is beginning to lose his fur, to Prince Cal-Raven, who combines youthful arrogance with burdened leadership and passionate hope. Tabor Jan and Emeriene, who both function as the loyal friends of difficult visionaries, remain two of my favourite characters.

I have loved this series from the start, and it continues to get better. I reread Auralia’s Colors and Cyndere’s Midnight before opening Raven’s Ladder, and I will probably read all three again next year when the final installment comes out. I look forward to the fourth book even as I dread it, because this is a complex story with characters I’m coming to love, and I want to see all their stories treated fully. Bother the demands of the publishing industry that a book be relatively short.

It’s been several weeks since I read my advance copy of Raven’s Ladder, and the story is still lingering with me. This is some of the best fantasy being written today.

A Note to Parents and Young Readers: Overstreet’s books are very moral, but not simplistically so, and some scenes are gory. These are books for discerning readers.

For example, Jeffrey Overstreet’s latest book in the Auralia Thread, Raven’s Ladder, was released on February 16, and it is amazing. He was good enough to send me a (signed!) advance copy, and I have written a review which will be posted here and at BlogCritics.org shortly. Best book I have read in quite some time. I’m very sorry I missed the release date, but I was really busy in Vancouver, which brings me to

another thing I need to blog about, which is the trip itself. I will go into more detail in the next few weeks, but for now, I will say it was an amazing experience. Carolyn and I performed several times a day along with many other Christian artists in a church, on street corners, at a women’s shelter in the poverty-stricken east side, and in a huge theatre. We were able to dive into this city where the world is currently meeting and use writing and dance to celebrate the glory of God and invite people into His peace and deliverance. What an incredible privilege.

While we were doing that, I had a couple of articles published that I didn’t have time to tell you about. So here are the links:

“Seven Values of a Heavenly Life” — Store up treasures in heaven by living a heavenly life here on earth with hospitality, generosity, self-discipline, love of truth, love of purity, love for sinners, and passion for daily living. Published on Boundless.org.

“Keeping the Heart in Your Writing” — My guest post on the fabulous blog of agent Rachelle Gardner. By identifying your passion, fasting and feasting, and practicing discipline, you can keep the heart in your writing even in the busiest of lives.

Aaaand in preparation for the Olympics, I published our first book under the Soli Deo Gloria Ballet imprint, Pieces of Grace (And What They Mean). This is a little book containing poetry we use in our short pieces and a short story, along with a few theological notes. We didn’t actually get to sell it in Vancouver due to a bizarrely late delivery, but it’s good to have it out anyway! I will eventually get it up on this site; in the meantime, check it out on Amazon.

Annoyance with a trend in worship music these days to be formless and void (what do some of those words mean, anyway?) and joy in music that does worship and that does teach and exhort, as well as having musical excellence to it.

One of my favourite links these days is Nathan Partain’s music blog. He’s a worship leader at a Reformed church who writes folk-rock melodies for old hymns. The music is fairly rough and raw, which is how I like it, and you can download lots of it. My favourite songs are “Be Reconciled” and “Come, Jesus, Come.”

Nathan is involved with a group of worship leaders who post music, art, and liturgical thoughts under the name Cardiphonia. Check them out here.

Paul talks about song in his letters to the Ephesians and Colossians, with an interesting double emphasis:

… be filled with the Spirit; speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord; giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. (Eph 5:18-19)

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. And whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him. (Col 3:16-17)

There are three purposes listed for Christian song here (and by “Christian song” here I mean songs that are specifically related to our faith). One is obvious: to sing to God and express gratitude to Him. The others are maybe not so obvious: we’re supposed to use songs to “speak to ourselves” and to “teach and admonish one another.” In other words, we should sing songs of worship and praise, but we should also sing songs of doctrine and truth and exhortation. At least, that’s how I take those verses.

Looking at most of the music in the church these days, what do you think? Are we fulfilling those purposes?

We appreciate your prayers as we fight to stay awake, forge into into public territory with our hitherto private studio work, navigate Vancouver during this insanely busy time, and seek the Lord together.

For today, just pray that we make it to the end of orientation without going completely loopy, getting sick, or falling asleep in embarrassing places. With the time change, we’ll be “awake” almost 24 hours.

According to Google Maps, there’s a Starbucks in walking distance from our accommodations, so we hope to hop online and update now and again. In the meantime, I’ll be posting some previously written and scheduled posts.