Home from Hutchmoot

I've been at a thing called Hutchmoot over the weekend.

What is Hutchmoot?

This is a hard question to answer.

Thursday night Andrew Peterson described it as church summer camp without all the bad parts.  Another time someone called it "feasting as an act of war."  To me it was swimming in an ocean of words, beautiful words.

Hutchmoot is a community above all else.  It is community for people who love words in all the various ways they come to us-- in books, in poems, in songs, and in art.  This community gathered together from all regions of the United States.  Many of the participants were actual artists, but many were there, like me, because they love words.

We began on Thursday evening with a delicious meal and great conversations with strangers who would become known. The chef came out to share with us a piece he wrote that explained the origin of the menu (he did this every evening).  It was every bit as tasty and satisfying as the actual food.  The program afterwards consisted of performances of music and readings that drew us together with a sense of wonder at the beauty and craftsmanship we were seeing and hearing from each artist.

On Friday and Saturday there were sessions on a variety of topics, and they were held in classrooms named for the favorite authors of the organizers: Lewis and Tolkien, Berry and Buechner, Sayers and O'Connor, among others.  I attended "How to Be a Poem" led by John Pattison (whose books I am definitely going to put on my reading list).  It was based on a poem by Wendall Berry called "How to be a Poet," which you can read here.  As Berry explains his craft here, Pattison led us to think about how this poem might relate to the way God is shaping us into a work of art, a poem, to be put on display for others, and how we might participate in this process.

I also attended a session called "The Consolation of Doubt" which was all about the writings of Frederick Buechner (whom you should check out if you haven't read anything by him starting with Telling the Truth).  This class was led by Andrew Peterson who spoke eloquently about the influence of Buechner on his life.  It was also led by Russell Moore who is the President of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention.  I see many of his blog posts on FB, and it was great to get to hear him in person.

One of the highlights of the weekend was an open-mic event for poetry reading.  About sixty people showed up to either share a poem they had written or one they loved.  I wasn't sure I would like this and thought I might end up wishing I could tunnel out of the room, but it was very enjoyable.  There was an equal number of men and women who shared their poems, which surprised me a little.  There were poems on a wide variety of topics, some profoundly sad, others hilariously funny, and everything in between.  Hearing them made all the difference; poetry is made to be read aloud.

And so here's what I came away with...

One of the speakers referenced the story of Jesus feeding the five thousand.  He brought up an idea of the scarcity that the disciples saw in the situation and the abundance that Jesus brought to the scene.  I guess I had always thought of this scarcity/abundance in financial terms.  But this weekend I came to terms with my own view of the place where I live as a place of scarcity.  I spent four days in a place of abundance and left thinking, "What if I can change?  What if I can stop looking at my town as a place of scarcity and begin to see that there is abundance here too?  What if I can make a place for it and foster it, this abundance of thought and words and art?"

What if...