The Deeper Magic from before The Dawn of Time

The henna is beginning to fade from my hand. I can’t quite recall the flavor of the garlic chili green beans that final night. My arm doesn’t hold the warmth of my friend’s arm, leaned up against it, anymore. The deep magic is fading.

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.