About B.I.C

Blake is currently the interim college minister for Westminster Presbyterian Church in Amarillo, TX. He has his BA in History from The University of Texas at Arlington and a Masters in British Imperial History from Texas Tech University (with minors in Philosophy), both of which he, still to this day, finds extremely unmarketable and incapable of being terribly useful. He is an unrepentant Anglophile, makes shoddy attempts at poetry, fawns after Flannery O’Connor and has seen Grosse Pointe Blank near one hundred times. But, most importantly, he is a sinner saved by grace, something that can only be explained by the ravenous pursuit of God.

http://www.fromexilegrowman.com

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Author Archive
    For Those Who Love Poorly: Forgiveness in The Woodsman & Around the Bend
    Film / Forgiveness / Grace in Practice / Relationships / Suffering

    For Those Who Love Poorly: Forgiveness in The Woodsman & Around the Bend

    by B.I.C on May 16, 2013 • 3 Comments

    “Forgiveness is the name of love practiced among people who love poorly. The hard truth is that all people love poorly. We need to forgive and be forgiven every day, every hour increasingly. That is the great work of love among the fellowship of the weak that is the human family.” –Henri Nouwen

    “…God’s grace and forgiveness, while free to the recipient, are always costly for the giver…. From the earliest parts of the Bible, it was understood that God could not forgive without sacrifice. No one who is seriously wronged can “just forgive” the perpetrator…. But when you forgive, that…

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    Mockingbird at the Movies: Evil Dead (2013)
    Addiction / Film / Identity

    Mockingbird at the Movies: Evil Dead (2013)

    by B.I.C on Apr 16, 2013 • 4 Comments

    I used to be like “Why are we doing a remake? What are remakes being done for?” But then, we do that all the time in the theater. If we weren’t doing remakes, nobody would know who Shakespeare was. I’m not saying that Robocop is Shakespeare, but it’s a way to … we’re retelling. That’s what we do as human beings. We retell our favorite stories. That’s what we’ve done since we were sitting around campfires. It’s a part of the human spirit. It doesn’t have to be negative to creativity. It can be completely opposite. That’s how you can break new ground by rethinking something that’s already been…

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    16 Horsepower Grace and the Music of David Eugene Edwards
    Forgiveness / Grace in Practice / Law / Music / Playlist / Religion / Testimony

    16 Horsepower Grace and the Music of David Eugene Edwards

    by B.I.C on Mar 8, 2013 • 15 Comments

    When I’m in the studio I have the opportunity to do things in a certain way, and I try to make records more pleasant sounding, records that you can listen to while you’re sitting in your room. But live, I want to rip your throat off with the music, I want to beat you into a pulp with the law. I bring the law, I bring it! So you wanted to live by it? You want to know what’s good and evil? OK, let’s talk about it, if you wanna live by your expectations or someone else’s. But I know…

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    Failure is Always an Option: Reflections on Searching My Way Out of a Job
    Identity / Suffering / Testimony

    Failure is Always an Option: Reflections on Searching My Way Out of a Job

    by B.I.C on Mar 4, 2013 • 5 Comments

    A few months ago, the associate pastor search committee at my church—of which I am a member—began the process of meeting to find the new addition to the church staff; in effect, leading to the end of my interim position as college ministry director. I have been working toward my own demise as a member of the staff. All interims know that a pink slip has been filled out for them from the first day that they started, but my scenario is a little different than most. I was a member of the church and in the college ministry before…

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    Grace When Justice Miscarries: The Story of the West Memphis Three
    Books / Law / News / Theology

    Grace When Justice Miscarries: The Story of the West Memphis Three

    by B.I.C on Jan 11, 2013 • No Comments

    During the month of October while I drowned myself in slasher flicks, I chose four books that dealt with evil, horror, etc. to read alongside the horror. Mara Leveritt’s true crime book, Devil’s Knot: The True Story of the West Memphis Three, was one of the selections (and is currently being made into a major motion picture). The book tells the unfolding tale of three teenagers who were accused, tried and convicted of killing and mutilating the bodies of three 8-year-old boys in the small town of West Memphis, Arkansas. The way the book plays out is much like that…

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    In the Event of a Cosmic Horror, Pt. 6: The End (Is Not The End)
    Books / Film / Philosophy / Religion / Theology

    In the Event of a Cosmic Horror, Pt. 6: The End (Is Not The End)

    by B.I.C on Dec 21, 2012 • No Comments

    When I first decided to put this series together, I was planning on using several different sources as jumping off points for each post. But the more I consulted Eugene Thacker’s In the Dust of This Planet: Horror of Philosophy vol. 1, the more I realized how essential it was to providing a solid foundation for how we should look at horror cinema (and, by relation, all elements of horror culture). Thacker brings the reader to a point where they must confess three things: 1) That there are things in the natural and ‘supernatural’ realm that are hidden from humanity…

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    In the Event of a Cosmic Horror, Pt. 5: The Creature Feature
    Film / Philosophy / Theology

    In the Event of a Cosmic Horror, Pt. 5: The Creature Feature

    by B.I.C on Dec 6, 2012 • 2 Comments

    This past weekend I set out to watch my three personal favorites of the creature feature sub-genre. Considering it was also my twenty-ninth birthday, these viewings made for good celebration (red flag: this guy is a little off, methinks). My selections may show my “chronological snobbery” (C.S. Lewis), but rest assured, I am in no way deriding the creature features of the 30s, 40s, 50s and 60s. I wouldn’t dare do so on Mockingbird! However, the three films that will drive the discussion of this post are ones I grew up with: The Mist (2007), The Thing (1982) and Alien…

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    In the Event of a Cosmic Horror, Pt. 4: The Apparition
    Film / Philosophy / Theology

    In the Event of a Cosmic Horror, Pt. 4: The Apparition

    by B.I.C on Nov 27, 2012 • 2 Comments

    Have you ever had an experience with a ghost or spirit? Odds are, like most haunted house movies, the set up involved an unfamiliar setting and a kid, or kids. They are more willing to ‘expect the unexpected’ after all. For instance, perhaps you can imagine a situation in a house in the middle of nowhere, say, miles outside of Midland/Odessa (home of Friday Night Lights), with little population and little pretension of something abnormal taking place. A kid staying with his grandmother in a two-story house with a completely wooden stair separating the floors and no one in the…

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