I am the Associate Rector of St. Dunstan's Episcopal Church in Houston, TX. I am also married to a beautiful woman and we have a strapping young son. We also have a fairly worthless (yet terrific) yellow dog named Silas.
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Sympathy for the Elder Brother
In keeping with the excellent article by Tullian Tchividjian over on the Gospel Coalition site about being self-righteous toward the self-righteous; a song by singer/songwriter Chris Knight came to mind. The title of this post was chosen in order to bring to mind the parallels between sympathy toward “elder brother”-types and sympathy for a more insidious character.
Sometimes we tend to believe the elder brother and “that more insidious character” are one in the same but they are not. Elder brother religion is simply a different manifestation of the same sin nature that produces profound prodigal waywardness. From a standpoint of…
When Happiness Stalks You: Get Huge Like The Hulk!
For I would have you know, brothers, that the gospel that was preached by me is not man’s gospel. - Galatians 1:11
In honor of the release of The Avengers this week, Muscle & Fitness Magazine has fortified us with another brilliant analogy of the impossibility and allure of the unattainable. This month’s issue sports an impressive picture of The Incredible Hulk right next to the promising tagline: “Get huge like the Hulk with our real-life routine!” The article exposes the incredibly neurotic belief that happiness always lies at the next level up. Funny how it is always just beyond your grasp.
Speakeasy…
The Law Kills: A Day in the Life of Werner Herzog’s Housekeeper
In keeping with Werner Herzog discussing chickens (one of the funniest clips of all time), we now have a letter the famed filmmaker wrote to his housekeeper. I will delay no longer.
Rosalina. Woman.
You constantly revile me with your singular lack of vision. Be aware, there is an essential truth and beauty in all things. From the death throes of a speared gazelle to the damaged smile of a freeway homeless. But that does not mean that the invisibility of something implies its lack of being. Though simpleton babies foolishly believe the person before them vanishes when they cover their eyes…
Who Put That Hole in My Bucket? The Difference Between Bruce Springsteen and Hank Williams
A few weeks ago, DZ brought our attention to the terrific keynote speech given by Bruce Springsteen at this year’s South by Southwest festival in Austin, TX this past March, in which he basically spent an hour going over his musical influences. It’s really great. At about the 37 minute-mark, he begins to talk about country music and (one of my heroes) Hank Williams. Says The Boss:
I remember sitting in my little apartment, listening to Hank Williams Greatest Hits over and over. And I was trying to crack his code because at first it just didn’t sound good to me.…
Coal: The Power of the Good Father
In the (by now quite famous in our circles) series of talks given at The Cathedral of the Advent by Professor Rod Rosenbladt on the subject of fatherhood, one of the first insights presented was that of Helmut Thielicke’s The Waiting Father. In this, his work on Jesus’s parables, Thielicke artfully and tragically describes modern man’s belief that he is quite alone in a dark universe ambivalent to his existence:
Man is walking through the dark forest of life in the gloom of night. Specters are lurking all around him and strange sounds disquiet him. The dark forest is full of…
Coal: The Power of Imputation
A couple of weeks ago, the Wizard of Netflix recommended the Spike TV (home of all things faux-masculine) reality series Coal. It seemed riveting because it followed two shifts of coal miners down where it is “dark as a dungeon” (Merle Travis)… and it was. I was unprepared, however, for the explosion of Gospel insight. For this reason, I drank deeply from the series, finishing the first season (and only… so far) in three days.
A bit of background: Cobalt Coal Company (the focus of the show) is a small coal company that operates in Westchester, West Virginia which is home…
Rite I: The Patti Smith Story
Where do the 1970s New York punk scene and liturgical nattering converge? Why, in the person of Patti Smith, of course. She is the most recognizable female punk rocker of the era and this is disputed by very few people. The only one who comes close is Bromley Contingent matriarch Siouxie Sioux.
A little-known fact is that Patti Smith was raised in a serious Jehovah’s Witness family. This is reflected consistently in her music as she continually challenges God, addressing Him as if He exists. One cannot help but identify with and admire her public conflicted-ness and questioning. In a very…
Spiritual Bigamy
It is one of the most soul-ruining delusions among the generality of professors in our day, that they are guilty of spiritual bigamy; they think they must have two husbands, Christ and the law both;… this makes Christ’s righteousness only a foot stool on which self-righteousness mounts the throne.
-Ralph Erskine
“You Will Be Like God…” The Richard Hell Story
In my all-too-obvious attempt to understand my childhood, I have undertaken a study of exactly what happened in the ‘80s, musically. In order to do that, one must understand the prerequisites. In this particular case, the prerequisites involve what happened at a club called CBGB which is located in the Bowery in Manhattan. It was the locus of the American underground rock ‘n roll scene in the mid-to-late 1970s. Cutting their teeth at CBGB at that time were such icons as The Ramones, Talking Heads, Television, Blondie, and Patti Smith.
There are many parts of that era that would interest a…
Fathers, Sons, and Fair Market Value
I ran across a shocking article on my Twitter feed the other day called “Report: Top College Athletes Worth Six Figures”. In it, the author states:
The average fair market value of top-tier college football and men’s basketball players is over $100,000 each, and the athletes are entitled to at least a portion of that, a new report from an advocacy group argues.
Are we now interested in the fair market value of 20 year-old kids? When I was in banking, we were interested in the fair market value of land and inventory. Inanimate objects. This is sick. What is the fair…
The Velvet Underground Goes to California
From 1966 to 1969, a non sequitor invaded California which was, at that point, ground zero for the hippie movement. Being the locus of this particular subculture, the vibe of peace, love, and the one-ness of human existence was in the air as if it were a new idea. Since it was believed to be a new idea; other, more ancient insights into human capacity for love were not taken into account. This made the round hole especially apoplectic that such a square peg would force itself on it.
This non sequitor that invaded this place and state of mind was none other than…
Living Bread not Living Dead
Romans 5:6-8 For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
One of the great moments of the television show The Walking Dead comes in Episode Two when a bunch of survivors are trapped in a building by what seems to be the entire zombie population of post-zompocalyptic Atlanta, GA. The zombies know they are in the…
Do You Have a Zombie Plan? Part VII
We move in this installment from the fear of others to the fear of what is actually in our own hearts.
Oprah had her last show the other day and, while I didn’t see it, my wife told me about it. She said she had to turn the show off because Oprah’s insistence that the answer to life’s problems lie within the human heart (or the “strength within”) was too grating and untrue to life to bear.
If you are taking a journey within yourself to find your strength, then you had better…
Do You Have A Zombie Plan? Part VI
As promised in the last post, we will now begin exploring how zombie movies can use the uncanny to explore our fears of other people.
Early one morning this past Fall, when my wife was pregnant, a criminal kicked in my elderly neighbor’s door and entered her house. Luckily, a dog chased him away, but the psychological damage was done both to my neighbor and me as a husband and expectant father. In the wee hours of the next morning, you could see crazy ol’ David Browder sitting out on the porch, looking like the Unabomber, and keeping watch.
Zombies can represent…
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