David Zahl is the director of Mockingbird Ministries and editor-in-chief of the Mockingbird blog. He and his wife Cate currently reside in Charlottesville, VA, with their two sons, Charlie and Cabell, where David also serves on the staff of Christ Episcopal Church.
You have to be very careful when you bill something as “the real-life Friday Night Lights“. I don’t just say that because, in more ways than one, Friday Night Lights itself is the “real life Friday Night Lights.” I say it because that series occupies such a vaunted place in some of our hearts that its name cannot/should not be invoked lightly. Which is another way of explaining why I dragged my heels about watching Undefeated as long as I did. Even after it won an Oscar for Best Documentary in 2011, even when numerous people insisted it was “the…
This guy. I’m telling you. This guy! He’s so good you almost want to stop writing. So gut-level and truthful and witty and articulate, yet somehow tossed off seeming. I’m talking about Tim Kreider, who batted another one out of the park this week with “I Know What You Think Of Me” for the NY Times. It’s a short and deceptively wise reflection on the insights one can glean when someone accidentally hits “reply” instead of “forward” on an email. What may sound like the epitome of a modern problem/nightmare is, in Kreider’s hands, not simply the latest iteration of…
More thoughts from the late Jaroslav Pelikan, taken from the “Dostoevsky: The Holy and the Good” chapter of Fools for Christ:
The central discovery… for Dostoevsky was his realization that sin was not primarily a moral, but a religious fact. Sin did not consist in the mere violation of a law or transgression of a commandment. It was not only that I had done something evil or neglected to do something good. In fact, it was not primarily something that I did at all, but something that I was. A sense of sin was more than a feeling of guilt, it…
I was shocked by something this past Fall. At our conference in Charlottesville, RJ Heijmen showed a clip of a father telling the story of his son’s suicide and the emotional and spiritual agony it caused. The man’s words could not have possibly been heavier, and I almost questioned whether we had crossed a line. But that wasn’t what shocked me. What shocked me was the number of people who approached me afterward to share a similar story. Nearly a quarter of those in attendance had experienced the suicide of a close friend or family member. Granted, we are only…
Perhaps you were as comforted as I was to come across a rather lengthy quote from Jurgen Moltmann’s opus The Crucified God in the “Varieties of Quiet” chapter of Christian Wiman’s My Bright Abyss. We may not haven’t referenced it in far too long, but The Crucified God happens to be a Mockingbird stand-by, and that oversight ends this morning. The incredibly stirring passage Wiman chooses comes from pages 37-39 of the book, in which Moltmann deals with “The Resistance of the Cross Against its Interpretations”. A slightly expanded version, too relevant not to reproduce, reads as follows:
The modern criticism…
Hurricane Judy – Future Clouds & Radar
I finally got around to watching Tom Hooper’s Les Mis while vacationing last week–shame on me, I know–but what a treat. As others have noted, the director somehow succeeded in making an adaptation that is both faithful and daring at the same time. The final product transcends almost all of the Hollywood-isms that could have so easily derailed it, which is probably as much a testament to Hooper’s skill/vision as the timeless strength of the material. Hugh Jackman really pulls things off, especially in the film’s final act, and Sacha Baron Cohen proves a pleasant surprise. No mean feat for…
The Onion’s been on fire this week, but they hit a real highpoint today. Just too apropos not to post:
WALTHAM, MA—Potentially offering hope to millions of Americans struggling with psychological and emotional problems, a study published this week in The New England Journal Of Medicine found that test subjects were capable of fully resolving their anxiety by thinking about it very intensely.
The study, which followed 1,200 adults suffering from mild unease to chronic anxiety, confirmed that focusing continuously and exclusively on one’s own specific sources of distress to the point that one’s mental and physical health began to suffer was…
Lots to be gleaned from Judith Shulevitz’s “The Lethality of Loneliness” in The New Republic and not just because it dovetails so neatly with Ethan’s post on the bodily aspects of anxiety last week. The article explores some recent research into loneliness and manages to ring a few alarm bells in the process. It may go without saying, but far from being just a spiritual or emotional malady, loneliness has been shown to have a clear physical component/consequence. Introversion or extroversion simply changes the way a person experiences loneliness–it does not protect them from it outright. More commentary at the bottom,…
What a rare and inspiring privilege it was to be with poet and author Christian Wiman last week. I for one am still reeling–don’t know how it could have possibly been any richer. Thankfully, like his poetry in Every Riven Thing and his prose in My Bright Abyss, the talks he gave here in Charlottesville defy distillation. They require real attention–and while one might expect as much from an artist of his caliber and quality, still, the anticipation of poetic brilliance doesn’t make it any less arresting when you actually experience it.
Which is not to imply that a portion of…
1. First off, a timely rejoinder to our many social-media-is-making-us-lonely posts from Paul Miller on The Verge, entitled “I’m Still Here: Back Online After A Year Without Internet”. As the title suggests, Miller unplugged for a solid year, partly as an assignment to try to discover how technology, and the Internet in particular, had affected him (and us) over time. He reports that while the experience was initially incredibly freeing, he eventually found himself right back where he started, i.e. his new habits became just as constraining as the old ones. In theological terms, you might say that Paul’s story…
Many moons ago, Mockingbird put together and distributed a little teaching series called “The Gospel According to The Office.” When we made the transition to the new site a couple of years ago, it somehow fell through the cracks. The show’s finale seemed like as good a time as any to put it back into circulation. Like the show itself, we don’t vouch for how it may have dated–but it sure seemed like a good idea at the time! You can download it by clicking here.
While we’re on the subject of the show, if you’re at all like me and…
Darren Sombke: One of our former students and chapel band members at Rockford Luthera...
michael cooper: Thanks for this fantastic interview...what an honest man. The Heaney p...
Todd Brewer: A brilliant, but sad, analysis. The fall of Michael and George Michael...
Clay: Michael - You could have also named this article "The Grace of Looking...
Tam: oh man, that last paragraph. I really needed that today. Thanks....