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Hast Thou Considered My Servant Job? Thornton Wilder on Good Friday
One of my favorite Thornton Wilder playlets, and if I may say, a great little three-minute read for Good Friday:
Now it came to pass on the day when the sons of God came to present themselves before SATAN that CHRIST also came among them. And
SATAN. [Said unto CHRIST:] Whence comest Thou?
CHRIST. [Answered SATAN and said:] From going to and fro in the earth and from walking up and down in it.
[And:]
SATAN. [Said unto CHRIST:] Hast though considered my servant Judas? For there is none like him in the earth, an evil and a faithless man, one that feareth me and turneth away…
Didn’t We Almost Have It All: Whitney Houston’s Life as Impasse
My wife and I were watching Saturday Night Live when NBC broke the news that Whitney Houston had died. Other than the time and place of her death, no other details were given. And, truthfully, we didn’t need any other details to have an inkling of what had happened. Just as with the announcement of Michael Jackson’s passing, we had all watched Whitney slide into her downward spiral.
I was in High School when “I Wanna Dance With Somebody” started airing on MTV. I’m sure everyone has seen it. Think about what we see there: one can’t help but see the…
My Friend of the Last Moment: Love and Sacrifice in Of Gods and Men
A lot of what Mockingbird seeks to do is to locate everyday echoes of eternal truths. We keep an eye out for anything that helps us grasp and/or communicate the Gospel a bit more clearly. We look for cultural and dramatic aids, if you will, which underscore the depth and universality of God’s reality. I like to think that we catch a glimpse of grace whenever we come across such instances of forgiveness, mercy or love. But when we point to one of these things, we’re not necessarily saying, “That’s God at work”. God’s grace often works in highly internal…
The Mouse Knows What You Want: Disney Marketing and the Celebration of Self
It’s no great revelation that Disney is a for-profit corporation with targeted marketing strategies. In fact, of all the corporations marketing to children (or the child within us), Disney has the most targeted marketing I’ve ever seen.
From my vantage point, this is what Disney marketing does so well: it takes everything that we as individuals do in order to protect our fragile egos–the constant self-justification, the universal quest for a manageable identity, the inevitable scorekeeping a la the Birmingham Mockingbird Conference–and then aims Disney products at that place inside all of us.
We see this in the standard Disney movie formula,…
Christmas Itself Is By Grace: Frederick Buechner Riffs on the Incarnation
Christmas is coming (ready or not!), and while Mockingbird can’t help trim your stockings or stuff your tree, we hope in all humility to be able to offer a little food for thought this season. In that vein, here’s a gospel bomb of a yuletide quote from Frederick Buechner:
Christmas itself is by grace. It could never have survived our own blindness and depredations otherwise. It could never have happened otherwise. Perhaps it is the very wildness and strangeness of the grace that has led us to try to tame it. We have tried to make it habitable. We have roofed it and…
Rescuing Jeffrey and Having Faith in Hope
A friend sent me this yesterday and I found it so rich and provocative that I asked his permission to share it (the opening disclaimer is his, not mine):
**WARNING: This email contains graphic depictions of ignorance, lack of intelligence and stupidity in the areas of theology, philosophy and psychology—not to mention English, if you count redundancies.
Dear All:
Last Friday in my FYS class we Skyped-in Jeffrey Galli as a guest speaker. It was a day I had been anticipating for over two years. Jeffrey’s answers to two of our questions resonated with me the most. I thought I’d share my thoughts…
The Merciful Impasse and The Mission
I have greatly enjoyed my copy of Mockingbird’s brand new The Merciful Impasse, and have been especially taken with the two recordings that deal with Jesus’ clear call to passivity in the face of aggression: we are not to lash out, strike first, or vindicate ourselves in any way. “Iustitia passiva” is PZ’s term for it.
This section of The Merciful Impasse reminded me of the 1986 film The Mission which dealt with so many religious themes that it’s always seemed curious to me that director Roland Joffe’s take on his movie is that it’s not a movie about religion. He says this in…
Southern Comfort(able) Words and Faulkner’s Go Down, Moses
Of all the wonderful things Paul Walker said at the recent Birmingham Conference, this in particular stands out in my mind. Please forgive me as I paraphrase from memory:
I know people who are just beside themselves over trying to get their kids into just the right preschool, because getting into just the right preschool means getting into just the right primary school, which means getting into just the right college, so that one can have just the right career, marry just the right kind of person and have just the right kind of kids, that of course will get into…just…
There’s No Justice in a Father’s Love: A Reflection on Warren Williams
A travesty of justice has occurred, one that has reminded me yet again that what the world needs now is love, sweet love. (It’s the only thing that there’s just too little of.)
The travesty to which I’m referring is not whether or not justice was served, which it was in this case. The travesty is whether justice is the appropriate answer in all circumstances. This is a question with far-reaching implications in life and in Christian thought (as if the two were ever separate).
Let me bring you up to speed: about a year ago, a fourteen-year old middle-schooler named Warren…
"Lonnie Loosie" on the Bound Will
An article that appeared in Monday’s New York Times discussed something absolutely fascinating to me. I had no idea of the problems that the New York City cigarette tax has created for so many New York residents.
According to the article, an average pack of smokes now costs $12.50 in Midtown Manhattan, a price that is outrageous. Even with the salary premiums that New Yorkers enjoy when compared with other parts of the country, such a high price is going to price people out of the habit…or should price people out. But instead, it simply turns them to…
Subway Mayhem and the Lostness of Identity
On my way to JFK after leaving the Mockingbird Conference I ended up on the wrong train. Not knowing that there are two trains that share a track, instead of ending up at the airport I ended up in Queens.
Standing on the platform feeling a little lost and very alone, I noticed something relevant. I noticed these men in their twenties, and some definitely in their thirties, who were what the world would definitely identify as “hoodlums” or “gangsters”. And I couldn’t help but feel a sense of sadness for these men, a sadness which stemmed from…
Why I Am Coming to NYC
Each year it seems like such an undertaking: spending money on travel for myself that could have been used for a family vacation; enduring crowded flights and dreary layovers; trudging to and fro on subway lines and unfamiliar avenues, a stranger in a strange land – all to spend a few fleeting days at a religious conference. Is it worth it, you may ask? Well, I wrote what follows after last year’s conference, and it sums up the reason why I intend to make this annual pilgrimage to New York City as long as there is a Mockingbird…
That’s Christmas!
With Christmas now upon us, something I posted last year that (for me at least) sets the right mood for the season:
That’s Christmas! from St Helen’s Church on Vimeo.
C. S. Lewis on The Nativity
Among the oxen (like an ox I’m slow)
I see a glory in the stable grow
Which, with the ox’s dullness might at length
Give me an ox’s strength.
I see a glory in the stable grow
Which, with the ox’s dullness might at length
Give me an ox’s strength.
Among the asses (stubborn I as they)
I see my Savior where I looked for hay;
So may my beastlike folly learn at least
The patience of a beast.
Among the sheep (I like a sheep have strayed)
I watch the manger where my Lord is laid;
Oh that my baa-ing nature would win thence
Some woolly innocence.
A Mini-Conference Preview, Part 3: I Don’t Want To Be A Freak (But I Can’t Help Myself)
With the upcoming Mockingbird Mini-Conference now less than six weeks away (!) we continue our series of posts to familiarize everyone with the conference theme and why we chose it – sort of a preview of what the talks will entail, and one that we hope will grab you (and convince you to register ASAP!). This week’s contribution is a preview of “Grace in Addiction: Help for Those Who Cannot Help Themselves” courtesy of John Zahl and Tom Becker:
Addiction is no laughing matter. The devastation it causes forces us to question the limits of the human will’s ability to…
Rebecca Todd: Well, I am sure both of you would win a debate so I'm not going there....
Jim McNeely: Rebecca, I agree, great comment! Yummy. Here are my thoughts.I thi...
Sam: Isn't the empty tomb proof? I remember a debate that involved Christo...
Zach: Wonderful jewel of honesty amidst the dregs of mealy pap spewed from l...
Rutger-Jan Heijmen: *Conan's...