Literature

Emily Dickinson – Poem 508

by Ethan on Feb 21, 2012 • No Comments

A Pit–but Heaven over it–
And Heaven beside, and Heaven abroad;
And yet a Pit–
With Heaven over it.

To stir would be to slip–
To look would be to drop–
To dream–to sap the Prop
That holds my chances up.
Ah! Pit! With Heaven over it!

The depth is all my thought–
I dare not ask my feet–
‘Twould start us where we sit
So straight you’d scarce suspect
It was a Pit–with fathoms under it
It’s Circuit just the same
Whose Doom to whom
‘Twould start them–
We–could tremble–
But since we got a Bomb–
And held it in our Bosom–
Nay–Hold it–it is calm–

W.H. Auden on Accidental Love and the Difference Between Pardon and Forgiveness

by David Zahl on Feb 20, 2012 • 3 Comments

From the great poet’s essay “The Prince’s Dog,” which can be found his invaluable collection, The Dyer’s Hand. Wystan is reflecting on Shakespeare’s “Measure for Measure,” specifically in reference to Angelo (who is forgiven by Isabella but pardoned by the Duke). Of course, the insights transcend their context:

The one who forgives must be in a position to do something for the other which, if he were not forgiving, he would not do. This means that my enemy must be at my mercy; but, to the spirit of charity, it is irrelevant whether I am at my enemy’s mercy or he…

Art / Books / Film / Grace in Practice / Philosophy

PZ’s Podcast 95-97: Bedknobs and Broomsticks, Strack-Billerbeck, and Surprise (Symphony)

by Mockingbird on Feb 20, 2012 • No Comments

Episode 95: Bedknobs and Broomsticks

But this cast is really about causes and activisms.

The problem with attaching your personal cry for reparation and “just desserts” to larger symbolic passions and concerns is that when you’ve finally righted the wrong, and leveled the playing field, you can still find yourself unsatisfied. “Yes, we won. (Thank God.) Then why do I feel so bad?” The reason may be that you short-circuited the inward healing you needed in favor of a conceptual healing you didn’t.

John Sturges, the director of The Magnificent Seven, said that the problem with filming the novel By Love Possessed was…

Film / Grace in Practice / Humor / Literature / Music / Religion / Sports / Technology / Theology / TV / Week In Review

Another Week Ends: More Linsanity, IMonk Grace, TechnoSabbaths, Defending Nic Cage, DFW on Corrosive Illusions, Cougarton Abbey and GNR Rumors

by David Zahl on Feb 17, 2012 • No Comments

1. Just in case you haven’t overdosed on Linsanity yet, David Brooks offers a sympathetic big-picture perspective in his column in The NY Times, highlighting how the culture of achievement and glory in professional sports conflicts with ethical framework espoused by most of the major religious traditions. Some will certainly say that Brooks going overboard, but I’m not so sure. Of course, there are plenty of valid, non-religious ways to rationalize competition, but attempts to do so on the basis of Christianity have always struck this blogger as particularly unconvincing, ht TB:

The moral ethos of sport is in tension with…

Books / Relationships / Reviews / Theology

Book Review: The Meaning of Marriage by Tim Keller

by Bryan J. on Feb 16, 2012 • 3 Comments

Two things led me to pick up Tim Keller’s new book on marriage, both of which were pressing. The first: I needed a “marriage book” for Pastoral Care class at seminary. The second: I had an engagement ring burning a hole in my pocket, and it was gonna be there for another week before I could “unload it.” So you might say matrimony has been on my mind, for both academic and personal reasons. Seeing as I also happen to contribute on occasion to Mockingbird, the question quickly took on a larger scope: where does a grace-dependent Gospel junkie like me…

Poetry / Suffering

A Wednesday Sonnet from Gerard Manley Hopkins

by Ethan on Feb 15, 2012 • No Comments

Not, I’ll not, carrion comfort, Despair, not feast on thee;
Not untwist–slack they may be–these last strands of man
In me or, most weary, cry I can no more. I can;
Can something, hope, wish day come, not choose not to be.

But ah, but O thou terrible, why wouldst thou rude on me
Thy wring-world right foot rock? lay a lionlimb against me? scan
With darksome devouring eyes my bruised bones? and fan,
O in turns of tempest, me heaped there; me frantic to avoid thee and flee?

Why? That my chaff might fly; my grain lie, sheer and clear.
Nay in all that toil, that coil, since…

Books / Identity / Psychology

Adam Phillips on Why You Are a Fundamentalist

by Ethan on Feb 13, 2012 • 1 Comment

From the psychoanalyst’s essay, “On What Is Fundamental” from his book On Balance:

And yet, of course–and this is the kind of move that psychoanalysis has made all too available to us–we are all fundamentalists about something. There must be, psychoanalysis might tell us, to put it in as silly a way as possible, a fundamentalist in all of us; we may think of ourselves consciously so to speak as liberals and modernists, but what these relatively new forms of self-description are up against is a more old-fashioned, even archaic inner fundamentalist.

…We are free to speak (as the democrat defends) so…

Addiction / America / Art / Bible / Books / Education / Film / Humor / Music / Psychology / Religion / TV / Week In Review

Another Week Ends: Joseph Mills, Commitment Devices, Anxiety Rights, Bible Rescue, Imposter Syndrome, Hitch on Chesterton, Elmer Bernstein and Liz Lemon

by David Zahl on Feb 10, 2012 • 6 Comments

1. One of the many things to adore about David Foster Wallace’s A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again is the cover (of the US edition). The collage manages to capture the torrential intellect at the heart of that wonderful collection without losing the humor. But it wasn’t until this past week that I knew anything about its designer, photographer/artist/pumpkin farmer Joseph Mills. The Washington City Paper did a feature on him back in 2003 in conjunction with an exhibit at the Corcoran, and Joseph’s words–and personal history with psychosis and depression–pack quite a punch, ht SJ:

When asked about…

America / Books / Celebrity / Everyday / Identity / Relationships / TV

“Weeping and Lifting Weights”: Getting Real with The Bachelor

by Ethan on Feb 10, 2012 • No Comments

Did you see this Monday’s Bachelor? When Casey S. got called to come outside and talk to Chris about something important, you knew, you knew it was something important. You just knew her bags were packed, she was leaving her chance at, her life with Ben. Casey S. had that look, like “I know I’m about to be found out, but I’m going to hold these cards up until the very last minute. I can’t give in. Well, I want to, but I don’t want to, you know?” You know? The scene was so perfect. Out the heavily windowed courtyard,…

America / Books / Identity / Technology / TV

Walker Percy, Staying a Step Ahead, and Island News “So 42 Seconds Ago”

by Ethan on Feb 9, 2012 • 2 Comments

AT&T’s most recent ad campaign is all about getting there first, “staying a step ahead,” being the closest possible to the newest source of the newest News–and chiding the stragglers, those who got there too late, those for whom the News is Old News. Shame! They miss the “flash” mob, they miss the party, they miss the boat, they miss their future spouse, they miss the free office masseuse–because they were not a step ahead, like everyone else, they were a step back, and they miss The Next Thing. Their technology restrained them. Because they did not have the Samsung…

Literature / Poetry

Shakespeare Thursday: Sonnet 91

by Ethan on Feb 9, 2012 • No Comments

Some glory in their birth, some in their skill,
Some in their wealth, some in their body’s force,
Some in their garments (though new-fangled ill),
Some in their hawks and hounds, some in their horse,
And every humour has his adjunct pleasure
Wherein it finds a joy above the rest.
But these particulars are not my measure;
All these I better in one general best.
Thy love is better than high birth to me,
Richer than wealth, prouder than garments’ cost,
Of more delight than hawks or horses be,
And having thee of all men’s pride I boast,
Wretched in this alone: that thou mayst take
All this away, and me most wretched make.

Forgiveness / Grace in Practice / Literature / Politics / Suffering / Theology

God, Help Us Be Like the Nuns: Drunk Driving, Scapegoats and Gulag Wisdom

by Zach Williams on Feb 8, 2012 • 3 Comments

Alejandro and Maria Martinelly of Prince William County, Virginia, knew their son’s affliction all too well, and so they hid the car keys from him. The ruse was effective in keeping him from his third conviction – until one night in August 2010. Fresh into his latest bender, young Carlos A. Martinelly-Montano dug the keys out of his parents’ closet, fired up their Subaru Outback, and went on a joyride. Anyone who has been in debt to, or had a loved one in debt to the rapacious creditor that hounded 23-year-old Carlos knows all too well that no amount of…