As good a time as any to link to my (second) favorite Xmas-related C&H strip of all time, “Calvin Dreams of a Gracious Santa”. Those who received our year-end appeal/newsletter will be familiar with number one.
In Search of Lost Time: Reflections on Memory and the First Christmas
Memory and imagination work to give us experiences outside of the present moment, whether through recorded sensations (the low lights and taste of dinner yesterday), images of things past (the 2013 State of the Union on Youtube), or stringings-together of bare words: “at that time a decree went out…” We’re indisputably determined by our own pasts and our relation to them, and Christianity makes the distinct claim that we’re fundamentally determined by another’s past, a story we remember at this particular time of year. Though our past(s) – and our relations to the past, are opaque, I think one of…
Impossible Motives, Leonard Cohen’s Light, and the International League of the Guilty
Can’t believe we haven’t posted anything from Francis Spufford’s Unapologetic since we announced that he’d be the keynote at our 2014 Conference in NYC. For yet another taste of why we felt it so incumbent upon us to get him “to the church on time”, here’s his unbelievably awesome and compassion-inducing articulation of one our favorite hobby-horses, what Bo Giertz refers to as “the Hammer of God”, aka the role of The Law. The excerpt bleeds into a section we’ve posted elsewhere on Spufford’s view of the church. Not sure it gets any better than this:
“[Christianity] makes frankly…
Known Only To Him – Elvis Presley
This one caught my ear when re-released in the Oxford American Tennessee Music Issue.
Bible / Books / Children / Christmas / Humor / Law / Literature / Music / News / Radio / Reviews / TV / Year In Review
Top 10 Things I Wanted to Blog about in 2013 but Was Too Lazy
I happily come across more pieces of culture than I know what to do with each year (or month, or week, or day) that speak to the Christian Message. This is a good problem to have–it means a blog like Mbird or a preacher like me will never run out of new material. Not using it can feel burdensome though, because I want to talk about it all—and sometimes I just procrastinate and never get around to it. I lumped some highlights together here in truncated form, keeping this list limited to the top ten (maybe 11) things I wanted to…
You Can Never Have Enough (Copies of Tomb of Ligeia): A PZ’s Panopticon Teaser
As we approach the holiday season, in which I look forward to Paradox Interactive’s Europa Universalis IV and a new sweater for the frigid mid-Atlantic, I was recently reminded of the floater, a (non-) fictional man on the ceiling lovingly created by Paul F.M. Zahl, an out-of-body person watching the doctors operate on his body. What could each religion mean to him, when he needs it most? Specifically, things – a new historic simulation video game or a Tauntaun sleeping bag?
Zahl, in his newest book, PZ’s Panopticon, examines the religion of Things in a remarkably fresh way, using his ‘panopticon’ (‘all-seeing’) of…
Missing the Star with Christmas Cards and Social Media
Here’s a timely one from our friend Win Bassett:
Regular columnist for The Guardian and Church of England priest Giles Fraser tackles one of Mockingbird’s favorite subjects this week, the wounded soul of social media. Fraser frames his discussion with the evolution of Christmas cards:
Christmas cards used to be about mangers, kings and shepherds. Then they became about robins. Then about reindeer. Now they are about us. “Religion has gone away,” said the novelist AS Byatt “and all we are left with is ourselves, so we have to be interested in ourselves. And we can be psychoanalytically interested in ourselves or…
Hopelessly Devoted: Luke Chapter Two Verses Twenty Nine through Thirty Five
This morning’s (Advent appropriate) devotion comes from Peter Moore.
“…A sword shall pierce through your own soul also, that thoughts out of many hearts may be revealed.” (RSV)
As a baby, Jesus is brought into the Temple by his mother and father—“as was the custom”—and there the relatively insignificant family is spotted by the aged and holy Simeon. Somewhat surprisingly, I imagine, the old man takes the baby into his arms and prophesies. Perhaps it was originally as we find it, in the form of poetry, or song. Or perhaps the message was later worked into a song as early Christians found…
Another Week Ends: Helicopter Parents, Love (Not Actually), Llewyn Davis, Joe Jonas, the Inner-Hamlet, and Why?
1) A week past Black Friday, we’re well into the holiday shopping and the family travel bargaining, and so it’s no surprise that this is also when we find a slew of family sociology on the internet. Exhibit A: Slate’s piece on the Millennial Anxiety and the Helicopter Parent. In it, therapist Brooke Donatone explains that soaring rates of college- and post-graduate-aged depression and suicide, as well as the more general epidemic of “adultescent” anxiety, has a lot to do with conflict-fear, and the 20-something’s unpreparedness for disappointment and failure. Over-parenting is the cause of these “crash landings” to the…
The Idiot Forgiveness of Nelson Mandela
I spent a semester during my Junior year of high school at a boarding school in the countryside of South Africa. It is a beautiful country with a vibrant cultural heritage. Yesterday, God called one of South Africa’s proudest sons home, Nelson Mandela, and I thought it would be apropos to celebrate the ways in which his life illustrated God’s idiot forgiveness.
Mandela was a political activist in South Africa under the brutal and repressive Apartheid system. Apartheid was a system of government largely run by the Afrikaners (descendants of the German and Dutch colonists of the area) which functioned by…
NOW AVAILABLE! Comfortable Words: Essays in Honor of Paul F. M. Zahl
Talk about a double whammy! As promised, here’s the second part of our PZ-centric month at Mbird. This project has been in the works for quite some time–ever since the father figure in question hit the big 6-0 in fact–and we are absolutely thrilled it is finally available! Edited with care and precision by John Koch (aka JDK) and Todd Brewer (aka Todd Brewer), published by Wipf and Stock, and containing entries from a slew of Mbird contributors (and many other esteemed colleagues!), not to mention a preface from Tullian Tchividjian, this is something special indeed. After all, it’s not…
A Mockingbird Gift Guide (2013 Edition)
Alright, kemosabes, we decided to put together a gift guide this year. Apologies in advance for not straying terribly far from our books/movies/music wheelhouse:
For the cousin who’s been asking you where to start with all this grace stuff: One Way Love by Tullian Tchividjian
For the un-/underemployed recent college graduate or Teach For America burnout: Breaking Bad: The Complete Series
For the millennial son/daughter with a good sense of humor who keeps trying to shock you with his/her cynicism (but deep down just wants some love): We Learn Nothing by Tim Kreider or Hyperbole and a Half by Allie Brosh
For the Star…
Do You Have the Death App?
Okay, for the record, this is not a joke. You may have thought it was enough to have moments of existential terror while off your mobile devices. Say, standing before a mighty ocean or amid a fall landscape. It can even happen while sitting at a stop light or getting off the elliptical–you know, those “What’s the point?” moments, where you have an interrupting self-appraisal of the elemental stuff of life. “What am I doing all this for,” you ask yourself, “when someday I’m going to die?”
Well, now you don’t have to wait for these moments to assault your plans,…
(Not Another) Christmas in LA
What do you get when you throw Owen Wilson, Harry Dean Stanton, Dawes, and The Killers into an animated Warren Zevon-shaped (eggnog) blender? You get “Christmas in LA”, this year’s Christmas single from The Killers, and another entry in their immaculate seasonal catalog. As great as the song is–the perfect mix of the Vegas band’s wonderfully overblown Pet Shop Boys-meets-Springsteen sugar rush and Dawes’ Asylum Records-meets-Big Pink-isms–the video makes it even better, especially Harry Dean Stanton’s opening salvo. “Kind of takes the pressure off,” indeed:
P.S. Mbird is in the midst of sending out our year-end newsletter/appeal. If you’d like to receive one, be sure to sign up for our mailing list! Bill Watterson’s beloved creations may or may not make an appearance.
Mockingbird at the Movies: Sin and Redemption in Frozen
This reflection on redemption ‘in practice’ in Disney’s movie Frozen comes from our friend Michael Belote, first posted on his blog Reboot Christianity. (And while we’re on the subject of illustrations/examples for Christianity, we couldn’t recommend more highly his Geek’s Guide to Christianity.)
Every year on Black Friday, my wife goes shopping and the boys and I go to my parents’ house. We watch some football, eat some leftovers, play some video games, and (usually) go to a movie. This year we went and saw the best theology-rich movie in years.
Seriously, this movie was amazing. It was poignant, subtle, brilliantly directed…
Get Connected