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From the Archives: Thy Jilted Lover Shall Rejoice (Again)?

From the Archives: Thy Jilted Lover Shall Rejoice (Again)?

by Howie Espenshied on May 26, 2017 • 6 Comments

In anticipation of the third NBA Finals meeting (in a row!) between the Warriors and Cavs, we thought this might be a timely one to resurface from last year’s series. 

Don’t look now but Loserville–the “mistake on the lake” that is Cleveland Ohio–is about to improbably get their NBA championship. The stars are aligning around the Cleveland Cavaliers. It’s really pretty incredible. We had anointed the Golden State Warriors repeat NBA champions back in February, while they were on their way to the best NBA regular season of all-time. Stephen Curry had supplanted Lebron as the best player on the planet….and…

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The Humanity Of God: An Ascension Day Reflection

The Humanity Of God: An Ascension Day Reflection

by Scott Jones on May 25, 2017 • 3 Comments

Commencement season is almost over (there are some college graduations still happening, if you can believe it!). This year I learned of a tradition I didn’t know existed. Apparently a newly elected president’s first commencement address is usually given at Notre Dame. But Donald Trump broke with this convention, recently delivering his first commencement address at Liberty University. In my opinion, it was one of his better public addresses. But he did do one conventional thing in the speech itself: he quoted from Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken.” Quotations from this poem are ubiquitous at graduations, along with inevitable misinterpretations.

Here is…

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Jackwagon Junction: The Losing Battle of Being in Charge – Sarah Condon

by Mockingbird on May 24, 2017 •

Here’s another video from our 10th Annual conference in New York City! This one features our favorite Kardashians enthusiast, Sarah Condon, talking about control (and our amusing lack of it).  Welcome to Jackwagon Junction — it’s gonna be wild ride. Enjoy!

Jackwagon Junction: The Losing Battle of Being in Charge – Sarah Condon from Mockingbird on Vimeo.

Ryan Adams and the Benefits of Being a Mockingbird

Ryan Adams and the Benefits of Being a Mockingbird

by Mockingbird on May 24, 2017 •

This one comes to us from John Alexander.

Ryan Adams has a layered reputation.

First of all, he’s prolific. Since his 2000 debut Heartbreaker he has released 15 full-length albums in addition to a pile of EPs and a mountain of orphaned singles.

Secondly, his work is notably diverse. Adams’ first few releases pinned him as an alt-country artist, but he soon crossed into straightforward rock with 2003’s Rock N Roll, then spent a double album channeling The Grateful Dead with 2005’s Cold Roses before turning to pure country (no alt-) with Jacksonville City Nights. He has criss-crossed that circuit ever since, with…

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The King of Dissonance

The King of Dissonance

by Ethan Richardson on May 23, 2017 • 5 Comments

Well, I’ve been taking up DZ’s advice and making my way through Harriet Lerner’s slim little power-punch of a book, Why Won’t You Apologize? (He actually left it on my desk before the sabbatical…Soooo, did he mean for me to read it? Did I say, or not say, something?) The book is a powerful glimpse into all the strategies and self-deceptions we have around our wrongdoing–on what counts as an apology, and on what keeps us from doing it. As Dave mentioned, Lerner keys in on the prime impulse that makes the non-apologizer a non-apologizer: the need to be perfect.

Some people are so hard…

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The Mockingbird Devotional: Finding Grace and Being Found

The Mockingbird Devotional: Finding Grace and Being Found

by Charlotte Donlon on May 23, 2017 • 4 Comments

After scrolling through my Twitter feed and seeing a prominent Christian leader post something that made me want to climb in my bed, pull my down alternative comforter over my head, and hide from the world; I tweet-confessed that remembering the gospel doesn’t undo the bad stuff. My proclamation got a couple of likes so there are at least two other people in the world who might agree that oh-remember-the-gospel-and-god-and-the-kingdom-everything-is-better-now just doesn’t work sometimes. Maybe we aren’t Christian-y enough, but using the gospel and the reality of God’s kingdom as a bandaid for all that is wrong in the world…

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Faeries, Lies, and Leporicide: A Meditation on Genesis 15

Faeries, Lies, and Leporicide: A Meditation on Genesis 15

by Mockingbird on May 22, 2017 • 2 Comments

A wonderful contribution from Thomas Hayes.

I’m going to tell a few stories and then tell you what the stories mean. But first a cautionary tale: When my middle son was very young, his grandmother took him to see The Wizard of Oz. Afterwards, I asked him what it was about, and he replied, “It was about a girl, a scarecrow, a robot, and a bear.” The moral is: in relation to stories and their meanings we are all young.

When I was a boy, I used to attend a summer camp with my best friend, Steve. Steve’s uncle, Uncle Jim, ran…

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Hopelessly Devoted: Matthew Chapter Six Verses Twenty-Five Through Twenty-Seven and Thirty-Four

Hopelessly Devoted: Matthew Chapter Six Verses Twenty-Five Through Twenty-Seven and Thirty-Four

by CJ Green on May 22, 2017 • 2 Comments

Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? … So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own….

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It's Gospel Law the Way Down

It’s Gospel Law the Way Down

by JDK on May 19, 2017 • 10 Comments

I woke up yesterday morning feeling like I had time traveled 10 years back into the wonderful world of mockingbird.blogspot.com. Back then, a group of us were invited by David Zahl to start up a blog dedicated to the exposition of justification by faith alone as understood through the hermeneutical lens of the distinction between law and Gospel. This was not our first attempt at blogging, but it was different in that, as I wrote in a 2008 post, “Can’t See the Forest for the Blogs,”

Most theological blogs that I’ve found, like many political ones, are so rife with acrimony…

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Taking a Dip in the Dark Side

Taking a Dip in the Dark Side

by Duo Dickinson on May 18, 2017 • 8 Comments

I am over sixty, so I know a lot of people over sixty. Several of those — measured, responsible leaders — have giddily announced they are visiting Holland. I have always loved the Amsterdam School of early twentieth-century modernism-meets-craftsman housing design, but no, that is not why these good folks are going to that part of the world.

They want to re-live dope.

Most of them have not touched marijuana since the 1970s. They are amused by the Colorado experiment with legalization. They fought tooth and nail to have their kids avoid the Grass Pit, some unsuccessfully. But they themselves are giddy to…

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Healing Wings on Highway Winds: An Interview with Wesley Randolph Eader

Healing Wings on Highway Winds: An Interview with Wesley Randolph Eader

by Mockingbird on May 18, 2017 •

This review comes to us from Daniel Melvill Jones.

Several dozen children were gathered around an upright piano in our church’s basement. They were loudly singing a song that succinctly describes the life of Christ with melody and words so well fitted that they could pierce the listener’s heart. The children performed the song at our annual Christmas concert and since then, I’ve lost track of the number of parents who’ve told me how it’s impacted their family and have asked for more details.

The song came from a collection of old-time hymns written by Portland, Oregon’s Wesley Randolph Eader and featured on his…

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The God of Seven Buses

The God of Seven Buses

by Will McDavid on May 17, 2017 • 3 Comments

I recently started reading Gregory Boyle’s excellent Tattoos on the Heart, a memoir of his powerful ministry in Pico-Aliso, a low-income area in L.A. dominated by gangs. So far, it’s full of incredible stories about the action of grace upon those who had spent years cultivating facades of toughness and independence, almost as a matter of survival. Boyle, a Jesuit, and the grace-brimming adults (predominantly women) of his community find, through the love they show, an inside look at the hearts of the ‘homies’ they befriend. My favorite vignette from the first chapter is below:

At Camp Paige, a county detention facility near Glendora, I was getting…

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