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Posts tagged "Vulnerability"

Vulnerability, Judgement and The Beach Boys: Pet Sounds Turns 50!

Vulnerability, Judgement and The Beach Boys: Pet Sounds Turns 50!

by David Zahl on May 16, 2016 • 3 Comments

Half a century is pretty “outta sight” if you ask me. To celebrate, here’s the two main Pet Sounds portions of The Beach Boys essay in Mess of Help. We’ve posted portions before but never all of it. Catch a wave: 

Brian Wilson was the original heart-on-your-sleeve auteur. Young men had been vulnerable on record before, but usually in the service of garnering swoons rather than expressing actual warts-and-all weakness. Brian’s was not the attractive kind of vulnerability; it was the awkward kind. In the song, his girl’s devotion even makes him “want to cry”. The Beach Boys sang about teenage male tears more than…

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Mining Netflix: Masculinity Surrenders to a Force Majeure

Mining Netflix: Masculinity Surrenders to a Force Majeure

by Joe Nooft on Jun 29, 2015 • 1 Comment

Nearly a year ago, NPR released an article entitled The New American Man Doesn’t Look Like His Father where they examined the shift in American masculinity over the past fifty years. There were, of course, both positive and negative findings. For example, postmodern boys and young men have an increased respect for gender equality, but they also are far more likely to dropout of college or choose not to attend at all. A far more alarming, but not entirely surprising, section in the write-up comes in a quote from Stony Brook University sociologist and director of the Center for the Study of…

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Mining Netflix: Vulnerability on Notting Hill

Mining Netflix: Vulnerability on Notting Hill

by Joe Nooft on Mar 23, 2015 • 2 Comments

There’s this girl. She’s someone who can’t be mine, and uh… it’s as if I’ve taken love heroin and I can’t ever have it again. I’ve opened Pandora’s Box and there’s trouble inside.

If Hugh Grant vowed to collaborate exclusively with writer Richard Curtis (Four Weddings and a Funeral, Love Actually) for the rest of his career, the rom-com world would perhaps recover the stability it has sought for the better part of the past decade and a half. Curtis’ ability to present the humorous ills of love with allegorical excellence, marries splendidly with Hugh’s boyish but bold delivery of lines….

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Over-Confident Men and Underestimating Women: Some Thoughts on Shame and Leadership

Over-Confident Men and Underestimating Women: Some Thoughts on Shame and Leadership

by Sarah Condon on Sep 12, 2014 • 20 Comments

Back in May I read an article in the Atlantic Monthly that rocked me. “The Confidence Gap” addressed the gaping hole of women in top leadership positions. I read it expecting the usual issues: poor math scores, smaller salaries, always feeling behind everyone else. And certainly, this article provided plenty of those sad and disappointing assessments.

As a woman, some of the information was also incredibly helpful. We do not take chances the way men do. We underestimate ourselves. Culture’s need to shape us into “good girls” does permanent damage when it comes to necessary risk taking. But the thing that bothered…

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Anne Lamott on Dropping Whiny, Guilt-Mongering Voices Into Mason Jars

Anne Lamott on Dropping Whiny, Guilt-Mongering Voices Into Mason Jars

by Matt Patrick on Mar 4, 2013 • 11 Comments

I’m currently reading Anne Lamott’s, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life, a super thoughtful, inspiring and funny book on the nature of writing, and how frightening and wonderful it truly is. I can’t put it down. Lamott talks a lot about how writing evokes vulnerability, and exposes all sorts of insecurities and fears, etc., etc.,etc.. I came across this wonderful quotation and just had to share it. This particular zinger comes in the saltily-titled third chapter  “Shitty First Drafts”, wherein Lamott describes the inevitability of writing bad first drafts, while being brutally honest about the debilitating voices that one…

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A Sigh of Relief: The Avett Brothers and Anne Steele Get Honest

A Sigh of Relief: The Avett Brothers and Anne Steele Get Honest

by Matt Patrick on Nov 21, 2012 • 2 Comments

Peace can be uncomfortably paradoxical. I’ve found that a vast majority of the conversations I have during the week beat around the bush–and the lack of substance only perpetuates existing anxiety. Art has proved to be exceedingly helpful, in that it often points me to an inescapable truth: when feeling stuck, the worst possible thing to do is hide. But we want to hide. Nothing about displaying fears and insecurities seems the least bit freeing.

In their new album, The Carpenter, The Avett Brothers continue their wonderfully raw and beautiful articulation of real life.  Their song, “Winter in My Heart” does…

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Previously on Parenthood, Pt. 4: It’s Scary, It’s Really Scary

Previously on Parenthood, Pt. 4: It’s Scary, It’s Really Scary

by Matt Schneider on Nov 19, 2012 • 5 Comments

This is the fourth installment of a look at the theological (and pastoral) wisdom found in the current season of NBC’s Parenthood, mostly regarding the intersection of undeserved love and human suffering. This time I take a look at Adam Braverman (played by Peter Krause), who has been attempting to keep it together all season long even though the audience sees the truth of his flimsy facade. Spoiler alert!

Remember that I introduced this series of posts by looking at an earlier episode poignantly titled “Everything is not OK,” a title that spoke to Adam’s relentless positivity in the face of his wife…

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Previously on Parenthood: Max Braverman Breaks the Fourth Wall

Previously on Parenthood: Max Braverman Breaks the Fourth Wall

by Matt Schneider on Oct 26, 2012 • 1 Comment

The past few weeks I have been highlighting some theological insights to be gained from Parenthood, which is now in its fourth season. As I said in the post on Kristina and the other on Julia, there has been much suffering in the Braverman clan lately, but today I wish to highlight a reason for rejoicing in the life of Max Braverman, Kristina and Adam’s teenage son with Asperger Syndrome who is played by Max Burkholder. I also wish to connect this line of thinking on Parenthood with some other discussions I have had recently as well on communication such as…

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