A Letter From The Board: Mockingbird, Charlottesville and R.E.M.

On June 1st, Mockingbird will be moving its headquarters from New York City to Charlottesville, Virginia. One of Mbird’s chief supporting parishes since day one, Christ Episcopal Church has graciously invited us to make our “nest” there, and we have accepted! You may remember that The Rev. Paul Walker, rector of Christ Church Charlottesville, was the founding president of Mockingbird’s board of directors.

We see this as a tremendously positive development. The move will put Mockingbird on more solid ground financially and institutionally, allowing us to embrace our calling as a resource ministry with deeper confidence and enthusiasm. While the past three years have been undeniably fruitful in NYC, the financial burden of running a non-profit in this context, and during a recession, has been exhausting. Charlottesville seems to be an answer to prayer – God making an extraordinary way forward for us.

If you’ll forgive another flight metaphor, we see C’ville as the perfect launching pad for the future of this organization. It boasts the sort of stimulating mix of culture, thoughtfulness, beauty, and warmth that Mockingbird thrives on. Our Executive Director David Zahl and his wife Cate look forward to raising their first child, due in August, in such a wonderful town.
[CONTINUE READING]

A short excerpt from Heinrich Heine

"So all day long until the sun went down
they spent in feasting, and the measured feast
matched well their hearts' desire.
So did the flawless harp held by Apollo
and heavenly songs in choiring antiphon
that all the Muses sang. [taken by Heine from the Vulgate]

"Then suddenly a pale, bloodstained Jew came panting in, with a crown of thorns on his head and a great wooden cross over his shoulder; and he threw the cross on to the gods' high table, so that the golden goblets trembled, and the gods fell silent and turned pale, and became paler and paler, till at last they entirely dissolved into mist.

"... Anyone who sees his god suffering finds it easier to endure his own pain. The merry gods of the past, who felt no pain, did not know either how poor tortured human beings feel, and a poor person in desperation could have no real confidence in them. They were holiday gods; people danced around them merrily, and could only thank them. For this reason they never received whole-hearted love. To receive whole-hearted love one must suffer. Compassion is the last sacrament of love; it may be love itself. Therefore of all the gods who ever lived, Christ is the god who has been loved the most."

Killed by a Robber

I wrote the following fifteen months ago, during Lent, but didn't post it. Welcome comments and thoughts.

====================

A friend of mine killed himself yesterday.

He was far from being a close friend.. But I did know him. And since hearing about his death I've found myself thinking and feeling my way through a lot.

One thing that has been a help is a brief comment by Martin Luther. He lived of course at a time where to kill yourself marked you as untouchable by the church, certain of damnation, and unable to be buried in consecrated ground. He wrote:

"I don’t share the opinion that suicides are certainly to be damned. My reason is that they do not wish to kill themselves but are overcome by the power of the devil. They are like a man who is murdered in the woods by a robber."

How you deal with suicide theologically is a study in microcosm of whether you see the human will as free or bound; and how that leads directly to either cruelty or compassion. If you see the will as free, or mostly free, or kinda free, then the suicide can and must be judged as freely and wickedly choosing to end his life. You (the Church) decide you've got to speak the Truth here; and all you have to give those who survive him is Law, Judgment, and the pronouncement that the man for whom they grieve is eternally damned.

If on the other hand you see the will as bound, then the suicide becomes a victim, a man murdered in the woods by a robber; and just as in the case of a murdered man, you have just the opposite to give as the Free Willer does: pity, compassion, and the promise that NOTHING can separate him from Christ Jesus -- in brief you have grace, tenderness, and Gospel.

The doctrine of the bound will also, it seems to me, necessarily leads to a view of life as cosmic theater, where we are afflicted not chiefly by flesh and blood, but by principalities, by powers, by the rulers of the darkness of this world, by spiritual wickedness in high places. Free will by way of contrast places us in the driver's seat, with the Devil at best offering us a menu of options from which we can freely choose. (In practice, though, it seems like Free Will folks gently erase the Devil from their thinking, and end up with a conservative or liberal Ethical Culture society.)

A question that a lot of people ask when someone they know kills himself is "Why did he do it?"
[CONTINUE READING]

April Playlist

A little bit of Brit-pop + a little bit of country = a lot of awesome:

1. Human Wheels - John Mellencamp
2. None Of Us Are Free - Solomon Burke
3. Where Are You Tonight? (Journey Through Dark Heat) - Bob Dylan
4. I Washed My Hands In Muddy Water - Elvis Presley
5. Men With Broken Hearts - Hank Williams
6. One Good Year - Slaid Cleaves
7. Dishes - Pulp
8. That's Me Trying - William Shatner with Ben Folds and Aimee Mann
9. All Men Are Liars - Nick Lowe
10. If You Would Lord, Send A Boat - Chris Knight
11. Rockin' Chair - Oasis
12. Medicine Hat - Son Volt
13. Lightning Blue Eyes - Secret Machines
14. Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up) - Florence + The Machine
15. Friday Mourning - Morrissey
16. Loving The Alien - Velvet Revolver

Ricky Williams: Pot-Head Running Back or Secret Genius?

If you're not a sports fan, you've probably missed ESPN's "30 for 30" series, a series of 30 sports documentaries celebrating the 30th anniversary of ESPN's existence. Missing these films, though, is a mistake, sports fan or not. They are uniformly insightful and profoundly moving. Sports is often just the framework for stories about real people struggling with their real lives. Editions to date have included subjects like a Canadian town mourning the loss of Wayne Gretzky to California, the racially charged trial of a high-school-aged Allen Iverson, and most recently, a film about Ricky Williams, a football player who, apparently, retired from football to be free to smoke marijuana.

Of course, Williams is revealed to be multifaceted, and in fact, is a fascinating and tragic figure. Here's a teaser quote, from last night's Run Ricky Run:

Early on in his identity formation, it became tightly linked to achievement, to what he was supposed to be, instead of the kind of more rooted identity formation that comes from...sweet acceptance. And Ricky longed for that.

POW! The law killed Ricky Williams' football career, and now we might say, since Ricky is back in the game, largely due to a wife who provided that "sweet acceptance," that the Gospel resurrected it.

A complete list of the "30 for 30" films can be found HERE.

Thornton Wilder's "Theophilus North"

If, for some reason, Simeon's talk at the recent Mockingbird Conference wasn't enough to convince you to read, mark, learn and inwardly digest Thornton Wilder's book Theophilus North, then maybe this will entice you.

The following comes from Wilder's unfinished preface to Theophilus North and gives an insight into the overriding themes which dominate this intuitive account of life in "old" New England. (Spaces are left blank where words are missing).

Wilder mutually affirms both a pessimistic realism and an idealistic optimism, taking into account a low anthropology and the intermittent spark of creativity. He says:

"All men aspire to excellence. All men strive to incorporate elements of the Absolute into their lives. These efforts are doomed to failure. Every man is an archer whose arrow is aimed to the center of the target; but our arrows are leaden, their feathers are ill {____} our eyesight is imperfect; our education has failed to distinguish the true from the false targets; the strength in our arm is insufficiently developed. All men aspire to incorporate elements of the Absolute into their lives.

"To the impassioned will all things by possible. The founder of the Christian faith is reported to have said, "if you have faith {_____} mustard seed, you shall say unto the mountain, be removed, and it will {_____} and {_____} and it shall be open to you. And all things are possible to those who love God." That is of course, absurd. Something must be the matter with all the 'terms of reference.' As I have often amused myself by saying, “Hope never changed tomorrow’s weather.” Yet. . . yet. . . history abounds with achievements that fill us with wonder."
[CONTINUE READING]

Spiritual, Not Religious (and Vice Versa)

A new poll published in USA Today yesterday reveals the 72% of "millennials" consider themselves more "spiritual than religious". The article is worth reading, sort of - haven't we been hearing about this for decades? A couple of takeaways include:

"The more precisely you try to measure their Christianity, the fewer you find committed to the faith."

"The 2007 LifeWay study found seven in 10 Protestants ages 18 to 30, both evangelical and mainline, who went to church regularly in high school said they quit attending by age 23. And 34% of those had not returned, even sporadically, by age 30."

For a considerably more interesting/insightful take, I suggest JDK's "Religious Not Spiritual" post from this past November.  And then there's this (re-run):

Weds Morning Rock N Roll: Brian Wilson's "Midnight's Another Day"

I missed my chance to post this on Good Friday, but as Fitz Allison says, "every day around here is Good Friday!" This is Brian's unbelievably touching and powerful song from the otherwise lackluster "That Lucky Old Sun" record. Many people thought he didn't have a song of this quality in him anymore. It not only has a strong death-resurrection vibe, it serves as a response to that other latter-day masterpiece, "Til I Die". Plus, to see Brian himself doubles its power - the man has just been so obviously ravaged by life. Enjoy:
[CONTINUE READING]

Stephen Hawking on Depravity (of the 4th Kind)

This one comes to us from Mbird friend Bryan Jarrell:

Steven Hawking (famous handicapped physicist) did a hilarious piece for the discovery channel on (get this!) aliens and the doctrine of total depravity.

While commenting on SETI, he argued that we really shouldn't be broadcasting our location throughout the universe.  If aliens do exist, and they're traversing space via wormholes and hyperspace, the reason they developed such technology was out of necessity to flee their home planet.  They probably fled their home planet due to overuse of natural resources, and would see us on earth as a species in the way of harvesting earth's natural resources.

So we should stop the SETI program, which broadcasts radio waves into space hoping that somebody would respond, and hide from extra-terrestrial life.  To quote this piece from the discovery channel:

Okay, so what if we start blasting out signals advertising our presence? To assume alien civilizations will be friendly and welcome us with open arms seems grossly naïve. As Hawking points out, if there's one thing we've learned from our own evolution, although we might have the best of intentions, we've rarely "come in peace."

In other words, if aliens were to exist, it is entirely plausible that they would be totally depraved also.  We know this because, well, we see it in ourselves.

Looks like even extraterrestrials need alien righteousness!

2010 MOCKINGBIRD CONFERENCE - RECORDINGS AND DOCUMENTS

Here they are! As you can see, we are offering the recordings of the conference for free again this year. Which we are very excited to do and plan to continue doing as long as it's feasible. They are a gift! That said, we ask those that did not attend the conference this year to consider making a donation to Mockingbird to help cover the cost of putting it on. Not to worry, there will be no follow-up or regulation - think of it as a Radiohead-style pay-whatever-you-deem-appropriate situation. If you find them to be of value that is... Enjoy:

WELCOME.  "Mockingbird = Elvis" - David Zahl.
TALK 1.  "The Word Made Verb: The Rescue of Imputation" - C. FitzSimons Allison. Intro by David Browder. Text.
TALK 2.  "The Good News Of The Bound Will and Q&A" - Rod Rosenbladt. Intro by Tom Becker.
TALK 3.  "The Courage To Trust and Q&A" - C. FitzSimons Allison. Intro by Robin Anderson.
TALK 4.  "Experiencing The Spirit In Failure and In Love and Q&A" - Simeon Zahl. Intro by Todd Brewer.
TALK 5.  "Justification: Freedom Based On What Is True and Q&A" - Rod Rosenbladt. Intro by Jacob Smith.
TALK 6.  "Closing Panel Discussion and Q&A" - C. FitzSimons Allison, Rod Rosenbladt and Simeon Zahl. Moderated by Aaron Zimmerman.

BREAKOUT 1.  "God Gave Rock N Roll To You" - Aaron Zimmerman and David Zahl (Note: the recording is incomplete - full text coming soon).
BREAKOUT 2.  "Listening In A Word Of Talk" - Linda Murchison and Mary Zahl. Text. Handouts.
BREAKOUT 3.  "Mockingbird At The Movies" - Nick Lannon. Handout - Clip List.
BREAKOUT 4.  "Two Words Radio Live!" - Sean Norris, Jacob Smith and guests.

OTHER. Book Table List.

FULL CONFERENCE.

From Robert Penn Warren's Brother To Dragons (ht Fitz)

The recognition of complicity is the beginning of innocence.

The recognition of necessity is the beginning of freedom.

The recognition of direction of fulfillment is the death of the self, 

And the death of the self is the beginning of selfhood.

All else is surrogate of hope and destitution of spirit.

Conference Book Table

As promised, here's the full inventory of what we had on offer last week. It's by no means a definitive collection or 'canon', just what we were able to gather up in time for the conference. They're listed in order of author, with links to where you can purchase them. They all come highly recommended!

NON-FICTION

Basics
1. Alcoholics Anonymous. Alcoholics Anonymous (Big Book).
2. Brewer, Todd [ed.]. The Gospel According To Pixar. Coming Soon!
4. Hawkins, David. The Useful Sinner.
5. Long, Anne. Listening.
6. Manning, Brennan. The Ragamuffin Gospel.
7. Norris, Sean [ed.]. Judgment & Love: Expanded Edition.
8. Paulson, Steven. Luther For Armchair Theologians.
9. Rosenbladt, Rod. Christ Alone.
10. Walker, Paul. Sermons From The Cathedral Church Of The Advent.
11. Wallace, David Foster. A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again
12. Zahl, David [ed.]. Grace In Addiction: What The Church Can Learn From Alcoholics Anonymous. New!
13. Zahl, Paul. 2000 Years Of Amazing Grace.
14. Zahl, Paul. Who Will Deliver Us? The Present Power Of The Death Of Christ.

Next Steps
1. Allison, C. FitzSimons. Fear Love and Worship.
2. Allison, C. FitzSimons. Guilt Anger and God.
3. Allison, C. FitzSimons. Trust In An Age Of Arrogance. New!
4. Ebeling, Gerhard. Luther: An Introduction To His Thought.
5. Elert, Werner. Law And Gospel.
6. Forde, Gerhard. On Being A Theologian Of The Cross.
7. Greene-McCreight, Kathryn. Darkness Is My Only Companion: A Christian Response to Mental Illness.
8. Holl, Karl. The Reconstruction Of Morality.
9. Lewis, C.S. A Grief Observed.
10. Luther, Martin. The Bondage Of The Will.
11. Martyn, Dorothy. Beyond Deserving: Children, Parents and Responsibility Revisited.
12. Norris, Sean [ed.]. Two Words: Teaser.
13. Pless, John. Handling The Word Of Truth.
14. Senkbeil, Harold. Dying To Live: The Power Of Forgiveness.
15. Zahl, Paul. Grace In Practice: A Theology Of Everyday Life.

Deep Cuts
[CONTINUE READING]

Another Week Begins: The Science of Free Will, Pixar News, Emergent(cy), FNL and Willow

1. An absolutely fascinating write-up from Jesse Bering over at Scientific American of the recent 'free will'-related research, charmingly titled "Scientists Say Free Will Probably Doesn't Exist, but Urge 'Don't Stop Believing!'". Stay away if you have an allergy to Hitler-based arguments... Perhaps the most ground-breaking finding is (ht BZ): "when people believe—or are led to believe—that free will is just an illusion, they tend to become more antisocial." Hmmm...


2.  The new slate of Pixar films has been announced, and Monsters Inc is getting a sequel in 2012! Our Gospel According To Pixar series, debuted at the conference, will be available for purchase soon.

3.  In the wish-they-didn't-give-us-so-many-reasons-to-be-cynical department, there's an obituary for the Emerging Church on World right now (ht TB). In a recent sermon Emergent dude Rob Bell "recounts how Mars Hill started out to be a different kind of church without the baggage of watered-down “seeker” churches and the religious legalism of “traditional” churches. In a moment of wonderful honesty Bell admitted that Mars Hill had become a big institution that wounded people in similar ways as the churches many Gen-Xers swore they would not mimic."

4.  For those of you who still have the energy for the whole New Atheism debate, in his NY Times blog entry "Notes On the New Atheists", Ross Douthat quotes at length David Bentley Hart's excellent First Things article "Believe It Or Not" (ht RF).

5.  Speaking of the NY Times, how about that Friday Night Lights article?! They may get a couple key details wrong (Landry-wise), but it was very nice to see the best show on television right now get some respect (that's right, Don Draper). It's also been nice to see Breaking Bad give it a run for its money this season... A few excerpts:

"Like the book and the movie, [Friday Night Lights] is only nominally about football. Friday night games are a narrative device, but the guts of the show juxtapose the soaring joys and hurts of family with the brutal, intimate charms of small-town life. While the network schedules are full of cops, doctors and lawyers, the people on “Friday Night Lights” teach, deliver pizza, sell cars, or if they aren’t so lucky, collect welfare.
[CONTINUE READING]

A Quick Mockingbird from Dusty Springfield And The Echoes

ht LF:

NOW AVAILABLE! Grace In Addiction: What The Church Can Learn From Alcoholics Anonymous

We are very proud to announce that our new publication Grace In Addiction: What The Church Can Learn From Alcoholics Anonymous is now available. We believe that it is our best material yet - many thanks to all who helped with it!

For a preview, click here. And to order ($10), go here. OR... Sign up for any denomination of monthly support and we'll send you a copy for free!

P.S. Conference recordings, handouts and book table list coming early next week. Stay tuned. 

You Gave Me A Mountain - Elvis in Hawaii

Characteristically rousing version of one of The King's most (ridiculously) cruciform songs. Talk about the "old Adam" dying a slow death! How I wish Elvis could have heard Simeon Zahl's "Experiencing The Spirit In Failure And In Love" talk from last weekend's conference... Or at least yours truly's dead-serious "Mockingbird = Elvis Presley" opening gambit. But hey, that Ronnie Tutt sure can drum!


Another Week Ends returns next week. But not before the conference talks are posted. I promise.

p.s. Anyone else notice that Elvis' "American Trilogy" plays during the climatic scene of Kick-Ass?! Very gratifying.

The Perspective of David Foster Wallace

This is just a little something for your Friday afternoon, if you have the time.

I know this is a rather long video, but it's definitely worthwhile. It's the author himself reading two brilliantly humorous yet thoughtful works. His style has a way of using humor to get past the heart's defenses in order to communicate some deeper truth at the same time.

Of course, we now know all to well that behind his humorous approach was a fellow sufferer who tragically ended his life before its time (though every death is untimely), but while he was with us his "low voice" had an innate ability to "tremble into the hearts of men", to borrow a phrase from Wilder's Angel that Troubled the Waters.

It's a shame and a real loss that he is no longer among us, making his keen observations of what we otherwise consider normal human behavior (which he shows us time and again is normal only in its prevalence, not in its inherent qualities).

That said, I'm sure if you do have the time this will make you smile and stretch your view of the human condition all at the same time:

Biology and Theology: Charles Darwin

I’m not particularly interested in the question of whether Darwin's evolution is right or wrong, but a recent lecture I heard has brought to the forefront the consequences of his thought. Evolutionary biology, according to Darwin and his dependency upon capitalism and imperialism, contends that nature is marked by a universal, internal war via natural selection which results in an inevitable progress of life. Humanity is not exempt from this struggle, but it is the zenith of this process as the victor.

Consequently, progress is to be found through this universal struggle for existence. We must struggle to attain what is to be revealed (en-veiled) in the future as the just reward for our exertion. As Darwin said:

“Man, like every other animal, has no doubt advanced to his present high condition through a struggle for existence consequent on his rapid multiplication; and if he is to advance still higher, it is to be feared that he must remain subject to a severe struggle. Otherwise he would sink into indolence, and the more gifted men would not be more successful in the battle of life than the less gifted. … There should be open competition for all men; and the most able should not be prevented by laws or customs from succeeding best and rearing the largest number of offspring.”

One the one hand, theology has in Darwin biological ‘proof” of a low anthropology. As David Brooks has said: “Humanity did not come before status contests. Status contests came before humanity, and are embedded deep in human relations… Rousseau was wrong—Thomas Hobbes right.” At its core, evolution in a round about way concludes that our tendency toward oppression and the exploitation of power is rooted in our very DNA. We are all savages hard-wired to only look out for ourselves.

[CONTINUE READING]

I want one

Beam me up, NOW!!! One of the many awesome things in the current issue of The Atlantic is a brief piece on how, in the last few years, tricoders have become real! You could get one now. And they really work! I am sooooooo excited….

David Foster Wallace on David Lynch, LOST (by extension), Irony, and Preaching

From DFW's definitive take on Lynch "David Lynch Keeps His Head":

Like most storytellers who use mystery as a structural device and not a thematic device, Lynch is way better at deepening and complicating mysteries than he is at wrapping them up. And [Twin Peaks]' second season showed that he was aware of this and that it was making him really nervous. By its thirtieth episode, the show had degenerated into tics and shticks and mannerisms and red herrings, and part of the explanation for this was that Lynch was trying to divert our attention from the fact that he really had no idea how to wrap the central murder case up.

So the obvious question is, does this apply to LOST? Does anyone think "Darlton" has a prayer of wrapping it up in a satisfying way? If so, how? Please share. But before/while you do, chew on this DFW quote about irony:

Irony and cynicism were just what the U.S. hypocrisy of the fifties and sixties called for. That’s what made the early postmodernists great artists. The great thing about irony is that it splits things apart, gets up above them so we can see the flaws and hypocrisies and duplicates. The virtuous always triumph? Ward Cleaver is the prototypical fifties father? “Sure.” Sarcasm, parody, absurdism and irony are great ways to strip off stuff’s mask and show the unpleasant reality behind it. The problem is that once the rules of art are debunked, and once the unpleasant realities the irony diagnoses are revealed and diagnosed, “then” what do we do? Irony’s useful for debunking illusions, but most of the illusion-debunking in the U.S. has now been done and redone. Once everybody knows that equality of opportunity is bunk and Mike Brady’s bunk and Just Say No is bunk, now what do we do? All we seem to want to do is keep ridiculing the stuff. Postmodern irony and cynicism’s become an end in itself, a measure of hip sophistication and literary savvy. Few artists dare to try to talk about ways of working toward redeeming what’s wrong, because they’ll look sentimental and naive to all the weary ironists. Irony’s gone from liberating to enslaving. There’s some great essay somewhere that has a line about irony being the song of the prisoner who’s come to love his cage.

Finally, in the same interview he talks about the purpose of art, which sounds remarkably similar to preaching:

[CONTINUE READING]

Do You Feel Lucky? Imputation and "The Cooler"

The word "imputation" is the best attempt to translate into English a Greek word that means things like "regard," or "attribute," or "accredit," or "credit." In a nutshell, it boils down to something like "the treatment of something as having attributes that it does not intrinsically have." Simple, right? At the recent Mockingbird conference, C. FitzSimons Allison (retired Episcopal Bishop of South Carolina) asserted that all of Christian theology, and the very Good News itself, hangs on this word.

But let's talk about The Cooler. William H. Macy plays the unluckiest guy in the world, who works for a Las Vegas casino, cooling tables. He is so unlucky that his unluckiness exudes out of his pores and infects those around him. Winning streaks become losing streaks, hot streaks become cold streaks, and good rolls become bad ones. One day, though, he does a favor for cocktail waitress Maria Bello, and things begin to change. She starts to have feelings for him, and consequently, he begins to be less unlucky. In a sense, she treats him as though he is desirable, when he is clearly not. Then, because of this attribution, he becomes desirable.

But here's the thing: Only God imputes. The Cooler is a good example, actually. Maria Bello begins to treat William H. Macy as desirable for only one reason: she loves him. There is no ulterior motive. Of course, she's a character in a movie, so she's immune to the vagaries of human nature with which the rest of us are beset. We, on the other hand, hear about imputation and we think, "Great! I'll treat all the un-loveable people in my life as love-able, and they'll actually become love-able! Won't it be grand!"

Christians sometimes fall into talking about grace in this way: Treat someone graciously and good things will happen. As you can see, though, this turns into just one more law to follow, an iteration of Love Your Neighbor as Yourself. And, of course, since it moves under law, it becomes something that our inevitable ulterior motives taint. "If I'm nice to her, maybe she'll be nicer to me!" Imputation is something that happens, like in The Cooler, automatically. Maria Bello isn't looking for something from William H. Macy...she falls in love with him. The classic human example, the incontrovertible fact that we are inevitably attracted to the person who loves us when we feel unlovable, still feels (and is) like a lightning bolt out of heaven: a pure miracle.

So if the bad news is that only God imputes, the good news (I should say Good News) is that GOD IMPUTES! In the same way that William H. Macy becomes the person Maria Bello regards him to be, we become the kind of people that God regards us to be. In this case, Fitz Allison is absolutely correct: All of Christianity hinges on this word. "For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God" (2 Cor. 5:21). We are regarded as righteous when we are not, and are therefore MADE RIGHTEOUS. And that is Good News indeed.

Fiction Rule of Thumb

Thanks to XKCD ("A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language") for putting this up.

Lord Is Not A Word - Christian Wiman

From the May issue of The Atlantic (ht JR - for more on Wiman, go here):

Lord is not a word.

Song is not a salve.

Suffer the child, who lived

on sunlight and solitude.

Savor the man, craving

earth like an aftertaste.

To discover in one’s hand

two local stones the size

of a dead man’s eyes

saves no one, but to fling them

with a grace you did not know

you knew, to bring them

skimming homing

over blue, is to discover

the river from which they came.

Mild merciful amnesia

through which I’ve moved

as through a blue atmosphere

of almost and was,

how is it now,

like ruins unearthed by ruin,

my childhood should rise?

Lord, suffer me to sing

these wounds by which I am made

and marred, savor this creature

whose aloneness you ease and are.

The Beauty of Saint George's Church

Check out these pictures of our gracious host church for the Mockingbird Conference. This church has changed a lot over the years.

Here is what the interior looked like 50 years ago, which is very similar to how it looks today:

This is the rear of the nave, also from about 50 years ago, also very similar to today:

And here is the church interior circa 75 years ago, which is also similar except for the huge organ in the gallery (given in memory of Mr. and Mrs. J.P. Morgan):

[CONTINUE READING]

William Blake on Human Nature

From the "Funny Because It's True" Department

The Gospel means we should be able to "say what a thing is." Since the cross indicates that the human condition is desperate, it means we can be honest about what's really going on in our lives. Unfortunately, we humans often have subtle ways we obfuscate, obscure, bend the truth, and spin. Here's a funny take the way Christians do that.
I give you: "How to Speak Christianese."

William Blake on Prayer

Monday Afternoon Rock N Roll: John Mellencamp's "Human Wheels"

If he has a better song, I haven't heard it. He must have had help with the lyrics. And while the video does get a tad, um, bohemian at points, the religious imagery is very effective:

This land, today, shall draw its last breath
And take into its ancient depths
This frail reminder of its giant, dreaming self
While I, with human-hindered eyes
Unequal to the sweeping curve of life
Stand on this single print of time

Human wheels spin round and round
While the clock keeps the pace
Human wheels spin round and round
Help the light to my face

That time, today, no triumph gains
At this short success of age
This pale reflection of its brave and blundering deed
For I, descend from this vault
Now dreams beyond my earthly fault
Knowledge, sure, from the seed

This land, today, my tears shall taste
And take into its dark embrace
This love who in my beating heart endures
Assured by every sun that burns
The dust to which this flesh shall return
It is the ancient, dreaming dust of God

Displaced Persons in an Alien World

On Saturday afternoon as I walked out the Chantry doors of Saint George's, the sky was grey, the air was a damp chill, and the cherry trees with their paper-parchment blossoms had somehow lost their luster. Indeed, the world seemed a very different place from the world I had left on the Thursday prior, as I walked in through those same doors to enter the world of the Mockingbird Conference.

Now, though, as I headed up 16th Street to catch the subway and begin my long trip home, I was engulfed with a profound sense of loss, one that could only be encapsulated in a phrase that kept playing on a repeating reel in the back of my mind:

"Once again, out into the alien world..."

I know that I have often referred back to Gil Kracke's breakout session from the Pensacola Mini-Conference, and for good reason, because it was simply brilliant. And Gil's presentation once again came through for me in a time of...grieving, if you will, sadness at the thought that it will be another year before I am once again in a place where I feel so at home and with people that I am so happy to call my brothers and sisters in Christ.

The term that came out of Gil's presentation and spoke to me in this moment of grief is displacement, a term which describes our state once we are regenerated in Christ. At that point we are and will be until Christ comes again in glory, displaced persons, meaning that we no longer belong where we are, which is this world in which we must live, and we're not yet where we now belong, which is with our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

And as those who are in Christ but not yet with Christ, we live out our days in an alien world and speak to it an alien language--a language of love that speaks to human suffering, indeed, a love that was born out of the ultimate suffering, a love from a loving God that is offered to every and all who will believe and accept that love. But the language of this alien world is instead a language of self-love, a love of self aggrandizement, a love that will not look beyond self to receive the ultimate love that is there but not grasped and indeed flatly rejected on so many levels.

[CONTINUE READING]

From The Onion: Average Time Spent Being Happy Drops To 13 Second Per Day

This past weekend's conference notwithstanding, this is pretty darn funny (ht PW):

BERKELEY, CA—A study published in the latest issue of the Journal Of Social Sciences revealed that the amount of time spent being happy has dropped to an all-time low of 13 nonconsecutive seconds per day. "According to our data, the average American experiences a 0.8-second window of happiness upon awakening, before remembering that they're conscious beings in a relentlessly bleak and numbing world," said Dr. Derek Moore, lead author of the paper. "Other periods of happiness include 1.9 seconds after a good meal; 0.6 seconds upon receiving a paycheck; 1.1 seconds following completion of a scientific study; and the 2.5 seconds approaching orgasm, just before the guilt sets in." Researchers also recorded the smallest period of contentment yet, a 3.7-millisecond interval preceding the realization that one was experiencing happiness and that it could not possibly last.

The 2010 Mockingbird Conference: Bringing You The Gospel

It seems like he tapped into Something

Just got another interesting note from Marcus, a nonChristian NYC friend-of-Mockingbird. He writes:

Do you know Faure's Sanctus? It was used in that movie "Paperhouse." As an atheist, when I hear it, I want to fall down on my knees and thank Christians for giving this to the world. It's the closest I get to a feeling of belief -- of what I think it must feel like to feel God's love. It's unspeakably beautiful (and he gives us an audio link to it -- SD).

Faure's other religious music is wonderful, too. But Sanctus is his masterpiece. It seems like he tapped into something.

Art and the Church: Friends, Enemies or Frenemies?

I was at a conference this week in Manchester on "Theology and the Arts," and though I am far from a specialist in the study of aesthetics, I thought it would be interesting to hear what this community thinks about the role of art in the church. This could include: painting, sculpture, music, dance, even church architecture and interior design.

Depending on one's theology, the iconoclasm of the 8th and 16th centuries could either be seen as a biblical corrective or an overzealous use of power (though they were probably a mixture of both).

One reason I raise this topic is because it seems to me that the modern church is perhaps more sympathetic to the use of imagery than ever before (for instance, note how video clips have slowly emerged as a teaching tool in Sunday worship, Bible studies and discussion groups). What is at the root of this trend?

Here are a few questions to spark the discussion among those of us who could not be at this year's Mockingbird Conference:

What are some pros/cons of the use of the visual (video, painting, statuary, etc) in the modern church?

How would you feel if your church began to press for more "artistic" forms of worship?

Does the use of art signify a theological shift vis-a-vis glory and the cross?

What might the church's stance on art imply about her relationship to the material world?

Does God forbid such imagery in the 2nd Commandment?

Final Conference Schedule

And with that, we're off! See you back here on Monday.

JUST ADDED: New Breakout Session at M.B. Conference

Millions of Unchurched Adults Are Christians Hurt by Churches

Interesting study on both the scope of the unchurched (100 million in the US) and the reasons why they don't go (Hat Tip to T19). Two quotes:

"Based on past studies of those who avoid Christian churches, one of the driving forces behind such behavior is the painful experiences endured within the local church context. In fact, one Barna study among unchurched adults shows that nearly four out of every ten non-churchgoing Americans (37%) said they avoid churches because of negative past experiences in churches or with church people."

"The solution, according to Mansfield, is forgiveness – the same forgiveness that Jesus offers to each of us who have wounded Him. Christianity, after all, is about receiving freedom through God’s forgiveness extended to us."

Also on topic, our upcoming speaker Rod Rosenblatt's piece "The Gospel For Those Broken By The Church" and our beloved and late Internet Monk's "Why we must embrace our brokenness and never be good Christians".

Grace In Addiction: What The Church Can Learn From Alcoholics Anonymous (!)

A few excerpts from the introduction to our brand-new publication, Grace in Addiction, now available for purchase at Magcloud. We are very, very excited about this:

Alcoholics Anonymous, the Twelve Steps, and the world of recovery at large represent an untapped and highly valuable resource for the Christian Church. Not only can the church learn a great deal from AA about the nature of addiction, but also about the reality of how God works in the lives of troubled people. In this sense, AA can help the church rediscover a great deal about itself, much of which has been sadly lost, at least in the majority of the church’s current mainstream expressions. Specifically, AA can recall to the Church its understanding of the human condition as intrinsically impaired, of God primarily as rescuer and of spiritual growth as a cyclical rather than linear phenomenon. AA also offers an extraordinary model for how those understandings play out on a corporate and organizational level. The aim of this article, then, is to re-establish both a basis of hope for the church and a basis for the church as hope.

The problem of addiction compels even the most convinced ideologue to re-examine his/her conception of human nature, and consequently, God. Things that seem to be true for the addict can challenge and sometimes contradict our assumptions about both subjects. Addiction presents an impasse. Its victims are countless and most treatments have little long-term impact. Alcoholics Anonymous and the Twelve Steps have been one of the only avenues of hope to develop on this dark horizon. They have brought about results in devastated lives. It is not surprising that courts and schools continue to mandate that addicts attend Twelve Step programs; their success is undeniable.

But the success of AA cannot be divorced from its core understanding of human beings and their need for God. Indeed, the Twelve Step approach is based on claims about the relationship between God and man, claims which may be implicit in Christianity but are not usually stressed in so singular a fashion.

---------------

The chief concern of Twelve Step recovery is redemption, pure and simple. The sober alcoholic who has found joyful release from alcohol epitomizes the “wretch saved by grace,” and therefore, the hope of the church. If “redeeming love is [indeed their] theme” (W. Cowper), Christians might begin to give the flourishing world of recovery more attention. It is almost as if God cut out a substantial portion of His heart in the late 1930s and hid it in church basements and community centers across the country and the world. There it continues to beat loudly and healthily, despite the buckets of bad coffee and parking lots full of cigarettes. The heart is detached from its home.

C. FitzSimons Allison's Kitten Story

 From 1962's Fear Love and Worship:

"One reason for the joy in heaven over a sinner's repentance is the unique power which comes with forgiveness. The repentant sinner, having been forgiven and having been taken back like the Prodigal Son, learns a lesson of love that the righteous do not know. On his return the Prodigal knows the power of the father's love much better than he did before he left. This curious and alarming spiritual fact, that a forgiven sinner has experienced a measure of God's love he did not know before he sinned, has upset many people...From the very beginning this fact led some to ask St. Paul, 'Then should we sin that grace may abound?' Of course not, but the alarming quality of this part of the Gospel has led the principle of forgiveness to be denied and the consequent power lost... Christ's burden is light and his yoke is easy only when we ourselves are carried by his forgiveness.

"A sergeant told a grim joke to his trainees during the Second World War, which shows the real flaw in the Pharisaic understanding of Christianity. a man stopped on a dirt road to help get another man's car our of the ditch. The latter was beginning to harness two small furry kittens to the bumper of this huge car when he was asked, 'Mister, you aren't going to try to get those kittens to pull that car out of the ditch, are you?' His reply was, 'Why not? I've got a whip.' The lash of the Law is used in similar spiritual situations. Without the principle of forgiveness our conscience acquires a quality of cruelty that makes the Gospel of Christ anything but the Good News.
 

"It is perfectly incredible how the unmistakably clear and simple fact of God's forgiveness of sinners has been so frequently denied throughout the history of Christianity. There is a story of a clergyman who had an argument with a vestryman about whether a woman of bad reputation should be made welcome in the church. Finally the minister said,'Well, didn't the Lord forgive the woman taken in adultery?' 'Yes,' replied the old gentleman,'but I don't think any more of him for having done it.' ...the resistance is always so great that every age needs to discover anew the experience and power of God's free forgiveness which is continually available to all. We can generally assume, regardless of our tradition, that we have not been adequately 'let in on' this part of the Good News."

Fitz speaks on Thursday evening at 7pm and Friday afternoon at 1:15pm at this week's Mockingbird conference in NYC. To register, go here. 

None Of Us Are Free - PZ Meets Solomon Burke

A classic quote from PZ's Grace In Practice and yet another great reason to join us later this week(!):

One of the reasons we need to embrace the fact of the un-free will is for the sake of its effect on love. A benefit of the un-free will is that it increases mercy in daily relationships and decreases judgment… Forms of Christianity that stress free will create refugees. They get into the business of judging, and especially of judging Christians… It is judgment that drives people away from Christianity. Ironically, it is judgment – the absence of it – which drew people to Christ. (pp. 108-9)

p.s. Don't take our word for it - just ask Andrew Sullivan over at The Atlantic.

Guilt, Forgiveness and Freedom - According to Morrissey

1. Guilt: "I've Changed My Plea To Guilty"

2. Forgiveness (warning: extreme Morrissey-ness): "I Have Forgiven Jesus"

3. Freedom: "You're The One For Me, Fatty"

For Guilt, Forgiveness and Freedom according to Mockingbird, look no further than Thursday! 

Rating My Life Away: Van Halen, STP and Bob Dylan's Street Legal

In 1994, Chuck Klosterman wrote an insightful and very funny piece for Spin entitled "Give Me Centrism of Give Me Death!" where he argued:

If you are the kind of person who talks about music too much, there are two words that undoubtedly play an integral role in your workaday lexicon: "overrated" and "underrated." This is because those two sentiments pop up in 90 percent of all musical discussions...

I am not interested in overrated and underrated bands. 

It's too easy, and all it means is that somebody else was wrong. I'm obsessed with bands that are rated as accurately as possible-in other words, nobody thinks they're better than they are, and nobody thinks they're worse. They have the acceptable level of popularity, they have attained the critical acclaim their artistry merits, and no one is confused about their cultural significance."

He then goes on to list the 10 most accurately rated bands, number one being Van Halen. It's worth reading; Chuck's definitely got a point, and he definitely has my number.  I'm guilty of loving the underrated and dismissing the overrated, always arguing for some album or film or book to be given more attention. Musically, I frequently find myself championing some maligned period of an otherwise highly rated artist's career: Michael Jackson in the 90s, post-Smiths' Morrissey, Stone Temple Pilots (in any period), preferring Use Your Illusion to Appetite, you get the idea.

Why? What draws a person to this material?
[CONTINUE READING]

Another Week Ends: Barbie, M. McLaren (RIP), Monoliths, MLK & Easter, MMORPG Addiction, and more...

1. Let's just jump right in: Trololo!

2. In more important news, Barbie got ordained this week. "With her careers as veterinarian, astronaut and U.S. president behind her, Barbie has at last found her true calling: as a second-career Episcopal priest."

3. Eddie S. Glaude contributed a sweet article about "Martin Luther King's Easter Message" to CNN.com (ht DG).

This view holds off the notion that life has no meaning or is doomed to end in shipwreck. The fact that so many have lost their jobs, their homes, their dreams in these difficult times confirms for us that life carries with it a 'Good Friday' experience -- that darkness and disappointment can be constant companions.

"But thank God the crucifixion was not the last act in that great and powerful drama," King preached. "There is another act. And it is something that we sing out and cry and ring out today. Thank God a day came when Good Friday had to pass."

4. Malcolm McLaren, famed manager of the Sex Pistols died this week. Whenever the question of grace and its relationship to antinomianism comes up, I always think of punk music/culture. Punk inclination seems to have much of its origins in "The Law". Along these lines, consider McLaren, who (to quote wiki) "organised a boat trip down the Thames where the Sex Pistols would perform their music outside Houses of Parliament. The boat was raided by the police and McLaren was arrested, thus achieving his goal to attain publicity."

Crazy dude! Check out his brilliant melding of afro-influences and 80s awesomeness here with "Double Dutch" (and for more, check out his noteworthy "Madame Butterfly"):
[CONTINUE READING]

Repost: Fathers, Sons, and the Reformation, Part II

"...Go forth into the world, there thou wilt learn what poverty is. But as thou hast not a bad heart, and as I mean well by thee, there is one thing I will grant thee; if thou fallest into any difficulty, come to the forest and cry, "Iron John," and then I will come and help thee. My power is great, greater than thou thinkest, and I have gold and silver in abundance."

- From the Brothers Grimm fairy tale Iron John

If there is one thing I have noticed over the years about the male gender, it is the need. There is an interesting contradiction in the masculine. On one hand, he will run up the stairs of a burning World Trade Center tower to rescue survivors, cover a live grenade with his body in order to save his friends, endure unspeakable torture in order to keep faith to his country, and defend his family's home to the death. On the other hand, a negative word from a father or respected elder will fold him like a house of cards. There is a deep, deep need in the inside of a man.

The industrial and technological revolutions of the past couple of centuries have done a lot of good in terms of material prosperity and quality of life. The ill it has done, however, is to take fathers away from their sons at critical junctures. Gone are the days of the father teaching the son about seasons of planting and harvest, the habits of the whitetail deer, and the various uses of particular timber stands. Of course, these skills are not the important thing. What is important is the amount of time spent with the son... that the son is worthy of time and effort and vitally important to the family.

The industrial and technological revolutions have placed a premium on a high level of expertise. They have also created a workplace away from the home and that leads to the father's absence for most of the day. Boys are placed in schools which are often geared toward feminine ways of learning (a good documentary to watch on this subject is Raising Cain). Frustration sets in and self-worth deteriorates. The essence of who he is seems to be obsolete and even frowned upon. He then grows up and the same pattern is repeated with his son. The need of the boy to be affirmed by an older male is acute and underestimated by society.

Sadly, the male reticence about expressing emotions is frequently assumed to be indicative of emotional hardness. Nothing could be further from the truth. A denial of blessing often leads to a quite desperate young man.

[CONTINUE READING]

Thursday Fun: Sling Bang Boom!

Repost: Fathers, Sons, and the Reformation, Part I

A little over a year ago, I posted the following series on how the theology of the Reformation addresses the relationship between fathers and sons. Since the material was taken completely from the famous (and truly pivotal and historic) talk Professor Rod Rosenbladt gave in Birmingham, AL in 2003, I thought it would be good to repost it for new eyes. It is no stretch to say that these talks in 2003 re-oriented the course of my life and the lives of many others.

In November of 2003, I was attending the Cathedral of the Advent in Birmingham, AL and just beginning to understand the Gospel and its implications. During one service, it was announced that the Rev. Dr. Rod Rosenbladt (LCMS) was flying in from California to give a seminar on how the theology of the Protestant Reformation interacts with father-son relationships. My decision to attend was a benchmark in my understanding of Jesus Christ and who He is. I could probably even trace my call to the ministry to Professor Rosenbladt’s presentation (to listen/obtain, visit New Reformation Press - the indispensible online center for all things Rosenbladt- and Reformation-related).

In this post, I wish to discuss the Reformers’ (particularly Martin Luther’s) insight into justification as it relates to masculinity and identity. Later this week, I will discuss the Reformation’s doctrine of justification as it relates to imputation and blessing. Big words that will hopefully make more sense when I'm done.

One of the most striking things Professor Rosenbladt said in his presentation was; “Masculinity is not 12 gauge. It’s .410.” For all you New Yorkers whose idea of comparison is Gucci and Prada, a .410 is a much lighter and smaller bore shotgun than the 12 gauge. Usually, small-in-stature kids who are just beginning to hunt use a .410. I, personally, use a 12 gauge for ducks and turkeys. For the purposes of our conversation, the 12 gauge makes a considerably louder “boom” than a .410.

It’s this loud “boom” in perceived forms of masculinity that manifests itself when a true father is not present. As Professor Rosenbladt quipped, the lack of a father looks like the movie Heat, i.e. Al Pacino and a bunch of .223 AR-15’s. It is a desperate exercise of inventing what a man is perceived to be; the idea that masculinity means actively creating one’s own identity. Asserting itself to the detriment of others, often violently and certainly unethically (as we have seen in the recent economic crisis). It is a mindset of fatherless men that is driven by fear. Fear of accusation, condemnation, failure, and impotency.

What breaks the chain is a driving away of this fear. You cannot be left to create your own identity in a world this big and mean. It is pure futility. You need the arm of a father around your neck. In theological language, you must passively receive your identity rather than actively create it.
[CONTINUE READING]