Acts 9:18

Their captive attention was intoxicating, until one day in the middle of a heartfelt retelling of a long ago hunt, he stepped too close. The illusion shattered miserably and wholly. (From 'Unhappy Hipsters')

Death, Loneliness and Beauty - According to Charlie Chaplin (Simul Justus...)

'Will Durant, author and philosopher, was also in Hollywood lecturing at UCLA. He was an old friend and occasionally dined at our house. They were amusing evenings. Will, an enthusiast who needed no stimulant to intoxicate himself but life itself, once asked me: "What is your conception of beauty?" I said I thought it was an omnipresence of death and loveliness, a smiling sadness that we discern in nature and all things, a mystic communion that the poet feels--an expression of it can be a dustbin with a shaft of sunlight across it, or it can be a rose in the gutter. El Greco saw it in our Saviour on the Cross.'

(Charlie Chaplin, My Autobiography. pp 458-9)

Sharing the Good News?

Jesus and the Myth of the Super-Christian

From Craig Barnes' must-read The Pastor As Minor Poet:

We do not peddle images of the super-Christian and tell our parishioners to try harder to attain this goal. That's just another false image. And it will also leave us only with more judgment by tossing the not-good-enough Christian onto our heap of failures....So, with poetic irony, pastors help people to change not by talking about them, but by talking about the God revealed in Christ. As an irritated woman once said to me at the door following worship, 'Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. Is that all you know?' Had I been thinking clearly at the time, I would have said, 'It's all I know that can be of help to you.'

Rather than using the few reflective listening skills we learned in our Introduction to Pastoral Care seminary classes, which is only another way of holding up the judgmental mirror, we pastors need to hold up Jesus Christ. 'See him?' we say. 'That's who you really are. Everything else about you is just pretending.'

Mama said there'd be days like this...

The orange chair’s smugness had so intensified, Walter thought it best to wait in the yard.

(From 'Unhappy Hipsters')

Hezekiah 3:16

Just like the one Jesus had...

A photo in need of a caption...

Tryin' To Get Down To The Heart Of The Matter...

According to a recent survey, more Americans desire forgiveness in their lives than are willing to forgive others. The details are unsurprising, but interesting. Many of the hold-outs suggested that those who commit violent or sexual crimes are unforgivable, and a whopping 60% said 'forgiving someone would first depend on the offender apologizing and making changes'.

In addition, the majority of Americans polled said they 'sought the advice of friends and family rather than religious leaders when grappling with issues of forgiveness', 25% said they 'did not know where to go for help with spiritual needs', while a third of respondents 'struggle with spirituality'.

These results are, in fact, much too conservative. My feeling is that the true numbers ought to be about 100% in every case. Almost nobody knows what in the world is going on (existentially speaking), including myself; and our true selves emerge spontaneously, not after we have a moment to mull over the best answer to the pollster's question. So the margin of error in polls like these is influenced less by the sample size (in this case, N=1000...where my stats nerds at?), and more by the respondent's desire to respond as the idealized self. The reality, of course, is that the numbers would have been the same had the poll been conducted within the church. Thank goodness that Christ was pro-active in His forgiveness, even calling out from the cross on behalf of his murderers, 'Father, forgive them!' Yes, and forgive us too.

Mockingbird: We won't leave you behind.

When I saw it, I fell on my face, and I heard the voice of someone speaking. (Ezekiel 1:28b)

The unbearable lightness of upgrades...

And I saw that all labor and all achievement spring from man's envy of his neighbor. This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind. (Ecclesiastes 4:4)

Excerpt from 'Poem On His Birthday'

Yet, though I cry with tumbledown tongue

Count my blessings aloud:

Four elements and five

Senses, and man a spirit in love

Thangling through this spun slime

To his nimbus bell cool kingdom come

And the lost, moonshine domes,

And the sea that hides his secret selves

Deep in its black, base bones,

Lulling of spheres in the seashell flesh,

And this last blessing most,

That the closer I move

To death, one man through his sundered hulks,

The louder the sun blooms

And the tusked, ramshackling sea exults;

And every wave of the way

And gale I tackle, the whole world then,

With more triumphant faith

That ever was since the world was said,

Spins its morning of praise,

I hear the bouncing hills

Grow larked and greener at berry brown

Fall and the dew larks sing

Taller this thunderclap spring, and how

More spanned with angles ride

The mansouled fiery islands! Oh,

Holier then their eyes,

And my shining men no more alone

As I sail out to die

--Dylan Thomas

Best.Monologue.Ever.

Clever, funny, and slightly NSFW-ish subtitles (so you know it's good)...

'Out of the mouth of babes...' (Ps 8:2)

Recently declassified Mockingbird recruitment video

This pretty much sums up everything we've been trying to say all along...

'Come up to us and we'll teach you a lesson.' (1Sam 14:12)

Did you hear the one about the pastor and the strippers?

It goes without saying that there are HUGE missiological implications here (mostly, how NOT to treat people).

Sad news....

Anne Rice

Like

Anne Rice As I said below, I quit being a Christian. I'm out. In the name of Christ, I refuse to be anti-gay. I refuse to be anti-feminist. I refuse to be anti-artificial birth control. I refuse to be anti-Democrat. I refuse to be anti-secular humanism. I refuse to be anti-science. I refuse to be anti-life. In the name of Christ, I quit Christianity and being Christian. Amen. ...

See More

Yesterday at 6:41pm

Anne Rice For those who care, and I understand if you don't: Today I quit being a Christian. I'm out. I remain committed to Christ as always but not to being "Christian" or to being part of Christianity. It's simply impossible for me to "belong" to this quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious, and deservedly infamous group. For ten years, I've tried. I've failed. I'm an outsider. My conscience will allow nothing else.

Yesterday at 6:36pm

I want to go to there...

We, however, will not boast beyond limits, but will keep within the field that God has assigned to us, to reach out even as far as you. (2 Corinthians 10.13)

The Sad Song

Fredo Viola claims not to be a religious man, but 'The Sad Song' certainly strikes a chord with me on a spiritual level. I do not think it is entirely possible to decipher the cryptic lyrics which take a backseat to the aching melodies, but Viola's lamentation seems to express his deep longing to honor his recently departed father.

Baby Harry
Baby Harry
Baby Harry
Be good, be good

And go gently
and follow the Lord
He's falling over...

Here is Fredo's description of how the song emerged:

In March my family found out that my father had cancer, and we spent the following month and a half by his side at the hospital, where he died. I had not been doing any music for probably a month after he died and I had really buried my emotions. When I returned to my studio I decided to finish the track. It was amazing, the melody acted like those floatation devices used to bring heavy sunken objects up from the bottom of the ocean, and up came my emotions.

Also see Rod Rosenbladt's 'When Good Fathers Die, It's Always Too Early', and while you're at it, check out Fredo Viola's website. It rests upon a terrifically original concept, but I don't want to spoil it for you.

Not exactly...

Meet your new overlords, people.

"Beware of the teachers of the law. They like to walk around in flowing robes and love to be greeted in the marketplaces and have the most important seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at banquets." (Luke 20:46)