Every summer our family faces a conundrum. A petty one, to be sure, but it comes up more and more as our kids get older. I’m referring to the swim team question. Usually when a fellow pool-goer asks if we’re joining up, a simple “Nope, not this year” suffices. If pushed, I’ll mumble something about […]
Alchemy in Grief
One of the recurring emotions families experience in the midst of grief is guilt. They feel guilty about “things done or left undone.” They feel guilty about still being alive. When my dad’s mother was dying of pancreatic cancer, he was just a teenager. He once told me how he avoided her room during the […]
Fr. Walter Ciszek Did Not Mind Talking About Himself
“The man who is truly humble and very close to God does not mind talking about himself. And so I’m going to talk about myself.” – Fr. Walter Ciszek, S.J.[1] The speaker of the above words survived twenty-three years in the Soviet Gulag. He was tortured, sentenced to fifteen years of heavy labor, and all […]
Simba’s Amnesia
This one comes to us from Blake Nail. Nostalgia bleeds through the screen as The Lion King remake plays before me. The CGI is astounding and the story still holds strong. For many, it’s a remembrance of their childhood. A flashback to simpler times. A time forgotten. However, through Simba’s eyes, something else has been […]
Anhedonia and Men Without Chests: The Timeless Grace of Good Memories
It has now been over 23 years since Wallace penned the inimitable words: “Sentiment equals naïveté on this continent [and] cynicism and naïveté are mutually exclusive.” He explained, “What passes for hip cynical transcendence of sentiment is really some kind of fear of being really human, since to be really human (at least as conceptualized) […]
Right: An Unspoken Sermon
This one comes to us from Alan Jacobs. Anthony Trollope’s novel He Knew He Was Right is, like Shakespeare’s Othello, a story of jealousy. But not really. Its true subject is something far worse, and far more common, than jealousy. And if we understand the real point of the story, we’ll understand something about Christian […]
Death by Numbers
Sometimes numbers can seem inescapable. We don’t have to talk bills, debt, or taxes to understand that much of our lives are metrics-fixated: think performance reviews, social media followers, baseball stats, political polls, the number of unread emails or text messages you have (or don’t have) waiting to be opened. Then there are more personal […]
Are Friends Electric? And Is Grace Digital?
This one’s especially for Andy, Anna, Blake, Caleb, Chris, Jeff, Kristin, Nathan, Reed, and Trevor. It seems like a hilariously ironic turn of Providence that I who have been so deeply suspicious of connectivity through electronic media and its pernicious (albeit often unintended) consequences should find the friends I am most in touch with, most […]
I Feel Personally Attacked RN – Sarah Condon
Laugh and cry with this talk featuring the Rev Sarah Condon, from our “Beyond Deserving” conference this past spring. Here Sarah opens up about the cost of performance, a long-lost relative, a recurring neck injury, Shavasana (or, “corpse pose”), and the faith of Christ.
I Feel Personally Attacked RN – Sarah Condon from Mockingbird on Vimeo.
The Failure to Find a Soulmate
As a single person, the marriage grass often looks so lush and green and inviting. If I can find a The One who’s willing to put up with me “til death do us part,” then all of my problems will be solved, and we’ll live happily ever after, right? But then I get a phone […]
A Bachelorette Treatise on Sin
What could possibly go wrong when you throw together a beautiful woman, a couple dozen handsome men, a dash of love, and a sprinkle of Christianity?! Well, on Monday night, Bachelor Nation found out as we witnessed the long-anticipated showdown between Bachelorette Hannah and contestant Luke P.—one that certainly will go down in franchise history. […]
When God Makes All Things Nude: Gospel Hope for Marriage When It’s Not All Princess Bride – Charlotte Getz
Mawage. Mawage is wat bwings us together today… From our recent conference in New York City, this honest, moving talk features author and editor Charlotte Getz. Topics include: longing within marriage, Leo DiCaprio, The Harrowing Adventures of Charlotte Botsford, imperfect guideposts to God, and that bwessed awwangement, that dweam wifin a dweam…
When God Makes All Things Nude: Gospel Hope for Marriage When It’s Not All Princess Bride – Charlotte Getz from Mockingbird on Vimeo.
