My seed orders arrived right before the plague season got into full swing. Attempts at follow-up orders started running into issues. I decided to ask the only person I know to have created space lettuce, Frank Morton of Wild Garden Seeds, what it’s like running a seed company during the plague. We’ve heard from Frank […]
On the shortness and uncertainty of life
“O God, whose days are without end, and whose mercies cannot be numbered: Make us, we pray, deeply aware of the shortness and uncertainty of human life…” (Book of Common Prayer, pg. 504)
There are no good words for
our collective destination. Apart
from tragic, untimely, too soon.
The wound at the heart of the world.
Another angel added; a road well walked.
Words won’t do now, not for this.
The living bear all the grief of those who
were and are and will one day die.
Our plans, kingdoms, minds fall flat
before the period at the end of each line.
We don’t hold the pen, our days will end.
Where then is mercy? Whither hope?
In the beginning was the Word
and the Word wept
for the world, for you, for untimely,
and too soon. The Word weeps still
with sea-born tears that wash over
again, again with each new sentence end.
The mercy is presence not relief.
Hope is a face, two hands, scarred feet.
A quiet stand at the doorway and entry in
to a place where to end is only to begin.
The Weight of Advent: Speak What You Feel, Not What You Ought to Say
As Black Friday reaches further back in time each year, so as to even colonize the twilight hours of Thanksgiving Day, we in North America are no strangers to the porousness of time. Commercial interests can collapse chronology such that two times can overlap in a way purely linear calendar time can’t countenance; we can […]
Hopelessly Devoted: The Conviction of Things Not Seen (Hebrews Chapter Eleven Verse One)
This morning’s devotion was written by David Zahl for The Mockingbird Devotional. Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. (Hebrews 11:1, NASB) When you look at your career, your marriage, your health—do you spend more time thinking about what you don’t have than what you do? Even […]
Living in Denial in Victory
If you read enough popular Christian books, listen to enough Christian sermons, radio shows, or podcasts, you could reasonably get the idea that Christians are like the Black Knight in Monty Python and The Holy Grail. With cries of, “I’m invincible!” the Knight continues to fight, even after King Arthur has relieved him of all of […]
In This Hope We Rebel: Rogue One, An Advent Story
Everybody!! Rogue One: A Star Wars Story delivers magnificently on the promise Star Wars fans have known still lurked within the franchise but struggled to manifest over the last seventeen years of films. Yes, I’m hyperventilating a little–but so will you. Rogue One is so excellent it would be easy to drown the internet in superlatives […]
Doctor Who, Vincent van Gogh, and the Limits of Future Hope
With the recent wave of BBC programs appearing on PBS (Downton Abbey, The Hour, Mr. Bean) it’s somewhat surprising that the 49 year old mainstay Doctor Who hasn’t enjoyed the same popularity. With time travel, aliens, and revisiting historical events, what’s not to like? Either way, this is a major oversight. But I digress… a […]
PZ’s Podcast: Horror Hotel, Les Elucubrations de PZ, Over the River I&II, and “Hoping Without Hope” Conf Preview
Episode 117: Horror Hotel Guess I’ve learned something new, or at least new to me, from an old and beloved source. That source is a tight little expressionist movie from 1960 entitled Horror Hotel. It featured Christopher Lee and Patricia Jessel, and was written by George Baxt. Horror Hotel, which was made in England about […]
Espera: Hope on a High Floor
This post comes from Mockingbird friend and jazz fan Morris Middleton. As a jazz pianist I’m always on the lookout for a beautiful song, and in Esperanza Spalding’s haunting song, Espera, I found one. But in it I heard something even more haunting. The human cry for help. The word espera derives from the Spanish, […]
The Willingness to Entrust Our Lives to Time: Glenn Tinder Defines Hope
From the political philosopher’s essay “The Fabric of Hope”, a passage which featured prominently in Matthew Sitman’s talk at our 2012 Fall Conference in Charlottesville, “The Wound and the Gift” (embedded at the bottom): “The commonplace that no civilization can last forever contains an essential truth: time is the enemy of civilization. And in the […]
"Are You there Jesus? It’s Me, Woman.": The Fall, The Hope, and The Glimpse
This is part “two” in a four part series. For the introduction to the series and the first installment on creation, click here and here click, respectively. The Fall. The fall disturbed humanity’s relationship to God, thus, the relationships between humanity and nature, and man and woman were also disturbed. In Gen. 3:16 we read, […]
