On Mando and Baby Yoda, Joseph and Baby Jesus
A Guide to Loving Your Conspiracy Theorist
On the Low Anthropology and Grace of Talking Across the Divide
When Your Worst Day Is Preparation Day (Mark 15:43-47)
Morning Devotional from An Easy Stroll Through a Short Gospel: Meditations on Mark
The Best Penitential Season Ever, Or, A Lenten Kinship with the Devil
On Breaking Bones and Idealized Visions of Motherhood
Grace at SantaLand: Why David Sedaris Is My Favorite Advent Reading
“Many Elves Complained Bitterly, but the Rest of Us Found Ourselves in the Moment We Had All Been Waiting For …”
Mining Netflix: “Father Brown”
What Happens When You Cross Sherlock Holmes, Pope Francis, and Arthur Weasley?
How Jesus Solves the Trolley Problem
There’s a famous thought experiment called the Trolley Problem that goes like this: imagine you are standing by a trolley track, and an out-of-control trolley car whizzes by. Looking ahead, you see that five people have been tied to the track by an evil moustache-twirling villain, and they will die if the trolley continues on […]
Get Out While You Can: A Defense of Escapism
Escapism has a bad name nowadays. It’s usually equated with those who play video games for far too long, get lost in fiction books, or never come back from their Hawaii vacation. Escapists are the ignorant who bury their head in the sand in the hopes that they won’t be devoured. In Christian circles, they are the hermetic […]
Jesus Didn’t Have a Pen
It struck me last week (not sure how, or why) that Jesus didn’t have a pen. St. Luke apparently had a pen. He had to write prescriptions. Did they have prescriptions back then? Certainly to be the “Dear and Glorious Physician” one would have to have a pen, or a quill, or a facsimile thereof. […]
Whatever It Takes: Friendship and Avenging the Fallen
This one’s for Kristin and Anna; Andy, Blake, Caleb, Chris, Jeff, Nathan, Reed, and Trevor. Some spoilers follow. “If a man should importune me to give a reason why I loved him [his friend, Etienne Boetie] I find it could no otherwise be expressed, than by making answer: because it was he, because it was […]
The Death of Control
My wife has one unrelenting addiction: “Jeopardy!” If there is time, she will watch, and if I am there, I will sit through it. In his 35 years on the syndicated nightly show, Alex Trebek has become an icon. His hushed superiority, muffled humor, and obvious judgments of the players and the game are, now, […]
Hopelessly Devoted: Mark Chapter Nine Verses Fourteen Through Twenty-Nine
This morning’s devotion, “An Honest Prayer for Faith,” was written by Larry Parsley. It’s taken from his new devotional, An Easy Stroll Through a Short Gospel: Meditations on Mark, available through Mockingbird’s online bookstore and Amazon. “‘If you can’?” said Jesus. “Everything is possible for one who believes.” Immediately the boy’s father exclaimed, “I do […]
