Music is a weird time machine. Whether it’s an entire record, a song, or even a particular melody or rhythm, music has a way of viscerally tethering me to snapshots from my past. It not only surfaces visual memories of particular places and things, but it dredges up the feeling of particular seasons of life. […]
Mama Holy's Handbag
The New York Times recently published an article about the physiological and psychological changes that happen to women when they become mothers. This reminded me of a conversation I had with my son when he was in preschool about irreversible change, when he was learning about tadpoles and caterpillars. “When you became a mommy,” he […]
The Ultimate Apocalypse
Just in time for spring, this one comes to us from our fellow survivor, Zack Verham. “Where must we go, we who wander this wasteland, in search of our better selves?” – The First History Man (Mad Max: Fury Road) “And the testimony is this, that God has given us eternal life, and this life […]
The Mercy of Heaven: A Reflection on Jürgen Moltmann's Death-Row Penpal
Here at Mbird we spend a good deal of time hemming and hawing against the myth of humanism – that we are free to shape our own destinies, unconstrained, or mostly unconstrained, by our past, circumstances, and vices – unbound, that is, to our deeply distorted wills. The facts dismantle this myth quickly: the fact that the worst […]
NOW AVAILABLE! Comfortable Words: Essays in Honor of Paul F. M. Zahl
Talk about a double whammy! As promised, here’s the second part of our PZ-centric month at Mbird. This project has been in the works for quite some time–ever since the father figure in question hit the big 6-0 in fact–and we are absolutely thrilled it is finally available! Edited with care and precision by John […]
Jurgen Moltmann on the Crucifixion of All Religion
Perhaps you were as comforted as I was to come across a rather lengthy quote from Jurgen Moltmann’s opus The Crucified God in the “Varieties of Quiet” chapter of Christian Wiman’s My Bright Abyss. We may not haven’t referenced it in far too long, but The Crucified God happens to be a Mockingbird stand-by, and […]
Breast Cancer, Napalm, and Freedom: The Fruit of Suffering
Two articles have come across my radar as of late: one from Christianity Today, “Culture Making Amid Cancer: the Choices that Suffering Makes Possible,” and the other through Yahoo News, “AP Napalm Girl Photo from Vietnam War Turns 40”. The two articles cover two vastly different topics: Cancer and the Vietnam War. However, those two […]
The Kind of Man We Do Not Want To Be: Jurgen Moltmann on the Crucified God
So my friend and I recently started a book club and for our first selection, we picked The Crucified God: The Cross of Christ as the Foundation and Criticism of Christian Theology by Jurgen Moltmann. You know, just some light summer reading, the kind you do over a pear Florentine salad and a lemonade… Anyway, […]