“God is telling me to tell you to forgive your parents.” AS EMBARRASSING as it is to admit, those words came from my mouth at age 20. The girl I was dating at the time was desperate to move out of her house, away from her physically and emotionally abusive parents. We were in a […]
Prayer Is Like Watching for the Kingfisher - Ann Lewin
Prayer is like watching for
The kingfisher. All you can do is
Be there where he is like to appear, and
Wait.
Often nothing much happens;
There is space, silence and
Expectancy.
No visible signs, only the
Knowledge that he’s been there
And may come again.
Seeing or not seeing cease to matter,
You have been prepared.
But when you’ve almost stopped
Expecting it, a flash of brightness
Gives encouragement.
On Failing French and Prayer
This one comes to us from our friend, Cort Gatliff. When my wife, Abby, and I were dating, she told me not to bother trying to marry her unless I was willing to move to France, where she could perfect her near-fluent command of the French language. Assuming this ultimatum fell into the category of […]
Mindfulness, Meditation, and Existential Panic: What Did We Think Would Happen?
This one comes to us from our friend Bob Guterma. A few weeks ago, The Guardian UK published an article called, “Is mindfulness making us ill?” From starving artists to high-powered businesspeople, from The New York Times to obscure spirituality weblogs (including Mbird’s own archives), you can find people extolling the virtues of mindfulness throughout Western […]
"Into Great Silence": Robert Bresson's Notes on the Cinematographer
This guest post comes from Mockingbird friend Michael Centore. This piece is a wonderful companion to his amazing Los Angeles Review of Books piece on the Evergetinos, which can be read here. “The great difficulty for filmmakers is precisely not to show things,” Robert Bresson once declared during an interview for French television. “Ideally, nothing […]
An Exhausted Prayer: Get Me Out of {Into} the Woods
One less-than-magical night, not so long ago, while afflicted by a monstrous spell of boredom cast upon me by the solitary confinement of the common cold, I ventured, alone, Into the Woods. Why not? I had a gift card… Honestly, as much as I jest, I wanted to see the cluster-cuss of historic fairy tales on […]
Another Week Ends: Flannery Prays, Calvin Outsells Luther, More 'Millenials'-ism, Next-Next-Gen Gaming Consoles (PSILOVU), Backfiring Discipline, Zombie Impressionism and Noah: The Movie
1. Well, we knew about Mary Flannery’s early life of training chickens to walk backward (1932); it appears that God marked O’Connor out as different from pretty early on. We remember the short stories of violent grace and brilliant essays, and we even got to read some excerpts from her year-and-a-half-long prayer journal (written while still studying for […]
Spiritual Warfare 2.0: How Prayer is Not a Video Game
Anthropologist and author T. M. Luhrmann has written a guest column for The New York Times this week called “Addicted to Prayer.” Luhrmann, who has spent time studying the American evangelical community and written a book on “the evangelical relationship with God”, discusses the benefits of any kind of prayer (including secular meditation) on health. […]
Robert Capon Rewards the Rewardable and Improves the Improvable
Psych! Another batch of Gospel bombs from Robert Farrar Capon’s Kingdom, Grace, Judgment: Paradox, Outrage, and Vindication in the Parables of Jesus, a few of which may sound familiar: “Forgive us our sins as we forgive every one who is indebted to us.” The Gospel truth is that forgiveness comes to us because God in […]
Will God Answer Hollywood's Prayers?
The following story appeared on a major news website yesterday:“Farrah Fawcett Shockingly Shaves Head, Hollywood Gathers to Pray for a Miracle. As Farrah Fawcett fights for her life, Tinseltown’s elite…gathered at the Beverly Hills Paley Center on Wednesday evening to reflect upon the starlet’s legendary life and hope for a miracle…” It makes no difference […]
Go For It?
Sometimes I think those of us who love the church the most are also faced with the need to be its harshest critics. I was more than a little crushed to see this spin on the upcoming sermon series at our church (which will remain nameless). FYI, it is a large Episcopal church with a […]
