Mockingbird

Oscar Watch: Law, Love, and Cuba

Ethan — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 16:00:12 +0000

A Sermon for Ash Wednesday

Nick Lannon — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 13:30:29 +0000

“Store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:20-21).

Let us pray. Dear God in Heaven, we ask you to join us here, and we trust that you are here with us. May my words be your words, and all of our thoughts, your thoughts. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.

Today, we gather together for a unique purpose. Unlike any other service in the course of the year, unlike any Bible study, any prayer group, any fellowship dinner…today we come together to intentionally disobey the Bible. Worse, we’re going to intentionally disobey Jesus Christ’s specific instructions! Toward the end of this service, I’ll invite you to come forward to receive the imposition of ashes. I’ll make a mark on your forehead, and then you’ll go to work. Everyone will know where you’ve been. They might not know what particular kind of church you’ve been to, but they will definitely know something about your spiritual life…your life of faith. So listen again to Jesus’ words: “Be careful not to do your ‘acts of righteousness’ before men, to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven… But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you” (Matthew 6:1-4). So exactly what are we doing here?

This service, this tradition, is one of the most misunderstood things we do. The real imagery, the real significance (which, by the way, is profound) has been lost in the unthinking tradition of coming to church and getting the ashes. It’s so easy to think of the ashes as a sign of faith. It’s like wearing a cross necklace or a “What Would Jesus Do?” bracelet: a way to let people know you’re a Christian without having to get into an uncomfortably personal conversation. But Jesus seems to be adamantly opposed to this sort of thing! He says that we shouldn’t even let other people see us when we pray (Matthew 6:5-6)! In his most stirring image, Jesus says that when we’re feeding the poor, we should do it in such a way that our left hand doesn’t know what our right hand is doing (Matthew 6:3). What he’s getting at is that our good deeds should be done so unconsciously, with so little concern about being seen by others, that it’s as though our other hand doesn’t know what’s going on! Do any of you have a friend (I know that you yourselves aren’t like this…) who can’t resist bringing up some certain thing about themselves? Like their SAT scores, or the time they hiked Kilamanjaro, or the fact that Billy Joel stole the melody for “Piano Man” from them? I’m one of those people…remind me to tell you about my SAT scores sometime. It’s very difficult for us to disconnect from the desire to have our good deeds appreciated. And ultimately, that’s what Ash Wednesday is really all about.

Far from being an opportunity for us to show everyone at the office that we’ve been to church today, the symbolism of the ashes…you know, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return?”…is to remind us, all day today and throughout Lent, that we are human. Human League sings a wonderful song, called “Human,” which includes the lines, “I’m only human/Of flesh and blood I’m made/Human/Born to make mistakes.” It’s strange to have such profound words coming from a British synth-pop group from 1986, but they’ve really put their finger on it. To be human is to be in need. To be less than you feel you could be. When was the last time you did something wonderful and said, “Well, I am human.” Never! Not once! We say, “I’m only human” to apologize for our shortcomings. So, on Ash Wednesday, we place a mark on our heads, not to call attention to how great we are, but as an admission of weakness…of shortcoming…of humanity. It’s less a diamond ring and more a scarlet letter. But Ash Wednesday and Lent don’t need to be depressing times! It’s not a 40-day grind until we can eat chocolate and watch Desperate Housewives again. Remember something else Jesus said: When the Pharisees were bothered that he was eating with the tax collectors and the sinners (the humans!), Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

Wow! And that’s really it. Here, on Ash Wednesday, we get the whole story in a little package. First, the bad news: We’re human. We’re not all we could be. Our left hand always knows what our right hand is doing. We hold ourselves prisoner to what other people think of us. But then the Good News. And that’s with a capital “g” and “n.” The Good News, the Gospel itself: Jesus came for sinners! He came for humans! He came…for us.

So today, as we take the ashes onto our foreheads, let us enter Lent with these two truths at the front of our minds: We are human. We are in need. But Jesus is the Christ. He comes to meet needs. The Good News overpowers the bad news and humans, you and me, are saved. Amen.

A Quick Dinosaur Comics

David Zahl — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 20:30:09 +0000

ht JD

Targeted Shopping Habits and Preemptive Diaper Ads

David Zahl — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 17:58:20 +0000

Yikes! The NY Times ran a lengthy piece by Charles Duhigg this past weekend about absurdly precise, borderline Big Brother market research techniques that companies like Target (pun sort of intended…sigh) are pioneering to capture our dollars. The article doubles as an overview of recent breakthroughs in the study of habit formation, and it’s disconcerting on a number of levels.

For our purposes, the main ‘takeaway’ isn’t exactly news: we are all creatures of enormous habit, much of which is unconscious, and regardless of how autonomously we like to think of ourselves, it is our painful predictability that unites us – at least according to the alarming amount of data being collected every time we swipe our credit cards. (In fact, if the Target ads themselves are to be taken at face value, one of our most ironically bankable traits is our collective obsession with individuality.) Also, when we kick a certain habit, it’s almost always by exchanging it for a different habit, rather abandoning habit altogether – even when we are aware of our habit-forming process/inclination. That is, we may change crayons but we still have to color within the lines of human limitations/bondage (and the this-for-that Law-based system of punishment and reward). Moreover, significant changes in behavior are rarely a result of conscious decision-making or willpower – they tend to coincide with major events in our lives, such as the birth of a child or a divorce. Such interruptions in circumstance change us, rather than the other way around.

Some might say this is simply more grist for the cynicism mill, especially as it relates to the more dehumanizing and invasive elements of Madison Ave. And they wouldn’t be wrong, as far as it goes. But a Christian might see it as further confirmation that we are the object of life’s ups and downs, rather than their subject, that perhaps it’s no coincidence that the Good News addresses those who can’t/don’t bring anything ‘to the table,’ and for whom Hope must take an external form if it’s to be of any lasting comfort. The Gospel addresses reality, in other words – thank God. In this light, upheavals take on a more hopeful aspect, do they not? Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to figure out a new brand of baby wipes, STAT:

Andrew Pole had just started working as a statistician for Target in 2002, when two colleagues from the marketing department stopped by his desk to ask an odd question: “If we wanted to figure out if a customer is pregnant, even if she didn’t want us to know, can you do that? ”
Almost every major retailer, from grocery chains to investment banks to the U.S. Postal Service, has a “predictive analytics” department devoted to understanding not just consumers’ shopping habits but also their personal habits, so as to more efficiently market to them. “But Target has always been one of the smartest at this,” says Eric Siegel, a consultant and the chairman of a conference called Predictive Analytics World. “We’re living through a golden age of behavioral research. It’s amazing how much we can figure out about how people think now.”
As the ability to analyze data has grown more and more fine-grained, the push to understand how daily habits influence our decisions has become one of the most exciting topics in clinical research, even though most of us are hardly aware those patterns exist. One study from Duke University estimated that habits, rather than conscious decision-making, shape 45 percent of the choices we make every day, and recent discoveries have begun to change everything from the way we think about dieting to how doctors conceive treatments for anxiety, depression and addictions… For companies like Target, the exhaustive rendering of our conscious and unconscious patterns into data sets and algorithms has revolutionized what they know about us and, therefore, how precisely they can sell.
The process within our brains that creates habits is a three-step loop. First, there is a cue, a trigger that tells your brain to go into automatic mode and which habit to use. Then there is the routine, which can be physical or mental or emotional. Finally, there is a reward, which helps your brain ﬁgure out if this particular loop is worth remembering for the future. Over time, this loop — cue, routine, reward; cue, routine, reward — becomes more and more automatic. The cue and reward become neurologically intertwined until a sense of craving emerges. What’s unique about cues and rewards, however, is how subtle they can be. Neurological studies like the ones in Graybiel’s lab have revealed that some cues span just milliseconds. And rewards can range from the obvious (like the sugar rush that a morning doughnut habit provides) to the infinitesimal (like the barely noticeable — but measurable — sense of relief the brain experiences after successfully navigating the driveway). Most cues and rewards, in fact, happen so quickly and are so slight that we are hardly aware of them at all. But our neural systems notice and use them to build automatic behaviors.
Habits aren’t destiny — they can be ignored, changed or replaced. But it’s also true that once the loop is established and a habit emerges, your brain stops fully participating in decision-making. So unless you deliberately ﬁght a habit — unless you ﬁnd new cues and rewards — the old pattern will unfold automatically.
“We’ve done experiments where we trained rats to run down a maze until it was a habit, and then we extinguished the habit by changing the placement of the reward,” Graybiel told me. “Then one day, we’ll put the reward in the old place and put in the rat and, by golly, the old habit will re-emerge right away. Habits never really disappear.”
Our relationship to e-mail operates on the same principle. When a computer chimes or a smartphone vibrates with a new message, the brain starts anticipating the neurological “pleasure” (even if we don’t recognize it as such) that clicking on the e-mail and reading it provides. That expectation, if unsatisfied, can build until you find yourself moved to distraction by the thought of an e-mail sitting there unread — even if you know, rationally, it’s most likely not important. On the other hand, once you remove the cue by disabling the buzzing of your phone or the chiming of your computer, the craving is never triggered, and you’ll find, over time, that you’re able to work productively for long stretches without checking your in-box.
When some customers were going through a major life event, like graduating from college or getting a new job or moving to a new town, their shopping habits became flexible in ways that were both predictable and potential gold mines for retailers. The study found that when someone marries, he or she is more likely to start buying a new type of coffee. When a couple move into a new house, they’re more apt to purchase a different kind of cereal. When they divorce, there’s an increased chance they’ll start buying different brands of beer.
Consumers going through major life events often don’t notice, or care, that their shopping habits have shifted, but retailers notice, and they care quite a bit. At those unique moments, Andreasen wrote, customers are “vulnerable to intervention by marketers.” In other words, a precisely timed advertisement, sent to a recent divorcee or new homebuyer, can change someone’s shopping patterns for years.
And among life events, none are more important than the arrival of a baby. At that moment, new parents’ habits are more flexible than at almost any other time in their adult lives. If companies can identify pregnant shoppers, they can earn millions.
About a year after [market researcher Andrew] Pole created his pregnancy-prediction model, a man walked into a Target outside Minneapolis and demanded to see the manager. He was clutching coupons that had been sent to his daughter, and he was angry, according to an employee who participated in the conversation.
“My daughter got this in the mail!” he said. “She’s still in high school, and you’re sending her coupons for baby clothes and cribs? Are you trying to encourage her to get pregnant?”
The manager didn’t have any idea what the man was talking about. He looked at the mailer. Sure enough, it was addressed to the man’s daughter and contained advertisements for maternity clothing, nursery furniture and pictures of smiling infants. The manager apologized and then called a few days later to apologize again.
On the phone, though, the father was somewhat abashed. “I had a talk with my daughter,” he said. “It turns out there’s been some activities in my house I haven’t been completely aware of. She’s due in August. I owe you an apology.”

Using data to predict a woman’s pregnancy, Target realized soon after Pole perfected his model, could be a public-relations disaster. So the question became: how could they get their advertisements into expectant mothers’ hands without making it appear they were spying on them? How do you take advantage of someone’s habits without letting them know you’re studying their lives?
…for pregnant women, Target’s goal was selling them baby items they didn’t even know they needed yet. “With the pregnancy products, though, we learned that some women react badly,” the executive said. “Then we started mixing in all these ads for things we knew pregnant women would never buy, so the baby ads looked random. We’d put an ad for a lawn mower next to diapers. We’d put a coupon for wineglasses next to infant clothes. That way, it looked like all the products were chosen by chance.
“And we found out that as long as a pregnant woman thinks she hasn’t been spied on, she’ll use the coupons. She just assumes that everyone else on her block got the same mailer for diapers and cribs. As long as we don’t spook her, it works.”
In other words, if Target piggybacked on existing habits — the same cues and rewards they already knew got customers to buy cleaning supplies or socks — then they could insert a new routine: buying baby products, as well. There’s a cue (“Oh, a coupon for something I need!”) a routine (“Buy! Buy! Buy!”) and a reward (“I can take that off my list”). And once the shopper is inside the store, Target will hit her with cues and rewards to entice her to purchase everything she normally buys somewhere else. As long as Target camouflaged how much it knew, as long as the habit felt familiar, the new behavior took hold.

Emily Dickinson – Poem 508

Ethan — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 15:45:31 +0000

A Pit–but Heaven over it–
And Heaven beside, and Heaven abroad;
And yet a Pit–
With Heaven over it.

To stir would be to slip–
To look would be to drop–
To dream–to sap the Prop
That holds my chances up.
Ah! Pit! With Heaven over it!

The depth is all my thought–
I dare not ask my feet–
‘Twould start us where we sit
So straight you’d scarce suspect
It was a Pit–with fathoms under it
It’s Circuit just the same
Whose Doom to whom
‘Twould start them–
We–could tremble–
But since we got a Bomb–
And held it in our Bosom–
Nay–Hold it–it is calm–

2012 NYC CONFERENCE: BREAKOUTS, DISCOUNTS AND SCHEDULE

Mockingbird — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 20:23:14 +0000

The full schedule for our Spring Conference is now up on the conference site! We could not be more excited about how the breakout sessions have come together – we’ve even added a third slate this year. In fact, we’re so excited that we’ve decided to cut the pre-registration fee for those who register online between now and March 20th. Simply select the “All-Inclusive Early Bird rate” which costs the same as the student one – $100/person or $150/couple – and includes meals. We will be getting in touch with those who are already registered to see if they would like to take advantage retrospectively. Again, this offer will expire on March 20th and only applies to web registrations. What are you waiting for?

Morning Breakout Sessions – 10:45am-12:00pm

Grace in (Sexual) Addiction: Honesty and Freedom in a Cyber-Connected World – Jay Haug
Mockingbird at the Movies: Hollywood’s Love Affair with Love – Nick Lannon
These Pretzels Are Making Me Thirsty: Human Nature, Humor and Seinfeld – David Zahl
This American Gospel: Public Radio Parables and the Honesty of God – Ethan Richardson

Afternoon Breakout Sessions I – 2:30-3:30pm

Disarming Parenthood: Love and Forgiveness with Young Children – Melina Smith
How Did You Find Me Here? Fear and Rescue in American Music – Ethan Richardson
Light When All Is Dark: Depression, Mental Illness, and Christian Hope – Kathryn Greene McCreight
What Would Don Draper Do (to Eric Taylor)? Downward Mobility and Grace in Mad Men and Friday Night Lights – RJ Heijmen

Afternoon Breakout Sessions II – 3:30-4:30pm

The Future of the Gospel: A Theological Discussion with Michael Horton – Jady Koch
Grace in (Sexual) Addiction, Take 2: Honesty and Freedom in a Cyber-Connected World – Jay Haug
Poetry Reading (title TBA) – Brad Davis

In addition, we are finalizing the details of a PZ’s Podcast reception (with the Man Himself), which will likely take place on Friday evening. Bios and previews coming soon.

GIDDY UP!

W.H. Auden on Accidental Love and the Difference Between Pardon and Forgiveness

David Zahl — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 17:26:40 +0000

From the great poet’s essay “The Prince’s Dog,” which can be found his invaluable collection, The Dyer’s Hand. Wystan is reflecting on Shakespeare’s “Measure for Measure,” specifically in reference to Angelo (who is forgiven by Isabella but pardoned by the Duke). Of course, the insights transcend their context:

The one who forgives must be in a position to do something for the other which, if he were not forgiving, he would not do. This means that my enemy must be at my mercy; but, to the spirit of charity, it is irrelevant whether I am at my enemy’s mercy or he is at mine. So long as he is at my mercy, forgiveness is indistinguishable from judicial pardon.
The Law cannot forgive, for the law has not been wronged, only broken; only persons can be wronged. The law can pardon, but it can only pardon what it has the power to punish. If the lawbreaker is stronger than the legal authorities, they are powerless to do either. The decision to grant or refuse pardon must be governed by prudent calculation–if the wrongdoer is pardoned, he will behave better in the future than if he were punished, etc. But charity is forbidden to calculate this way: I am required to forgive my enemy whatever the effect on him may be.
Justice is able to pardon what love is commanded to forgive. But to love, it is an accident that the power of temporal justice should be on its side; indeed, the Gospels assure us that, sooner or later, they will find themselves in opposition and that love must suffer at the hands of justice.

Tyler Perry on the Grace that Carried Whitney Houston Home

David Zahl — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 15:08:39 +0000

What beautiful, beautiful 4 minutes. Can I get a Hallelujer?

PZ’s Podcast 95-97: Bedknobs and Broomsticks, Strack-Billerbeck, and Surprise (Symphony)

Mockingbird — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 13:30:23 +0000

Episode 95: Bedknobs and Broomsticks

But this cast is really about causes and activisms.

The problem with attaching your personal cry for reparation and “just desserts” to larger symbolic passions and concerns is that when you’ve finally righted the wrong, and leveled the playing field, you can still find yourself unsatisfied. “Yes, we won. (Thank God.) Then why do I feel so bad?” The reason may be that you short-circuited the inward healing you needed in favor of a conceptual healing you didn’t.

John Sturges, the director of The Magnificent Seven, said that the problem with filming the novel By Love Possessed was that the book was “eighty per cent introspection”. He found it impossible to put the introspection on the screen.

The problem with causes and activisms is that you don’t get the introspection (of you) “on the screen”. (In the case of By Love Possessed, it fell to the movie’s musical composer, Elmer Bernstein, to capture the real theme of the story. I think he came close to doing it.)

Another problem with seeking self-transcendence and self-healing in passionate outward involvement, is that it can get hooked to passionate anger. It’s a “true fact” that anger does as much wounding to the subject as it can do to the object.

Finally, causes and activisms tend to fly away, out into the realm of indifference and almost amnesia, when you get sick! Kerouac commented on this in Big Sur. A German theologian friend of mine met this in the hospital recently. I encountered it myself, in myself, a few years ago, when I got sick. (Surgery cured the complaint.) Video killed the radio star.

Just like the fun scene in Mary Poppins, when the tea party up on the ceiling has to finally come back down on the ground, working out one’s inward problems on the field of battle outside, generally ends in a big long drop, down to earth. You’re sadder but wiser.

Episode 96: Strack-Billerbeck

Interesting feedback is now coming forward over at PZsPodcast@gmail.com. Some would like a more sermonic approach — more of the “old Paul”, perhaps. Others are requesting some interesting new subjects for future podcasts, such as Uncle Tom’s Cabin or the case of Paul Billerbeck, the German Lutheran New Testament scholar of Jewish background. Each of these possible subjects relates to grace in practice.

This podcast looks at one’s choice of theme, or material. Are giant-crab movies too lame for talks like this? (Lame they are not: they walk on four legs, with pincers.) Or, how many French movies can you actually come up with to talk about? Can good preaching really be compared with The Invisible Man Returns?

Well, it’s not that the message has changed, but maybe the bearer of it has, a little. That’s bound to affect things, and maybe for the good. Or maybe not.

This podcast ends up talking about Claude Berri, a wonderful man, who understood a lot. Listen to him!

Episode 97: Surprise (Symphony)

Something came over PZ today, like a Portuguese man of war, and he had to shout (out). It was a thought or two on creation, on expression, on the nuts and bolts of communicating personally.

Something’s so exuberant and real in Jacques Demy’s movie Lola — the scene when ‘Cecile’ and ‘Franky go to the fair. There’s nothing quite like that scene for pure joy. Teenaged ‘Cecile’ finds out the meaning of life, tho’ she’s too young to put it into words. (In fact, she can’t put it into words, and therein lies a coming sadness for her mother.) Lola, in that single scene at the fair, communicates the nature of life.

This podcast is about ego-less communication. You are not needing to be heard, you are not needing to be recognized, you are not needing to reach anyone, you are not needing to affect anyone. Oddly, you’re able to reach everyone when you don’t need to reach anyone.

Lola is a meditation, without words, on what theologians call the “passive righteousness”. If only I could do this with my own attempts to speak.

‘Journey’ did this, by the way.

Another Week Ends: More Linsanity, IMonk Grace, TechnoSabbaths, Defending Nic Cage, DFW on Corrosive Illusions, Cougarton Abbey and GNR Rumors

David Zahl — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 19:26:51 +0000

1. Just in case you haven’t overdosed on Linsanity yet, David Brooks offers a sympathetic big-picture perspective in his column in The NY Times, highlighting how the culture of achievement and glory in professional sports conflicts with ethical framework espoused by most of the major religious traditions. Some will certainly say that Brooks going overboard, but I’m not so sure. Of course, there are plenty of valid, non-religious ways to rationalize competition, but attempts to do so on the basis of Christianity have always struck this blogger as particularly unconvincing, ht TB:

The moral ethos of sport is in tension with the moral ethos of faith, whether Jewish, Christian or Muslim… The moral universe of modern sport is oriented around victory and supremacy. The sports hero tries to perform great deeds in order to win glory and fame. It doesn’t really matter whether he has good intentions. His job is to beat his opponents and avoid the oblivion that goes with defeat….
But there’s no use denying — though many do deny it — that this ethos violates the religious ethos on many levels. The religious ethos is about redemption, self-abnegation and surrender to God…
Ascent in the sports universe is a straight shot. You set your goal, and you climb toward greatness. But ascent in the religious universe often proceeds by a series of inversions: You have to be willing to lose yourself in order to find yourself; to gain everything you have to be willing to give up everything; the last shall be first; it’s not about you.

2. Our friends over at Internet Monk have been hosting a Grace Week, and man, they’re not kidding around! If you’ve never read Michael Spencer’s “Our Problem with Grace” do yourself a favor. There’s also a great interview with Steve Brown about “free sins” and a review of Mark Galli’s Chaos and Grace, which will sound very familiar to those who were at last year’s Mbird Conference in NYC. And if you’re in need of a soul-stirring meditation for the weekend, try Chaplain Mike’s Getting Better Is Not the Goal.

3. The Atlantic posted the provocative “We Don’t Need a Digital Sabbath, We Need More Time,” which surprisingly doubles as a pretty in-depth look at the religious meaning of the day of rest, not to mention the convenient way we scapegoat our gadgets. The conclusion is pretty stunning:

If we allow ourselves to blame the technology for distracting us from our children or connecting with our communities, then the solution is simply to put away the technology. We absolve ourselves of the need to create social, political, and, sure, technological structures that allow us to have the kinds of relationships we want with the people around us. We need to realize that at the core of our desire for a Sabbath isn’t a need to escape the blinking screens of our electronic world, but the ways that work and other obligations have intruded upon our lives and our relationships.

4. While over at the Atlantic, do be sure to check out Daniel Synder’s phenomenal article “In Defense of Nicholas Cage,” which praises the erstwhile Mr. Coppola for his refreshing lack of self-importance. It certainly made me look at the man in a new light:

Neither the interpretation of Nic Cage as an oblivious lunatic nor as a self-aware craftsman can fully explain the greatly varying quality of his work. But the two visions do illustrate what there is to love about Nicolas Cage. Whether he’s lost his mind or is simply pulling a kind of meta-level fast one on the public, he remains—contra what Penn says—simply an actor and nothing more. Unlike many of his peers who exist on the same level of fame, he does not see himself as a force beyond the screen or have delusions of film as a catalyst for social change.

Of course, if you’ve never seen the infamous viral vid, “Nicolas Cage Losing his [...Marbles]“ you’re in for a treat. Nothing less than a four minute argument for the genius of youtube.

5. Algis Valiunas does an inspired job of unpacking the literary and ideological significance of David Foster Wallace in an essay for The Claremont Institute, “King of Pain” ht MS:

What hope then does Wallace offer? Against the world’s inhuman cruelty, the pointless wreckage of addiction, and the wasting mindlessness of the entertainment culture, he opposes pain that has a plan and a purpose. That is the pain of sobriety, of seeing clearly, of understanding why you ever needed to anesthetize yourself: “…the way it gets better and you get better is through pain. Not around pain, or in spite of it.” It is a teaching only the strong can live by; those who are not strong enough are in serious danger of going down. We are a nation of addicts, Wallace insists, in a chronic state of denial, craving the wrong kinds of pleasure and undone by the wrong kinds of pain. Purification is called for. By no means, however, does Wallace condemn all activity that is not undertaken purely for its own sake; that would be to condemn almost everything people do. What he does condemn is gross self-seeking ambition that cares only for the prizes and the gleam of envy in others’ eyes. In the absence of a genuine calling, which does not exclude honest ambition, whether one happens to be a lawyer or a businessman or an athlete or a writer, success is a corrosive illusion. Wallace updates Tolstoy, who labored all his life against the insidious collusion of sensuality and amour-propre. To live unseduced by media sirens or the longing for celebrity or fatuous simulacra of love or the urge for simple obliteration is the aim Wallace sets for the reader; it is the aim he set for himself as a recovering addict and mental patient and as a writer serious as he had never been before. However the world might have damaged you or you have damaged yourself, however you might believe you need your substance or fantasy of choice to make it through the day, resistance and integrity and moral beauty remain possible.

6. In television, if episode 6 of Downton Abbey left you speechless (and not in a good way), join the club. I can’t decide if it was a bridge too far, or whether the out-of-nowhere Lord Grantham subplot was the forgivably awkward, humbling prerequisite for the powerful scene of grace at the close (with Sybil). Or both. Whatever the case, I can only imagine that the original UK version of the episode(s) was paced less abruptly. Next, I want to like Luck, and I know I should, but three installments in and I have no idea what’s going on… Does anyone? At least the unfortunately titled Cougar Town finally got back in gear with a tremendous season premier (who knew such a supremely silly show could make you cry?) The same cannot be said for The Walking Dead – I’m not sure how much more stressed out, self-righteous screaming matches in bad Southern accents I can take… But if you’re looking for the best (romantic) relationship currently on air, look no further than Parenthood‘s Sarah Braverman and Mark Cyr. While the Amber subplot becomes increasingly ridiculous, Sarah and Mark’s relationship has taken the opposite trajectory, exploring some truly profound emotional space.

7. Music-wise, this is pretty much all I’ve been thinking about since I read it. Of course, I’ll believe it when I see it. Happy belated 50th, Axl!

8. Finally, The Onion dropped a new classic two weeks ago, “Intelligent, Condescending Life Discovered in Distant Galaxy.”

Scientists have expressed mix feelings about the landmark event, noting that while the thrilling discovery of intelligent alien life signals the dawning of a new age in our ability to answer fundamental questions about the very nature of existence, they had not expected an extraterrestrial species to be so dismissive of virtually every aspect of human life.
“We sent them very peaceful, welcoming messages, and they responded by saying it was ‘marvelous’ that the human race had managed to sustain itself for so long without having made any noteworthy advances of any kind,” Morrison said of the aliens, who described the physical appearance of humans with the phrase “interesting-looking, would be the most polite way to put it.”

That’s all for this week. NYC Conference schedule coming on Monday! Promise.

Batman: The Agony of Loss and the Madness of Desire, Part 4c

Mockingbird — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 15:40:04 +0000

You guessed it, Bat-Fans: this time The Riddler is our subject. As always, to start with, er, year one of Jeremiah Lawson’s soon-to-be-definitive exploration of Batman mythology, go here. Or to simply catch up on the current arc, the villain-themed The Wounds of Discovery, go here.

PART FOUR: THE WOUNDS OF DISCOVERY

3. The Life and Death of the Mind

All this I tested by wisdom and I said, “I am determined to be wise” — but this was beyond me. Ecclesiastes 7:28
Do you see a man wise in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.
Proverbs 26:12

If there is a single thread that unites the big name Batman villains it is an inability to cope with regret. Villains like Two-Face or Poison Ivy seem veritably immune to remorse. To take it one step further, if there is a member of the Batman: The Animated Series rogues gallery who seeks retribution as a means to avoid regret it would be Edward Nygma, the Riddler.

Frank Gorshin’s Riddler notwithstanding, the Riddler has never been as popular as the Joker, Two-Face, or Catwoman. Despite his iconic look, his gimmick of sending riddles to Batman and law enforcement creates numerous story-telling limitations. If the riddles are too esoteric you may lose the audience, but if the riddles are too obvious they will feel insulted. Even if this precarious balance is struck the ever present question remains: “Why?” What kind of villain would feel compelled to give clues that would give the hero a way to defeat him?! Perhaps this is why even the writers of Batman: The Animated Series wrote no more than three episodes that featured the Riddler.

Furthermore, most versions of the character show us a man who thinks he’s smarter than other people but isn’t. Riddler’s egotism, his eagerness to belittle his adversaries, and his compulsion to flaunt his intellect make him almost impossible to like or sympathize with. Nobody feels sorry for a man who just can’t admit to being wrong about something. This is why most people will never see Riddler as a relatable character, let alone a tragic one.

Ironically, Riddler’s least relatable qualities are what make him most like us. As Kathryn Schulz put it in a 2011 TED lecture, anyone can grant personal fallibilty in the abstract but it is much more difficult to admit fallibily in the ever-living present, and that is how we ultimately err. We never warm up to the Riddler because he epitomizes a flaw we display at least once a day, every day, intolerable in others yet excusable in ourselves–”Of course I’m right. Join me or get out of my way.”

The Edward Nygma we meet is an intellectual giant in his own mind. Clever as he is at programming and inventing, Nygma discovers too late that the work-for-hire contract he signed with his employer Daniel Mockridge deprived him of the rights and royalties for his work. Fired by Mockridge, Nygma is indignant, certain that his ex-boss is too stupid to appreciate what he has done. Mockridge retorts, “Tell me, Eddie, if you’re so smart, why aren’t you rich?” Insult added to injury, Edward Nygma refuses to answer.

What Nygma does, famously, is become the Riddler, spinning obscure questions and taunting his intellectual inferiors. The aim is to goad his enemies into walking into their own deaths. When Mockridge bargains with Bruce Wayne to sell the rights to Nygma’s video game, the deal is interrupted by the villain’s first riddle. Bruce solves it after consulting Alfred and Robin, and the Dynamic Duo rush to save Mockridge. While Batman deduces the Riddler’s identity right off the bat, it will take several more battles before Nygma realizes that the Dark Knight has figured him out before he’s figured himself out.

Nygma shuns the advice of his surprisingly loyal henchmen and tries to trap and kill Batman to protect his secret identity, but Batman, in collaboration with Alfred and Robin, proves more than a match for the Riddler’s lethal puzzles. When Nygma’s poses his ultimate riddle to Batman–with Mockridge’s life hanging in the balance–Batman solves it immediately. “A lucky guess,” the Riddler sneers, “but it won’t save you.” Batman saves Mockridge and escapes the trap but alas, by then Riddler has escaped. If he had stopped there, the Riddler would have been one of the few villains to have outsmarted and defeated the Dark Knight.

But Nygma is bothered by two things, that Batman knows who he is, and that Batman figured out a riddle he was sure couldn’t be solved. Before long he returns to destroy any trace of his civilian identity and to kill Commissioner Gordon in retaliation for Batman foiling his plans. We never hear a word about Riddler resuming his vendetta against Mockridge. Why? Because Mockridge no longer represents the person who has shown he can outsmart Edward Nygma.

In his subsequent battles with the Dark Knight Nygma does manages to create riddles that Batman gets wrong. He even sets a trap Batman can’t escape (“Riddler’s Reform”). But in the end Batman always prevails. Whereas the Riddler is obsessed with proving he is smarter than Batman on his own, Batman has no problem looking outside himself for help, to Alfred and Robin. The Riddler may be shaken by how well Batman understands his compulsion, he nevertheless decides to double down (compulsively!), “I fooled the police, the doctors, the parole board, all of them. There’s only one person who has ever been able to challenge me, Batman. He’s the only one worthy of the game.”

Time and again Riddler tries to prove that he is Batman’s better, always running from the simple truth that he let himself get conned, unable to resist cerebral crime sprees in retaliation to its looming judgment. He can’t admit his madness to himself and is even less able to figure out what’s behind it. The Riddler is a man who has lost everything except his reason, which according Chesterton’s criteria makes him very much a lunatic. Yet perhaps the real riddle is this: even before his life of crime, he was outsmarted by a smooth-talking snake named Daniel Mockridge. If we find Edward Nygma unsympathetic, perhaps a little Genesis 3 is in order.

Next up in The Wounds of Discovery: The Villain soon to be featured in The Dark Knight Rises!

Didn’t We Almost Have It All: Whitney Houston’s Life as Impasse

Jeff Hual — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 13:30:28 +0000

My wife and I were watching Saturday Night Live when NBC broke the news that Whitney Houston had died. Other than the time and place of her death, no other details were given. And, truthfully, we didn’t need any other details to have an inkling of what had happened. Just as with the announcement of Michael Jackson’s passing, we had all watched Whitney slide into her downward spiral.

I was in High School when “I Wanna Dance With Somebody” started airing on MTV. I’m sure everyone has seen it. Think about what we see there: one can’t help but see the pure joy of someone exercising an incredible, God-given talent. In fact, that’s another MJ parallel–it reminds me of watching little Michael Jackson performing with the Jackson 5.

At that point, everything seemed to be marvelous, maybe even magical, for Whitney. Her career, both singing and acting, was stellar. She had “fame, fortune and everything that goes with it”. Unlike MJ though, she came from a nurturing family. She didn’t start out as a child star (with all of the attendant problems), and she always appeared to be very comfortable with who she was. So what happened?

We always assumed it was Bobby Brown: that he had dragged her down with him. “Perhaps she thought she could change him,” my wife commented the other day. Now there are reports coming out that her drug abuse began before she ever met the self-styled ‘King of New Jack Swing’, that it was just kept under wraps. For two people that always seemed so unalike, perhaps the drugs are what they ultimately had in common. Perhaps it was no coincidence that Whitney was always singing about unconditional love and dramatic rescue – she was dying to believe in/experience the, um, ‘Greatest Bodyguard of All’.

It reminds me of the 1962 film, “Days of Wine and Roses,” which tragically portrayed the life, romance, and downward spiral of an alcoholic man and woman. Like Joe (played by Jack Lemmon) and Kirsten (played by a young and quite pretty Lee Remick), perhaps the glue that held Bobby and Whitney together was the addiction itself. And like the slow-motion trainwreck of their life together, which was often played out in the public eye, the movie is at times quite difficult to watch. What a horrible metaphor for life!

And yet, there go I…and there go you, too, without intervention from the outside. At the 2011 Birmingham Conference, David Zahl referred to this as “life as impasse”–that this impasse is where we actually live our lives, yet we delude ourselves into thinking we actually have control of it. The truth is, we’re never in control. We never were.

There are two paintings by Thomas Cole that illustrate this concept remarkably well. They’re from his series, “Voyage of Life”. The second and third of the series are the ones to which I’m referring. First, consider “Youth”:

This is what we enter adulthood thinking that life is like. The young man is firmly in control of his destiny, with his hand on the tiller, pointing straight for the castle in the sky. God’s representative, the angel, is waving and wishing him well as he heads for his dreams. (This was me at age 22!).

And this is the way in which we like to envision life at times even in middle and I would dare to venture in old age. We want to think that we’re at the wheel, firmly in control of our fate. But take a closer look at the background just over the angel’s left shoulder. It turns out that the river of life isn’t headed for the castle in the sky. Instead, it makes a hard right toward rocks and rapids. This is what we see in “manhood”:

This is a very visual, disturbing rendition of the impasse that is human life. The rudder is gone, all control of the little boat is gone as well. The man is praying, begging for help from God, as the rapids are upon him, threatening to tear him and his little boat to pieces. God’s representative is still there, but he can’t see her. All he can see are the rocks, the danger.

This is the impasse, and unfortunately, it’s a pretty accurate description of life. We live constantly in this impasse, we just don’t see it because we fool ourselves into only seeing our delusions. And in the times that we can’t make them work, the times in which the mask is off and the impasse is right in front of us, those are often the times we see God most clearly, because those are the times we tend to go looking for Him.

And here’s what keeps me awake at night: if Whitney (or Michael Jackson, or take your pick!) with all of her fame and good fortune can’t escape the impasse, then I can’t either! In his Easter 2009 sermon, Paul Zahl made reference to a Bob Dylan song called “Series of Dreams”, in which Dylan sings,

And the cards are no good that you’re holding
Unless they’re from another world

The point is that each of us are “playing the hand we were dealt” in life, and doing the best we can with it. But the cards themselves are such that they will never add up, they’ll never be enough. If the hand Whitney was dealt wasn’t enough, with her talent, beauty, money and fame, then nothing in this world could possibly be enough.

So, like the man in the painting, we must look to another:

Come unto me, all ye that travail and are heavy laden, and I will refresh you.

Can Anything Good Come From Harvard? The (In)Auspicious Origins of Jeremy Lin

Nick Lannon — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 18:30:30 +0000

The Reformers, specifically Martin Luther, often talked about God working in unexpected ways. Luther called this work of God sub contrario, that is, “under the opposite.” God, in other words, is most often found working in the thing that looks the opposite of what we would expect. As evidence, we can look to Biblical stories of Jesus eating with tax collectors and sinners, forgiving thieves on crosses (okay, one thief on one cross), and resurrecting the dead. Jesus’ modus operandi seems to have continually confounded those among whom he lived. This idea of God working sub contrario perhaps finds its most concrete Biblical warrant in the account of the calling of the disciple Nathanael. Philip comes to Nathanael and tells him that the Messiah has come, and is from Nazareth. “Nazareth!” Nathanael exclaims, “Can anything good come from there?” (John 1:46) Two thousand years later, the billions of Christians who have lived would, no doubt, say yes.

In fact, we say that this is precisely the kind of place from which good comes. God brings Jesus from Nazareth in order to bring life out of death. We hold tight to this “Nazareth Principle” because we feel that we are from Nazareth; we are not special; we are dying, and we hope and pray that God can bring something good out of us.

Which brings us, of course, as everything these days must, to Jeremy Lin. A major factor in Lin’s having become the current hot cultural story (totally overflowing the bounds of a simple sports story) is that his rise to prominence in the NBA has been so unexpected. He is said to have come “from nowhere.” He is Asian-American, he was totally unrecruited out of high school and undrafted out of college, and he went to…Harvard. This is the extent to which God works sub contrario: he has made Harvard into Nazareth! A commentator on one of the many talking-head sports punditry shows I watch (they are all the same…I just can’t stop myself) made the point that coming from Harvard is in no other context seen as a detriment. Professional athletics may be the only arena (get it?) in which a Harvard pedigree causes an opponent to doubt your skill.

God is always working under the opposite. He always brings life out of death. He chose Peter, the often-faithless friend who denied him three times, to be the rock upon which he would found his church. He chose Harvard (the ivory tower of ivory towers) to be Nazareth when he needed it to be. God works under the opposite, bringing the savior of the Knicks and the Savior of the World from the places least likely, to show that he is God, capable of anything, even the salvation of sinners such as us.

Songs of the Outlaw: Yours, Mine, and Billy Joe Shaver’s “Serious Souls”

Ethan — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 16:01:37 +0000

Kris Kristofferson is known to have said that Billy Joe Shaver may be the greatest living songwriter, the Hemingway of songwriting, but also that, if life were TV, he’d be on at 4 A.M. He has written songs for Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Bob Dylan, George Jones, Patty Loveless, the Allman Brothers; Waylon Jennings used his songs for most of Honky Tonk Heroes, Willie Nelson has made a name with his songs. He’s legendary, but paradoxically hidden. As if he had a knack for it, some privately premeditated scheme to lay low–like Jesus or something–he managed to work behind the swinging saloon doors, only showing his boots below, his hat above, every now-and-again his severed fingers to swing the hat off, all the while producing poetry through the known faces of outlaw country music.

This isn’t to say Shaver couldn’t play the part on stage. He is the part. Billy Joe is the real deal outlaw. He’s lived the grit-raucous, boot-in-teeth kind of life unsuited for much else. He writes country songs like a bard more as an extension of who he is than what he loves. Listen to how he describes the personal effects of the wandering life in his memoir:

I’ve lost parts of three fingers, broke my back, suffered a heart attack and a quadruple bypass, had a steel plate put in my neck and 136 stitches in my head, fought drugs and booze, spent the money I had, and buried my wife, son, and mother in the span of a year.

It’s ridiculous an Outlaw series like this didn’t begin with him but, to be honest, it sort of did–the Waylon and Merle discography (particularly Waylon) are unspeakably indebted to his genius. And it wouldn’t really be true to the Outlaw movement to put him first when he’s chosen lastness, really chided the limelight so successfully.

Old Five and Dimers Like Me, first produced when Shaver was 33, is a masterpiece of country songwriting. Many of the songs are old familiars that you’ve probably known through their covers, such as “Black Rose” (“The devil made me do it the first time, / Second time I done it on my own”) or “Low Down Freedom” (“I’d rather leave here knowing / I made a fool of love before it made a fool of me”). For Shaver, as Mbird has pointed out previously, the Outlaw’s predicament is as soul-deep as the love he refuses to let himself accept. It is soul-deep, God-deep. The rambler is only a highway rambler because his soul swings between heaven and hell, redemption to fall to redemption–his motel-life, roadhouse-life is a sacrament of what the soul itself is singing, that “moving is the closest thing to being free.” Like all of the great writers, Haggard included, Billy Joe Shaver depicted the Outlaw’s life as almost always self-induced rather than suckered-swindled; unlike most honky-tonk heroes, though, the conditions in his songs are ever punctured by a Christ-haunted and God-hungry soul.

A hidden pearl in the Five and Dimers record is “Serious Souls,” an indelible picture of simul iustus et peccator, the seriousness with which we strive to be better, the integrity we lack to bring it to bear. We are men and women bound to wandering, bound to “looking-for” something that’s only always going to be “more than my share of mine.” Our yearnings are real, and our yearnings are really misdirected–making us laughable at best, unlovable at worse. Who could love someone who’s always looking for something else, who drinks from the fountain, but must always venture downhill? By lighting upon our misbegotten ventures, we find a silly love that takes us in anyway, which is why “You Just Can’t Beat Jesus Christ.”

Blue was the stream flowing clear from the mountain
To the grassy green valley below,
Yes and many were the days we all drank from that fountain
Leavin’ no way but downhill to go.

We’re all wayfaring, wandering gypsies alone
Looks like looking-for is where we’ll always be.
Cursed to be born as serious souls
No one will take seriously.

Lord, I’ve touched me the country
I’ve seen me the life
I’ve found what I wanted to find.
And the ready-road living,
And taking and giving,
I’ve had more than my share of mine.

Book Review: The Meaning of Marriage by Tim Keller

Bryan J. — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 13:30:22 +0000

Two things led me to pick up Tim Keller’s new book on marriage, both of which were pressing. The first: I needed a “marriage book” for Pastoral Care class at seminary. The second: I had an engagement ring burning a hole in my pocket, and it was gonna be there for another week before I could “unload it.” So you might say matrimony has been on my mind, for both academic and personal reasons. Seeing as I also happen to contribute on occasion to Mockingbird, the question quickly took on a larger scope: where does a grace-dependent Gospel junkie like me find a good resource on marriage?

It wasn’t but a day or two after posing that question verbally when a friend told me that Tim Keller, the well-known New York Presbyterian minister, had just come out with a marriage book (Keller has made it onto our website plenty of times). A few days later, I’m happy to say I found what I was looking for in The Meaning of Marriage. The book is based on some lectures that Keller gave in the early nineties about marriage, which I am told are extremely popular and have been helpful to a number of Mockingbird readers. I personally enjoyed it so much that it has tentatively become “the book I’ll use for pre-marital counseling” should I eventually be ordained.

As a young man soon to shed his singleness, I’m probably not qualified to say much about the nuts and bolts of the content. But there are three observations I’d nevertheless like to make. First, the gospel is in every chapter. Second, Keller does not lift his own marriage up as a model for emulation, and third, he does an amazing job deconstructing the particular myths that both Manhattanites and the rest of my fellow “millennials” believe. The first is helpful because, well, the gospel is foundational to everything, so it should be in every chapter. The second is helpful because, no marriage is perfect, and it’s always distracting when an author lifts up their own experience as “how to do it” without also lifting up it up as “how not to do it.” Keller is heavier on the latter, opening up about the flaws and fights instead of giving eye-rolling instructions that all start with the letter “c.” Marriage is, according to Keller, a man and a woman “being Jesus” to one another, living, by God’s grace, lives of mutual self sacrifice. Failure is to be expected, but it also not the final word.

Some excerpts worth sharing from the text:

The reason that marriage is so painful and yet wonderful is because it is a reflection of the Gospel, which is painful and wonderful at once. The Gospel is—we are more sinful and flawed in ourselves than we ever dared to believe, and at the very same time we are more loved and accepted in Jesus Christ than we ever dared hope. This is the only kind of relationship that will really transform us. Love without truth is sentimentality; it supports and affirms us but keeps us in denial about our flaws. Truth without love is harshness; it gives us information but in such a way that we cannot really hear it. God’s saving love in Christ, however, is marked by both radical truthfulness about who we are and yet also radical, unconditional commitment to us. The merciful commitment strengthens us to see the truth about ourselves and repent. The conviction and repentance moves us to cling to and rest in God’s mercy and grace.
The hard times of marriage drive us to experience more of this transforming love of God. But a good marriage will also be a place where we experience more of this kind of transforming love at a human level.”

That’s the sort of thing that you find throughout the entirety of The Meaning of Marriage. Keller uses phrases like “you never marry the right person” and “the stranger you married” to exhibit the alienation and reconciliation necessary for spouses to live together.

In John Tierney’s classic humor article “Picky, Picky, Picky” he tries nobly to get us to laugh at the impossible situation our culture has put us in. He recounts many of the reasons his single friends told him they had given up on their recent relationships:
“She mispronounced ‘Goethe.’” “How could I take him seriously after seeing The Road Less Traveled on his bookshelf?” “If she would just lose seven pounds.” “Sure, he’s a partner, but it’s not a big firm. And he wears those short black socks.” “Well, it started out great … beautiful face, great body, nice smile. Everything was going fine—until she turned around.” He paused ominously and shook his head. ”… She had dirty elbows.”
In other words, some people in our culture want too much out of a marriage partner. They do not see marriage as two flawed people coming together to create a space of stability, love and consolation, a “haven in a heartless world,” as Christopher Lasch describes it. Rather, they are looking for someone who will accept them as they are, complement their abilities and fulfill their sexual and emotional desires. This will indeed require a woman who is “a novelist/astronaut with a background in fashion modeling,” and the equivalent in a man. A marriage based not on self-denial but on self-fulfillment will require a low- or no-maintenance partner who meets your needs while making almost no claims on you. Simply put—today people are asking far too much in the marriage partner.

Two words of caution in approaching this book. First, Tim and his co-author/wife Kathy don’t shy away from discussing gender identity in theological categories, for example, notions of “headship” that some might understandably find uncomfortable (in which case I direct you to Lauren Larkin’s series of posts on the gospel and womanhood). Even if you take issue with their take on that topic, though, there are plenty of other insights to glean. Second, the book’s intended audience is the unmarried or newly married, not those with years of marital experience, who might be tempted to use the book to grade themselves. While young and restless mellennials will find plenty of value, those dealing with other marital situations (separation, divorce, adultery, coldness, frustration, hopelessness, you name it) might find themselves thirsty to hear how the Gospel might meet them in their situation.

But those are relatively minor qualms. By and large, this is an invaluable resource. In fact, I started writing this post back in December, right after finishing the book. Over New Years, I proposed to my gal, who is now my fiancee. I told her about the Keller book, and after reading it, she declared it to be the best book ever on the subject and wants to read it again every year of our life together. In fact, it took me this long to get the book back from her so I could finish the post!

Why Am I So Obsessed With That Person From Sixth Grade? Cyberstalking and the Permanent Reunion

David Zahl — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 19:57:56 +0000

The rejection we feel when we find out that someone has de-friended us on Facebook or stopped following us on Twitter must be the definition of a ‘modern problem.’ We usually discover these things by accident, which probably accounts for why they sneak through our defenses so easily. Just the other day, for example, I noticed that someone had un-followed me on Twitter, and almost immediately, I found myself drawn into a web of self-recrimination. It was particularly silly since I was about to stop following them. And I knew my reasons had very little to do with my esteem for the person in question – in fact, I really liked them. The move had more to do with self-protection, the way that, depending on one’s mood, even the most innocuous ‘update’ can feed (!) our judgments of ourselves and one another, expose our overattachments and insecurities, etc. It’s exhausting. I had hoped that restoring a little mystery might serve our relationship, but now I wanted to run away. I began to dread our next interaction.

Apparently I’m not the only one who’s dealt with this dynamic. In fact, the very next day The NY Times ran a story on the same phenomenon, Pamela Paul’s “Don’t Tell Me, I Don’t Want To Know,” which contains a wealth of priceless little admissions. It’s a pretty stunning look at the way we tie ourselves up in knots online, tirelessly searching for ways to validate or invalidate our existence, helpless to the self-centeredness that leads us interpret everything as a comment on our value. Given the human hardwiring for Law, this should hardly come as a surprise. I mean, what other creature would create a measuring stick out of an acquaintance from kindergarten’s vacation photos?! The irony here is that our online personae tend to be carefully calibrated projections of what we think will earn us love/respect/etc, our newsfeeds the sifted input that will make us feel best; control gets us in the door, but compulsion keeps us coming back.

Of course, social media itself is not the issue. A lot of it is great, and if these sites ceased to exist for some reason, we would inevitably find another venue for comparison. Social media is simply one of the many areas of contemporary life where willpower is revealed to have limited sway, where we find ourselves more consistently unable to avoid doing the very things we know make us miserable — one of the places, in other words, where our collective need for grace is most evident, even painfully so. Which reminds me, I wonder if we’ll lose a few followers after this post… Mercy Mercy Me:

There are things I’d rather just not know about you. Yet I, like most people, have become inundated with Too Much Information about the people I know and the people I wish I didn’t know but am now acquainted with. It’s as if we’re all trapped at a permanent reunion with everyone we ever bumped into at a street fair or waved to mistakenly in the cafeteria.
“The entire world has become this Dickensian series in which you are not visited by three ghosts but by eight million ghosts,” said Sloane Crosley, author of “How Did You Get This Number.” “I feel as if I see things about people that I don’t necessarily want to see, and then it’s lodged like a piece of corn in my subconscious.”
There’s one person who keeps coming around in the People You May Know Box on Facebook where just the suggestion of this person changes my whole day,” said Pam Houston, the novelist. “It’s essential to my well-being to create the illusion that this person doesn’t exist.”
Even if we like a person, we don’t necessarily like — or even “like” — what we find out about them online. Do we need to see a rival’s witticism promiscuously retweeted? “I had to stop following certain friends because I was constantly seeing them tweet about all the parties that I wasn’t invited to!” said Laurie David, a Hollywood producer and author. “The worst is the Twitpic — people take pictures of themselves at these fun dinners, and you’re not there.”
Let’s be straight: it’s not just that other people’s minutiae bombard us regularly. Sometimes, we seek it out despite ourselves. Whether you call it low-buzz stalking, cyberstalking or the unsettling new term “creeping,” people can now browse around the edges of former intimates’ lives, learning much too much about them: they can do perfect inverted yoga poses; they have married well; last week they had dinner with Bono.
“If the F.B.I. came and ransacked my computer, they’d be like: ‘What is your obsession with this person from sixth grade? Why have you looked at her picture a million times?’ ” said Julie Klam, whose next book, “Friendkeeping,” is about actual friendships.
How is it that activities we wouldn’t in a million years be roped into doing in real life — paging through an acquaintance’s baby album, suffering through a relative’s slide show from Turkey — become strangely alluring online?
“I had to go on a vacation-photo diet,” admitted Laura Zigman, the novelist. “I had this bizarre, voyeuristic habit of scrolling through people’s travel photos online and then feeling like, Why haven’t I walked the Great Wall of China? And guilt: I should be taking my son to Spain. I don’t even like to travel!”
“Other people’s happiness doesn’t bother me unless I’ve dated them before,” Ms. Kelly said. “And then I’m really disturbed by it.”
Sherry Turkle, a psychologist and author of “Alone Together: Why We Expect More From Technology and Less From Each Other,” spoke of the effects. “People pay a psychological price for seeing information about former friends and spouses and colleagues that they really shouldn’t be seeing,” she said. It’s not good for our emotional health and, she said, “It makes people feel bad because they know they shouldn’t look at this stuff — but they can’t help it!”
A study published last month in the journal Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking found that the more time people spent on Facebook, the happier they perceived their friends to be and the sadder they felt as a consequence.
Alas, what strikes us as witty, original and winning often comes across to the rest of the world as sloppily confessional, self-promotional or trite. It is, I confess, paradoxically and distressingly difficult for me not to post about how much candy I’ve eaten on a given day. And even I don’t really want to know about that.

A Wednesday Sonnet from Gerard Manley Hopkins

Ethan — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 15:11:36 +0000

Not, I’ll not, carrion comfort, Despair, not feast on thee;
Not untwist–slack they may be–these last strands of man
In me or, most weary, cry I can no more. I can;
Can something, hope, wish day come, not choose not to be.

But ah, but O thou terrible, why wouldst thou rude on me
Thy wring-world right foot rock? lay a lionlimb against me? scan
With darksome devouring eyes my bruised bones? and fan,
O in turns of tempest, me heaped there; me frantic to avoid thee and flee?

Why? That my chaff might fly; my grain lie, sheer and clear.
Nay in all that toil, that coil, since (seems) I kissed the rod,
Hand rather, my heart lo! lapped strength, stole joy, would laugh, cheer.
Cheer whom, though? The hero whose heaven-handling flung me, foot trod
Me? or me that fought him? O which one? is it each one? That night, that year
Of now done darkness I wretch lay wrestling (my God!) my God.

Damsels in Distress Trailer!!!

David Zahl — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 01:52:47 +0000

“We’re also trying to make a difference in people’s lives. And one way to do that is to stop them from killing themselves.”

Homina homina homina… To read our interview with writer-director Whit Stillman, go here. Or to figure out why we’re so excited about this film, dig into some of these posts. And don’t forget, yours truly will be leading a first-ever Mbird group outing to see the film in NYC on April 18th, the night before the Spring Conference. Once we get closer to the event, we’ll be taking names.

My Friend of the Last Moment: Love and Sacrifice in Of Gods and Men

Jeff Hual — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 19:15:11 +0000

A lot of what Mockingbird seeks to do is to locate everyday echoes of eternal truths. We keep an eye out for anything that helps us grasp and/or communicate the Gospel a bit more clearly. We look for cultural and dramatic aids, if you will, which underscore the depth and universality of God’s reality. I like to think that we catch a glimpse of grace whenever we come across such instances of forgiveness, mercy or love. But when we point to one of these things, we’re not necessarily saying, “That’s God at work”. God’s grace often works in highly internal ways after all, and since I can’t open myself up and show you those places, I can instead point to a particular thing – a movie, song, story, work of art, current event, take your pick – and say, “That’s what grace is like.” It’s an illustration or fresh approximation of the thing, rather than the thing itself (which by definition cannot be contained by metaphor).

But what about the times we actually see God’s grace play out in the life of an individual, group or community? When the Jesus’ command to love each other as He loved us is fulfilled before our eyes? In those cases, we can claim with relative confidence that God is present – these things simply don’t happen without His grace working in and through us. That is, whenever the Great Commandment is fulfilled, it’s inevitably a miracle, an outward and visible sign of the grace that is at work within us.

I was confronted with an indelible example of this in the recent film, Of Gods and Men. Of Gods and Men is much more than a movie “based on a true story” (which usually doubles as a warning for saccharin unreality!). Rather, it is a faithful portrayal of actual events. Just Google “Martyrs of Tibhirine” and you’ll see that these were real men and real events (the picture above is of the actors, the one below is the monks themselves!).

The film deals with the civil unrest and guerilla uprising that occurred in Algeria during the early to mid-90′s, in particular how the conflict disrupts the life of a Trappist (Cistercian) monastery in the village of Tibhirine and the Islamic community that had grown up around them.

The movie’s primary theme is what we might call Godly love – loving one another as Christ loved us. The monks and their Islamic neighbors lived in complete harmony and mutual cooperation. You see early in the movie that there was genuine love between the monastic community and those outside its walls.

The monks grew much of their own food and shared it with the village. One of the monks, Brother Luc, was an elderly physician who ran a free clinic in the monastery, seeing upwards of 100 patients from the village and surrounding region every day. An early scene in the movie shows their leader, Dom Christian, having tea and pleasant conversation with the local Imam.

Then the war comes. Virtually every other foreign group chooses to leave, but the monks decide to wait for God to direct them. Shortly after the meeting in which they decide to stay, we see Dom Christian writing a letter and placing it on a table. This is his final testament, to be opened in the event of his demise.

And while their demise does come in the end, in the intervening time these monks grow closer together and closer to the villagers, all in God’s love.

In one of the most important scenes, as they are wrestling with whether to stay, the Imam’s wife asks one of the brothers what they will do. He says to her, “I don’t know, we are like birds on a branch at the moment.” She replies, “No Father, we are the birds and you are the branch. If you leave we shall surely fall.”

There’s so much that can be said for this film: the sweeping cinematography, the beautiful music (chanted by the monks in worship), the touching vignettes of kindness which the monks show to each other and to their neighbors constantly. But what tears your heart out is the Love, and if I may stretch that one step further, the “love your enemies” of the Sermon on the Mount.

We learn at the end of the movie, through Dom Christian’s final testament, that his primary concern was not for his life or his safety, but that those Islamists who would surely kill him would not be confused with what it means to be Islamic. He loved his Islamic friends as Christ would:

My death, obviously, will appear to confirm those who hastily judged me naive or idealistic: “Let him tell us now what he thinks of it!” But these must know that my insistent curiosity will then be set free. This is what I shall be able to do, if God wills: Immerse my gaze in that of the Father, to contemplate with Him His children of Islam as He sees them, all shining with the glory of Christ, fruit of His Passion, filled with the Gift of the Spirit whose secret joy will always be to establish communion and to refashion the likeness, playing with the differences.

Please understand that this is not some prop. The picture above is Dom Christian de Cherge’s actual grave site and it is his actual final testament that is being read. And his final sentence is the most telling in terms of true, absolute, grace-filled and command-fulfilling love:

And I thank you, too, my friend of the last moment, who will not know what you are doing. Yes, for you too I say this thank you and this adieu, to commend you to this God in whose face I see yours. May we find each other happy “good thieves” in Paradise, if it please God, the Father of us both. Amen!

Hope for Perfectionist Workaholic Control Freaks: Vulnerability and the Birthplace of Love

David Zahl — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 17:11:31 +0000

We’ve made no secret of our love for author/researcher/social worker Brene Brown. The Washington Post published a wonderful Valentine’s Day piece of hers, “A Love Note to a Workaholic,” which represents a fresh take on her familiar theme of vulnerability and its counter-intuitive power. Although she may make a distinction between vulnerability and weakness, I’m not so sure she isn’t describing the horizontal (and universal!) meat on the vertical bones of 2 Cor 12:9 (“strength made perfect in weakness”). When she speaks of perfectionism or workaholism, for example, she is talking about two of the more insidious modern iterations of the Law, as in, um, “be perfect!” or “achieve!” or “control!”. Brown sees clearly the sad truth of how law obstructs/destructs love, how it shortcircuits very sense of value it tries so hard to engineer. In other words, the way “doing” often serves as a defense against “being”, “works” as a bulwark against the scariness of “faith.” And while we all know how impervious vulnerability is to command (have you ever told someone they just needed to be more vulnerable?!), for the most part Brown avoids the pitfall she’s describing (~~prescribing~~). That is, if her material or tone sets off your self-help alarms, look a little deeper – she’s actually subverting that approach, and doing so with real compassion. It is no coincidence, for instance, that she quotes Madeleine L’Engle. Happy Valentine’s Day, ht AZ:

As someone who is intimately familiar with overachieving, I recognize the angst behind the questions I hear from men and women who have accomplished so much professionally but struggle to stay connected personally. Questions ranging from “Why am I so engaged at work, yet I feel increasingly disconnected from my wife and children?” to “How do I turn off the self-critical instincts that serve me as a leader? I don’t want to be that kind of mother.”
Many of us have spent the majority of our adult lives in jobs that train us to outrun and outsmart the experience that underpins love and connection – vulnerability. We wake up in the morning, put on our armor, and march into the office thinking, “I will protect myself. I will not let you see my self-doubt or my fear. I will put on my ‘boss’ face.”
We manage a slew of employees and relationships, act serious in business meetings, send Blackberry messages from bed at 3 a.m. We perform, perfect and prove ourselves all day long. In fact, I often call perfectionism the 20-ton shield. We lug it around thinking that as long as we look, live, act and work as though we’re perfect, we’re protected from criticism and blame.
This emotional armor we bring to work is heavy, and the weaponry takes a long time to assemble, so when we get home in the evenings, we don’t put it away. It’s too much trouble and, frankly, it’s too risky. Home can also be a place where performing and perfecting are expected. With everyone’s vulnerability shielded, our families are together, but we really don’t see one another.
We start to manage situations and micromanage the people around us, not just at work but in the rest of our lives as well. We make what is uncertain certain, no matter what the cost. We basically stay so busy that the truth of our lives can never catch up. We look confident on the outside and feel scared on the inside.
One of the most commonly held and dangerous myths about vulnerability is that being vulnerable means being weak. Yet vulnerability is simply the uncertainty, exposure and emotional risk we face every day, from asking for help at home to asking for help at work. The problem is that most of us have lost our tolerance for it. But when we push vulnerability away at work, we tend to unknowingly push it away at home as well—and end up pushing away all of the experiences that bring meaning to our lives.
Vulnerability is indeed the center of difficult experiences like fear, disappointment and shame, but it is also the birthplace of love, belonging, joy, creativity, innovation, authenticity and engagement. …Our willingness to own our vulnerability determines the depth of our courage, the clarity of our purpose and the fullness of our life. As Madeleine L’Engle writes, “When we were children, we used to think that when we were grown-up we would no longer be vulnerable. But to grow up is to accept vulnerability . . . To be alive is to be vulnerable.”