Palm Sunday [audio recording here]
The royal Son of David rides into his city, the city of his fathers, and we flank Him round with reeds and branches waving madly in our hands. Tree branches punctuate key moments in our tale: Our story begins in a garden with trees […]
"Be silent!" on the structure of Mark 1:21-28
Our Gospel lesson from Sunday, Mark 1:21-28, is a great example of a chiasm. It is also a great example of how a chiasm, other than being a nifty piece of literary trivia, can help us understand and teach the Bible —can help us ask of a given part of scripture “what’s this mean?” and “what is the main point?”
Read moreOn the new Google pixel 8, "best take" functions, The Office, and confessing our sins
I recently saw the new commercial for Google Pixel 8 which highlights the device’s AI-enhanced “best-take” application feature. You can watch it here […] My first response was to laugh, modestly but not quite quietly. There is an Office episode (season 2, episode 21) in which Michael Scott does the same thing with photoshop. The result (which is the featured image above) is less than impressive.
Read moreSlowly, slowly unto Christmas
p/c: kieran white
A personal history.
Movement 1.
I did not grow-up with Advent as a season of waiting. Like many people in contemporary society I grew up with a strange season that came to span all the days from Thanksgiving to the Day-after-Christmas as a kind of elongated Holiday season… “elongated” is maybe too generous… “distended to the point of rupture” is probably a better description. Sometimes it started as early as the Day-after-Halloween.
Why read 'Dracula' by Bram Stoker
Dracula is not merely a vampire tale; it is the vampire tale. The ‘vampire’ as a cultural icon find its genesis in Stoker’s novel. Indeed almost the entire horror genre (whether film or books) can be traced to Stoker’s Dracula and Shelley’s Frankenstein. Though neither Stoker nor Shelley were Christians, their works are crucially important for our study: they tell us what modernity is; they tell us about ourselves. What does this mean?
Read moreReading Charles Taylor while watching Harry Potter
During our time we watched through some of the Harry Potter films, and my wife got to see, for the first time, one of the most evil villains in film and literature: Dolores Umbridge.
Read moreThe sense of touch
p/c: Jackson David
This is the true magic
So also this week when you hear it said “let us remember,” as you most certainly will hear it said often during these holy days, it means more than merely “replaying” the story of Jesus in your mind or on the stage at church. It means being drawn into the covenant enacted by the story. The Gospel of Jesus, Holy Week, is a living thing. It incorporates our stories into itself. It saves us. It heals us. In it the Spirit renews us. By it the Kingdom is re-kneaded into the dough of the world (cf. Matt. 13:33).
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