Mockingbird

1.

Happy Halloweek, boils and ghouls!

What is your biggest fear?

No matter who won or lost the last big game you attended, chances are, Ozzy Osbourne was there in electronic chains, locked inside a brain-rattling sound system, unnoticed, unnamed, misunderstood, a voice crying in the wilderness of crowded rows of fans d…

How strange that one can read the same poems countless times and discover new things with each visit, like a traveler coming home for Christmas only to find it slightly altered!

Listeners will have a better idea of why The Mockingcast works (or doesn’t) and why they keep tuning in, 11 years later.

From the recent Mbird MN Conference: The post Grace for Children, Grace for their Parents, and Grace for Retired Old Men!

“You only work on Sundays, anyway.”

1.

Welcome back, fiends!

This past summer marked my eighteenth year in full-time pastoral ministry work.

The Battle of Kadesh in the thirteenth century BC, between Egypt and the Hittite Empire, was one of the great battles of the ancient world, notable for both sides making heavy use of chariots.

Welcome to the tenth edition of Mockingbird’s preacher interview series!

From the recent Mbird MN Conference: The post Sandwiched Between Crises appeared first on Mockingbird.

I have endured many storms in life, riding the waves in isolation.

1.

If our first edition of Forde Friday was a trip down memory lane to his most popular book, here we move to a deep cut few are aware exists.

When the lector reads too quickly, and the cadence is lost in a voice that prizes rapidity over the rhapsodic stillness of the psalms, I am reminded of how far removed, hemmed in, my generation has become from the humming harmonies, conjuring consonants,…

We’re back with the second installment of the Spooky Season roundtable, where Blaine Grimes, Blake Collier, Caleb Stallings, and I invite you to join us as we watch and discuss Blaine’s pick, 2001’s Brotherhood of the Wolf.

Pour one out in memory of the self-help book.

From the recent Mbird MN Conference: The post Young People and a Church of Consolation appeared first on Mockingbird.

The children are always ours, every single one of them, all over the globe; and I am beginning to suspect that whoever is incapable of recognizing this may be incapable of morality.

The story of the woman caught in adultery is typically read as a story about the woman, adultery, and Jesus’ radical grace in refusing to condemn her.

1.

Welcome, boils and ghouls, to our Spooky Season movie roundtable!

Two weeks ago, my world fell apart.

Another phenomenal conference is in the books, and this one brimmed with laughs, profundity, life-changing fried rice w/bacon, and the best (and only) church puppet show we’ve ever seen.

Welcome back to The Capon Corner, where we are diving into the deep dish that is the writings of Robert Farrar Capon.

The following is a sermon preached for the Iowa Preachers Project.

1.

Where in all the varied movements of creation is there any work of God which is not wonderful?

On the night of August 31st I was helping my second oldest son with homework when my wife suddenly announced that Wendell Berry had died.

“You will enjoy doing funerals and find officiating at weddings exhausting!”

In Flannery O’Connor’s short story “Revelation,” the main character, Mrs.

Like many, I saw and enjoyed the recent film adaptation of The Odyssey.

1.

Here’s the next installment of our Hopelessly Devoted series, which highlights today’s entry in our 365-day devotional, Daily Grace — now available in a smaller (4″ x 6″) travel edition!

Thomas Stearns Eliot was one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century, and he knew it.

Not long ago, I was thinking about marriage vows.

I’ve come to feel rather ambivalent about the way people often draw a sharp distinction between the words “shallow” and “deep.”

In the opening scene of the 2025 Oscar-nominated movie Sing Sing, John “Divine G” Whitfield (played by Colman Domingo) delivers a staggering monologue from Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.