PZ's Podcast

I think I'm supposed to understand why right-wing people are intolerant. But it's harder for me to understand why left-wing people are intolerant. Guess I thought they were supposed to be about freedom and diversity. Come to find out, they're not. So I had to go back to a source that's almost been "blacklisted" itself. It's the movie My Son John (1952), starring Helen Hayes and Robert Wagner. Hey,...

The Gallant Hours (1959) is one heuristic movie. Not only does it teach the Church a thing or two about how to honor faithful service, but it depicts an entirely ideal instance of how to dress properly if you're a minister -- or, Heav'n forfend, a "priest". The last scene of The Gallant Hours is one amazing illustration of the triumph of substance over form in connection with haberdashery. If you'...

The Church I have known all my life is in free fall numerically. I'm talking about Sunday attendance in everyday parishes. This is not conceptual: one parish Mary and I served for six and a half years has recently closed. (Yes, it's been there since 1832, and now is literally a shell, the congregation having gone formally out of existence!) Another church we served, also for six years but out on L...

This talk concerns the indelibility of certain memories, and why they, and not other memories, are indelible. It also concerns a worrying vision I had in January. But it's all one! Here is my little attempt at some wise counsel: how to integrate indelible aspects of your grown life with the fact that you'll see it all again, up close and personal, the day you die. But again, it's all One. And hey,...

This is a word to your future self. You probably can't hear it today. But I predict you'll hear it loud and clear in five years, or maybe ten. This is a word to your future self. It's a new fabulous dating tip, and carries almost no exceptions, tho' I wish it did! It has to do with internet dating, with the aging process (especially in men), and with the poignant voice of experience. If you can "N...

"What makes you cry? When you have an irruption of strong feeling -- and I mean tears in this case -- what is going on? This cast tries to get underneath some emotions we all feel, and in terms of music. It is a subjective "take" on one's music and one's highs and lows. And it's in the service of a Way Maker that tends in the direction of peace of mind."

Tupper Saussy (1936-2007) was a musician behind The Neon Philharmonic, who produced two memorable albums in 1968-69. He was also a polymath who let himself get in the sights of the Internal Revenue Service, and paid a heavy price for it. Moreover, he was a devout Christian, of old-fashioned Episcopalian provenance. This week he is on my mind because the fate of Tupper Saussy made me think of a fri...

Nevil Shute, whose proper name was Nevil Shute Norway, was a British novelist whose work took an odd turn in mid-career. He was a kind of parasitologist of human nature, always asking the big questions: Why do people act the way they do? How does the past affect the present? Is there something more to it that is beyond the apparent? Shute thought there was, but he was a tentative explorer. (He was...

'No' is the worst word you can ever hear. (I realize the virtues of saying 'No', yourself, on certain occasions. But when 'No' is said to you, especially at an impressionable age, it's the worst.) This cast is about the damage created by 'No', especially in romance.

What think ye when I say that 95% of what you are doing is futile and meaningless? Well, let's put it another way: From the standpoint of the after-life, what you are doing is... you fill in the blanks. But you can still make it! You've got to learn how to meditate, and learn how to throw a Crucifix. Podcast 185 is dedicated to Mary C. Zahl.

In life you can be trapped by forces that are bigger than you are. Especially in professional life. It's possible to "wander in" -- or rather, bumble in -- to a situation in which you get used by somebody else to accomplish a plan of theirs of which you yourself are (at the time) unaware. Here is my homage to Jimmy Sangster movies. In particular, behold Hysteria, a masterpiece of intrigue from 196...

Oh, to encounter an integrated minister! We all want to be integrated -- to be ourselves in the pulpit and also out of it. But it's tricky to pull off. Pharisaical elements in the church -- usually one or two individuals in the parish, who are present -- unconsciously -- in order to hide out themselves in some way or another -- can't long abide a minister who is himself or herself. Most of your li...

Come to find out, dualism has a limited but necessary role in resolving the human dilemma, i.e., in living. The percentage is maybe 20% most of the time, but it's possibly 90% some of the time. The English composer James Bernard is Exhibit A here, and a most brilliant exhibit his work has become.

]This is the tableau of a childhood memory, a memory that came literally to life recently. I entered a dream, but then the dream was real. A little like the The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe but in reverse. With help from Orpheus and, by way of backdraft, the Warrens.

Why are so many unchanged, I mean fundamentally unchanged, by the red lights of life? What accounts for persons' resistance to the lessons of catastrophe? This week Robert W. Anderson, not 'Sister Mary Ignatius', explains it all to us.

Things recently got so bad somewhere that it looks like all hope is gone. The thing "imploded", like 'Susan' in The Buckinghams' otherwise cheery pop single. Poor Susan! Is there still hope? PZ thinks there is. But it comes from over the border! And from the year 1917.

Big explosions in Church! Like at the beginning of "Cloverfield". What do they mean? Is there any hope in the aftermath? Well, would I be recording this if I didn't think so, from Lake Tahoe, as it turns out? With help from Herb Alpert. And Jane Austen. This podcast is dedicated to Melina and Jacob Smith.

August Coda. Labor Day Coda. General Johnson Coda. Mergers Not Acquisitions Coda.

An August summation, from one explorer to hopefully others. Rod Serling describes a unique case of one. Then Armando Trovajoli puts into music the secret of life. Yes, the secret of life.

"So, here's the thing." : Wanna know what faith is? Listen to ABBA. Wanna arrest the decline of, oh, let's say, mainstream Protestantism? Listen to ABBA. Wanna understand yourself? Listen to ABBA.

There is so much truth here. So much emotional truth, I mean. It could have been someone else. It could have been something else. It could have come from somewhere else. But it came from ABBA.

The subject is reality vs. ideology. 'Pet' Clark wanted to be Superwoman. I wanted to be a totally focussed pastor, great dad, and good husband. 'Helen' wanted to be "a woman of today". We all failed! "Sorry, it's not possible" (Petula says). And yet, a little child has led me. Lower case. But upper case, too.

Here is made a principled decision to opt out, of all manner of causes and notions. With the injunction, however, that in order to heal, you have to feel. Eric Clapton starts us out. The House Band brings it on home.

This is a podcast to celebrate: my 170th, in which are offered some Summer reading, a Concluding Un-Scientific Postscript, and the best track ever recorded by a certain Wonder. Hope you like it!

This is about Meister Eckhart and Rudolf Otto, and CS & N. But it's really about whether and how to engage the world, given what we now know about it. Guess I'm skeptical, more than ever; and was surprised to have to dissent from the Master. First time!