343 episodes

From "Telstar" to "Vault of Horror," from Rattigan to Kerouac, from the Village of Bray to the Village of Midwich, help PZ link old ancient news and pop culture. I think I can see him, "Crawling from the Wreckage." Will he find his way? This show is brought to you by Mockingbird! www.mbird.com

PZ's Podcast Mockingbird

    • Religion & Spirituality
    • 5.0 • 3 Ratings

From "Telstar" to "Vault of Horror," from Rattigan to Kerouac, from the Village of Bray to the Village of Midwich, help PZ link old ancient news and pop culture. I think I can see him, "Crawling from the Wreckage." Will he find his way? This show is brought to you by Mockingbird! www.mbird.com

    Episode 382 - We Interrupt This Program

    Episode 382 - We Interrupt This Program

    You can't help noticing, if you study Soviet-Era Iron-Curtain sci fi illustrations and posters -- an activity which I feel sure governs your every waking minute -- that there are ZERO aliens or extra-terrestrial forms of life to be seen. The Soviets and the East Germans, who did in fact excel in graphics concerning space exploration, never ever bring UFOs or alien inhabitants of other planets into the narrative, either visually or narratively. Yes, maybe Tarkovsky "un tout peit peu" once, but he was exiled pronto from his homeland.


    There is a connection between the mandatory and aggressive atheism of Communism and the definite exile of any trace of openness to extra-terrestrial life. It's just an observable fact.


    So while you may enjoy Iron Curtain sci-fi for its pragmatism and occasional heroism, it is also totally un-cool, un-fun and un-hopeful.


    Where would you and I be without the possibility of answers that come from outside ourselves?


    As I say in the cast, relevant to a recent movie review of an old (but now Blu-Rayed) "film noir", nihilism, whether New or old, is ultimately suicidal. It is also self-sufficient in principle and therefore a crash-landing in real life -- with no survivors, by the way.


    So, hey, keep your mind open. Keep your heart open. And moreover, as Holy Week really teaches, God is Good; We Are Not Alone; and everything has a Purpose. LUV U.

    • 20 min
    Episode 381 - Up the Down Staircase

    Episode 381 - Up the Down Staircase

    I'm trying to put into words the core principles of accessible Christian theology.


    Not mentally or intellectually accessible, but feeling-accessible -- heart-accessible -- and therefore actually and experientially accessible!


    Karl Barth promulgated what was called a "theology from the top down". He saw himself as opposing theologies "from the bottom up". But it was a false dichotomy. We start from where we are -- and in base-level terms, where our hearts live (and die, sometimes daily); and then we are in a position to listen to Hope that travels from the top down. Theology, in other words, is neither from the top down (solely), i.e., entirely vertical; nor is it from the bottom up (solely), i.e., entirely horizontal. Christian theology is Up the Down Staircase!


    Oh, and I hope you like ABBA. "SOS" is one of the great songs of the Glacial Age. Not to mention Ash's track at the end of the cast, which is moving straight from the top end.

    • 19 min
    Episode 380 - It Only Takes a Minute, Girl (Pt 2)

    Episode 380 - It Only Takes a Minute, Girl (Pt 2)

    I don't tire of quoting Thomas Cranmer's 'meme' that goes like this: "What the heart loves, the will chooses, and the mind justifies." That is so true to life.


    Now note its difference with the sentence quoted in part one of this cast by my old episcopal acquaintance in Australia: "Nothing can be loved at speed" (M. Leunig).


    But the heart always loves at speed!


    Perseverance and steady, thoughtful loving exists, yes, but as a fruit of heart-love: Its fruit -- its consequence -- its effect.


    And the heart, I say again, always loves at speed.


    You could almost say this is the secret of life. Cranmer certainly said it. You and I know it from experience. Almost all our core decisions were made "at speed". We didn't think them through before making them. Our heart was "caught", and so it went and "So It Goes" (B. Joel, 1990).


    When we said 'yes' to God, or when we first said a real prayer, it "Only Took a Minute, Lord'.


    We didn't "count the cost". We probably should have, but we didn't in fact. By the Grace of God, our hearts were so "warmed" (John Wesley on May the 24th) that the warm lasted. The warm kept heating us as long as life went on. "Listen to the Warm" (Rod McK., 1967).


    So, um, well, OK, I, ... Listen to your Heart. LUV U.

    • 17 min
    Episode 379 - It Only Takes a Minute, Girl (Pt 1)

    Episode 379 - It Only Takes a Minute, Girl (Pt 1)

    An old acquaintance, an Australian bishop, has been quoting recently from a popular cartoonist and kind of pop philosopher "Down Under" named Mike Leunig. The bishop quoted an aphorism from Leunig in relation to his long-term hopes for the Anglican Church in Australia: "Nothing can be loved at speed".


    When I heard my old colleague quoting Mike Leunig, a 1975 disco hit by Tavares flashed instantly into my mind: "It Only Takes a Minute, Girl (To Fall in Love)".


    What this sudden flash told me was: It's not true -- it is not true that "nothing can be loved at speed". One's heart in fact always loves at speed. Almost every big decision you've ever made was made "at speed"! The heart moves no other way. The heart loves at speed.


    Incidentally, people rarely say this, at least where they could be heard. You don't want to be thought to believe that "It Only Takes a Minute, Girl". That sounds un-wise, un-"nuanced" -- the worst possible thing you could ever be regarded as being -- and imprudent. Nevertheless, it is the way life is. When you review your life, how many decisions you made were actually made in a flash, in a lightning-like "AHA" ('Take on Me') moment? Please tell me.


    You didn't choose the college you went to based on ... thoughtful ratiocination. You didn't choose the profession you chose based on... weighing all the pros and cons. You didn't marry the gal/guy you married on the basis of... thought. (Did you?)


    This cast is about inward (heartfelt) truth vs. outward (rationalizing) truth. When you are dying, I believe you will only know the former. LUV, PZ

    • 24 min
    Episode 378 - PZ's Mature Thoughts Concerning Rock n' Roll

    Episode 378 - PZ's Mature Thoughts Concerning Rock n' Roll

    Personally, I think that one's most cherished tunes come from ... oneself. By which I mean that the music you love may say more about you than about the music itself.


    You hear a Pretenders single and it calls you instantaneously back to the person you were when you first heard it. "Don't You Forget About Me" by Simple Minds has the power to instantly recreate the mood you were in when you first saw The Breakfast Club in the theater. Or maybe it brings to mind and heart the person you were with when you saw it!


    I seriously ask you, Why do you like the music, and especially the rock 'n roll music, that you still like? Why does a particular song have the power to evoke tears -- like in two seconds? Why? Tell me, please -- I'm deeply interested. And why interested? Because I care about you. I care about your heart. I care about the assimilation of both your negativity -- which often has its origin in long ago experience of pain -- and your positivity -- which can boost you up when other things pull you down.


    How would you begin this podcast? I mean, with what music would you open it? And conclude it?


    Incidentally, the Spirit of God spoke to me during the recording of it. You'll notice a change which takes place near the end. So I left it in -- the unexpected change -- because, well, it witnesses. LUV U!

    • 23 min
    Episode 377 - Happy 50th, Rod McKuen

    Episode 377 - Happy 50th, Rod McKuen

    I've been thinking some about "borderland" states, meaning extremely strong states of mind and feeling that are not necessarily explicit, but are nonetheless real. Borderland states of mind are when you are in despair concerning your life, or your primary relationships, or simply the way you feel inside. Sometimes the borderland state is positive -- for example, when you fall deeply in love, or when somebody reaches out to you in selfless concern when you are "all fall down". More often, the borderland is negative, and can result in self-destructive acts or even suicide.


    Rod McKuen (d. 2015) was a magician of the borderland. His songs, performed with that hoarse, breaking voice of his, are almost all addresses to the borderland of human feeling. They are almost all slightly "abnormal", expressing laconic extremes of feeling.


    Their "kitsch" -- as they are sometimes pigeonholed -- is only as kitschy as extreme states of feeling are kitschy. We want to jump off a bridge or call up everyone we know to announce our euphoria or whisper our disappointment to the ends of the earth.


    Rod McKuen's songs are hymns to the borderland. You could almost say they are a little "off". But who is not a little off? His songs actually carry huge promise.


    Note that this cast references a recent sermon from Brad Knight, who spoke from his own borderland to the borderlands inhabited by his hearers. He hit the mark!


    Podcast 377 is dedicated to the Very Rev. James G. Munroe.

    • 22 min

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Please do yourself a huge favour and become a regular listener of PZ's Podcast. In these podcasts, Paul Zahl delivers the message of God's grace in a consistently profound way using movies, literature, and music as his "texts".

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