Podcasts by PZs Podcast

Episode 372 - We've Only Just Begun from 2023-12-04T16:15

This Christmas podcast is in honor of Mary's and my 50th Anniversary, which comes on December 29th. She and I are both in thankful awe of having made it thus far. And happily! To me this is worth c...

Episode 371 - At the Earth's Core from 2023-12-03T13:00

That's a fun movie, from 1976, in which a group of Victorian English people are mistakenly rocketed into inner space, right down to the core of the earth. (What they find, well, you can probably im...

Episode 370 - Serling's Miracle, and Ours from 2023-11-16T15:00

When I survey... not the Wondrous Cross, but the world as it's currently going, it's hard not to despair. So many things seem and feel wrong -- are wrong. Providentially (as I see it), I've been di...

Episode 369 - Don't You Care from 2023-11-01T13:00

God spoke to me recently. Not through a mediated form -- albeit it was through another human being. Not through concept nor reading nor paradox nor metaphor nor memory. But right Here and Now!I was...

Episode 368 - Straining Out Gnats and... from 2023-10-20T09:00

I've been much affected by the pictures of murdered and bombed children from Israel and Gaza in the last week, and found myself comparing these unutterably tragic losses with some of the other issu...

Episode 367 - "Summer of '42" from 2023-10-10T09:00

If you want to get to the core, the very heart, of a person's -- say, your own -- experience of Grace, ask them (i.e., ask yourself) to tell you about an experience of acceptance or belovedness tha...

Episode 366 - Our Movie from 2023-09-06T17:00

Written by Jimmy Webb and performed by Glen Campbell, "Our Movie" is a very touching song. It describes a fulfilled marriage from its beginning and right through. It really describes one's whole li...

Episode 365 - The Whole Loaf from 2023-08-14T10:45

So I was in Henley-on-Thames last week and there was this almost hidden bookshop next to a place called "The Ferret". (I kid you not.) High on a shelf there was an old leather-bound copy of Charles...

Episode 364 - How to Survive Being in Full Time Ministry from 2023-07-07T10:00

Serving in full time ministry is as stress-full as any occupation can be. You get hit from all sides -- unendingly -- and just when you think things are beginning to stabilize, you get hit again. P...

Episode 363 - In Quintessence from 2023-07-06T12:00

The quintessence of one's continuing love of popular culture that embodies heart-to-heart communication is the subject of this cast. What makes a work of popular art "Christian"? Does it have to ...

Episode 362 - Midsummer Night's Dream from 2023-06-27T22:00

It's interesting how far music drives this podcast. Fer sher, I've been "out of pocket" for a month or so, but what drove me to record this new cast was one thing: music. I'd recently heard a secti...

Episode 361 - Outer Limits from 2023-05-17T12:00

Verticality is a make-or-break attribute of the Christian Church. When we put horizontality before verticality, we run out of gas. Always.People cannot "keep up" horizontal good works and outreach ...

Episode 360 - Outta Gear from 2023-05-13T14:00

I think we probably all need to get "outta gear", at least to some extent. 'Gears' are the attitudes, narratives, and exterior values that shape and define most of what we spend our time doing. We ...

Episode 359 - Better Late Than Never from 2023-05-12T09:00

I think about it a lot: why isn't God intervening to make the world a less harsh and broiling place? 'Where are you, God? Come on, already.' Another way of putting it: What's taking You so long? An...

Episode 358 - The Wisdom of... Los Straitjackets from 2023-04-24T09:00

It just came down to me. Like the letter at the beginning of Forrest Gump. Like the chap who rescued Mary and me six years ago when we blew a tire in the most remote "track" to be found in all of E...

Episode 357 - 'Mockingbird' en France from 2023-04-20T15:00

We're always looking out for resources, mostly in the popular-art side of life, that embody the Belovedness that precedes all loving. Whether it's a Motown single or a novel no one's ever heard of ...

Episode 356 - Happy Imputation Day from 2023-04-12T14:00

Gerry Rafferty's 1978 single entitled "Right Down the Line" is a pure classic on the experience of imputation. Imputation, for the record, is when someone lovingly regards you as different from the...

Episode 355 - The Story of My Life (1957) from 2023-04-05T16:00

That title song is a quiet masterpiece. Sure, it's a little corny in the arrangement, but the message is universal. It never fails, at least in my case, to elicit tears -- of recognition. This cast...

Episode 354 - Beep Alonia from 2023-03-21T15:00

These podcasts are almost all dialogues with music. The music, such as "Beep Alonia" from 1964, touches a soft or sensitive spot in my heart -- and also one's brain, maybe -- and suddenly "the wate...

Episode 353 - The Monster Swim from 2023-03-20T21:00

Good things, true things, lasting things have built-in repetition. They repeat in life because they are always valid. So they come back. Like "The Monster Swim"! That major contribution was the fol...

Episode 352 - Thou Shalt Not Steal from 2023-03-01T15:00

Warning from Space, a Japanese sci-fi "thriller" from 1956, is an extremely ridiculous movie. But I had confused it with Message from Space, also Japanese but from 1978, which is in fact not as goo...

Episode 351 - "Been Invited to a Party" from 2023-02-28T08:00

There is so little one knows. Here one thought one had a "deep bench" when it comes to foreign films, and yet I knew nothing of Julien Duvivier! Yes, there is his 'classic' Poil de Carotte, and Cri...

Episode 350 - Don't Sell Me a Semi-Automatic from 2023-02-21T09:15

Sometimes I hear a 'Grace' sermon that is just terrific... until the last five minutes. During the last five minutes, the preacher seems pressed to tell me how I should respond, at least mentally, ...

Episode 349 - Atlantic Twist from 2023-02-21T09:00

This is a follow-up to "Joe Meek Is God", and observes the non sequiturs of one's life. I believe they are Providential, those decisive non sequiturs; and are best observed in the absence of a "nar...

Episode 348 - Joe Meek Is God from 2023-02-17T10:00

I've talked about Joe Meek before, but think I've finally gotten to the spiritual wisdom that lies beneath his many records. (Meek was an English independent record producer in the 1950s and '60s.)...

Episode 347 - Perpetual Motion from 2023-02-15T13:00

What could really do it? What could actually revive the beneficent influence of the Christian Gospel on our current masochistic/sadistic world? "What Does It Take/To Win Your Love for Me" (Junior W...

Episode 346 - Dumb Head from 2023-02-08T12:00

I'm not talking about dying these days in order to be a downer. (For years one has tuned out all sorts of devotional books that major on death and dying. Especially R.C. ones, which felt morbid. Th...

Episode 345 - The KA of Gifford Hillary from 2023-02-04T10:00

Dennis Wheatley was an author "on the margins". In other words, he was a flawed (tho' very popular in his day) writer who was not taken seriously by most critics. But his distinctly marginal themes...

Episode 344 - The Israelites from 2023-01-30T12:00

The recent death of an old friend (i.e., of 52 years' standing) has brought vividly to mind, in the recollection of the person by their friends and family, a vital distinction: the distinction betw...

Episode 343 - Billion Dollar Brain from 2022-12-15T14:00

People conceal so much about themselves. They don't always mean to, but in one area or another they are afraid to say what's really going on -- especially inside themselves. Then, over time, they -...

Episode 342 - Strange Conflict from 2022-12-13T16:00

Herein is a degree of pushing-the-envelope that I hope may speak to you, dear Listener. One was struck recently when someone announced, "Your problem's been solved". "Come again?", I said. He added...

Episode 341 - The Chinese Prime Minister from 2022-12-04T00:00

Three recent sudden deaths of old friends have called forth this Christmas podcast. In two of the cases, the family, let alone the deceased, have been completely unprepared. I mean, completely. No ...

Episode 340 - Tales of Hoffmann from 2022-08-29T13:00

What do our favorite songs, movies, and shows -- and even places -- say about us? Why do we like the media we do? What draws us to one form of art rather than another -- to one sort of setting rath...

Episode 339 - Anglican/'Anglican' from 2022-08-02T09:00

The Gospel of God's One-Way Love can find an appealing, commodious platform within the Anglican tradition. This is because when that tradition is allowed to be fully itself -- historically, theolog...

Episode 338 - Privilege (1967) from 2022-06-15T13:00

The vehement secularism all around us is no secret. I have seen its pointed perseverance in at least three settings recently, and most powerfully at my 50th Harvard College class reunion. In all ...

Episode 337 - Our M'bird Guest 2022 from 2022-05-03T16:00

Mockingbird's 14th annual New York City conference, entitled "Hope for a Weary World", was a kind of summit for this utterly needed Word. I'll bet almost everyone there felt the same way. Was it th...

Episode 336 - Death Star Portal from 2022-03-11T11:30

It seems as if almost everybody is a little like the "Death Star" in Star Wars. There's a way in to our inner reality, but it's very small -- tiny, in fact -- and it takes a sure shot to get inside...

Episode 335 - The Big Street from 2022-03-11T11:15

Can you ever "over"-impute? Can you treat a person as they actually are not to such an extent that you lose yourself and are ultimately taken advantage of? The short answer to the question is No. I...

Episode 334 - Animotion II from 2022-02-15T12:15

The first cast, "Animotion I", laid the 'low-anthropology' groundwork for this new one. Carl Jung's typification of animus and anima diagnosed the male/female dynamic buried within us primordially ...

Episode 333 - Animotion I from 2022-02-15T12:00

Amid the tidal wave/s of views and perspectives on men and women in relation to one another stand the enduring insights of Carl Jung. Much of what he wrote feels almost too complex and too layered ...

Episode 332 - What Church Means to Me from 2022-01-27T09:00

This is one's ecclesiology, one's doctrine of the Church, after a lifetime's involvement with it and 47 years' ordained ministry within it. For what it's worth, I think I've "got it now" ("One Monk...

Episode 331 - Robert Nathan (So There!) from 2022-01-24T13:15

It's funny that in one's recovery from illness, the "band width" is still nowhere near what it used to be. I used to be able to read a novel by Dostoyevsky one week, then a book by Forde the next, ...

Episode 330 - Tulsa Turnaround from 2022-01-24T13:00

I was "thrown" a little recently by a liturgical service that felt confused at a pretty deep level, and maybe even untruthful. The service was trying to honor someone but "too many cooks" (theologi...

Episode 329 - Rice Is Nice from 2021-12-15T10:00

You can respond to PZ's appeal and support the work of Mockingbird by clicking here (https://mbird.com/support/). All gifts are tax-deductible. The Lemon Pipers captured something universal and act...

Episode 328 - The Face Behind the Mask from 2021-12-10T12:00

It is easy ("It's So Easy" - L. Ronstadt, 1977) to talk about "going deeper" and the "journey inward" and the layers of human personality. But in practice it rarely happens. It rarely happens that ...

Episode 327 - Magic Carpet Ride from 2021-12-07T10:45

Someone inscribed a book to me once, and wrote, "To Paul, In hope of transformation." (I didn't feel insulted, but rather moved.) This podcast is about sudden transformation.We are sometimes taught...

Episode 326 - Kingdom of Heaven from 2021-10-25T09:00

I keep talking about life-resolution issues that are fairly elemental. Part of the theme comes from recent personal experience, but part of it comes from popular music and movies. Today's entry poi...

Episode 325 - Charade from 2021-09-02T10:15

When people ask you "How's it going?" or "Hey, what's on your mind these days?", I'd be surprised if you always give an honest answer. In fact, even if you decide to sound honest and authentic, you...

Episode 324 - 'Apparently She Thought Not': Tyrone Davis and the End of the World from 2021-08-21T13:00

There used to be a monthly column in Reader's Digest magazine -- of which one number featured a photo of John Zahl on the back cover -- that was entitled "Laughter Is the Best Medicine". It was a ...

Episode 323 - I Put a Spell on You from 2021-07-22T21:00

I know it may seem pretty far off in geography, but the "zero-case" policy of Australia, with its accompanying long and also 'snap' lockdowns, is arrestingly relevant to Mockingbird (and over-all C...

Episode 322 - Fifteen Percent from 2021-06-24T12:00

As I reported last time, I believe God gave me two words, or inspirations, as I struggled through an echo cardiogram during a recent illness. But wait, there's more!On the day after the echo cardio...

Episode 321 - Subtract Then Add from 2021-06-11T13:00

I'm finally well enough to reflect, somewhat formally through this new podcast, on the recent illness I went through, and on what I heard at the nadir of it. What happens when you are that sick -- ...

Episode 320 - Moot Point from 2021-04-14T19:00

What did Dr. Johnson say concerning one's imminent death?: It wonderfully concentrates the mind.While I was sick recently, a familiar feeling came "shining through". Nothing is really important exc...

Episode 319 - "My friend the..." from 2021-03-25T17:00

The excerpt at the start is from a song that was Number One in 1958 and to which I once got almost the entire support staff -- all of whom it turned out already knew the refrain -- of an institutio...

Episode 218 - C'MON DAD from 2021-03-23T12:00

I've talked about "phosphorus" (https://pzspodcast.fireside.fm/272) before -- the ever-glowing points of connection that constitute a kind of trail within the story of our life. Today the subject i...

Episode 317 - Odessey and Oracle from 2021-03-04T19:00

The title of the Zombies' marvelous album from 1968/69 entitled "Odessey and Oracle" (sic) puts one's life in two-word perspective that means a lot to me. We are all on an odyssey of sorts, as Odys...

Episode 316 - The Ballad of John and Walter from 2021-02-23T13:00

What a load of uncharted material is out there for people who are looking for Grace! Here I have spent almost 60 years "trolling" for redemptive material, words and music, especially the Seventh A...

Episode 315 - Top of the World from 2021-02-13T12:00

Today I want to "double down" just a bit on the anchoring necessity of romantic connection within our everyday lives. Flourishing won't occur without it, and that's an empirical fact whether one li...

Episode 314 - Heinz Agonistes from 2021-01-13T20:00

https://mbird.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/IMG_5702.jpg How should we think about God when faced with a massive, injuring disappointment? Or rather, how can a person of faith assimilate an experi...

Episode 313 - Reverse Chronology from 2021-01-05T13:00

Harold Pinter wrote a play once entitled "Betrayal" and he used a sort of trick to tell his story. He began the play at the end -- at the tragic finale of the events dramatized -- and ended the pla...

Episode 312 - Hope From Heinz from 2021-01-05T12:00

'Heinz' was short for Heinz Burt (d. 2000), a grocery clerk in Southampton, England, whom Joe Meek, an independent record producer, made into a star for a brief period in the early 1960s. The brill...

Episode 311 - Crescendo from 2020-11-19T11:00

I was listening to a sermon concerning spiritual warfare and my mind went straight back to 1970, to the English film, a psychological thriller, entitled Crescendo. The film stars Stephanie Powers a...

Episode 310 - New Prince, New Pomp (c. 1605) from 2020-10-28T11:00

I'm trying to understand, in Romans 7 and Mockingbird terms, a phenomenon I currently observe -- and feel -- all around me. It is as if the more control, medically and in terms of hospitalizations,...

Episode 309 - Little Bit O'Soul from 2020-10-22T13:00

There's a truth of life that more and more people are telling me about from their own experience. To be sure, these people are mostly my own age, so we are considering that last third of life with ...

Episode 308 - Phosphorus from 2020-09-05T19:00

There's a terrific Sherlock Holmes movie from 1944 entitled The Scarlet Claw. Well, it's actually not that terrific, but the premise is great. In the movie a criminal disguises himself as a kind ...

Episode 307 - Sacred Space from 2020-09-04T10:00

It's a kind of personal discovery I made last week, when inventorying some more of the songs featured in Peace in the Last Third of Life: A Handbook of Hope for Boomers (https://amzn.to/2QX1NGW) (M...

Episode 306 - For Our Dear Margary from 2020-08-27T13:00

One of the best effects of a positive view of aging, which I have tried to offer in the Boomer Handbook (https://amzn.to/2D3dxV1) (Mockingbird, 2020), is the unexpected appearance of new material. ...

Episode 305 - 'Wear a Mask' (Los Straitjackets) from 2020-08-24T10:00

I heard something very helpful recently in a sermon by John Zahl. He said that sometimes in life what seems like the end is really the middle. I think JAZ meant that when your situation feels like ...

Episode 304 - Speed Bump from 2020-07-06T11:00

I like Greg Townson very much! He's a guitarist who's been around for a while, but is now a leading member of Los Straitjackets. He combines that great Rockabilly sound of theirs with some really l...

Episode 303 - Jimmy Loves Mary Anne from 2020-07-01T11:00

This is a further thought on "narratives", tho' with a Biblical example (from Jeremiah) and a recent public incident that has me both "stunned and amazed" (Pretenders, 'My City Was Gone', 1984). Th...

Episode 302 - Narrative Schmarrative from 2020-06-29T15:00

"Narratives", which used to be called "paradigms", and before that, "preconceptions", are like shackles on human necks. They force one to look down from what isbefore you, rather than at it. Narr...

Episode 301 - Emotional Rescue from 2020-06-07T00:00

Feelings cover both the personal and the general. They cover both the individual and the collective. So you feel deeply when you are loved and loved back, and you feel deeply when a cause -- politi...

Episode 300 - (You're) Having My Baby from 2020-03-30T20:00

Mrs. Zahl and I had a sort of 'Abraham/Sarah' moment (i.e., Genesis 17) this week, and it brought to mind an immortal song from 1974, performed by Paul Anka. But it was all because of the virus! Th...

Episode 299 - Kolchak and Corona from 2020-03-16T14:00

In the middle of what may be the worst week, or close to it, this cast offers hope of a real breakthrough -- and not just in mental attitude or "approach", but in the substance of the pandemic. At ...

Episode 298 - Outer Ashen Limits from 2020-02-29T19:00

Our parish's Ash Wednesday service this year made me think of an old "Outer Limits" episode entitled 'Cry of Silence'. That episode concerned alien tumbleweeds -- no kidding -- and a scientist's at...

Episode 297 - Bright Road from 2020-02-12T15:00

There is this unexpected plethora of gems coming at me just now in a Mockingbird vein. Last week there was Journey into Light, from 1951; and also The First Legion, also from that year. Today there...

Episode 296 - Pre-Code from 2020-01-23T10:00

Some startling new material has come down the pipeline this week, and I'm utterly bound to share it with you. Turns out that all sorts of explicitly Christian Hollywood movies have been hidden from...

Episode 295 - Lobo in Taiwan from 2020-01-20T18:00

Just as alien invasion movies break down the "dividing walls of hostility" (Ephesians 2:14), almost invariably uniting the human race/s against the common enemy, so do four facts: 1) Lobo is big in...

Episode 294 - World Contact Day from 2020-01-13T18:00

One of the great things about UFOs and alien contact is that it unnerves and demoralizes the kind of thinking that qualifies everyone in terms of "identities" or predicates. The metaphor of alien...

Episode 293 - Disco Inferno from 2020-01-13T17:00

In the late 1970s The Trammps conceived a brilliant Disco Inferno, in which something would be burned down. Whether they meant the hot performance of a disco dance, or whether the torching of somet...

Episode 292 - Down Down from 2020-01-07T18:00

Sometimes I feel like... a motherless child. No, really: Sometimes I feel like I've been looking in almost all the wrong places for confirmations and traces of my Ur-existential Christian faith.One...

Episode 291 - Indiana Wants Me from 2019-12-20T11:00

The secret that explains life -- I say "secret" because it's an open but denied truth, known most directly in popular music but suppressed in most "narratives" and conceptual systems -- is the aspi...

Episode 290 - Christmas Day from 2019-12-16T11:00

A few words about faith, and the future -- and your future, in particular, in individual terms. I was struck recently by a meme I read on Instagram. It read like this:"Stop focusing on what 'wasn't...

Episode 289 - Saskatoon from 2019-12-02T10:00

To respond to the opening invitation and make a gift in support of PZ's Podcast, click here (https://mbird.com/support/donate/). The most recent cast, entitled "GPF", has drawn a lot of response. ...

Episode 288 - GPF from 2019-11-25T15:00

This follows from Episode 286, entitled "Sine Qua Non" (https://pzspodcast.fireside.fm/250), and concerns the arrival of gratitude and peace at the end of life -- or, better, way before the end of ...

Episode 287 - Julie, Do You Love Me from 2019-11-18T11:15

My subject is the birth of love in human relationships. What causes a person to love (as opposed to being indifferent, or even hostile)? What causes you and me to love another (as opposed to being ...

Episode 286 - Sine Qua Non from 2019-11-18T11:00

A scene near the beginning of the Russian movie version of War and Peace (1965-67) conveys the inner dialogue of a young woman as she lays dying after childbirth -- actually, as she has just died. ...

Episode 285 - Listen to the Music from 2019-11-14T16:00

There is so much talk just now about the decline of Christianity in this country. But try to listen to the right music on that score. Or rather, the more accurate music! The fact is, young people a...

Episode 284 - They Came From Beyond Space from 2019-10-23T12:00

The subject of the cast is inspiration: where it comes from and how to get it. That may sound a little ambitious, but lots of us are looking for it, whether in our family and our marriage or in th...

Episode 283 - Achilles Heel from 2019-10-07T21:00

It seems that human nature, or rather, one's understanding of human nature, is the Achilles Heel of theology -- and philosophy, too -- throughout the "Spin-Me-Round" (Dead or Alive, 1985) of cyclic...

Episode 282 - Under a Cloud from 2019-09-24T12:00

This is part two of a series on the arithmetic increase, as one grows older, in unchangeability within the human personality and yet the extraordinary palpable power of absolving grace to stop the ...

Episode 281 - Downhill Racer from 2019-09-24T11:00

The downhill momentum of inertia and prior woundedness in people begins early but seems to pick up speed the older you get. In other words, the more time elapses since an early rejection or early h...

Episode 280 - Susan from 2019-09-06T11:30

Human nature is extremely vulnerable. I'm thinking of one's inwardness, and the way a seemingly small rejection, loss or blow of some kind can be enough to unravel a person's entire equilibrium. Yo...

Episode 279 - The Ballad of Marianne and Paula from 2019-09-06T11:00

I was dumbfounded, in a good way, when a pastor I respect prayed for God to hold Hurricane Dorian at the Central Florida coastline and not permit the storm to go inland. In 44 years' ordained min...

Episode 278 - Bonaparte's Retreat from 2019-07-29T16:00

An awful lot of truth is coming out just now, on several fronts. As to why exactly this is happening, I can't precisely say. But when the truth about anything, from ill-anchored relationships to cu...

Episode 277 - Running a Losing Race from 2019-07-24T14:00

Tyrone Davis sort of says it all in the title track to this cast. He's "Running a Losing Race", and it sounds to me a lot like life. As a person ages, they have to watch out not to 'diss' the legit...

Episode 276 - Widow's Pique from 2019-07-08T16:00

There are certain subjects that seem verboten in the pulpit. I'm not referring to political issues, or contemporary social themes; but, rather, to pastoral situations/experiences that are so "close...

Episode 275 - How, Exactly, Does Love Come Down? from 2019-06-24T21:00

We all want to know, when we are down -- I mean, when we are really down -- where we can turn for help. It happens to almost everyone, at least once in your life, that circumstances -- outward, inw...

Episode 274 - Tyrone Davis and the Future of Mankind from 2019-05-28T13:00

It's not just Tyrone Davis. It's almost any artist who captures the popular imagination. He or she is talking about real things, personal and individual issues, the things everyone is carrying. As ...

Episode 273 - The Treasure from 2019-05-16T16:00

A little bit of surgery can compose the mind, right? In any event, in my recovery I went back to Nevil Shute's novel The Rainbow and the Rose. It concerns the twilight of a man's life as he lies dy...

Episode 272 - The Bell That Couldn't Jingle from 2019-05-07T16:00

I'm wary of telling a story about myself unless it has potential resonance and carries some possible hope to a listener. Here I am giving a short witness of a counter-intuitive Word received in chu...

Episode 271 - Lazy Susan from 2019-04-19T16:00

Imputation is the prime "agent" within the great dynamic of the Grace of God. As one need never tire of saying, imputation is when you regard someone as better (or finer or prettier or stronger or ...

Episode 270 - You Little Trustmaker from 2019-04-01T16:00

So I was looking high and low for a little peace the other day. An article I read had upset me, and I thought to myself, "Well, if that's true, then why not just go to sleep for the next ten years,...

Episode 269 - Soul Trajectory from 2019-03-20T13:45

As the human soul makes its trajectory through life, it "lights on" hoped-for objects of connection. From birth to death, the soul is looking for, urgently aspiring to locate, a substitute for the ...

Episode 268 - Seasons in the Sun from 2019-03-02T15:00

It was touching beyond words to attend and witness the Institution of Stu Shelby as Rector of All Saints Episcopal Church, Winter Park, FL. Mary was a Presenter, and I had the chance to just take i...

Episode 267 - Blowing Away from 2019-02-08T11:00

Huge -- Yuge -- feedback from the previous two casts, entitled "Surprise Surprise" and "Soul Searchin' Time". So here I am looking at two basics, two core issues I have with current religion -- rel...

Episode 266 - Soul Searchin' Time from 2019-02-04T11:30

The previous cast, "Surprise, Surprise", raised the vexing question of exceptions in the practice of grace to sinners and sufferers. I spoke about the chronic inability of Christians who emphasize ...

Episode 265 - Surprise, Surprise from 2019-01-30T11:00

A friend recently surprised me with the observation that Christians he knows who preach a "theology of glory" seem to be more welcoming, and forgiving, of real actual sinners than Christians he kno...

Episode 264 - Tip for a Happy Marriage from 2019-01-07T10:00

Justin Hayward is a sort of archivist for romantic relationships. He is 72 and still going strong. Two 'Live' performances book-end this cast, which is intended as fresh therapy towards a happy mar...

Episode 262 - Magic from 2018-11-19T16:00

When it comes to rules or advice for long-term marriage, I often seem to hear words like "covenant" and "promise-keeping". These conceptions of keeping faith with another person are laudatory and f...

Episode 263 - Too Weak to Fight from 2018-11-19T16:00

One's Christian life will fail if it is not rooted in the truth of human nature, which we all share, like it or not. Similarly, everyone's life, whether Christian or non-Christian or anti-Christian...

Episode 261 - Mountain of Love from 2018-11-12T21:00

This is a kind of "work-book" question for the listeners to this podcast. The issue of romantic love is to the fore again, but the question is other: Why is there general radio silence on the vital...

Episode 260 - Transgressive Enough 4 U? from 2018-11-12T21:00

Experiencing a massive re-think just now concerning world cinema! This has been occasioned in part by watching every disc one can get one's hands on of the recently released catalogue of British "V...

Episode 259 - Revenge of the Creature from 2018-11-06T22:00

We're talking about love today -- wouldn't ya know -- and the relation of divine love to romantic love. It's a familiar, but one that remains very fresh, at least as long as human memory and human ...

Episode 258 - Sunshine of Your Love from 2018-10-03T10:00

Everyone was young once. Adolescence, which is roughly the period between ages 16 and 25, is THE time in your life when you experience the strongest emotions, emotions contingent on loss but also f...

Episode 257 - T.S.O.P. (The Sound of Philadelphia) from 2018-09-17T11:00

Mrs. Zahl recently used the word "periphery" to describe our attitude, mine and hers, to increasing numbers of institutions, groups, and schools of thought to which we have been attached and for wh...

Episode 256 - My Antediluvian Baby from 2018-08-15T16:45

Donovan's odd and brilliant song from 1970 entitled "Atlantis" is a good example of what PZ's Podcast is all about. And what is that?: Well, if you get to the heart of what's really on your mind,...

Episode 255 - The Letter from 2018-07-31T17:00

Pastorally -- and generally -- it is easy to miss the core of what's going on with a person in pain. You may see some symptoms -- tho' sometimes even the symptoms are hidden -- and may sub-rational...

Episode 254 - Tupper from 2018-07-30T12:00

No finer Southern prep ever hit the scene than the Sewanee graduate Tupper Saussy. His two albums produced under the name "The Neon Philharmonic", with Don Gant, are supreme examples of symphonic r...

Episode 253 - Facing the Cannons (NOT!) from 2018-07-23T12:00

Shibboleth's are often true in part. Maxims are true in part. But they are never, or at least rarely, wholly true. One such maxim is a current fashionable imperative, Face the Cannons. The idea is ...

Episode 252 - Ah! Sweet Mystery of Life from 2018-07-19T11:00

In a quote that's been making the rounds recently, Rudolph Bultmann wrote, "When we encounter the words of Jesus in history, we do not judge them by a philosophical system with reference to their r...

Episode 251 - The Spider and the Fly from 2018-07-04T11:00

Benjamin Britten's 'Spider and the Fly' number from his Suite for "Johnson over Jordan", by J.B. Priestley, takes you by surprise. It sounds like Gershwin at the start, then becomes a kind of danse...

Episode 250 - Bells Are Ringing from 2018-06-21T23:30

This is a short riposte to the politicization of basically everything just now; but not in the way of taking sides, but rather in the way of digging deeper. I mean, digging deeper to the best and t...

Episode 249 - Sanctification (Is Making Me Late) from 2018-06-03T21:30

Ellis Brazeal recently pointed out a clear-and-present fact about what we call "sanctification". Ellis observed that the moment we begin to think we have it, or have made it, it is completely null...

Episode 248 - Dead Reckoning from 2018-05-25T14:00

Pastoral experience in hospital pre-op units provides abundant evidence for the existence of the soul. I first saw this evidence in Birmingham years ago, when someone we knew and loved was having t...

Episode 247 - Shoe Horn from 2018-05-11T22:00

People are constantly trying to shoe horn their search for God into containers too tight for the Object of the search. This is probably true of some of your interests, whether it's food or Hammer h...

Episode 246 - Welcome to the Club from 2018-05-02T13:00

One of the best things about the recent Mockingbird conference in NYC was its unerring focus on universals and primary factors in human destiny and identity, rather than on contingencies and elemen...

Episode 245 - How U Break a Soul-Tie from 2018-04-22T21:00

Well, the short answer, tho' not the whole answer, is: you can't. I wish you could. I can give you a hundred pointers and tips concerning it; and can even print out some prayers for you to say, in ...

Episode 244 - Soul-Tie from 2018-04-09T21:00

This cast is a kind of summation of my thinking about romantic love in its relation to one's soul's salvation. I have thought about the compelling nature of romance -- between two people, I mean --...

Episode 243 - Hitchcock Railway from 2018-03-23T13:00

This cast is about low anthropology, or rather, hidden anthropology. Have you been struck by the comments concerning the Austin bomber in which people near and dear to the young man say they saw no...

Episode 242 - Bay of Angels from 2018-03-15T10:00

I'm always surprised when proponents of One Way Love fail to apply it in concrete cases. In other words, we can talk a good game -- abouthow Christ is always there, gets there first (!), when we a...

Episode 241 - Urgent from 2018-01-30T12:00

People are so good at minimizing the human situation. I've encountered this throughout Mary's and my ministry, right from the very start, in Silver Spring, MD. The religious "professionals" deteste...

Episode 240 - 8 Days a Week from 2018-01-25T09:00

I don't talk about romantic love because it is worshipful in its own right. I talk about romantic love because it is the closest signpost we have to God. Whether it's the Beatles ("Eight Days a Wee...

Episode 239 – A Disease I Do Not Have the Courage to Name from 2017-12-12T16:00

This Christmas cast is about communication between people, and God. Moreover, it’s about the cost of poor communication, which can be suicide, let alone habitual alienation. And the rich a...

Episode 238 – Motivate! from 2017-12-12T15:00

This is a short talk on motivation and love.
What motivates a person to do something— to REALLY do something.
As opposed to remaining endlessly exhausted and trapped,
within...

Episode 237 – One Monkey from 2017-10-15T21:00

You listen to the group Honey Cone, described today as early feminists, and they are talking about a universal truth and in memorable pop terms. No hatred of men here, just the emotional recogni...

Episode 236 – Psychosis from 2017-09-27T14:00

“Psychosis” is a very strong word for a cultural phenomenon. But it allows us to speak of a fissure over against reality, when groups of people see things around them in a way that i...

Episode 235 – The Year We Make Contact from 2017-09-12T19:00

I’m talking about pastoral contact, which is just another way of talking about personal contact. How do you get through to somebody? How do they get through to you? What establishes direct...

Episode 234 – Turning Point from 2017-09-11T11:00

This theme of the insuperability of at least one problem in your life continues to absorb me— and in the light of hope and hopefulness.

I tell the story of a woman who recently atten...

Episode 233 – The Story in Your Eyes from 2017-09-11T11:00

We’ve all got a story in our eyes!

The Moody Blues, and in particular their inspired songwriter Justin Hayward, caught that“Silent-Running” fact in the 1971 single...

Episode 232 – Easier Said Than Done from 2017-09-04T15:00

Sometimes when I hear a sermon or address that stresses the presence of God in catastrophic situations, let alone God’s presence in the midst of sin and sinners, I want to stand up and ask...

Episode 230 – Question (LIVE) from 2017-08-28T21:30

The fact that the mainstream churches are hiding their Light under a bushel is the primary reason for their atrophy. The fact that most of our churches are“missing in action” when it...

Episode 231 – On the Road to Love from 2017-08-28T21:00

One more‘riff’ on the paucity of mainstream church“address” to the hungry and hurt visitor, let alone the hungry and hurt regular; but with hope:

Justin Hayward is ...

Episode 228 - Eternal Return from 2017-02-13T09:00

I keep trying to make sense of the divisions we are almost all feeling currently.How can one get "under" them, i.e., in hopes of lessening them a little? Does anyone who is reading this enjoy feeli...

Episode 211 - Son, This Is She from 2016-02-08T06:00

There is this amazing supposed contrast between the God Who comes to us from without, and the God Who speaks to us from within. Historic Christianity generally hears the First.Eastern religion gene...

Episode 210 - Saved! from 2016-01-31T06:00

When you were in a tight spot, how did help get through to you, assuming help did get through to you?Did God speak from out of the whirlwind -- of crisis, panic, and despair? Or did aid come from i...

Episode 209 - How To Be Popular If You're a Guy from 2016-01-25T11:00

The answer to that question has to lie, somehow, in whatever explains the popular success of Rodney Marvin ('Rod') McKuen.Rod McKuen died a year ago, and did you know he sold 100 million records? ...

Episode 208 - Five O'Clock World from 2016-01-07T22:00

Now we think that reality, the "real world", is what happens "between nine and five", that is, what happens at work, in the office, at school, in career, and so forth. And a lot of people want to ...

Episode 207 - Is Paris Burning? (1966) from 2015-11-15T22:00

Here are a few thoughts concerning the atrocity attacks in Paris. I talk about Islam (and "Islamophobia"), Syrian migration into Europe,Original Sin and "low" vs. "high" anthropology, reaction-form...

Episode 205 - Unforeseen from 2015-11-09T06:00

It's not an abstraction! It's more than something just to talk about or consider. It could happen to you. In fact, it probably will. I'm talking about unforeseen death.Some people hold on for a ...

Episode 206 - The Rich Man and Lazarus from 2015-11-09T06:00

I keep getting requests for a sort of "early morning Bible study" -- giving the 'treatment', you might say, to a New Testament text that stings, and also helps. So that's what I'll do for a few ep...

Episode 204 - Honest to God from 2015-10-01T07:00

Pop songs about love are like a corkscrew for understanding the Bible. Songs like "Hooked on a Feeling" and "Don't Pull Your Love Out on Me, Baby", together with a zillion co-belligerants that are ...

Episode 203 - Pope Francis and the Historical Jesus from 2015-10-01T07:00

The music is "Good Vibrations" at the start, by The Beach Boys; and "I Knew Jesus (Before He Was a Super Star)", at the end, by Glen Campbell. Here is the description for iTunes and also the blurb ...

Episode 202: Pope Francis from 2015-09-28T07:00

Did you cry at any point as you watched Pope Francis in action during his visit? If you did, when was it? What made you cry? "Now it wasn't just John Boehner! I noticed as I watched the Pope int...

Episode 201: The Real Thing from 2015-09-16T21:00

Is there anything to it? Is vertical religion -- not just calls to social justice, not just implied belief (system) -- but actual vertical religion rooted in anything resembling fact?I'm utterly bu...

Episode 200: Catatonia from 2015-08-12T21:00

This is not the Who's Final Tour. (They always come back.) So maybe it is the Who's Final Tour.Whatever it is, it's Podcast 200, and that's a benchmark. Somehow.So I decided to sum up the two core...

Episode 199: What Actually Happens from 2015-08-08T21:00

If you don't factor in the element of romantic love -- or at least its possibility -- you'll surprise yourself when you start making decisions in life. Sometimes I wish I could give a college comme...

Episode 198: Mirage Fighter from 2015-08-08T19:00

Talk about being misunderstood!: Artur London was one of the 11 most misunderstood men in the world,at least at the end of 1951. London was a defendant in the Slansky Trial, a "show trial" under J...

Episode 197: The Sacraments Rightly Understood from 2015-08-08T10:00

The church is today so vastly over-eucharisted that you can barely pause to catch your breath. This cast offers an alternative view of the Holy Communion, as well as of Baptism. The original Praye...

Episode 196: Cimarron from 2015-07-31T10:00

"The movie Cimarron, which was released in 1931, won the Academy Award for Best Picture that year. (Did you know this?) It's great blessing, Cimarron -- which was based on the novel Cimarron, writ...

Episode 195: Shag (The Movie) from 2015-07-28T10:00

Shag The Movie (1989) is a great little entertainment! It captures perfectly, and with high humor and enormous love and heart, the Beach Music phenomenon of the 1960s. Today, however, it touches ...

Episode 194: Left Hand Path from 2015-07-24T10:00

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 fre...

Episode 193: Cross Dressing from 2015-07-21T10:00

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 pro...

Episode 192: How to Save the Church (But Our Lips Are Sealed) from 2015-07-20T10:00

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 ye...

Episode 191: Shakin' All Over from 2015-07-20T09:00

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 li...

Episode 190 - PZ's Fabulous New Dating Tips for Gals from 2015-07-06T09:00

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 fab...

Episode 189 - Why Weepest Thou? from 2015-06-28T09:00

"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 ...

Episode 188 - Scuppernong from 2015-06-23T20:00

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 Revenu...

Episode 187 - Norwegian Wood from 2015-06-15T20:00

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 ques...

Episode 186 - Dead End (My Friend) from 2015-06-14T20:00

'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....

Episode 185 - One Toke Over The Line (Sweet Mary) from 2015-03-11T20:00

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 bla...

Episode 184 - Hysteria from 2015-03-08T20:00

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 s...

Episode 183 - Dr. Syn from 2015-03-06T19:00

Oh, to encounter an integrated minister! We all want to be integrated -- to be ourselves in the pulpitand also out of it. But it's tricky to pull off.Pharisaical elements in the church -- usually o...

Episode 181 - Dualism Clinic with James Bernard from 2015-01-25T19:00

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. T...

Episode 180 - Metropolitan Life from 2014-11-21T19:00

]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 i...

Episode 179 - Ere the Winter Storms from 2014-11-14T19:00

Why are so many unchanged, I mean fundamentally unchanged, by the red lights of life? What accounts for persons' resistanceto the lessons of catastrophe? This week Robert W. Anderson, not 'Sister ...

Episode 178 - Without Which Not from 2014-10-29T20:00

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 thi...

Episode 177 - Whipped Cream from 2014-10-07T20:00

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 t...

Episode 176 - Everything Is Tuesday from 2014-08-26T20:00

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

Episode 175 - Does the Name Grimsby Do Anything to You? from 2014-08-26T14:00

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

Episode 174 - Federal Theology in the Letters of Samuel Rutherford from 2014-08-22T17:00

"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.

Episode 173 - And the Winner Is from 2014-08-21T10:00

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 fromABBA.

Episode 172 - Phony Wars from 2014-08-20T18:00

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 fai...

Episode 171 - If You Can't Stand the Heat from 2014-08-07T14:00

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 Ba...

Episode 170 - Farewell to the First Golden Era from 2014-06-10T10:00

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!

Episode 169 - Wooden Ships from 2014-05-23T05:00

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 su...

Episode 168 - "Generation Zahl" from 2014-05-18T14:00

A penetrating and courageous televison program from Germany opened me up recently. It was an instance of what Stefan Kolditz, the writer of the program, called a "non-ideological access" to a trag...

Episode 167 - Emotion from 2014-05-09T12:00

This is all about one thing. It didn't take Melanchthon to teach me about it,nor Thomas Cranmer. No.It took Burton Cummings to teach me about it. And life!So Stand Tall; and for God's sake, don't d...

Episode 166 - The House That Jack Built from 2014-04-30T17:00

Well, the glass ceiling is finally breaking. It's happening right before our eyes.But Aretha's going to help us see the "Kehrseite". With a little help from Lesley Gore, too."Come and see." (John 1...

Episode 165 - Cosmic Recension from 2014-04-11T15:00

Meister Eckhart, meet Burton Cummings.And Randy Bachman. And me.

Episode 164 - Happy Clappy from 2014-02-19T10:00

"No use calling, 'cause the sky is falling, and I'm getting pretty near the end."This concerns the practical consequences of (near-)death in life. Join forces with Wolfman Jack (R.I.P.)and The Gue...

Episode 163 - Deetour from 2014-02-13T10:00

It's getting bigger. Bigger, at least, from where I sit. The Contraption, I mean.And thank you, Karen Young! And thank you, Mike Francis!This podcast is dedicated to JAZ, the Minister of Edits.

Episode 162 - Rain Dance from 2014-02-05T11:00

Thinking about Obamacare got me onto this one. But it's not about Obamacare!It's about Reality. And Guess What?

Episode 161 - PBS from 2014-01-09T10:00

That's Percy Bysshe Shelley, who gets a little help -- as if he needed it -- from Eric Burdon,and B.T.O, and John Harris Harper. And MAY this meditation on termination not be half-baked.

Episode 160 - Who Is Going To Love Me? from 2013-12-20T08:00

How can we know God? Where is God locatable?With a little help from D. Warwick and a little from St. John, I want to answer.Podcast 160 is dedicated to Jono Linebaugh.

Episode 159 - The Happiest Actual Life from 2013-11-17T10:00

It's really possible: "the happiest actual life", I mean.That was Booth Tarkington's phrase for the hope we could have in real terms, even when circumstances went against usand our intrinsic indeli...

Episode 158 - Changing Social Conditions in Indianapolis from 2013-11-11T08:00

Boy, do we need a miracle. Such things really happen.As in Booth Tarkington, and as in John Galsworthy. As in me and you.And as in: The Buckinghams.

Episode 157 - Every Mother's Son from 2013-10-19T16:00

Taking a break now for a couple weeks, but wanted to leave a little white-pebble trail -- not of tears, but of hope. "Come on down to my boat, baby"; and I'm talking about you, Miss Wyckoff; and y...

Episode 156 - I Am Curious (Orange) from 2013-10-16T16:00

A Protestant spin on a Golden Oldie from Sweden. This is also a warning against categorization -- a very personal warning,as I've suffered from categorization and feel it keenly still. "Och du?"

Episode 155 - Mandy from 2013-10-06T13:00

Alternate title: Mandy and the Episcopals. Irving Berlin sets the stage;Sandra Dee plays the lead, together with Troy Donohue;and James Gould Cozzens, like Sister Mary Ignatius,Explains It All for ...

Episode 154 - Kramer from 2013-10-02T11:00

Kramer is my word for transmitted family dis-function and disease. Kramer in this sense requires acute attention.With help from The Contraption, Kramer actually can be reduced. In this podcast, Ric...

Episode 153 - Love in the 40s from 2013-09-30T15:00

When you're 'mature', you're sometimes not. I learned this in my 40s.I first learned it in a parish, in 'Cheever country'. But it was also in 'Miami Vice', every Friday night.Valerie and Tubbs taug...

Episode 152 - Groovy Kind of Love from 2013-09-29T12:00

The text is Isherwood's journal entry for August 3, 1967. The topic:How to grow in love for the people who are right around you. Lesley Gore is going to help us, plus, naturally, William Hale White...

Episode 151 - Girl Talk from 2013-09-27T12:00

I've just written a book. It is called "PZ's Panopticon:An Off-the-Wall Guide to World Religiion". It's not about gender differences nor does it concern ideology.It looks at the religions of the wo...

Episode 150 - Early Roman Kings from 2013-08-28T12:00

This is about the Ancient Romans: their psychic position, their spirit-world of augury,and the effect of the birth of Christ. With help from Bob Dylan.Two corrections, too: The Thornton Wilder book...

Episode 149 - A Heartache, A Shadow, A Lifetime from 2013-08-25T09:00

This is a reflection on 45 years of New Testament scholarship. That's 45 years in 45 minutes -- one minute for every year.And Dave Mason puts it all in perspective.

Episode 148 - INGSOC from 2013-08-04T11:00

"A little trick with Dick" (The Name Game): This is about language, control, and Purr-FECtion. With thanks to Eric Blair, too.

Episode 147 - Transcendence from 2013-08-03T14:00

What can you do when you're face to face with The Antagonist? I'll tell you this much: no one gets out of here alive.Unless there are Martians. This podcast is about suffering, and it's also about ...

Episode 146 - Sermon for the Feast Day of Hey Jude from 2013-06-28T10:00

It's about nervous breakdowns -- maybe your 19th. It's about George's Way with us.And it's about the music.

Episode 145 - Soul Coaxing from 2013-06-24T09:00

What's really important? "Soul Coaxing" is really important.But not the practice. The song!By Raymond Lefevre and his Orchestra. THAT's really important.Gosh, I hope you like this.

Episode 144 - Good Luck, Miss Wyckoff from 2013-06-22T16:00

Here we journey to the outer limits of compassion. Will that suffice?Or do we need a little help from our friends -- like Jeff Beck, maybe.

Episode 143 - Old Man River from 2013-05-16T04:00

And now a word from our sponsor -- George!

Episode 142 - Girl Can't Help It from 2013-05-15T15:00

In which I talk about George, my new hero.

Episode 141 - Easter with Los Straitjackets from 2013-03-21T11:00

Here's the Gospel as I would put it this Easter. It's never not been the Have Mercy on Me (Cannonball Adderley/The Buckinghams) of God in relation to the Outta Gear (Los Straitjackets) of us. But ...

Episode 140 - Make It Easy on Yourself from 2013-03-17T09:00

This is a meditation on self-forgiveness. I used to think that was a lame phrase,an exercise in twaddle. Not so!Here we have The Walker Brothers, Los Straitjackets, even Frankie (Goes to Hollywood)...

Episode 139 - Journey with Boo (Me and You) from 2013-02-15T13:00

It's here: that surgical song by Lobo, the balladeer's portrait of an ordinary, heart-rending tragedy. Because the picture's true to life, however, there may be room for hope. Roll up for a magic...

Episode 138 - Lobo's Dating Tips for Christian Guys from 2013-02-14T11:00

He has much to teach us! This podcast, for me, is Camp.

Episode 137 - Hero of the War from 2013-02-02T12:00

A short exegesis of personal pacifism. Scott Walker's song "Hero of the War" made me do it!Oh, and it's John Lennon in "Oh! What a Lovely War". That's a correction.

Episode 136 - Peaches La Verne from 2013-01-31T10:00

The La Verne Seminar, which took place in the Summer of 1941, is the second most desired destination for PZ the Time Traveler.If only one could have been there. It was the ultimate religious retre...

Episode 135 - Elevator from 2013-01-30T11:00

That's Where the Happy People Go! Here is "a new way of talking, a new way of walking" --about praying, about grace, about One Love and the Underground River.Jerry Lewis (but you won't like this) h...

Episode 134 - Pillar of Salt from 2013-01-24T10:45

The music! -- evoking Lot's wife and then the Lord's words to St. Peter.I guess I think it's more and more about the music. But let's here it for the Haiku,tu.

Episode 133 - Brandy Station from 2013-01-24T07:00

This is not a case of "interpretive signage" ! You'll have to make up your mind on your own.But Looking Glass will be there to help you, followed by, close by, Scott W.

Episode 132 - Love in the First Degree from 2013-01-16T11:00

This is about forging forward in the spiritual life.Let Bananarama lead the way!

Episode 131 - 52 Pickup from 2012-12-19T11:00

Here is a thought for the end of the year. And Merry Christmas to all!

Podcast 130 - OK, All Right! - Victor Hugo from 2012-12-14T08:00

Had to do this one. Victor Hugo is great."Victor Hugo" the Phenomenon seems like another turn of Journey's "Wheel". (Listen and you'll find out why.)Nevertheless, I had fun doing this and hope you...

Episode 129 - First Infinite Frost from 2012-12-12T19:00

This is an experiment. It's a true story, from the true-life adventures,tho' I truly wish it never happened. Is PZ trying for a James Agee moment?Maybe so. Podcast 129 is dedicated to Adrienne Parks.

Episode 128 - Dissociated Chef d'Oeuvre from 2012-12-11T08:00

This podcast is not just about another movie, the 1973 musical version of "Lost Horizon". It's about Reflections of yourself, the divine Approach when "I Come to You", and the Things I Will Not Mi...

Episode 127 - Hotel Taft from 2012-12-09T10:00

Look within yourself, look inside the Black Cauldron. If you take the time to Drag the Line, you'll almost definitelyfind your hope, even joy. Let the bells ring, and let's Listen to the Music.

Podcast 126 - Amberley Wildbrooks from 2012-12-05T10:00

Suffering, Transitoriness, and Insubstantiality: three marks of being that seem beyond dispute,at least from the perspective of experience. To be sure, the last, insubstantiality, takes some unpac...

Episode 125 - Now What? from 2012-12-04T13:00

In the spirit of the J. Geils Band, 'Sinuhe the Egyptian' spent his entire life looking for it. A proto-hippie, an inspired near-mad man (not across the water), gave Sinuhe the answer. The result...

Episode 124 - Done from 2012-11-29T09:00

Here's a Sixth Sense! Galsworthy sheds light -- but where did it come from? -- andjump-starts us "Going Up The Country".

Episode 123 - Saint's Progress from 2012-11-28T08:00

John Galsworthy's play "A Bit O'Love" (1915) and his novel "Saint's Progress" (1919) diagnose the problem and also the possibility inherent in parish ministry, and especially within parish clergy. ...

Episode 122 - Worst That Could Happen from 2012-11-09T12:00

It's being labelled a "Zwinglian"! And there's something even worse than that.This podcast is a plea for the wheels to be put back on religion.

Episode 121 - Hold That Ghost from 2012-11-07T09:00

Freedom and Love: Love can't exist from anything but, andFreedom can't result in anything but. This cast wants to consult St. Augustine, concerning human nature;and Bud Abbott and Lou Costello, con...

Episode 120 - The Black Castle from 2012-11-02T11:00

Here's a short talk about creativity, renewal, "work stoppage", and a couple of terrific movies. It's also a lesson in How to Empty a Room!

Episode 119 - Over the River II from 2012-09-16T19:00

"Trouble in my way" is the name of the game. This podcast tells the story of how it came to me, and what it forced me to learn. Episode 119 of PZ's Podcast is a two part swan song.

Episode 118 - Les Elucubrations de PZ from 2012-09-13T12:00

This is intended to be the opposite of a rant. Even if I wanted to, I could not come a thousand light years close toAntoine's great one, which once so delighed the French. What I can try to give ...

Episode 117 - Horror Hotel from 2012-09-11T16:00

This tight expressionist outing is a study in egos prepared to take any measures in order to prolong (ego-) life. It's a sure fail, but most instructive. Then there's the fog, and the blocking o...

Episode 116 - Wing Thing from 2012-08-27T23:00

Another meditation on hope (i.e., the Wing Thing), via death; yet death concretely and in the now, death you can get your skull aroundtoday and not tomorrow. Akira Ifukube is here to help undress u...

Episode 115 - In the event of from 2012-08-25T11:00

"What makes the melon ball bounce?" What makes you bounce?This is an undressed talk about death, and death's funny aftermath.

Episode 114 - A Slight Shiver from 2012-08-13T10:00

Sequel to "Return to Form", with a push from Serling and a lift from Dylan.

Episode 113 - Return to Form from 2012-08-11T15:00

This is podcast one in a new "story arc" -- a study in defeatedness, and a new hopeI strangely feel. You could call it cross-notes of atheological psychologist.

Episode 113 - The Two Geralds from 2012-06-28T10:00

Gerald Fried (b. 1928) and Gerald Heard (d. 1971): both were communicators of the non-rational, both were exponents of the subterranean echo. Fried did it through B-movie (and other) musical score...

Episode 112 - Kipling's Lightworks from 2012-06-21T11:00

Kipling shed light! From "Recessional" to "Children's Song",this podcast sings his praise. Kipling was also a 'both-and' thinker,a rare eirenic gift, and a Gift for Today.Episode 112 is dedicated t...

Episode 110 - Color Him Father from 2012-06-04T14:00

John Betjeman listed five masters of the English ghost story, or supernatural tale. All five of them were the sons of Protestant ministers. What was going on with these sons, and their fathers.'Th...

Episode 108 - J.C. Ryle Considered from 2012-05-25T12:00

Bishop Ryle made at least three big mistakes during his long ministry. If he were able to speak now -- he died in 1900 -- I believe he would admit them. To me they are revealing mistakes, from whi...

Episode 107 - Bishop Ryle from 2012-05-25T11:00

John Charles Ryle, who lived from l816 to 1900, was "a giant of a man with the heart of a child".He was a Christian warrior in the Church of England, who contendedagainst High Churchmen and Liberal...

Episode 106 - Requiem from 2012-05-21T08:00

Alternate Title: I Feel Like I Lose When I Win.Also, there's a correction: It was 'Fraulein Doktor', not the actress who played her (Suzy Kendall),who died young, at age 52, in 1940.

Episode 104 - What does it take (to win your love)? from 2012-05-16T09:30

A meditation on defense: that's what this is.Someone wrote that the inner being of a human being is "covered by thirty or forty skins or hides, like an ox's or a bear's,so thick and hard". Too true...

Episode 103 - Flowers for Algernon I from 2012-04-24T17:00

How does the ego actually die? Or rather, what does a person look like when their ego has died,or is dying? Can we see this -- the "seed falling into the ground"?Algernon Blackwood wrote about the ...

Episode 102 - Flowers for Algernon I from 2012-04-24T16:00

Algernon Blackwood (1869-1951) knew a lot. In reaction to his Sandemanian childhood, he still remained a religious person, all his life.In his "weird tales" Blackwood tried to map a religious way f...

Episode 100 - Eternity from 2012-04-14T09:00

What dies when we die, and what continues to live? What should we fear in relation to physical death,and what can we affirm? Philip Larkin gives a little assist here,but so does St. Francis. This i...

Episode 101 - I feel like I win when I lose from 2012-04-12T09:00

Between "Waterloo" and "Lay all your love on me", I don't see how you could achieve a purer pop moment.Or just a purer moment period! The insight within these two 45s is communicated to perfection....

Previously Unreleased: Heinz from 2012-04-10T09:00

Heinz Burt, known as "Heinz", the Wild Boy of Pop, was, you could say, Joe Meek's muse.Meek did everything possible to make his "Heinz" into a star. Although Meek failed to do that,he produced a la...

Previously Unreleased: Joe Meek from 2012-03-23T06:00

"The Nazareth Principle" (Simeon Zahl) and Joe Meek: they're synonymous.Joe Meek was an improbable genius, who Hear(d) a New World. His wondrous work, achieved under conditions so unusual as to mak...

Episode 99 9/10 - Twisterella from 2012-03-16T23:00

When reality comes crashing in to call, you've got to be prepared for a re-think.It's what happens to 'Billy Liar', in another dazzling English rose, the movie "Billy Liar" from 1963.It's based on ...

Episode 99 5/8 - A Kind of Loving from 2012-03-13T12:30

This podcast is about categorization -- the pitfalls of categorization. With people, with friends (and prospective friends), with husbands and wives (and prospective husbands and wives), with every...

Episode 99 - A Night at the Bardo from 2012-03-10T17:15

Harpo's Night at the Bardo -- but not Harpo's, actually.It was mine:. It was PZ's Night at the Bardo.From dusk till dawn. This is something that actually happened.I saw my own death, or rather, mys...

Episode 98 - Reflections in a Golden Eye from 2012-03-10T17:00

If you want to find out what true north is in your life -- in other words, where you are really going -- notice what books you are drawn to.Or what movies you really like. Or what music you're pu...

Episode 97 - Surprise (Symphony) from 2012-02-13T13:00

"Oops! I did it again!": it just came over me.Despite a break, a real break, very soon to come, Lola compelled one to speak.I mean, "Lola", the 1961 movie by Jacques Demy. This podcast is a memo o...

Episode 96 - Strack-Billerbeck from 2012-02-11T10:00

"Disputed Passage" (Lloyd C. Douglas) is what this podcast is not. There are any number of issues to talk about,yet so many are so particular, and rally around themselves all kinds of differing opi...

Mini Podcast 94 - My New Program from 2012-02-03T16:00

Language changes, changes, changes. "Elle coule, coule, coule."Like a simple but undeviating "conversation" at the drive -through window of the bank. Or like the use of the word "program"."Program...

Episode 93 - Falsification from 2012-02-03T08:00

"Falsification" is another word for compartmentalization. When we falsify reality -- as in "being untrue", either to a person or to convictions that we (otherwise) hold sincerely -- we get, well,wh...

Episode 92 - G-d from 2012-02-01T13:00

"Kuh-hay-tchuh-pek". It means 'God', or rather G-d, in Martian.You can find out all about "Kuh-hay-tchuh-pek" in the now Criterioned 1964 movie "Robinson Crusoe on Mars"."Kuh-hay-tchuh-pek" is God,...

Episode 91 - Sequels from 2012-01-27T11:00

Sequels are strange: sometimes they're better than the original,most of the time they're worse. What makes a good sequel?"The Empire Strikes Back", for example; or "The Invisible Man Returns"; or"...

Episode 88 - Tana and Tahrir from 2012-01-20T09:00

I don't believe in "reality", or rather, I believe what looks like reality is seldom reality.This can be easily proved by a quick viewing of ... "The Mummy Ghost" (1944).One look at that wonderful ...

Episode 87 - Bette Davis Eyes from 2012-01-19T11:00

They are all, like Ray Milland, "The Man with the X-Ray Eyes" -- these Huguenot heroes:Marot, Duplessis-Mornay, de Beze, de Coligny, de Rohan, d'Aubigne.That includes their English co-religionists,...

Episode 86 - Supermarionation II from 2012-01-11T14:00

This podcast tries to go a little deeper with Supermarionation. It is really about social class, and the kind of alliance that inevitably imperils a religion whose goal is emancipating the human ra...

Episode 85 - Protestant Episcopalians in Supermarionation from 2012-01-10T07:00

Can the mind of man and woman conceive that the subject of Episcopal haberdashery in the movies might be interesting and meaningful?Well, yes, it might be, at least to me. This podcast surveys Prot...

Episode 84 - Yvette Vickers (f. 4.27.11) from 2012-01-09T11:00

Yvette Vickers played supporting roles in two unforgettable 1950's science-fiction movies: "Attack of the 50 Foot Woman" and "Attack of the Giant Leeches".As far as I'm concerned, she stole the sho...

Episode 82 - Speaking in Tongues from 2011-12-28T11:00

This is a theme with me -- the pros and cons (there aren't many cons) of learning foreign languages.Also, how does it actually work? Why is one language easier for a given person to learn than anot...

Episode 81 - Violette amoureuse from 2011-12-27T17:00

From our house to your house, at the Turning of the Year:a portrait of the dignity that is able to inhere within romantic love -- sometimes.The subject is a short scene, a musical number really, in...

Episode 79 - Would you speak up, please? from 2011-12-16T13:00

Why am I "afraid to say what I really want to say" (Jack Kerouac)? That's a line from "Visions of Gerard", and many could echo it.This podcast is about changing mores, specifically the contrast bet...

Episode 78 - Under Satan's Sun from 2011-12-11T11:00

This is PZ's Christmas Podcast.

Episode 77 - Canned Heat from 2011-12-03T09:00

What constitutes you, as a human being? What are the parts which make you the whole you are?A single sentence from Huxley's "After many a summer dies the swan" can help,together with Fritz Lang's ...

Episode 76 - Lounge Crooner Classics from 2011-11-26T17:00

I'm shooting for quality today. In the spirit of earlier podcasts concerning Giant Crab Movies and Journey,this podcast concerns what might today be called "Lounge Crooner Classics".In their day, ...

Episode 74 - "Please Come to Boston" from 2011-11-22T10:00

I tried to follow the invitation of that song recently. Saw a lot of things, found out a lot of things,remembered a lot of things, heard a couple of new things.It was a definite pilgrimage. I would...

Episode 73 - When I'm 64 from 2011-11-03T07:00

Can the "young" be instructed by the "old"? Can Nigel Kneale's "Planet People" be even savedby the over 70s? To put this another way, are there two messages to life:one for the first half and anoth...

Episode 72 - Making Plans for Nigel from 2011-10-31T11:00

Nigel Kneale (1922-2006) was absolute murder, in the Reggae sense.No writer of English science fiction thought more originallythan Nigel Kneale, who mostly wrote teleplays for the BBC. His "Quaterm...

Episode 71 - Removals Men II from 2011-10-21T11:00

Rejoicing at someone's execution, in "disturbing images", is hard enough to absorb.To add the unaccountable silence of Christians in relation to such joy is almost impossible to absorb.What's to lo...

Episode 70 - Removals Men from 2011-10-21T09:00

This is about the use of language to cover an unpleasant reality. It's not just about the "removal" of an al awlaki or a "new chapter in the history of Libya" accomplished by means of the murder of...

Episode 69 - Pipes of Pan from 2011-10-15T05:00

Arthur Machen meets St. Matthew's Gospel, Chapter 11, Verses 16-19.You can try to make your voice heard with an engaging, danceable tune, and it will pass like a shadow over the water.(Think "Men W...

Episode 67 - The Inward Voice, Pt. 1 from 2011-10-09T19:00

Here is a two-parter concerning your inward voice: What is it, and how do you find it?From a Romans 7 point of view, the inward voice (and voices) is almost all that matters.Now get it down! Write...

Episode 68 - The Inward Voice, Pt. 2 from 2011-10-09T19:00

There is nothing quite like the Inward Voice of 'Mark Rutherford', the novelist whose real name was William Hale White.He wore a mask over a mask, and his six novels constitute a kind of ultimate I...

Episode 66 - Altars by the Roadside from 2011-10-05T09:00

Now here's a find: a passage in the novel "Revolution in Tanner's Lane" (1890)by 'Mark Rutherford' (aka William Hale White), in which the author answers the question I set in the previous cast.If t...

Episode 65 - One Message or Two? from 2011-10-01T16:00

Does life-wisdom offer the same message to the non-disillusioned, who are often on the younger side, as it does to the disillusioned, who are often over-50? It's a live issue for me, since a gospel...

Episode 64 - My New Law Firm from 2011-09-27T19:30

My new law firm is called "Scrambling, Rattled, and Bracing, P.A.". It is a firm devoted to the project of complete control.It helps me "scramble" to contain unexpected problems; prevents me from g...

Episode 63 - One Step Beyond from 2011-09-18T09:00

This ancient show, much of which is now richly available on YouTube, let alone DVD, understood something important. It understood about the "collective unconscious" and the nature of the Love that...

Episode 62 - What part of you isn't angry? from 2011-09-10T10:00

Anger -- it's everywhere. The question is,at whom or at what are you NOT angry? Well, you can't be angry at anyone or anything you love.Or rather, you can't be angry at that part of anyone or anyth...

Episode 58 - The Umbrellas of Cherbourg from 2011-08-14T18:00

This gorgeous 1964 film is everything people say it is, and makes you wonder sometimes whether its director and writer, Jacques Demy, was too good for this world. Let's also hear it for Michel Legr...

Episode 57 - Beyond the Time Barrier from 2011-08-05T20:00

Lord Buckley broke down a barrier that is exceptionally hard to break down. He broke down the barrier between the Sacred and the Profane.Several of his 'hipsemantic' monologues, once you begin to s...

Episode 56 - Lord Buckley from 2011-07-31T07:00

Lord Buckley (aka Richard Myrle Buckley, l906-1960) was a "way out" nightclub comic and monologist, who created "hipsemantic" routines based on famous people -- very famous! -- and famous works of ...

Episode 54 - My Sharona from 2011-07-09T08:00

This is My Sharona of faith, a series of four theses, briefly explained,that express an approach to everyday living, and understanding.I hope you like them.

Episode 53 - How to Tell the Future from 2011-07-02T08:00

It's possible to tell the future. It's actually pretty easy.You have to know about human nature, and you have to know about fashion.You have to know that human nature doesn't change, and you have t...

Area 51 - William Inge from 2011-06-18T08:00

William Inge (1913-1973) wrote plays of restrained optimism concerning broken families in small Kansas towns of the 1920's and '30's. He understood about the importance of sex in everyday life -- e...

Episode 50- Human Nature from 2011-06-11T12:00

It just may be the worst thing about America today: our view of human nature.If you listen to almost any -- and I mean, any -- commentator, speechmaker, pundit, or spokesperson, of literally any an...

Episode 49 - "Unknown and yet well known" from 2011-06-08T13:00

Another one of those unknown authors. But he has so much to tell us,first about sex and then about Christianity. About the former, he puts first things first.About the latter, he puts Jesus on the...

Episode 48 - The Disappearance from 2011-05-29T08:00

Philip Wylie was a prophet in the war between the sexes. His 1951 novel "The Disappearance", in which, through an unexplained 'cosmic blink', all the women disappear from the world of the men and a...

Episode 45 - Duncan Burne-Wilke from 2011-05-07T21:00

Herman Wouk's 1985 novel "War and Remembrance" has a most prophetic minor character buried within its 1300 pages. This character is a philosophical and definitely sweet English aristocrat named Dun...

Episode 44- The Razor's Edge from 2011-04-30T11:00

This is my favorite book. It's also Bill Murray's.It is called "The Razor's Edge" and was written by Somerset Maugham. It was published in 1944.It tells the story of some well-to-do Americans from ...

Episode 43 - "The Green Pastures" from 2011-04-17T11:45

"The Green Pastures" is a 1930 American play, and 1936 Hollywood movie, that was once as famous as "Our Town". Now, for reasons of political correctness, it is rarely seen and seldom taught. Even...

Episode 42 - Bishop Bell - The Play from 2011-04-07T22:00

Bishop Bell appears as a main character in Rolf Hochhuth's 1967 play entitled "Soldiers". Bell confronts Churchill on the morality of murder from the air, especially when it involves the murder of...

Episode 41 - Bishop Bell - The Speech from 2011-03-27T08:00

George K.A. Bell (1883-1958) was the Bishop of Chichester during World War II. He addressed the House of Lords on February 9, 1944, questioning the Government on the use of "carpet bombing" of Ger...

Episode 40 - "No Popery" from 2011-03-19T16:00

Religious partisanship is normal, explicable, and terminal. It kills Christianity. It sure killed me.Or maybe it wised me up. This podcast concerns Charles Dickens' novel "Barnaby Rudge", which was...

Episode 39 - The Phoenix Club from 2011-03-13T07:00

Life in a Final Club! "The Social Network" has made it high profile all of a sudden.What it was, was fun, delightful, blessedly un-serious in a way serious world, with a taste of Evelyn Waugh.We l...

Episode 37- The Yardbirds from 2011-02-27T06:00

This is an impression of The Yardbirds, the first avant-garde band we ever knew.With Eric Clapton to start, then Jeff Beck, then Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page, thenJimmy Page only, their music, especial...

Episode 33 - "Mr." Priest from 2011-02-13T09:00

This podcast is about professional titles: the more reduced in circumstances an institution,the more high-flown its titles. Did you know that until about 1970 Episcopal clergy were always called'Mr...

Episode 32 - Protestant Interiors II from 2011-02-08T16:00

Here's a little gazetteer of Episcopal Protestant interiors. They're nice.Delaware's is in the middle of nowhere, and Boston's finest is Unitarian. George Washington sat beneath a central pulpit in...

Episode 31 - Protestant Interiors from 2011-02-06T08:00

This one is about Protestant aesthetics as expressed in architecture and design.It is 'a tale told by an idiot', however, for no one ever believes you. Only Henny Penny says the Episcopal Churchwa...

Episode 30 - Shock Theater from 2011-02-02T07:00

Late Saturday nights was a time for little boys to howl. "Shock Theater" came on around one!We learned every line of the 'original' "Dracula" (1931), memorized every release date of every Mummy mov...

Episode 29 - The Circle from 2011-01-30T07:00

The Circle was a movie theater in downtown Washington where two boys discovered foreign film. Boris Karloff and James Whale became superseded by Sergei Eisenstein and Francois Truffaut.Or mostly. (...

Episode 28 - Premature Burial from 2011-01-26T17:00

Part II of The Moviegoer, in which our ten-year-old hero discovers Edgar Allan Poe via Roger Corman in the downtown movie palaces ofLoew's Capital, Loew's Palace, and R.K.O. Keith's. He comes face ...

Episode 27 - The Crawling Eye from 2011-01-23T12:00

This is the story of a conversion. It happened in the Fall of 1959,and I've never looked back. It happened in connection with some mountaineering in the Swiss Alps.Like the man in "The Crawling Eye...

Episode 26 - P.E. II from 2011-01-19T10:00

We're not finished yet. Cozzens cuts to the core of Anglo-Catholicismyet without throwing stones. He wants to understand.And his account of a hijacked P.E. funeral in "Eyes to See" is so close to h...

Episode 25 - P.E. from 2011-01-15T05:00

"P.E." is for Protestant Episcopal. 35 years I've been ordained and it took Cozzens to teach me some sore lessons.For me they came late. But, "For you the living/This Mash was meant, too.""When yo...

Episode 22 - Journey from 2011-01-02T09:00

What's the greatest rock 'n roll band of all time? Could a group sum up everything that has gone beforeand thus WRAP the genre? Yes, it could. They did.Their name was "Journey". But Wait! Hear me...

Episode 21 - Plymouth Adventure from 2010-11-13T13:00

Dan Curtis went straight from Gothic Horror soap operas to the greatest epic ever made for television. His heart was always in his work, from "Dark Shadows" to "The Night Stalker" to... "The Wind...

Episode 20 - I Learned to Yodel from 2010-10-26T10:00

Did you know meditation can make you a better Protestant?Here's why.

Episode 19: The Gothic from 2010-10-20T10:00

New thoughts on 'the Gothic' in movies and literature -- from Irvin S. Cobb, whose Gothic story "Fishhead" was termed a "banefully effective tale" by H. P. Lovecraft; to Ray Russell, of "Sardonicus...

Episode 17: The Hammer and the Cross from 2010-09-29T18:00

Hammer Horror is a beautiful thing -- everything movies should be, or almost everything. There is also this delightful religious dimension, in which the High Priest of Karnak prays in the language ...

Episode 16: Irvin S. Cobb from 2010-09-22T18:00

Irvin S. Cobb (1876-1944) was famous in his day, but is unread now. Ours is the loss! His "Judge Priest" stories are as parabolic of grace as it gets. They exude peace, love, and understanding. ...

Episode 15: Hot August Night from 2010-09-16T06:00

The Jansenists never declined. They got wiped out good.Think "End of the Line" by the Traveling Wilburys. Pascal enters and exits, assisted by Roberto Rossellini's tv show (1971) and Jack Kerouac's...

Episode 14: Paris When It Sizzles from 2010-09-09T08:00

Jansenism was a religious movement in Seventeenth-Century France that threatened Church and State. Its apologists, including Blaise Pascal and Jean Racine, thought their movement, based on its re-...

Sunday Supplement: The Life of James Gould Cozzens from 2010-08-29T08:00

James Gould Cozzens (1903-1978) observed life accurately. in 1957 he told 'Time' Magazine that "most people get a raw deal from life, and life is what it is". His novels "By Love Possessed" and "...

Sneak Peek: "By Love Possessed" from 2010-08-29T08:00

"By Love Possessed" was hailed at first as the great novel of its decade. A few months later it was traduced as a symbol of Eisenhower-era 'middle-brow' complacency. The second verdict stuck. The...

BONUS Episode!:Giant Crab Movies from 2010-08-20T09:00

In this amazing weekend bonus episode, our hero must claw his way through the history of giant-crab movies. Does he survive? You be the judge!

Episode Six - The Browning Version from 2010-08-18T08:00

From a perfect movie comes a Version of the 25th Chorus of "Mexico City Blues": Is my own, is your own,Is not Owned by Self-Owner but found by Self-Loser --Old Ancient Teaching". This podcast is de...

Episode Seven - "Man Gave Names to all the Animals" from 2010-08-18T08:00

"Man Gave Names to all the Animals" (Bob Dylan), meaningEric Burdon and The Animals. Thoughts on true greatness, thoughts on Fun.

Bohemian Rhapsody -- The Rite One from 2010-08-10T12:00

The subject is preaching, the Achilles Heel of American religion. We turn to Jack Kerouac's "List of Essentials" in spontaneous expression for help. Turns out it's the singer not the song.

Beatnik Beach from 2010-08-10T12:00

The title of a song by the Go-Go's sets the stage for this second cast on the preaching art. Once again, it's the singer not the song. Or at least, that's where we start. Welcome to Beatnik Beach!

Episode One - What's it all about, Alfie? from 2010-08-04T09:00

In which our hero introduces you to his search. "For you the living, this Mash was meant, too."

Episode Two - The Alcestiad, Act One from 2010-08-04T09:00

Our hero, incarnated as an ancient Greek princess, finds Love and Happiness, Thornton-Wilder style.

Episode Three - The Alcestiad, Act Three from 2010-08-04T09:00

Our hero, again incarnated as the Queen of Thessaly, heads south, only to still find happiness.