PZ's Podcast

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 the pulpit and our ministry or just in the Wee Wee Hours of a stressed-out life.

Joe Meek, the odd independent English record producer from the late 1950s and early-mid '60s, is a moving example of an inspired person, a creator whose inspiration came within the context of mediocre performers and lame song-material. His records such as "Son, This Is She", performed by John Leyton, and "Paradise Garden", performed by Peter Jay, are bizarrely convincing marriages of eccentric material with inspired crafting. Sort of like us poor preachers, who are pretty flawed instruments but hope to be "produced" by God in such a way that we can do some good.

I also refer to a preacher I admire whose balletic body-language in the pulpit is as effective and appropriate to the substance of the Message as anyone I've ever seen. (My own gestures and expressions when I speak in church are enough to make me wince when I see pictures.)

The conclusion of the cast refers to pilgrimage and the somehow decisive importance of going away from home and to somewhere in order to break out of ruts and fecklessness. It's as if the Inspirer almost waits to see how serious we are about getting help in order to break out.

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 cyclical human history and cyclical failed answers to the problem of being human.

If you have a high doctrine of human nature, and human potential, you'll generally opt for a low doctrine of God. (You don't need Him.) But if you have a low doctrine of human nature, and human failed expectations, you may well opt for a high doctrine of God. Or rather, you'll be more inclined to look for God outside yourself than to believe you've got intrinsically the answers.

Which is to say that the banana peel of Christian history seems to be a swelled inaccurate view of human agency and possibility. We slip, in other words, on the banana peel of exaggerated human potential.

My podcast reviews the doctrine of human nature, in broad terms, within the history of the American Episcopal Church. I see that doctrine as the key to understanding where we've been, where we are, and also where we could be. And I'm not without hope.

You'll also hear an AMAZING British hit from 1971, entitled "I Did What I Did for Maria". This odd, conflicted and brilliant song touches just about every raw nerve there is. (We LUV Tony Christie!)

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 decline!

In the same way that perceived personal rejection, especially at a young age, becomes a kind of iron straitjacket defeating almost all attempts to change oneself -- and certainly defeating attempts by other people to try to change you -- in the same way, personal affirmation and one-way love demonstrated towards you when you are "under a cloud" opens that straitjacket immediately and it drops away.

Not that echoes of a prime, early rejection won't be heard again. For they will! But absolving love cuts the cord on it, breaks it off you, unshackles you from its chains, and opens your pores and your veins.

I've seen this again and again, both in the hardening of rejection as an attitude to life and in the "My Chains Fell Off, My Heart Was Free" (C. Wesley) consequence, inside a person, of unconditional, one-way love.

This is especially true, the latter transaction, when love is shown you during a period when you are "under a cloud". Not just depressed affect or "Good Time Charlie's Got the Blues", but when the world snares you and shames you and humiliates you and un-forgives you (EVER). That's when the Grace of God, embodied characteristically in the grace of an intervening person, changes you. Personal, affective change that is the result of merciful treatment is the hydrogen-bomb change within a hardened. It is as "sure as the turning of the earth", which is John Wayne's line in 'The Searchers' (1956).

The music for this cast is from Led Zeppelin's inspired second LP, "Led Zeppelin II"; and the cast is dedicated to David B.

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 hurt was sustained, the more impact it seems to have on you as you age.

I keep seeing contemporaries of mine, most of them in fact, in whom what was an idiosyncrasy or "slight defect" in youth or early adulthood becomes more pronounced, and finally, quite alienating. This goes for addiction and over-eating and personal hygiene, but also includes resentments, bitterness, unforgiveness, and obsession. At this point in my observation, I would almost say that a person's temperamental negatives uniformly get bigger and more gross with the passage of time. Barring, that is, the intervention of a forgiving, absolving love that takes the person as he or she is. The result of a sincerely merciful intervention, so counter-intuitive in relation to the world's judgement but so luminously true in the Christian Gospel, is a radical volte-face that we call New Birth and New Creation, or simply hope.

In the cast, I reference Led Zeppelin II, that inspired astonishment of an LP from the late 1960s; the relationship of 'Pip' and 'Magwitch' in Great Expectations; and some recent situations that cry out for interruptive mercy. Note, too, the brilliant launch of Tullian and Stacie Tchividjian's new church in Florida. That church is what it's all about!

"Downhill Racer" is dedicated to David V.

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.

You can compare yourself, even if you're basically a coper -- many people aren't -- to the seemingly impregnable 'Death Star' in "Star Wars". That massive circular spacecraft/world is perfectly defended. Except, yes, there is a vulnerability. It is a tiny one, but it's there just the same. All Luke needs to do is find that opening, and one small rocket is sufficient to blow the entire thing "Sky High" (Jigsaw, 1975).

This cast understands most people as balancing their lives, both inwardly and outwardly, as if they were Charles Blondin, the celebrated French tightrope walker. At any point, we can get distracted or interfered with, lose our balance, and go plunging to our death. I believe we are sometimes closer to the edge than we think.

There's a rather "arty" Hollywood movie from 1964 entitled "Lilith", starring Jean Seberg and Warren Beatty. It takes place in a private psychiatric hospital, and almost everyone in it has fallen or is in danger of falling... over the edge. Two characters actually do. At one point, a character played by Peter Fonda (R.i.P.) asks Warren Beatty, "Do you think insanity is really just a form of unhappiness?"

This podcast, entitled "Susan", actually ends on a hopeful, religious note. And the song excerpt at the end... well, it's pure joy. LUV U.

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 ministry, I have sedulously prayed never for the weather, "pro" or "con", believing that such a prayer would in all cases be extreme. After all, the Lord said that "it rains on the unjust and the just". Moreover, I had zero faith that such a prayer would ever be answered.

On the other hand, He said to the storm on the sea, "Peace! Be still."

In any event, neither I nor anyone I know personally, whether in formal ministry or not, has ever prayed for a hurricane to stop. Up until last week, I would have considered such a prayer to be out of bounds.

But then a pastor prayed ... out of bounds. And Lo and Behold: Dorian stopped moving west and started moving east.

Three days later a candidate for President prayed a similar prayer to the one that had dumbfounded me. Marianne Williamson tweeted thus (tho' her staff counselled she remove the tweet): "Millions of us seeing Dorian turn away from land is not a wacky idea; it is a creative use of the power of the mind." In other words, Williamson, coming from a somewhat different place, theologically speaking, from my pastor, nevertheless had the same faith. She pumped for "Little Boy" (2015) boldness in calling off Dorian!

This podcast is a personal summons to out-of-bounds faith. Don't generalize or conceptualize, as in "what about the Bahamas?'. Or what about the next big storm, or the one four storms back? Categorizations -- also known as "narratives" -- are the enemy of subjective advance. Remember what the blind man said to the Pharisees, "One thing I know: once I was blind, now I see" (John 9:25). For myself, I was heartened by a person I respect, to pray that God restrain His natural storm in this case.

Next prayer: How 'bout Peace on Earth?

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 cultural captivities to urban blight, comes out, "Some People" (Belois Some,1985) become threatened. And more than threatened.

This cast talks about Quentin Tarantino's movie "Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood" (2019), Baltimore (MD), and romantic beginnings (and new beginnings, or rather, re-beginnings). For the latter, the classic Preston Sturges movie "The Lady Eve" (1942) offers a striking instance concerning the anchor of romantic love that exists within the experience of male regression. Not to mention the romantic climax of "A Town Like Alice" (1950 novel, 1981 mini-series).

My point is that core truths of life are often suppressed, masked, covered over, hidden -- by "the powers and principalities, the spiritual forces of wickedness in high places" (Ephesians 6:12). They don't want you to know.

This cast exists for the sake of the truth as I see it, and is dedicated to Paula White-Cain, subjective friend to me and objective champion of the liberating Spirit of God.

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 legitimate aspirations and engagements of people who are still, by necessity shall we say, "in the world". It's way too easy from a retired perspective to pour cold water on the hopes and dreams of younger people.

The secret of wisdom, as you get older, would be to bring a perspective that embodies an accurate disillusionment with false hopes and inevitably disappointing projects while at the same offering hope in "the things that remain" (Dylan, 'When You Gonna Wake Up', 1981). To do that -- to portray life in its "True Colors" (C. Lauper, 1986) while at the same providing a better Palette -- well, such is the ambition of this podcast.

I like Greg Townson a lot. A brilliant musician on his own terms, he now plays with Los Straitjackets in the persona 'Gregorio El Grande'. He is a mature adult, much younger than I; but his playlist, which seems to get richer by the week, reveals a well of inspiration that could give hope to any artist previously unrecognized or unfulfilled. Greg Townson gives me hope, which is why I talk about him at the end of the cast. Oh, and Cicely Tyson, too. LUV U

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 to home" that one's listeners literally rise up in fury against the preacher.

One of these subjects is suicide, if preached honestly and urgently from the pulpit.

Another is a familiar theme of this podcast, the dramatic influence of romantic love -- i.e., the aspiration and almost limitless hunger that exists in people for romantic connection -- on otherwise stable and rational persons. People protest against this subject when I broach it publicly, usually saying something like, "I would never EVER do such a thing", such as leaving my husband and children for somebody else. Yet you find out, just four months later, that the very same person has done exactly that! (I'm not kidding. It happens all the time, tho' there's a kind of embargo on mentioning it.)

This particular cast concerns widowhood. I know of no more verboten subject in the pulpit than the disparity in life expectancy between men and women. Accurate statistics tell us that when you look out from the pulpit at your congregation, at least in most "main-line" churches, the number of widows likely to be present, as well as the number of likely widows, far outnumbers the number of widowers.

Obviously I wish the statistic weren't true. (The chances of my being laid in the earth fairly soon are significantly higher than Mary's chances. That's why we both earnestly wish we could die in temporal proximity. Who wants to be alone in their oldest age?) But it is true, nonetheless.

And now Mary and I see it actually happening, all around us. The husbands within the couples we know are dying at a much faster rate than the wives. Seems like widows are everywhere; and tho' there are widowers in existence, we only get a sighting on rare occasions.

Just go to church, almost anywhere, and you'll see what I mean.

So what is the problem? Why can't I talk about this publicly? (For people of both sexes get noticeably antsy when I do.) Especially, why can't we talk about it as Christians, since the New Testament frequently pleads for "widows and orphans" -- no NT references to widowers! -- and since we know that God is with us most profoundly when we are alone and feeling comfortless.

Maybe you can help me with this disconnect. It seems painfully obvious the older I get. LUV U.

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, inward, or a combination of both -- pull the rug out from under you and you find yourself flat on the ground. I don't write this to upset you, because you probably wouldn't be reading it if you didn't already know this.

But "Where Do I Go" ('Hair', 1969), when I have nowhere else to go?

Specifically, where do I go to find God? Or rather, where is God located that I might find him?

A recent BBC television series entitled "Mrs. Wilson" depicts a woman's descent into hell after she finds out that every safe harbor and mooring that her life has hitherto clung to is a lie. She finds out, very suddenly, that nothing in her life has been what it seemed. The rug is pulled out from under her life in almost every imaginable way. The story behind "Mrs. Wilson", by the way, is completely true.

She does find a solution, or, better, a re-alignment of her life's attitude and position. She finds God's Love, in fact, coming down to aid her.

But as I watched the moving and also Christian resolution of "Mrs. Wilson", I thought of all the ways that God is "advertised" as having come down, and therefore being available to a sufferer. And I thought of the shortcomings of at least some of those advertised ways.

Then I thought of Frank Lake, and Paula White. And learned something in the process.

The cast begins with an instrumental break by Los Straitjackets, which, for my money, is a solid instance of the Love that's come down; and ends with Eddie James, assisted by Ashley Brison and Patricia Miller, who root that Love in Pentecostal Power.