PZ's Podcast

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. Plus, there is the in-built transference that is projected on you as a 'father'-figure (if you are male) which keeps surfacing, at least to some extent, in just about every interpersonal exchange you have. To repeat: serving in full time ministry is as stress-full as any occupation can be.

I can't prescribe a way-of-being or way-of-doing to help you. (Prescribing rarely if ever works, even if it is accurate and worthwhile.) But I can describe what I have seen that works. I can tell you about the strengthening effects, for example, of The Crawling Eye (1959) -- aka The Trollenberg Terror -- in my own ministry. I can tell you about my fly-fishing colleague in North Carolina, whose pastorate benefits enormously from his serious dedication to that sport. I can tell you about John Zahl's DJ-ing or David Zahl's "Garbage Pail Kids" cards or Simeon Zahl's boxes and boxes of ... Orson Scott Card and friends. These things keep us sane. They are not primary -- the genuine self-giving of a redeemed human being is primary. But they are big-time secondary.

You, dear reader and listener, probably have your own big-time secondary interest. I hope you do. If you don't, let me send you a copy of, oh hey, "The New Outer Limits", Season 3. That should get things going. LOL.

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 be explicit to qualify? Or implicit -- and therefore under the radar -- to really qualify?

One thing I know is that you have to love the work-in-question, whether a song, a novel, a movie, or a tv episode, on its own terms before you can communicate your particular personal attraction to its Christian element. (Seriously, I had to love Bride of Frankenstein (1935) for its own imaginative sake before I could go after -- and preach on -- the Christ-empathy in the sufferings of Boris Karloff. Similarly, I had to treasure the total coolness of the original "Outer Limits" (1963) before I could take advantage of the explicit sacrificial Christianity in its episode entitled 'Feasibility Study'.

In this cast I survey some powerful episodes of "The New Outer Limits" (1995-99) as a sort-of exercise in Gospel interpretation, at least in the way I've tried to do it over the years.

But again, remember: You have to like it first -- it has to connect with you heart-to-heart -- before you can theologize about it. Then, however, once it has won a place within your chest, it is ready for the pulpit. Or the breakfast table. LUV U.

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 section of The Carpenters' single "Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft" (1977) and was made speechless by Karen C's vocal.

One simply had to find a place for it on PZ's Podcast.

Then another song came to mind, possibly even more explosive, from the Summer of '68. My friend Lloyd Fonvielle (R.i.P.) had played it for me in an apartment in the East Village. We were basically never the same after that. So I decided to excerpt it for "you, the living (this Mash was meant, too)".

Once the music was set, the substance of the cast came down. Two "memes" that I composed recently while sitting on a beach somewhere with Mrs. Zahl seemed worthwhile to present here. Which I have tried to do. One of the memes relates to the unconditional nature of God's Grace; the other, to the exemption-less reach of God's Hand in everything that happens to us. It's a stretch, conceptually, but a requirement for a happy... death. Chest Fever!

Listen to the Music (Doobie Brothers, 1972), and everything will probably turn out alright.

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 if they are not being, as the English say, resourced.

I saw this vividly last week. A men's prayer breakfast and Bible study was powerfully taught by a local pastor. He talked directly and winsomely about various problems with which the men present are dealing, in one form or another. I suddenly found myself taking notes. Hadn't intended to take notes, and even the notes themselves were not directly related to the actual content of his message.

But I was being exposed. I was a being who found himself in the direct presence of God.

When horizontality and even excellent words like "community" and "outreach" become privileged in the church, then the cart can easily overtake the horse.

One saw this years ago in Westchester County. A woman from down the Hudson started to attend our parish in Scarborough. I asked her why she was willing to make the long trip from her house on Sunday mornings. She said that her Presbyterian home church had completely exhausted her with its endless calls for volunteers in the community. Then something really happened: her commuting husband threw himself in front of a train one day, and she was instantly widowed.

In that moment, and in its aftermath, all the horizontality in the world didn't speak. She needed God.

Today's cast ends with one of the great classics of exterior help in the face of interior need. It is probably enough in itself to make you fall down on your knees. LUV U.

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 are trying to be successful, trying to win love, trying to be some image of ourselves that someone else has made us covet, trying, basically, to get nowhere fast!

When you get sick -- which we all do at some point -- the gears fall off. When somebody breaks up with you -- which happens to almost everyone at some point -- the gears fall off. When you get fired unexpectedly -- which happens, again, to almost everyone at some point -- the gears fall off. Rejection of almost any kind pries off the gears of your life, and they fall off.

For me, getting older has tended to feel like I'm getting "outta gear".

Moreover, Los Straitjackets are outta gear in over half their covers. The wheels come off at the end of each song -- tho' that turns out to be great. Sparks fly and the music ascends. Like the big black cadillac driven by John Travolta at the end of Grease (1978). There's fireworks followed by Ascension.

That's what I am talking about: the inspiration that comes when you get... outta gear.

This episode marks a 360 degree history of PZ's Podcast. We're not done yet, but I'd like to give thanks for it anyway. And here's a shout-out, on Mother's Day 2023, to my Bride of almost 50 years, Mary Cappleman Zahl. The cast is dedicated to Mary.

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? And that's not just a question about "the world". It's a question concerning your individual world. As in, when are You going to help me out with this particular problem I'm having?

Our friend Susannah Leighton helped me a few years ago when she opined, quite spontaneously, during an after-church youth-group meeting: "God never seems to come early". I drunk that in! What an insight.

More recently, Mary and I were reading Psalm 103 when we came to verses eight and nine: "The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy. He will not always chide: neither will he keep His anger for ever."

What I heard from that is that while God's Grace is his predominant characteristic, His righteous indignation -- His Justice -- will also express itself at some point. Even God, in other words, has His limits.

That feels encouraging. So when I ask, 'How long, O Lord?', the answer is, 'At some point'. Not today (apparently), but possibly tomorrow. And certainly at some point.

Remember 2001 A Space Odyssey? Last weekend I made a pilgrimage to the theater in Washington D.C. where it had its world-premiere on April 3rd 1968 -- which is where and when I saw it. (The theater is closed now but the facade is preserved.) Well, there's that moment towards the middle of the movie when scientists on the Moon discover that the 'Monolith', the incarnation of Alien intelligence and control, has been sitting there, in the Crater Clavius, for four million years.

The Aliens apparently take a long view.

So yes, pray with me for some relief, for Heav'n's sake. But human humility requires us to give the timing to God. This podcast is dedicated to Susannah Leighton.

P.S. To respond to the appeal for financial support, please click here.

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 England. It just came down to me:

I realized that the rockabilly-surfing band Los Straitjackets had something to teach me that had been camouflaged for years. FYI Los Straitjackets are a Nashville-based instrumental rock band that specialize in somewhat weird yet most accomplished covers of mostly ancient rock 'n roll hits from the USA and Mexico. Songs like "Itsy Bitsy Yellow Polka Dot Bikini", "Telstar", "Perfidia" and basically anything by Duane Eddy. The band has changed personnel some over the years, but not too much. Dave Zahl and I got to see them live in 2015.

But quite seriously, Los Straitjackets specialize in a structure or form of most of their songs that majors on the last third of what they play. It's odd. They play two verses of a somewhat conventional sounding dinosaur hit from the surfing/sci fi/rockabilly past; but then, in the third verse, the band goes crazy. Another way of saying it might be this: the band ascends near the end to St. Paul's seventh heaven -- or at least something like that. You'll hear it. Always wait for the third verse. It's never ever over 'til it's over.

This cast is heavy on the music. To me their sound is in a class by itself. To me it gives hope for... the last third of life. To me it's an actual musical exposition of my Handbook for Boomers (Mockingbird 2020). "Go now, therefore, and make all men... disciples of Los ..."

LUV U.

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 or a TV show from last year, we're on the lookout for felt expressions, resonating with us inwardly, of the Love that precedes all 'Works of Love' (SK).

Thanks to my college friend, Steven Berzin, I've gotten hooked on a French mystery program -- in episodes of an hour and a half -- entitled "Murder in...". The producers fill in the blank with a stunning regional locale each week -- Albi, Carcassonne, Blois, Colmar, you name it.

What's hooked both Mary and me is the way the mystery plot uncovers the personal pain and inward conflicts of the police investigators. There's the rub! Each episode uses the "low anthropology" of the crime being investigated to unearth issues and hurts within the investigators themselves. And yet -- and yet -- these conflicts, brought into the light, almost always presage healing and hope, newness and restitution.

What I love about "Murder in..." is its ideal equilibrium of realistic diagnosis with hope of new life. You see this in almost every episode.

Moreover, the natural beauty of the locales is intoxicatingly captured by the rich photography.

It's "Mockingbird" en France!

P.S. The Mockingbird Conference is at the end of next week in NYC. Mary and I would luv to greet you there. (Walk-ins are welcome!)

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 way you perceive yourself; and somehow in being thus regarded, you actually become the person someone sees you as. That's a lot of prepositions, but that's what imputation is.

It's like when the frog, having been kissed by the beautiful princess, becomes, in the twinkling of an eye, a prince. Or when the Beast, having been embraced by Beauty, turns into a shining knight.

Or it's like when you, at a low directionless point in your love, met a girl who loved you as if you were fine, self-confident and purposeful. And what happened then? To your own surprise, let alone that of everyone else, you became... fine, self-confident and purposeful. It's like Magic. It is Magic, God's magic.

This cast reflects on "The Power of Love" (Huey Lewis & the News, 1985), and specifically the mind-blowing power of imputing love to create (unlooked-for) change. It's been done to me, and I'll bet it's been done to you. LUV U.

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 is a hymn to life-long marriage. (That's just what it is.) It is also my attempt to say better what I almost always tried to convey to engaged couples in pre-marital counselling, especially at the start of the second session of the three we would have. I would highlight the importance of a shared spiritual life.

I realize that could sound a little preachy, and one tended to soften it some over the years, especially when the couples who would come were less "churched" and more secular in experience. But that doesn't mean I stopped believing it. ("Don't Stop Believin' -- but hey!...)

What you observe empirically, both in others and typically in yourselves, is that the closer you feel to God, as a married couple, the closer you feel to each other. Moreover, a shared vertical commitment offers decisive help to your relationship when the storms start coming and the losses begin to add up.

Bottom Line: Praise the One who brought you together in the first place, and please don't lose touch with him. (If you do, go to a conference at Tullian's church in Jupiter -- he's got the Answer to lostness.) Read the Bible together, and, well, you'll be looking in the same direction. LUV U (both).