“The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it.”
Flannery O’Connor

Check out Robert Randolph and the North Mississippi All Stars — known as The Word — performing “Come By Here” on Conan O’Brien. Click HERE.

By Angela Doll Carlson
Special Mothers Day excerpt from Nearly Orthodox

MY FAVORITE STATUE AT ST. TERESA OF Avila Church was that of Mary, the mother of Jesus. She was situated at the front, close to the altar, near the alcove on the left side of the church. I always thought that alcove was a sitting room, a waiting area, as there were pews there and statues and relics. I wanted to sit on those seats, light those candles, watch the Mass from that angle, in the company of Mary.

Mary, Queen of the Universe

In later years that alcove would be where the musicians would reside during the Mass. Mary, Queen of the Universe, stood watch over the advent of the guitar Mass in the late seventies at St. Teresa of Avila. Before it moved to the alcove in the main church, the guitar Mass began in the basement of the church, in a sort of makeshift chapel with acoustic tile ceilings and shiny linoleum flooring. The space doubled as a fellowship hall, a housing for Vacation Bible School in the summer, and a gathering place for waiting wedding parties and mothers with crying children. It was cold in the basement church but my parents preferred it to the upstairs church on Sunday mornings. The thick, black perfect-bound hymnal was absent from the guitar Mass, and in its place was a pressboard book with photocopied song sheets, lyrics only, Mother Mary blue.

Mary was ever-virgin, always wearing blue, pristine robes, and to this day when I see that color I think, “Mother Mary blue.” She wore a crown of stars and at her feet was the whole earth- Queen of the Heaven, Queen of the May. I sang the “May Day” song all year round, though I was never the one chosen to crown her and she was unapproachable. She was set above us, too holy to touch, Queen of the May.

Theotokos of Vladimir

As much as I wanted to know her, I felt that we were not alike, the way I was not like the other girls in my class, not like the other women in my Protestant church communities, the other women in my grocery store line or college classes, or the other mothers at the park. Who is like me? The icon of the Theotokos of Vladimir would see me from her place on my altar day after day at home and at Vespers on Saturday, complaining about being unlike anyone, being left out and alone. I’d complain that all the other stay-at-home moms I know hold things together: they make the dentist appointments, they clean the kitchen counter, they put away the laundry. All the other stay-at-home moms take a shower in the morning, they put on clean clothes, they brush their teeth. All the other stay-at-home moms go to the gym, revel in their children’s scouting or sports or academic achievements. All the other stay-at-home moms are grateful they are at home; they want to be mothers, they want to be at home. We’re not alike. Continue reading →

Christians were among a record number of Americans flooding theaters this weekend to see a Bible-quoting movie where good versus evil climaxes in an ancient church building. Yet, Joss Whedon, writer/director of “Avengers: Age of Ultron,” is an avowed atheist.

Pulling in the second largest opening weekend ever, behind only previous “Avengers” film, the latest Marvel movie made $191.3 million. Whedon’s latest superhero adventure resonates with Christians because, in addition to the religious symbolism throughout, quiet hope and joy serve as the foundation for the loud explosions and frenetic action.

To read the rest of this Washington Post story, click HERE.

Natalie Portman on her Oscar from Black Swan: “I don’t know where it is,” she says. “I think it’s in the safe or something. I don’t know. I haven’t seen it in a while. I mean, [Black Swan director] Darren [Aronofsky] actually said to me something when we were in that whole thing that resonated so deeply. I was reading the story of Abraham to my child and talking about, like, not worshipping false idols. And this is literally like gold men. This is lit­er­ally worshipping gold idols — if you worship it. That’s why it’s not displayed on the wall. It’s a false idol.”

When David Letterman retires this month from CBS’s “Late Show,” musicians everywhere will be singing the blues as the talk-show host winds up more than three decades as their champion. Mr. Letterman’s departure is a particular loss for a genre enjoying a renaissance: Americana.

“Dave was celebrating Americana artists before we knew what we were called,” says Emmylou Harris, one of the scene’s matriarchs, who first performed on Mr. Letterman’s program in 1989. Steve Earle , a 60-year-old roots rocker, says Mr. Letterman “has been loyal to us. It really is the end of an era.”

***

This month, at Mr. Letterman’s request, Ms. Harris performed the hymn “Will the Circle Be Unbroken,” with Rodney Crowell, Amos Lee and Mark O’Connor, along with actor Steve Martin on banjo. Almost 14 years ago Ms. Harris performed the song on the “Late Show” with Gillian Welch and Sheryl Crow, 10 days after the Sept. 11 attacks.

The hymn was on a 1972 album that sparked Mr. Letterman’s interest in Americana, the host said. “When I was a young man back in Indiana, I was given a copy of “Will the Circle be Unbroken,” he recalled. “The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band produced this seminal collection of early American music with the Carter family. I just loved it.”

To read the rest of the Wall Street Journal article, click HERE.

By Steve Beard

The symbolism was profoundly countercultural. When Sergei Rybko lumbered onto the stage in between rock bands at a dingy nightclub in Moscow, his appearance was sure to provoke a whiplashed double-take. Draped in a flowing black cassock and adorned with a massive gold cross, 49-year-old Rybko sports a shiny bald head and burly beard that would make the guys in ZZ Top jealous.

As he looked across the faces of the teens and twentysomethings, he flashed the peace sign—thawing the ice with the nostalgic hand gesture popularized by the disillusioned bohemians of a different era.

The heart of his message to the understandably perplexed audience was eloquent and simple. As Rybko looked around the club, he told them that they had come together on that night because, in one way or another, they were a club of lonely-hearts—similar to the “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” made famous by the Beatles. Under the roof of the club, their hearts are united by the music; but once they leave the range of the deafening decibels, they will be all alone.

“You don’t have to be alone,” he reminds them. “If you reach out to God, you will never be alone.” With a slight bow and another flash of the peace sign, Rybko leaves the stage to the applause of the crowd.

As you might have surmised, Rybko is a Russian Orthodox priest and his unique ministry was recently profiled on ABC News.

Rybko tends to the normal priestly duties of his parish by day, and ventures into the underbelly of Moscow’s rock subculture at night—a mission that was given to him by the late Patriarch Aleksei II, leader of the Russian Orthodox Church who died last December.

Back at the club, a young rocker makes his way over to Rybko. “I wanted to say a big thank you for coming and for his support,” he told ABC correspondent Alexander Marquardt. “I had some questions I didn’t know who to talk to about, so I asked him and explained everything to me.”

Rybko’s expectations are modest. “At least they didn’t throw anything,” he says afterwards. “My job is to sow, it is up to God to cultivate,” he says. “If what I say changes someone, if it makes someone purer, closer to God, then that’s a successful evening.” Quite simply he believes that if the punkers and metalheads won’t come to church, the church should go to them.

In many ways, Rybko is the perfect candidate to reach out to a wayward flock. Before becoming a wandering hippy when he was young, he played in a rock band and led a small group of anarchists in rebellion against oppressive and rigid Soviet communism. “I used to be a rocker and I will always be one,” he reports. “For the average person behind the Iron Curtain, it represented the only truth that you could listen to.”

Those outside the walls of the sanctuary may not be interested in our internal church battles, but they are intrigued by truth—eternal truth that speaks to the heart, mind, and soul.

When Rybko first got involved in the church, he was a bell ringer. He took the opportunity to mix Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin songs along with the traditional Orthodox bell ringing. According to Rybko, the old ladies in the congregation actually liked the convergence of rock and ritual.

Twenty-one years ago, Rybko was ordained as a priest. Today, he attempts to live out his faith before those inside the sanctuary and those moshing at the rock clubs. “My job as a priest is to bring the life of Christ to the darkest basements,” he says. “In the club, I talk to people who are far away from God…. If I open the Bible [in the clubs] and start to talk like a priest, they will all run away. So I have to use their language but make sure they understand that a priest is speaking to them and that Christianity will solve their problems.”

I have a soft spot in my heart for Rybko’s outreach. When I was a teenager, I used to hang out at a notorious punk rock club called the Cuckoo’s Nest in Orange County, California. Despite having grown up in the church, it ended up being a group of mohawked and tattooed rockers that helped me to embrace my faith.

What really stuck out in the Rybko story was that in addition to hanging out at the clubs, he also opens up a small building behind the sanctuary to bands that need a place to rehearse. Amongst the instruments, amps, and graffiti, there is a large cross on the ceiling and icons of Jesus and the saints displayed on the walls.

As he is getting older, Rybko admits that he usually feels more comfortable preaching in church than hanging out at concerts and clubs. “Thirty years ago that would have been my home,” he says. “Now I feel more at home in church, that is closer to me. But it is my duty to go to the clubs. If I don’t, who will?”

Great question. God bless Sergei Rybko.

Steve Beard is the creator of Thunderstruck.org. This article first appeared on Thunderstruck in October 2009. 

When tourists started showing up here, I couldn’t figure out what they saw in the place,” says Jimmy “Duck” Holmes, a 67-year-old blues musician and owner of the Blue Front Café. It’s a scruffy little drinking spot and informal music venue — a juke joint. The floor is weathered concrete. The barstools are hammered together from raw lumber and painted blue. Heat comes from a piece of oil-field pipe converted into a wood-burning stove.

“My parents started the Blue Front in 1948, and it ain’t been nothing but a juke joint ever since,” says Holmes, a slow-moving medium-built man with a rich, grainy speaking voice. He is sipping a late morning beer and smoking a long menthol cigarette. “It ain’t nothing fancy, but it’s authentic and original, and that’s what the tourists like, I’ve come to understand. They don’t have anything authentic in their regular lives, so they feel drawn to it. They want a taste of it. For a lot of blues fans, that’s what it’s all about.”

Read full story HERE.

Ben E. King, the lead singer for the Drifters and solo star whose voice graced classics like “Stand by Me,” ”There Goes My Baby” and “Spanish Harlem,” recently died at 76.

Barely two weeks earlier, another legendary singer-songwriter, Tracy Chapman, covered “Stand by Me” during an appearance on “The Late Show with David Letterman.”

Watch it HERE.

The Age of Atheists will likely stay confined to certain intellectual circles: The casual philosopher, the dogmatic non-believer, the coffee-table book collector. But insofar as its argument represents a broader pathology in contemporary conversations about belief, this book matters. Most people form their beliefs and live their lives somewhere in the middle of the so-called “culture divide” that outspoken atheists and believers shout across. The more these shouters shout, the more public discourse veers away from the subtle struggle of the average person’s attempt to be human.

Read the entire Emma Green review at The Atlantic, HERE.