While the people pressed upon him to hear the word of God, he was standing by the lake of Gennesaret. And he saw two boats by the lake; but the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets. Getting into one of the boats, which was Simon’s, he asked him to put out a little from the land. And he sat down and taught the people from the boat. And when he had ceased speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.” And Simon answered, “Master, we toiled all night and took nothing! But at your word I will let down the nets.” And when they had done this, they enclosed a great shoal of fish; and as their nets were breaking, they beckoned to their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both the boats, so that they began to sink. But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.” For he was astonished, and all that were with him, at the catch of fish which they had taken; and so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. And Jesus said to Simon, “Do not be afraid; henceforth you will be catching men.” And when they had brought their boats to land, they left everything and followed him.

–Luke 5:1-11

"Sunrise on a crisp fall morning while out exploring the western mountains of Maine."

📷 Submitted by Ethan Eisenhaur into our annual #DownEastReaderPhotoContest. Enter your Maine pics at https://t.co/vqqgwENdBR.

Thank you to @promasterphoto for sponsoring this year's contest. pic.twitter.com/AXWoRiI6U7

— Down East Magazine (@MagazineofMaine) September 24, 2022

Most loving Saviour, we would abide in Thee: make our hearts Thy dwelling-place; fill our minds with the thought and our imaginations with the picture of Thy love; take away whatever in us of selfishness or weakness hinders our hearing or obeying Thy call; teach us day by day to live closer to Thy side, which was pierced that we might live.

I took mum out to appreciate the end of the sunrise today. She’s lucky to have me. pic.twitter.com/eHPh2T09At

— Max G Greyhound (@ilkleymax) September 25, 2022

Make a joyful noise to God, all the earth;
sing the glory of his name;
give to him glorious praise!
Say to God, “How terrible are thy deeds!
So great is thy power that thy enemies cringe before thee.
All the earth worships thee;
they sing praises to thee,
sing praises to thy name.”

–Psalm 66:1-4

A gorgeous sunrise this morning over the Charleston Harbor! pic.twitter.com/vzGOmY5cqQ

— Chris Holtzman (@ChrisHoltzmanWx) September 25, 2022

But it was a long and arduous road to reach those heights, beginning with a tough childhood. “I was unsuited to being a child,” Ms. Mantel wrote in a 2003 memoir, “Giving Up the Ghost.” She endured numerous health problems, leading one doctor to call her “Little Miss Neverwell.” The doctor was the first of many to fail to properly treat her.

Her illnesses later proved so debilitating that she could not hold down regular jobs, steering her to writing. But even then it was a writer’s life of fits and starts. Mainstream success did not come to her until she was well into her 50s….

In her 20s, Ms. Mantel was diagnosed with endometriosis, a condition in which tissue similar to that lining the womb grows elsewhere. Around that time, a doctor ordered her to stop writing. Her response, described in her memoir, was typically forthright: “I said to myself, ‘If I think of another story, I will write it.’”

At 27, having had the endometriosis diagnosis confirmed, she had surgery to remove her uterus and ovaries, although that did not stop the pain. The complications from her illness made a normal day job impossible, she said.

“It narrowed my options in life,” she said, “and it narrowed them to writing.”

Read it all.

One of the finest historical novelists. Everyone knows her Cromwell trilogy, but "A Place of Greater Safety," though a bit messy, brings the French Revolution to life. https://t.co/EF86I9iPpF

— Michael Weiss 🌻🇺🇸🇮🇪 (@michaeldweiss) September 23, 2022

Truly, O Lord, because Thou madest me, I owe unto I Thy love my whole self; because Thou didst redeem me, I owe Thee my whole self; because Thou makest me such great promises, I owe Thee my whole self, nay more, I owe unto Thy love more than myself, insomuch as Thou art greater than I, for whom Thou didst give Thyself, to whom Thou dost promise Thyself. Make me, I beseech Thee, O Lord, to taste by love that which I taste by knowledge; to perceive by affection what I perceive by understanding. I owe more than my whole self to Thee, but I have no more than this, neither can I of myself render even all this to Thee. Draw me, O Lord, into Thy love, even this whole self of mine. All that I am is Thine by creation: make it to be all Thine by love.

Have a great weekend everyone 😊

📍 Grassington

📸 IG/jamesalroca pic.twitter.com/t4fjxyP256

— Love North Yorkshire (@LoveNorthYorks1) September 24, 2022

After the uproar ceased, Paul sent for the disciples and having exhorted them took leave of them and departed for Macedo′nia. When he had gone through these parts and had given them much encouragement, he came to Greece. There he spent three months, and when a plot was made against him by the Jews as he was about to set sail for Syria, he determined to return through Macedo′nia. Sop′ater of Beroe′a, the son of Pyrrhus, accompanied him; and of the Thessalo′nians, Aristar′chus and Secun′dus; and Ga′ius of Derbe, and Timothy; and the Asians, Tych′icus and Troph′imus. These went on and were waiting for us at Tro′as, but we sailed away from Philippi after the days of Unleavened Bread, and in five days we came to them at Tro′as, where we stayed for seven days.

On the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread, Paul talked with them, intending to depart on the morrow; and he prolonged his speech until midnight. There were many lights in the upper chamber where we were gathered. And a young man named Eu′tychus was sitting in the window. He sank into a deep sleep as Paul talked still longer; and being overcome by sleep, he fell down from the third story and was taken up dead. But Paul went down and bent over him, and embracing him said, “Do not be alarmed, for his life is in him.” And when Paul had gone up and had broken bread and eaten, he conversed with them a long while, until daybreak, and so departed. And they took the lad away alive, and were not a little comforted.

But going ahead to the ship, we set sail for Assos, intending to take Paul aboard there; for so he had arranged, intending himself to go by land. And when he met us at Assos, we took him on board and came to Mityle′ne. And sailing from there we came the following day opposite Chi′os; the next day we touched at Samos; and the day after that we came to Mile′tus. For Paul had decided to sail past Ephesus, so that he might not have to spend time in Asia; for he was hastening to be at Jerusalem, if possible, on the day of Pentecost.

–Acts 20:1-16

Located in the shadow of Mt. Whitney, the dramatic Alabama Hills have a long history of serving as a prime Hollywood filming location! The unique geologic landscape has been the backdrop for many commercials and over 400 primarily Western movies.

Photo by Allen Ahner pic.twitter.com/NSmXYtEv00

— US Department of the Interior (@Interior) September 23, 2022

Josh arrived at Oxford in 2012 to study history, Jack in 2013 for English. Once there, Jack devoted himself to comedy. The first time Josh saw him on stage, he couldn’t get over Jack’s brilliance. After the show, he went over and said: “You should do a sequel of that, but with me in it, too.” Jack was quick and witty. But he was also more honest than other people Josh had met at university. No one else talked about how punishing it was. Likewise, Jack admired how straightforwardly, unapologetically himself Josh seemed. In each other they both discovered qualities they could not see were also in themselves: someone grounded and earnest, who reminded them of home.

Jack is taller, more angular than Josh. The first time Josh saw a Rembrandt self-portrait, he thought: at last, people who look like me getting some representation in art. He has soft features, a stooped posture and droopy eyes that suggest a melancholic disposition. This impression falls away as soon as he speaks. When together, Josh is the more animated of the pair. At any hint of a joke from Jack (and when I interviewed them as a pair, there were many of these – I, the waiter, any passers-by becoming audience while they tried out accents and characters), he throws his head back and slaps his knees appreciatively. Jack is more sensitive and self-critical. He sometimes disappears into himself without warning. We spoke every few months between 2021 and 2022. The deepening of his commitment to Christianity during this period meant that on each occasion we talked, the version of himself from our last meeting had already become an object of some disdain.

There are two distinct routes to faith among those who don’t grow up Christian. The first is person-led. One priest I spoke to followed a girl he fancied into a church. He walked in an atheist and came out a believer. The process isn’t always so quick, of course. One devout Christian, named Chris, told me that it had started on his gap year when he met a Pentecostal Christian in Huddersfield. Every day the two spoke about faith. At the end of the year, Chris went to visit his new friend’s church. There the friend spoke to him through the Holy Spirit. In that heightened state, he told Chris truths about himself no one else knew. After that, Chris could think of no further reason not to become a Christian.

Others arrive at church after trauma.

Read it all.

Feels very rare to get a long read on something like this. And brave of the two subjects to open up to this extent, describing what it feels like to become a Christian… https://t.co/MzSH3tBL5W

— Madeleine Davies (@MadsDavies) September 22, 2022

“Queen Elizabeth was one of those people in this mortal life who always thought ahead,” said David Lyle Jeffrey, distinguished senior fellow at the Institute for Studies of Religion at Baylor University. When preparing these rites, the queen was “clearly looking for prayers, Scriptures and hymns that made connections she wanted to make for her family, her people and the world. … I think she succeeded brilliantly.”

An Anglican from Canada, Jeffrey said the events closing the queen’s historic 70-year reign were an appropriate time to explore the “essence of her admirable Christian character.” Thus, the retired literature professor wrote a poem after her death — “Regina Exemplaris (An exemplary queen)” — saluting her steady, consistent faith. It ended with these lines:

She who longest wore the heavy crown

Knew but to kneel before the unseen throne

And plead her people’s cause as for her own,

And there to praise the Lord of All, bowed down,

More conscious of his glory than her high acclaim,

Exemplar thus in worship, in praise more worthy of the Name.

After the “Kontakion of the Departed,” Bishop David Conner, the dean of St. George’s Chapel, noted the importance of this sanctuary to Queen Elizabeth. She had worshipped in the Windsor Castle chapel as a girl, sometimes singing in the choir and taking piano lessons with organist Sir William Henry Harris. The queen included some of his music in the committal service.

“We are bound to call to mind,” said Conner, “someone whose uncomplicated, yet profound Christian faith bore so much fruit … in a life of unstinting service to the nation, the Commonwealth and the wider world, but also, and especially to be remembered in this place, in kindness, concern and reassuring care for her family, friends and neighbors.

Read it all.

(OPINION/@tweetmattingly) The queen’s final, intimate Windsor Castle service began where her husband’s had ended — with the “Kontakion of the Departed,” a tie to Prince Philip’s Orthodox roots — as if one rite was flowing into another.https://t.co/5znuc4uyX6 #QueenElizabeth

— Religion Unplugged (@ReligionMag) September 22, 2022

The importance of the economy in the upcoming election is underscored by measures showing how poorly Americans rate economic conditions today. Gallup’s Economic Confidence Index is at one of its lowest points over the past 30 years (although not as low as in 2008). About eight in 10 Americans rate the economy as “only fair” or “poor,” and over two-thirds say the economy is getting worse, not better.

Americans’ low confidence in the economy persists despite the fact that about seven in 10 U.S. adults say it is a good time to find a quality job, among the highest such readings across Gallup’s history of asking this question.

That seeming contradiction — inflation and the economy as major concerns at a time when employment is recognized as being robust — highlights one of the difficulties in assessing what the public wants to be done about the economy. I will have more on that below.

Surveys show that Americans are personally feeling the negative effects of inflation, highlighting its potency as an issue this fall. My colleague Jeff Jones recently summarized Gallup data on the personal impact of inflation, noting that “a majority of Americans now say they are experiencing financial hardship from higher prices.” Jeff goes on to review a variety of actions the public is having to take in efforts to deal with the issue, including cutting back on spending and reducing travel.

An NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll conducted earlier this month similarly shows that twice as many Americans say their personal finances have gotten worse over the past year as say they have gotten better. And over seven in 10 report they “have had to cut back on, at least, one necessity or nicety in the past six months to meet their monthly expenses.”

Read it all.

U.S. Public Opinion and the Election: the Economy https://t.co/UBcd3WJ34U

— Carlos Obrador Garrido (@carlobrador) September 23, 2022

The world can kiss goodbye to an economic soft landing. Western central banks are on a misguided mission to restore their damaged credibility, tightening monetary policy violently after the post-pandemic recovery has already wilted and output is nearing contractionary levels.

Britain’s fiscal blitz has the luck of timing. It is a counter-cyclical stimulus, cushioning some of the blow, even if it risks rattling bond vigilantes, and even if it is wasteful in subsidies for the affluent.

Critics say the energy bailout will cap inflation in the short run but stoke more inflation in the long run, to which one can only reply, like Keynes, that in the long run we are all dead. World events are going to wash over such quibbling with a torrential deflationary force.

The central banks are pushing through with triple-barrelled rate rises after the inflation fever has broken; after the commodity boom has deflated; and after key monetary indicators on both sides of the Atlantic have turned negative. They are prisoners of lagging indicators.

Read it all.

✍️"Inflation will abate gradually of its own accord across the Atlantic world, without the need for a punishment beating by central banks with bad models. Boom-bust monetary policy is frankly a scandal," writes Ambrose Evans-Pritchard https://t.co/InfJuu0hpD

— The Telegraph (@Telegraph) September 23, 2022

Four days into the war in Ukraine, Russia’s expansive surveillance and censorship apparatus was already hard at work.

Roughly 800 miles east of Moscow, authorities in the Republic of Bashkortostan, one of Russia’s 85 regions, were busy tabulating the mood of comments in social media messages. They marked down YouTube posts that they said criticized the Russian government. They noted the reaction to a local protest.

Then they compiled their findings. One report about the “destabilization of Russian society” pointed to an editorial from a news site deemed “oppositional” to the government that said President Vladimir V. Putin was pursuing his own self-interest by invading Ukraine. A dossier elsewhere on file detailed who owned the site and where they lived.

Another Feb. 28 dispatch, titled “Presence of Protest Moods,” warned that some had expressed support for demonstrators and “spoke about the need to stop the war.”

Read it all.

Russia’s Roskomnadzor has morphed from a sleepy telecom regulator into a full-blown intelligence agency, closely monitoring websites, social media and news outlets. https://t.co/XkxVeNuNAx

— NYT Business (@nytimesbusiness) September 23, 2022

Come to us, O Lord! open the eyes of our souls, and show us the things which belong to our peace and the path of life; that we may see that, though all man’s inventions and plans come to an end, yet Thy commandment is exceeding broad — broad enough for rich and poor, for scholar, tradesman, and labourer, for our prosperity in this life and our salvation in the life to come.

Happy Autumn Equinox 🍂🧡🍂
Magic on the river Great Ouse in Ely. #AutumnEquinox #Equinox #TheFens #AutumnalEquinox #naturemagic #bbcearth #bbcspringwatch pic.twitter.com/48iylSHVcw

— Veronica in the Fens 🧚🏼‍♀️ (@VeronicaJoPo) September 23, 2022

O Lord, my God, I call for help by day;
I cry out in the night before thee.
Let my prayer come before thee,
incline thy ear to my cry!

–Psalm 88:1-2

"Greeting the sun" A paddleboarder on Roker Harbour this morning. @StormHour @ThePhotoHour #FridayFeeling pic.twitter.com/1UQMx8Xg0I

— simon c woodley (@simoncwoodley) September 23, 2022

Child poverty in the UK is reaching worrying levels. Paltry wages, low benefit payments and a cost of living crisis mean the UK’s poorest families are getting poorer.

Analysis from the Resolution Foundation has projected that a further 500,000 children will fall into poverty by April 2023.

Children’s charities, schools and food aid organisations are working tirelessly to plug the gaps created by the welfare system. Food banks are now being set up in schools so children have enough to eat.

Children are perhaps the most vulnerable group in any society, and often first to feel the effects of rising poverty across society. Here are the basics on what child poverty is, what causes it and the impact it has.

Read it all.

'Children are perhaps the most vulnerable group in any society, and often first to feel the effects of rising poverty across society.'

This is why we're calling on governments across the UK to #ShiftTheDial on child health. @BigIssue https://t.co/zbUWmXcZU1

— RCPCH (@RCPCHtweets) September 22, 2022

Since the start of the 21st century, per capita growth dropped to less than half its previous 1950-2000 tempo. With the rate creaking along now at just over 1 percent per annum, incomes would take more than 60 years to double; from 1980-1999, the doubling pace was 31 years.

A significant factor in modern America’s slower growth — and the lower expectations it unforgivingly imposes — is the drop-off in work. The country is aging, of course, but population graying does not explain the collapse of employment for men of the 25-54 prime working age (women’s labor force participation rates have been declining too, but not as steeply). Nor can it account for the anomalous emergence of a peacetime labor shortage in post-pandemic America, even as workforce participation rates remain stuck well below pre-pandemic levels.

Instead, these are manifestations of a troubling, once unfamiliar but now increasingly entrenched syndrome. Call it the “flight from work.”

Although the unemployment rate for prime-age men in August was a mere 3 percent, only 86 percent reported any paid labor. The remaining 11 percent were labor-force dropouts — neither working nor looking for work. These “not in labor force” men, who now outnumber the formally unemployed by more than 4 to 1, are the main reason that the country’s prime male work rate has been driven below its 1940 level — when national unemployment rates were nearly 15 percent.

Astonishingly, yes, the United States has a Depression-scale work problem.

Read it all.

The United States has a Depression-scale work problem. The prime-age male work rate is below its 1940 level. Labor-force dropouts are the main reason, Nicholas Eberstadt of @AEI writes in a guest opinion. https://t.co/GIPxUJ4Df3

— Washington Post Opinions (@PostOpinions) September 21, 2022

The erosion of the United States’ educational edge will eventually weaken the country’s global reach. With a less highly educated workforce than it could or should have, the United States will have less economic, political, and military heft with which to defend its interests and uphold the economic and security architecture that has defined the postwar order. Eventually, Pax Americana will come under pressure. It is not hard to imagine a progressively less peaceable and more economically insecure international environment in which the United States has much less influence as a result of its stagnating pool of high-skilled labor.

Fortunately, the United States still has good options for coping with loss of educational hegemony. But they all require Washington to take initiative—something it seems unaccustomed to lately. Through more active and imaginative diplomacy, the United States could seek to forge new coalitions or alliances that would add human resource ballast to the liberal order. This might entail patient cultivation of new security partnerships with some of tomorrow’s major centers of highly educated labor: India, Indonesia, Vietnam—maybe even Iran. Other intriguing possibilities include a closer integration of Canada, Mexico, and the United States, which might bring North America’s strategic potential more in line with its tremendous demographic and economic potential.

Meanwhile, the United States could attempt to reverse its ominous educational slowdown. Stagnation in educational attainment is impeding economic growth and likely robbing the United States of trillions of dollars in output each year—a price that will only rise if the United States doesn’t shift course. Part of the problem is that Americans do not want to buy a lot of what U.S. educators want to sell, and it is hard to blame them. The quality of public primary and secondary schooling is woefully uneven, and a high school diploma does not always come with marketable skills. Higher education is increasingly bureaucratized, ideological, and expensive. If Americans treated education as if their future depended on it, they would look for far-reaching overhauls, not marginal changes, and they would look beyond teachers’ unions and university administrators for better ideas. Revitalizing the country’s human resources—not just educational attainment, but health, workforce participation, and even family—will increasingly be strategic imperatives for the United States.

The coming demographic and educational changes are predictable. But they are not entirely inevitable, and they are unfolding slowly. The United States has time to adapt and address its educational shortcomings before it is too late. To avoid squandering its educational edge and putting its position of global primacy at risk, however, Washington must acknowledge that education is no longer just a domestic policy issue but a national security issue on which the very future of the United States depends.

Read it all.

“An explosion in higher education is redistributing the share of highly educated workers across the world, potentially affecting the balance of power among nations.”https://t.co/PwSrrsijNt

— Foreign Affairs (@ForeignAffairs) September 22, 2022

Federal Reserve officials, struggling to contain the most rapid inflation in 40 years, delivered a third big rate increase on Wednesday and projected a more aggressive path ahead for monetary policy, one that would lift interest rates higher and keep them elevated longer.

The Fed raised its policy interest rate by three-quarters of a percentage point, boosting it to a range of 3 to 3.25 percent. That’s a significant jump from as recently as March, when the federal funds rate was set at near-zero, and the increases since then have made for the Fed’s fastest policy adjustment since the 1980s.

Even more notably, policymakers predicted on Wednesday that they would raise borrowing costs to 4.4 percent by the end of the year and forecast markedly higher interest rates in the years to come than they had previously expected. Jerome H. Powell, the Fed chair, warned that those moves would be painful for the U.S. economy — but said curbing growth to contain price increases was essential.

“We have got to get inflation behind us,” Mr. Powell said during his post-meeting news conference. “I wish there were a painless way to do that; there isn’t.”

Read it all.

The policy interest rate rose three-quarters of a percentage point, to a range of 3 to 3.25 percent.https://t.co/7rK00RO5Vk

— NYT Business (@nytimesbusiness) September 22, 2022

Almighty God, whose Son Jesus Christ is the pioneer and perfecter of our faith We give thee heartfelt thanks for the pioneering spirit of thy servant Philander Chase, and for his zeal in opening new frontiers for the ministry of thy Church. Grant us grace to minister in Christ’s name in every place, led by bold witnesses to the Gospel of the Prince of Peace, even Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Today the Episcopal Church commemorates Philander Chase, Bishop of Ohio, and of Illinois, 1852 https://t.co/eULjRCLVXa

Image: Daguerreotype produced by Matthew Brady's studio ca. 1844-52, in the Library of Congress pic.twitter.com/XH9jticcSn

— The Anglican Church in St Petersburg (@anglicanspb) September 22, 2021

Fill our hearts with your grace, O Lord, our souls with your love and our lives with your glory; through Christ our Lord. Amen.

#thursdayvibes #Scarborough #beforesunrise 🌅 06:00 hrs in South Bay 🙏 Have a peaceful day 🌊 pic.twitter.com/TuUXhYDxhn

— Faith Young Writer (@FYoungWriter) September 22, 2022

And God did extraordinary miracles by the hands of Paul, so that handkerchiefs or aprons were carried away from his body to the sick, and diseases left them and the evil spirits came out of them. Then some of the itinerant Jewish exorcists undertook to pronounce the name of the Lord Jesus over those who had evil spirits, saying, “I adjure you by the Jesus whom Paul preaches.” Seven sons of a Jewish high priest named Sceva were doing this. But the evil spirit answered them, “Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are you?” And the man in whom the evil spirit was leaped on them, mastered all of them, and overpowered them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded. And this became known to all residents of Ephesus, both Jews and Greeks; and fear fell upon them all; and the name of the Lord Jesus was extolled. Many also of those who were now believers came, confessing and divulging their practices. And a number of those who practiced magic arts brought their books together and burned them in the sight of all; and they counted the value of them and found it came to fifty thousand pieces of silver. So the word of the Lord grew and prevailed mightily.

–Acts 19:11-20

Early light and views across the Shire.

I loved this moment, watching the sunrise high up in Thorncliffe, Staffordshire.🌅#PeakDistrict #ThePhotoHour#StormHour #sunrise #enjoystaffs #BBCCountryfileMagPOTD pic.twitter.com/28yJskcYFn

— Gareth Mate (@GarethMate_) September 22, 2022

Pope Francis has been openly anti-populist, but the Italian people seem open to it now that the situation has gotten more dire economically as a result of COVID-19, rising inflation and an energy crisis triggered by Russia’s attack on Ukraine. The pope has been good about staying away from the morass of Italian politics, leaving it to the Italian bishops to exert influence.

As Vatican observer John Allen Jr. wrote in a recent Crux column: “Italian Catholics also have a commendable capacity to live with contradiction, reflecting a healthy sense of the complexities of things. Small case in point: I recently went to a local pharmacy for a Covid test, and I noticed a poor box to support the hospital founded by Padre Pio atop a shelf. Upon further inspection, it was the same shelf that offered the pharmacy’s collection of jumbo-sized boxes of condoms.”

Meloni is an embodiment of such contradictions. For example, she supports family values and other Catholic doctrines, but has a daughter, named Ginevra, with her boyfriend Andrea Giambruno, a journalist.

Allen said Italy is a place where “the sacred and the secular have been forced by bitter experience to work out a modus vivendi, for the most part respecting the legitimacy and autonomy of the other.”

Despite all these contradictions, Meloni is poised to be prime minister. Her campaign slogan may be “Ready” — but it remains to be seen if she, the majority of her countrymen and the world are ready to see her lead Italy.

Read it all.

Giorgia Meloni could become Italy's first female PM.@ClementeLisi reports on her "God, homeland and family" platform for the Brothers of Italy party, which has roots in the post-war fascist movement that hailed the legacy of dictator Benito Mussolini. https://t.co/1k5EKMliEp

— Meagan Clark Saliashvili (@Meagan_Salia) September 20, 2022

[Archbp Geoffrey Fisher’s book of prayers and meditations]…were the foundations for her thinking about her calling. And they helped her make what must have been a difficult discernment in her later years. As British society grew both more religiously plural and more secular, she responded not by watering down what she had to say in her annual Christmas broadcasts but by gently increasing the references to her faith and to the role of religious faith in general.

Reading through these Christmas texts, it is striking that, as her society ceased to take for granted the frame of reference that was hers, she recognized that part of her task was to remind us of it. Never triumphalist, never aggressive, she simply reiterated her own commitment, her acknowledgment of God’s grace, and her insistence on the need to remember what the Christmas festival was actually about.

Contrary to what some over-anxious and over-apologetic observers might have feared, this did not offend or alienate the faithful of other communities. It reassured them that the monarch understood how and why faith mattered. And that was partly because she was increasingly willing to take part in interfaith events (and was indeed criticized by some Christian rigorists for doing so). This might be at large public events like Commonwealth Day services.

But my strongest memory is of an event at Lambeth Palace, late in my time as archbishop, when we had organized a small exhibition of treasures from different faith traditions and invited the queen to come and view this, to meet a number of religious leaders, and to address the group. What she said in her address was a powerful statement of a genuinely theological rationale for the Church of England’s role in a religiously plural society.

Read it all.

“I have fought the good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith.”
~2 Timothy 4:7 pic.twitter.com/0ovuj4MjE7

— Joe Scarborough (@JoeNBC) September 19, 2022

A panel of medical experts on Tuesday recommended for the first time that doctors screen all adult patients under 65 for anxiety, guidance that highlights the extraordinary stress levels that have plagued the United States since the start of the pandemic.

The advisory group, called the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, said the guidance was intended to help prevent mental health disorders from going undetected and untreated for years or even decades. It made a similar recommendation for children and teenagers earlier this year.
The panel, appointed by an arm of the federal Department of Health and Human Services, has been preparing the guidance since before the pandemic. The recommendations come at a time of “critical need,” said Lori Pbert, a clinical psychologist and professor at the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School, who serves on the task force. Americans have been reporting outsize anxiety levels in response to a confluence of stressors, including inflation and crime rates, fear of illness and loss of loved ones from Covid-19.

“It’s a crisis in this country,” Dr. Pbert said. “Our only hope is that our recommendations throw a spotlight on the need to create greater access to mental health care — and urgently.”

Read it all.

A panel of medical experts on Tuesday recommended for the first time that doctors screen all adult patients under 65 for anxiety, guidance that highlights the extraordinary stress levels that have plagued the U.S. since the start of the pandemic. https://t.co/sm1gfwmanB

— The New York Times (@nytimes) September 20, 2022

Vladimir Putin said Russia’s armed forces would call up its reserves immediately to support its invasion of Ukraine and indicated Moscow would probably annex large swaths of the country’s territory.

In an address to his nation that significantly raised the stakes in the war, the Russian president announced “partial mobilisation” ahead of heavily stage-managed votes in four occupied regions of Ukraine to join Russia.

Moscow did not give an official figure for the newly mobilised troops but it is estimated they will significantly bolster the number of Russian forces on the ground in Ukraine, which western officials have in the past estimated to stand at between 150,000 and 190,000.

More than six months since Putin first sent troops into Ukraine in late February, he defined the war as an existential struggle for Russia’s survival against what he described as a hostile west.

Read it all.

Vladimir Putin mobilises 300k Russian army reserves to support Ukraine invasion, in major escalation of war https://t.co/3qEXeWD6Ku w @maxseddon @polinaivanovva

— Henry Foy (@HenryJFoy) September 21, 2022

We thank thee, heavenly Father, for the witness of thine apostle and evangelist Matthew to the Gospel of thy Son our Savior; and we pray that, after his example, we may with ready wills and hearts obey the calling of our Lord to follow him; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

The Calling of Saint Matthew (c.1625–30), by Giovanni Battista Caracciolo, in @metmuseum

Deeply influenced by Caravaggio, Caracciolo shows the moment when Jesus asks Matthew, an avaricious tax collector, to renounce his worldly possessions and follow Him (Matthew 9:9)

Image: OA pic.twitter.com/6vL7RQ2N0Q

— The Anglican Church in St Petersburg (@anglicanspb) September 21, 2022

O Our God, we believe in thee, we hope in thee, and we love thee, because thou hast created us, redeemed us, and dost sanctify us. Increase our faith, strengthen our hope, and deepen our love, that giving up ourselves wholly to thy will, we may serve thee faithfully all the rest of our life; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

—The Narrow Way, Being a Complete Manual of Devotion with a Guide to Confirmation and Holy Communion (London: J. Whitaker and Sons, 1893)

Another misty day sunrise, taken from Glastonbury Tor this morning. pic.twitter.com/CnaY3D4BzH

— Michelle Cowbourne (@Glastomichelle) September 21, 2022

On that night the king could not sleep; and he gave orders to bring the book of memorable deeds, the chronicles, and they were read before the king. And it was found written how Mor′decai had told about Bigthana and Teresh, two of the king’s eunuchs, who guarded the threshold, and who had sought to lay hands upon King Ahasu-e′rus. And the king said, “What honor or dignity has been bestowed on Mor′decai for this?” The king’s servants who attended him said, “Nothing has been done for him.” And the king said, “Who is in the court?” Now Haman had just entered the outer court of the king’s palace to speak to the king about having Mor′decai hanged on the gallows that he had prepared for him. So the king’s servants told him, “Haman is there, standing in the court.” And the king said, “Let him come in.” So Haman came in, and the king said to him, “What shall be done to the man whom the king delights to honor?” And Haman said to himself, “Whom would the king delight to honor more than me?” And Haman said to the king, “For the man whom the king delights to honor, let royal robes be brought, which the king has worn, and the horse which the king has ridden, and on whose head a royal crown is set; and let the robes and the horse be handed over to one of the king’s most noble princes; let him array the man whom the king delights to honor, and let him conduct the man on horseback through the open square of the city, proclaiming before him: ‘Thus shall it be done to the man whom the king delights to honor.’” Then the king said to Haman, “Make haste, take the robes and the horse, as you have said, and do so to Mor′decai the Jew who sits at the king’s gate. Leave out nothing that you have mentioned.” So Haman took the robes and the horse, and he arrayed Mor′decai and made him ride through the open square of the city, proclaiming, “Thus shall it be done to the man whom the king delights to honor.”

Then Mor′decai returned to the king’s gate. But Haman hurried to his house, mourning and with his head covered. And Haman told his wife Zeresh and all his friends everything that had befallen him. Then his wise men and his wife Zeresh said to him, “If Mor′decai, before whom you have begun to fall, is of the Jewish people, you will not prevail against him but will surely fall before him.”

While they were yet talking with him, the king’s eunuchs arrived and brought Haman in haste to the banquet that Esther had prepared.

–Esther 6:1-14

Blessed to be able to #Hike and #photograph the #Italian 🇮🇹 #Dolomites 🥾❤️! #sunrise @destinationhiking #italy #alps #mountains #landscapephotography #nature #beautiful #photography #nikonusa #zcreators #z7ii #thephotohour #natgeo #natgeophotos #passoddelerbe #nikonoutdoors pic.twitter.com/PwRpoefq34

— Laura Hedien- Storm Clouds Photography (@lhedien) September 20, 2022

The interplay of the national and the local and the strength that the Church of England still has in its atrophying muscles should be a cause of serious hope to those leading the national church. But, as Christ says, “where your treasure is, there will your heart be also,” so if we’re going to build on these strengths, we need to make a conscious decision to invest in them.

The local is our strength. Churches at the centre of their communities, priests at the centre of their churches – with the time to devote to their communities. The CofE knows this – three reports have been commissioned into why some churches grow and some shrink and all three came back with the same answer.

As one, From Anecdote to Evidence put it: “The findings show that single church units under one leader are more likely to grow than when churches are grouped together…There is a strong negative trend between the more churches amalgamated together and the likelihood of decline.”

Communities across the country are concerned that the old model of Anglican Christianity is slowly dying – and often for paltry sums of money, unable to be raised at a local level but easily available at a national level where the Church of England sits on £10 billion of assets. Where your treasure is, there will you heart be also: let’s put our money in our parishes, for that is where the real beating heart of the CofE is found. (And let’s celebrate the fact that we no longer have a recruitment crisis – we are now ordaining more new priests than we have clergy retiring or quitting early.)

Read it all (subscription or registration).

"The Church of England has done us all proud over the last ten days. The Established Church has found its step and remembered its calling to be the focal point of communities – nationally and locally" | Writes @WalkerMarcus https://t.co/GCRBdp2K61

— The Telegraph (@Telegraph) September 19, 2022

Herewith the BBC blurb about the show:

Exploring the faith behind the pomp and pageantry of the Queen’s funeral.

Millions will have watched the historic funeral service from Westminster Abbey and the Committal at St George’s Chapel in Windsor Castle as Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II was laid to rest. For some, the services will be full of meaning and resonance. Others will be less familiar with the Christian rituals that have evolved over centuries.

Ernie Rea is joined by writer and journalist Catherine Pepinster, Professor Douglas Davies, Rev Dr Giles Fraser and Andrew Carwood MBE (Director of Music, St Paul’s Cathedral) to discuss and illuminate the meaning, symbolism and significance of the Queen’s state funeral.

Listen to it all (28 minutes).