We pray thee, O Lord, to purify our hearts that they may be worthy to become thy dwelling place. Let us never fail to find room for thee, but come and abide in us that we also may abide in thee, who as at this time wast born into the world for us, and dost live and reign, King of kings and Lord of lords, now and for evermore.

–-William Temple

4. Nativity at Night by Geertgen tot Sint Jans (c 1490)

Credit: Wikimedia CC BY-SA 4.0 pic.twitter.com/ijcdvlB2LZ

— CultureHubOnX (@CultureHubOnX) December 21, 2023

Men overlooked a baby’s birth
When love unnoticed came to earth
And later, seeking in the skies,
Passed by a man in workman’s guise.
And only children paused to stare
While God Incarnate made a chair.

–Mary Tatlow

Happy Christmas! Luke 2:10-11 'Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Saviour has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord.' MS 5204 f. 65v. pic.twitter.com/AZ8h1jteRj

— LambethPalaceLibrary (@lampallib) December 24, 2023

ALMYGHTYE God, whiche haste geuen us thy onlye begotten sonne to take our nature upon hym, and this daye to bee borne of a pure Vyrgyn; Graunte that we beyng regenerate, and made thy children by adoption and grace, maye dailye be renued by thy holy spirite, through the same our Lorde Jesus Christe who lyueth and reygneth &c.

The story of Christmas, told through masterpieces of painting – a thread 🧵

1. The Cestello Annunciation – Sandro Botticelli (1489) pic.twitter.com/vTRwhlbZzz

— Culture Critic (@Culture_Crit) December 24, 2023

We are going to take a break from the Anglican, Religious, Financial, Cultural, and other news until later in the Christmas season to focus from this evening forward on the great miracle of the Incarnation–KSH.

Happy Christmas Eve! Here is the Nativity scene from St Phillip's cathedral, Birmingham, looking extra festive with attendant Christmas tree #StainedGlassSunday pic.twitter.com/I1ir3Lk8Kf

— Dr Naomi (@BooksTeaFilms) December 24, 2023

As a Christian, my faith is anchored in the person of Jesus, who won my heart long ago. It would be impossible to understand me without taking that into account. But sometimes my faith dims; God seems distant, his ways confounding. “Faith steals upon you like dew,” the poet Christian Wiman has written. “Some days you wake and it is there. And like dew, it gets burned off in the rising sun of anxiety, ambitions, distractions.” And the rising sun of grief and loss, too. Those things don’t necessarily destroy faith; in some cases, for some people, they can even deepen it. But they always change it.

During times of sorrow and times of tears, when it feels like we’re “being broken on the wheels of living,” in the words of Thornton Wilder, there is great comfort in believing God empathizes with our suffering, having entered into suffering himself. But we also need his emissaries. We need people who see us and know us, who enter our stories. Through their compassion and love, we feel, I feel — even if only partly — God’s compassion and love. That doesn’t eliminate the storms from within or without. But it makes greater room for joy in the journey.

Read it all.

Compassion, on the other hand, is central to the Christian understanding of God. https://t.co/yFBPzcsHvk

— Mike Jopek (@mikejopek) December 24, 2023

This section of the poem offers two images of Mary, each extraordinary in its own way. Elsewhere among the Advent Lyrics, Mary is the subject of ‘O virgo virginum’ and of the dialogue which begins ‘O Joseph’; the latter brings to life the tension and pain in the story of her child-bearing, dramatising the anguished thoughts of a couple who have had a world-changing miracle erupt in the middle of their marriage. That’s an emotional, intimate conversation – the Incarnation as personal human drama.

This poem gives us a very different view of Mary. Here she is a queen, and on a cosmic scale – ruler of the forces of heaven, earth, and hell. God and Mary are described in language and tropes drawn from Anglo-Saxon heroic poetry: they are the brytta and his bryd, the generous ring-giving lord and his resolute queen. Described thus, they might easily be Hrothgar and Wealhtheow in Beowulf, or even Cnut and Emma. Like many another woman in Anglo-Saxon poetry, Mary is a bride ‘adorned with rings’ (beaga hroden), but this bride is far from a passive figure: she is courageous and determined (þristhycgende, ‘steadfast in mind’). This poem frames her situation in a distinctive way, presenting it as if she has decided to undertake a diplomatic mission from earth to heaven. Though literally this decision is made when she accepts Gabriel’s message to her, the poem describes it as if she set out to travel on a journey to unite herself with God…

Read it all.

'You are the door in the wall…
Intercede for us now, bold in your words,
that he may not allow us any longer
to go astray in this deadly valley.'

An Anglo-Saxon Advent poem to Mary, queen of three realms and door in the wall between the worlds https://t.co/kg1YIeygui pic.twitter.com/8I0uwMSaOQ

— Eleanor Parker (@ClerkofOxford) December 24, 2023

For all 4 Advent and Christmas Eve services throughout the diocese today.

Stir up your power, O Lord, and with great might come among us; and as we are sorely hindered by our sins from running the race that is set before us, let your bountiful grace and mercy speedily help and deliver us; through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom, with you and the Holy Spirit, be honor and glory, now and for ever. Amen.

Morning everyone hope you are well. It's wet and murky in the Lakes, which is typical for this time of the year. Still beautiful in its own way. The old miners cottages at Coniston Coppermines leading to Coniston Old Man. Have a great day. #LakeDistrict @keswickbootco pic.twitter.com/55LWfPDqaR

— Rod Hutchinson (@lakesrhino) December 24, 2023

And a great portent appeared in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars; she was with child and she cried out in her pangs of birth, in anguish for delivery. And another portent appeared in heaven; behold, a great red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and seven diadems upon his heads. His tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven, and cast them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to bear a child, that he might devour her child when she brought it forth; she brought forth a male child, one who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron, but her child was caught up to God and to his throne, and the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, in which to be nourished for one thousand two hundred and sixty days.

–Revelation 12:1-6

Ladybird Artists Advent Calendar, the last window.
‘Winter Pastoral’
Artist: SR Badmin pic.twitter.com/14IsxIlsOo

— Helen Day (@LBFlyawayhome) December 24, 2023

O God, who in Christ Jesus hast brought Good News to those who are far off and to those who are near: We praise thee for awakening in thy servant Lottie Moon a zeal for thy mission and for her faithful witness among the peoples of China. Stir up in us the same desire for thy work throughout the world, and give us the grace and means to accomplish it; through the same Jesus Christ our Savior, who livest and reignest with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

“Surely there can be no greater joy than that of saving souls.” #LottieMoon @IMB_SBC https://t.co/vVhI7C5Uki pic.twitter.com/3kTLx2BaRa

— Kyle Brosseau (@jkylebrosseau) December 19, 2023

Lord God Almighty, King of glory and love eternal, worthy art thou at all times to receive adoration, praise, and blessing; but especially at this time do we praise thee for the sending of thy Son our Saviour Jesus Christ, for whom our hearts do wait, and to whom, with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, be honour and dominion, now and for ever.

—Prayers for the Christian Year (SCM, 1964)

Robin at my local nature reserve. Have a good day folks. @Natures_Voice @RSPBScotland #BirdsSeenIn2023 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 #NaturePhotography #nature #wildlife #wildlifephotography #birds #birdphotography #birdwatching #TwitterNatureCommunity pic.twitter.com/2mhV2uKGPC

— jamiescott (@jcsctoan) December 23, 2023

“When the Son of man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate them one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will place the sheep at his right hand, but the goats at the left. Then the King will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, O blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see thee hungry and feed thee, or thirsty and give thee drink? And when did we see thee a stranger and welcome thee, or naked and clothe thee? And when did we see thee sick or in prison and visit thee?’ And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me.’ Then he will say to those at his left hand, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ Then they also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see thee hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to thee?’ Then he will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it not to one of the least of these, you did it not to me.’ And they will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

–Matthew 25:31-46

Walking in Great Langdale, Lake District NP pic.twitter.com/S9php2QLJq

— YorkshireLass (@MaureenPlatts) December 23, 2023

Faith leaders in London and the south-east have joined forces with the Bishop of London, the Rt Revd Sarah Mullally, in calling on the Government to address the leave-to-remain status situation for asylum-seekers, and the increasing risk of homelessness this winter…. They want practice to match policy, better communication, and for the timeframe to be extended.

Forty-five of them signed the letter, sent last week to Michael Tomlinson MP and Baroness Scott of Bybrook, ministers respectively in the Home Office and Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. Signatories included the Bishops of Chelmsford, Southwark, and Rochester, and their area and suffragan bishops.

Welcoming the Home Office’s efforts to tackle its backlog on asylum claims, the faith leaders say that they are “concerned at the number [of refugees] who, on receiving their leave to remain, are becoming street homeless”. They report growing demand in London’s churches, mosques, gurdwaras, synagogues, and temples, for support with accommodation from those with new refugee status.

Read it all.

Faith leaders in London and the south-east have joined forces with @bishopSarahM in calling on the Government to address the leave-to-remain status situation for asylum-seekers, and the increasing risk of homelessness this winterhttps://t.co/MW6noWWnJo

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) December 22, 2023

Ukraine this year officially moved its Christmas state holiday from January 7th, in line with the Russian Orthodox Church, to December 25th, when most of the Western world observes it. But there won’t be much to celebrate. A long-awaited and much-needed assistance package from the us Congress will not arrive in time for the new Christmas, and lawmakers appear unlikely to approve legislation in time for the old one either.

Throughout the autumn pro-Ukraine lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, who form a strong majority in the House and Senate, predicted that eventually Congress would authorise more military aid. Important issues with broad, bipartisan support eventually get a vote, the thinking went. Many expected passage at the end of the year, when big spending packages are often cobbled together quickly, allowing their contents to evade scrutiny and legislators to get home for Christmas.

But Mike Johnson, the House speaker, ran for his job with a plan, “to ensure the Senate cannot jam the House with a Christmas omnibus”. So far that has meant punting the main legislative debates until early 2024. Mr Johnson has a point that passing weighty bills with no time for serious debate is suboptimal. But House Republicans, mired in perpetual infighting and unable to govern effectively with a thin majority, squandered their workdays.

Read it all.

Most American lawmakers want more military aid for Ukraine. But a domestic political problem is delaying action https://t.co/uqBowPc9dw 👇

— The Economist (@TheEconomist) December 22, 2023

You can listen directly via the link above or via downloadable podocast there.

Today's pick: Caravaggio: St John the Baptist (1604) https://t.co/4GpRchR5GI pic.twitter.com/n9obXdpmzL

— Art and the Bible (@artbible) May 7, 2021

It is unsurprising that euthanasia consistently breaks its boundaries, always presented as an expansion of choice as the route to kindness. This is rooted in liberalism’s fundamental presuppositions, for as George Grant wrote, “it is the very signature of modern man to deny reality to any conception of good that imposes limits on human freedom … man’s essence is his freedom. Nothing must stand in the way of our absolute freedom to create the world as we want it. There must be no conceptions of good that put limitations on human action.” If there is no ultimate value towards which our lives point, then “the vaunted freedom of the individual to choose becomes either the necessity of finding one’s role in the public engineering or the necessity of retreating into the privacy of pleasure”. We are reduced to utilitarian measures of the good, achieved through harm reduction and happiness maximisation, materialistically defined.

The result of the liberal conception of the human person is expressive individualism, where “persons are conceived merely as atomized individual wills whose highest flourishing consists in interrogating the interior depths of the self in order to express and freely follow the original truths discovered therein toward one’s self-invented destiny”. This conception of the human person privileges cognition, will, rationality and autonomy in defining full personhood. Our nature as embodied souls is largely ignored: if one cannot employ one’s body to achieve the desires of one’s autonomous, rational, willed cognition, then one cannot achieve full personhood.

As a result, the constraints of our existential finitude made so explicit by disability are seen as immoral barriers to maximal autonomy attained through rational will. The unchosen bonds of interdependence, obligation, reciprocity and mutual loyalty that comprise the texture and meaning of life are denigrated. Liberalism discards the weak just as the Greco-Roman world once did, now done for reasons of supposed benevolence. From Locke onwards, liberalism has always seen some more capable of, and suited to, forming political society than others. Mill took this furthest in his proposal of colonisation and slavery for those less capable of freedom.

It is not such a stretch from liberalism’s definition of the individual’s capacity for personhood to advocating the killing of disabled infants deemed incapable of fulfilling this. As Leon Kass has written, it is no surprise that those Germans who coined the phrase “life unworthy of life” were two liberals: a jurist and an academic. Better to curb the depersonalised source of the suffering with all haste. James Burnham viewed liberalism as the ideological legitimator and enabler of Western suicide. I’m not sure he meant for the title of his book to be taken so literally, across so many countries.

Read it all from 2022.

As assisted suicide is in the news again, re-upping my piece for @TheCriticMag from last year, in which I argue that assisted suicide is not only wrong in itself, but that it’s the logical endpoint of the liberal view of the human person https://t.co/ZMK8sy5Pyh

— Henry George (@intothefuture45) December 22, 2023

Creator of light, we offer thanks for thy priest Henry Budd, who carried the great treasure of Scripture to his people the Cree nation, earning their trust and love. Grant that his example may call us to reverence, orderliness and love, that we may give thee glory in word and action; through Jesus Christ our Savior, who with thee and the Holy Spirit livest and reignest, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Henry Budd, remarkable Métis teacher + first Aboriginal Anglican minister http://t.co/cNylyidA9n pic.twitter.com/NKf1FYX271

— Paul Smith (@Otipemisiwak) April 14, 2015

O Christ our God, who wilt come to judge the world in the manhood which thou hast assumed: We pray thee to sanctify us wholly, that in the day of thy coming we may be raised up to live and reign with thee for ever.

Breezy morning in Oxford made for some wonderful cloud swirls over @bodleianlibs @UniofOxford ☁️ pic.twitter.com/XNDgoxlGR6

— Dr. Katharine Fellows (@KatieFellows1) December 22, 2023

And between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders, I saw a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain, with seven horns and with seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth; and he went and took the scroll from the right hand of him who was seated on the throne. And when he had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each holding a harp, and with golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints; and they sang a new song, saying,

“Worthy art thou to take the scroll and to open its seals,
for thou wast slain and by thy blood didst ransom men for God
from every tribe and tongue and people and nation,
and hast made them a kingdom and priests to our God,
and they shall reign on earth.”

Then I looked, and I heard around the throne and the living creatures and the elders the voice of many angels, numbering myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice, “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!” And I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all therein, saying, “To him who sits upon the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might for ever and ever!” And the four living creatures said, “Amen!” and the elders fell down and worshiped.

–Revelation 5:6-14

The old post office with a dusting of snow.
Haworth. pic.twitter.com/gSmj5GnRv7

— Dave Z Photography (@DaveZ_uk) December 22, 2023

The next Area Bishop of Edmonton, in the diocese of London, will be Canon Anderson Jeremiah, Associate Dean (Equality, Diversity, Inclusion and People) in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at Lancaster University, it was announced on Wednesday.

He will be the first presbyter ordained in the Church of South India (CSI), a United Church, to be appointed as a bishop in the Church of England, and will be the fourth bishop in the C of E to have been born in India….

Dr Jeremiah is associate priest of St Paul’s, Scotforth, in the diocese of Blackburn, where he serves as the Bishop’s Adviser for Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic Affairs and is an Honorary Canon. He served on the Anti-Racism Taskforce, which preceded the creation of the Racial Justice Unit…, and, as Bishop of Edmonton, will take responsibility for the racial-justice portfolio in the London College of Bishops.

Read it all.

Canon Anderson Jeremiah @TheOutsider40 said on his nomination as the next Bishop of Edmonton: "My personal experiences of exclusion and discrimination have formed my life, research, and ministry, and inspire me to embody the expansive hospitality of God."https://t.co/CMsEmPPKT7

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) December 21, 2023

Using a type of artificial intelligence known as deep learning, MIT researchers have discovered a class of compounds that can kill a drug-resistant bacterium that causes more than 10,000 deaths in the United States every year.

In a study appearing in Nature, the researchers showed that these compounds could kill methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) grown in a lab dish and in two mouse models of MRSA infection. The compounds also show very low toxicity against human cells, making them particularly good drug candidates.

A key innovation of the new study is that the researchers were also able to figure out what kinds of information the deep-learning model was using to make its antibiotic potency predictions. This knowledge could help researchers to design additional drugs that might work even better than the ones identified by the model.

“The insight here was that we could see what was being learned by the models to make their predictions that certain molecules would make for good antibiotics,” said James Collins, the Termeer Professor of Medical Engineering and Science in MIT’s Institute for Medical Engineering and Science (IMES) and Department of Biological Engineering, a core faculty member of the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University, and an institute member at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. “Our work provides a framework that is time-efficient, resource-efficient, and mechanistically insightful, from a chemical-structure standpoint, in ways that we haven’t had to date.”

Read it all.

We are thrilled to announce the latest discovery by our partners at the Collins Lab: a novel class of antibiotics with activity against MRSA! Read more about the team's "explainable AI" approach underlying this groundbreaking discovery.https://t.co/o8PRSLULwM

— Phare Bio (@PhareBio) December 21, 2023

You can listen directly just above or you can download it also there.

David Cumbie of Church of the Apostles, Houston, called to be new rector of Holy Cross, Sullivan's Island #SouthCarolina https://t.co/0ylo4poNBE #parishministry #lowcountrylife #anglican #religion #faith #transition #leadership #marriage #family #children #texas #acna pic.twitter.com/oAsFYduwBZ

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) October 18, 2023

It’s no coincidence that ‘O Oriens’ is sung on the evening of the winter solstice, as darkness falls on the longest night of the year – the time when winter is at its deepest, but the year’s turning-point has come. In the antiphon and in the Old English poem, Christ is figured as the dawn and the returning sun, appearing in the time of greatest darkness, in the depth of the season the Anglo-Saxons called midwinter. In his De temporum ratione, Bede explains the traditional understanding of the relationship between the church year and the equinoxes and solstices:

very many of the Church’s teachers recount… that our Lord was conceived and suffered on the 8th kalends of April [25 March], at the spring equinox, and that he was born at the winter solstice on the 8th kalends of January [25 December]. And again, that the Lord’s blessed precursor and Baptist was conceived at the autumn equinox on the 8th kalends of October [24 September] and born at the summer solstice on the 8th kalends of July [24 June]. To this they add the explanation that it was fitting that the Creator of eternal light should be conceived and born along with the increase of temporal light, and that the herald of penance, who must decrease, should be engendered and born at a time when the light is diminishing.

Bede, The Reckoning of Time, trans. Faith Wallis (Liverpool, 2004), p. 87.

The medieval church attached profound importance to the solstices and equinoxes as signs of God’s power over time and the created world.

Read it all.

'O Earendel, brightest of angels,
sent to mankind over middle-earth…'

On the winter solstice, the medieval antiphon 'O Oriens' is sung – an appeal for light in darkness. It inspired an Anglo-Saxon poem, which in turn inspired Tolkien's myth of Eärendil: https://t.co/ooFa8lQAzO pic.twitter.com/fSMjCOSPK5

— Eleanor Parker (@ClerkofOxford) December 21, 2023

Almighty and everliving God, who didst strengthen thine apostle Thomas with sure and certain faith in thy Son’s resurrection: Grant us so perfectly and without doubt to believe in Jesus Christ, our Lord and our God, that our faith may never be found wanting in thy sight; through him who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

21 décembre – Saint Thomas, apôtre

Incrédulité de saint Thomas, Arnould de Vuez, 1693
Primatiale saint-Jean, Lyon pic.twitter.com/nRaLOebI4K

— Schola Sainte Cécile (@scholastececile) December 21, 2021

O Lord Jesus Christ, before whose judgment-seat we must all appear and give account of the things done in the body: Grant, we beseech thee, that when the books are opened in that day, the faces of thy servants may not be ashamed; through thy merits, O blessed Saviour, who livest and reignest with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, world without end.

A little bit of springtime on our shortest day. Today we turn towards the light. pic.twitter.com/rCFwbL3tZc

— 🌳Tree-lined🌳lanes🌳 (@LanesTree) December 21, 2023

Do I eat the flesh of bulls,
or drink the blood of goats?

Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving,
and pay your vows to the Most High;

and call upon me in the day of trouble;
I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me.”

–Psalm 50:13-15

December #rainbow over the #LincsWolds #loveukweather pic.twitter.com/u23H1onleo

— ianW (@IanW1985) December 21, 2023

Assisted suicide is banned in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, with a maximum prison sentence of 14 years. While there is no specific offence of assisted suicide in Scotland, euthanasia is illegal and can be prosecuted as murder or culpable homicide.
Rantzen says she’s joined assisted dying clinic

Mr Stride, one of 27 Conservative MPs who voted for the 2015 bill, said he thought some MPs could be wondering “whether this should be something we look at again”.

“The government has not decided to bring forward legislation,” he told the Today programme on Wednesday, “but if Parliament in some form or another decided that it wanted to have a fresh look at this, given it was some years ago that we last did so, that’s not something that I would be resistant to.”

Read it all.

Glad this article calls this for what it is: assisted suicide. I have argued against this in all my episcopal roles and will continue to do so. Investment in palliative care is essential. It will so often be the vulnerable who would suffer most in this. https://t.co/g94iLf0yQZ

— Bishop of Newcastle (@BishopNewcastle) December 20, 2023

….if the sexed nature of the body is irrelevant to the most intimate of human personal interactions, then who I am is detached from my body in a most fundamental way. I become something that inhabits my body and uses it as an instrument, not something that I am. In sum, one cannot desecrate the body and retain a stable notion of personhood any more than Nietzsche thinks one can kill God and keep the earth hitched to the sun.

If sex is no longer sacred, then practices relating to death have followed a similar path. Once it was a sacred mystery; now we mobilize social and technological forces to deny it. Violence and death, once too sacred to be depicted onstage in Greek tragedy, have become the trivial or pornographic fare of movies and video games. The Roman Colosseum made death a matter of entertainment; today, movies and video games bring pornographic violence into the living rooms, indeed the palms, of everyone with a television, a game console, or a smartphone.

Real death is a purely medical affair, with the dying placed in hospitals and hospices. The battle against the body is significant here too, for what is the final authority that the body possesses? Not to dictate our sex as male or female, but to dictate that we are mortal. In light of this, euthanasia looks like one last (and arguably futile) attempt to seize control of who we are.

The attempt to domesticate mortality continues after death. Churches are no longer typically built with graveyards, with the result that worship is today not experienced in the vicinity of dead loved ones. Funerals are becoming celebrations of life. Every year, cremations rise in popularity in America. There may well be practical reasons for this—cost, lack of space—but it still serves to incinerate any lasting, visible reminder from among the living of the dead as the dead. True, some have urns with the ashes of loved ones. But the jar on the mantel at home is different from—dare one say less sacred than?—a burial ground next to a place of worship. It is hard to maintain quiet reverence when the television is blaring and the kettle is boiling.

Read it all.

Carl Trueman on the Desecration of Man. As usual, he's spot on. https://t.co/AxXHGY8XYS

— Mackenzie Boudreaux (@PaperandPipe) December 13, 2023

Pentagon planners worried about the increasing threat from drones have looked at everything from mesh nets and missiles to cannons and lasers, but now a once highly-classified technology is attracting more attention and funding.

High-power microwave devices that can disrupt or even fry the electronics of aerial threats—such as drones and missiles—are moving to the forefront of defense strategies after years of development. In theory, microwave systems offer the ability to keep firing for as long as they have power, which could help take down a swarm of drones.

The stakes for developing such technologies are high: The relatively low cost of small drones has increasingly made them the weapon of choice for less sophisticated armies, terrorists and militant groups trying to overwhelm or slip through defense systems. Hamas has used suicide drones to attack Israel, and the Houthis have been launching drones from Yemen over the Red Sea.

Last week, a U.S. Navy destroyer shot down 14 Houthi drones. The Houthi attacks prompted the U.S. on Monday to unveil a multinational naval force to protect merchant vessels in the Red Sea.

Read it all (registration or subscription).

High-power microwave devices that can disrupt or even fry the electronics of aerial threats are moving to the forefront of defense strategies after years of development https://t.co/tKVbFDTYG2

— The Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) December 19, 2023

The impasse over aid from the US and Europe has Ukraine’s allies contemplating something they’ve refused to imagine since the earliest days of Russia’s invasion: that Vladimir Putin may win.

With more than $110 billion in assistance mired in political disputes in Washington and Brussels, how long Kyiv will be able to hold back Russian forces and defend Ukraine’s cities, power plants and ports against missile attacks is increasingly in question.

Beyond the potentially catastrophic consequences for Ukraine, some European allies have begun to quietly consider the impact of a failure for North Atlantic Treaty Organization in the biggest conflict in Europe since World War II. They’re reassessing the risks an emboldened Russia would pose to alliance members in the east, according to people familiar with the internal conversations who asked for anonymity to discuss matters that aren’t public.

Read it all.

The impasse over aid from the US and Europe has Ukraine’s allies contemplating something they’ve refused to imagine since the earliest days of Russia’s invasion: that Vladimir Putin may win.

What then?https://t.co/WxAAQb6yd0

— Stars and Stripes (@starsandstripes) December 19, 2023