‘In the ancient world, adoption was a practice ordinarily confined to the childless well-to-do. Its subjects, as we said earlier, were not normally infants, as today, but young adults who had shown themselves fit and able to carry on a family name in a worthy way. In this case, however, God adopts us out of free love, not because our character and record show us worthy to bear his name, but despite the fact that they show the very opposite. We are not fit for a place in God’s family; the idea of his loving and exalting us sinners as he loves and has exalted the Lord Jesus sounds ludicrous and wild—yet that, and nothing less than that, is what our adoption means.’

–JI Packer, Knowing God

6) Knowing God by JI Packer.
This has recently been my bedtime read on the kindle. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve read it over the years, but each time it’s helped me draw that bit closer to God & stoked my passion to know him better. I will reread this once again soon! pic.twitter.com/V55IX9Ese4

— Jack Griffiths (@JackLGriffiths) March 21, 2023

In 1920, the Czech writer Karel Čapek wrote “R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots),” a play set in the year 2000 that follows the evolution of robota, a new class of android worker-slaves that eventually rises up and annihilates its human masters. The play introduced both the word “robot” and a narrative of human-robot conflict that, by now, has become familiar in movies such as “The Terminator,” “RoboCop,” and “Blade Runner.” Will robots fashioned to look like us, and programmed to accede to our wishes, spur people to think of them as friends and co-workers—or to treat them like chattel? Onstage in Telluride, David Hanson said that the purpose of robots like Sophia is to teach people compassion. But it seemed counterintuitive to suggest that a machine that can only mimic human emotions has the ability to inculcate in us something so fundamental to the human experience.

In Hanson’s view, Sophia is no different than a character in a book, and we know that stories can engender empathy. But given the speed at which artificial-intelligence models are being deployed, and their tendency to behave erratically, we would be wise not to wholly abandon the caution inspired by Čapek and his heirs. Matthias Scheutz, the C.E.O. of Thinking Robots, pointed out that unless designers build constraints and ethical guardrails into the A.I. models that will power robots of the future, there is a risk of inadvertently creating machines that could harm us in unforeseen ways. “The situation we need to avoid with these machines is that when we test them, they give us the answers we want to hear, but behind the scenes they’re developing their own agenda,” Scheutz told me. “I’m listening to myself talking right now, and it sounds like sci-fi. Unfortunately, it’s not.”

Read it all.

“There is no doubt that the A.I. revolution we’re witnessing now will animate the robots of the future, giving them skills that match, surpass, or replace our own,” @SueHalpernVT writes. “It is already happening.” https://t.co/VNqhjGvleR

— The New Yorker (@NewYorker) July 26, 2023

An outstanding candidate for the role of UK patron saint is, I believe, Aidan, the 7th-century Christian missionary bishop who embodies both the Celtic and Anglo-Saxon strains in our national identity.

Originally from Ireland, he was a monk in the Scottish monastery that Columba founded on Iona, from where he was called by Oswald, ruler of the English kingdom of Northumbria, to promote Christianity. He established his episcopal see on the island of Lindisfarne, where he also set up a monastery in 635.

Aidan was a person of deep and genuine humility, described by the early church historian Bede as “a man of outstanding gentleness, devotion and moderation”. He upbraided a monk of “much harsher disposition”, who had first been chosen to evangelise the Northumbrians but had no success, for being too hectoring in his approach.

When a subsequent king, Oswin, gave Aidan a fine horse, he gave it away to the first beggar that he met, preferring to go round his extensive diocese on foot. In Bede’s words: “Whenever he met anyone, whether high or low, he spoke to them.”

Read it all (subscription).

August 31st is the feast of Saint Aidan of Lindisfarne, “the Apostle of Northumbria”: Irish monk of Iona, missionary to Bernicia, founder-Bishop of Lindisfarne, adviser to King Saints Oswald and Oswine, wonderworker, and Confessor of the Faith—who died on this day in A.D. 651. pic.twitter.com/wxKsay0wry

— Tradical (@NoTrueScotist) August 31, 2018

By the article establishing the executive department it is made the duty of the President “to recommend to your consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient.” The circumstances under which I now meet you will acquit me from entering into that subject further than to refer to the great constitutional charter under which you are assembled, and which, in defining your powers, designates the objects to which your attention is to be given. It will be more consistent with those circumstances, and far more congenial with the feelings which actuate me, to substitute, in place of a recommendation of particular measures, the tribute that is due to the talents, the rectitude, and the patriotism which adorn the characters selected to devise and adopt them. In these honorable qualifications I behold the surest pledges that as on one side no local prejudices or attachments, no separate views nor party animosities, will misdirect the comprehensive and equal eye which ought to watch over this great assemblage of communities and interests, so, on another, that the foundation of our national policy will be laid in the pure and immutable principles of private morality, and the preeminence of free government be exemplified by all the attributes which can win the affections of its citizens and command the respect of the world. I dwell on this prospect with every satisfaction which an ardent love for my country can inspire, since there is no truth more thoroughly established than that there exists in the economy and course of nature an indissoluble union between virtue and happiness; between duty and advantage; between the genuine maxims of an honest and magnanimous policy and the solid rewards of public prosperity and felicity; since we ought to be no less persuaded that the propitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right which Heaven itself has ordained; and since the preservation of the sacred fire of liberty and the destiny of the republican model of government are justly considered, perhaps, as deeply, as finally, staked on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people.

Read it all.

Red, White, and Blue in celebration of the 4th of July

📷: mraaronwoods/IG pic.twitter.com/8srRx4fvMy

— Empire State Building (@EmpireStateBldg) July 3, 2023

But sometimes lonely stands look better over time. When two Jehovah’s Witness sisters refused to say the Pledge of Allegiance in their public school classroom during World War II, they were decidedly unpopular. But their courage resulted in one of the most remarkable statements of constitutional principle in American history, from the Supreme Court’s 1943 ruling in West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette: “If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion or other matters of opinion, or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein.”

In a nation as polarized as our own, the definition of “outsiders” can vary wildly, depending on where they live. In one community, conservative Christians may dominate, and be tempted to censor speech they dislike, to “protect children” or defend the “common good.” In other communities, those same Christians will find their own speech under fire as “hateful” or “discriminatory.”

The consequence is an odd legal reality, an artifact of our divided times. Christians and drag queens — in different jurisdictions and in different courts — are both protecting the First Amendment from the culture wars. They’re both reaffirming a foundational principle of American liberal democracy: that even voices on the margins enjoy the same civil liberties as the powerful and the popular.

In his majority opinion, Justice Gorsuch stated the case well. “In this case,” he wrote, “Colorado seeks to force an individual to speak in ways that align with its views but defy her conscience about a matter of major significance.” The state does not possess such power. It must not possess such power. Otherwise the culture wars will consume the Constitution, and even our most basic rights to speak or not speak will depend on whether we can gain and keep political control. That is not the vision of American pluralism, and it is not the vision that will sustain a united, diverse American republic.

Read it all.

Justice Sotomayor is misstating the case. It was *stipulated* that the business would serve LGBT customers. It just wouldn't create expressive works that convey a message it finds objectionable, regardless of the identity of the customer. https://t.co/BJjZYRRWvB

— David French (@DavidAFrench) June 30, 2023

There is no near-term prospect of the synthetic embryos being used clinically. It would be illegal to implant them into a patient’s womb, and it is not yet clear whether these structures have the potential to continue maturing beyond the earliest stages of development.

The motivation for the work is for scientists to understand the “black box” period of development that is so called because scientists are only allowed to cultivate embryos in the lab up to a legal limit of 14 days. They then pick up the course of development much further along by looking at pregnancy scans and embryos donated for research.

Robin Lovell-Badge, the head of stem cell biology and developmental genetics at the Francis Crick Institute in London, said: “The idea is that if you really model normal human embryonic development using stem cells, you can gain an awful lot of information about how we begin development, what can go wrong, without having to use early embryos for research.”

Read it all.

This is a significant development that raises important questions about both the boundaries of human life and the future of the family. https://t.co/nLuWEdWJ6q

— Matthew Lee Anderson (@mattleeanderson) June 15, 2023

O God,
the strength of all those who put their trust in you,
mercifully accept our prayers
and, because through the weakness of our mortal nature
we can do no good thing without you,
grant us the help of your grace,
that in the keeping of your commandments
we may please you both in will and deed;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Amen.

Father in heaven, by whose grace the virgin mother of thine incarnate Son was blessed in bearing him, but still more blessed in keeping thy word: Grant us who honor the exaltation of her lowliness to follow the example of her devotion to thy will; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Today's the feast of the Visitation. Mary greets her cousin Elizabeth in the hill country of Judea. Both of them are pregnant, and Elizabeth places her hand on Mary's bump. 15th Century glass at East Harling, Norfolk. pic.twitter.com/KFxSFVvMYT

— Simon Knott (@last_of_england) May 31, 2023

“Only take heed, and keep your soul diligently, lest you forget the things which your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life; make them known to your children and your children’s children— how on the day that you stood before the Lord your God at Horeb, the Lord said to me, ‘Gather the people to me, that I may let them hear my words, so that they may learn to fear me all the days that they live upon the earth, and that they may teach their children so.’ And you came near and stood at the foot of the mountain, while the mountain burned with fire to the heart of heaven, wrapped in darkness, cloud, and gloom. Then the Lord spoke to you out of the midst of the fire; you heard the sound of words, but saw no form; there was only a voice. And he declared to you his covenant, which he commanded you to perform, that is, the ten commandments; and he wrote them upon two tables of stone. And the Lord commanded me at that time to teach you statutes and ordinances, that you might do them in the land which you are going over to possess.

–Deuteronomy 4:9-14

Check out our Memorial Day morning sky over Charleston!🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/d6uytlzkGy

— Joey Sovine Live 5 (@JoeySovine) May 29, 2023

You can listen directly here or download it there.

The Three Holy Women at the Empty Tomb#EasterSunday
BnF MS 1186 Psalterium (Psalter of St Louis & Blanche de Castille); 13th century (c.1230); f.25v @GallicaBnF pic.twitter.com/8TDGdjiOqW

— Ennius (@red_loeb) April 9, 2023

Listen closely for a movie reference, a book reference, and even a reference to a Chicago Cubs World Series game (!).

You are encouraged to follow along.

Gafcon IV begins!

Please pray for Bishop Julian and Brenda, Bishop Bill and Karen, and the rest of our diocesan delegation as they gather in Kigali with faithful Anglicans from around the world. pic.twitter.com/kfDp2cdEnW

— The Anglican Diocese of the Living Word (@The_ADLW) April 17, 2023

O Lord, who by triumphing over the power of darkness, didst Prepare our place in the New Jerusalem: Grant us, who have [in this season] given thanks for thy resurrection, to praise thee in that city whereof thou art the light; where with the Father and the Holy Spirit thou livest and reignest, world without end.

"Did not our hearts burn within us as he spoke to us on the road?" (Luke 24:32)#Easter #Emmaus #GospeloftheDay pic.twitter.com/17gHQ4Yl0W

— Carmelite Nuns of Great Britain (@carmelnunsgb) April 12, 2023

O Lord God, who didst send thy only begotten Son to redeem the world by his obedience unto death: Grant, we humbly beseech thee, that the continual remembrance of his bitter cross may teach us to crucify the flesh with the affections and lusts thereof; that in the union and merits of his death and passion we may die with him, and rest with him, and rise again with him, and live with him for ever, to whom with thee and the Holy Ghost be all honour and glory; world without end.

An image for #HolySaturday.

Christ is laid in the tomb: a sculpture in Tonnerre, Burgundy, late 15th/early 16th century. The figures (L-R): Nicodemus, the Virgin Mary supported by the Beloved Disciple, Mary Magdalene, Mary Salome, Mary of Clopas and Joseph of Arimathea. pic.twitter.com/9felFZh6L4

— Michael Sadgrove 🇪🇺 (@MichaelSadgrove) April 8, 2023

The priory stood in place until 1536 when it was dissolved during Henry VIII’s monastic dissolution.

The church was built in around 1315, originally part of the priory itself, and is the only element that remains standing.

In recent history it was made into a cathedral of the Free Methodist Church but has been returned to the Church of England under the new owners.

The current manor house was built in 1866, and was run as a school from 1963 and 1996.

Read it all.

'In recent history it was made into a cathedral of the Free Methodist Church but has been returned to the Church of England under the new owners…' https://t.co/ngxi6F0MgS #parishministry #anglican #21stc #history #religion #uk

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) April 4, 2023

Almighty God, whose glory the heavens are telling, the earth thy power and the sea thy might, and whose greatness all feeling and thinking creatures everywhere herald: To thee belongeth glory, honour, might, greatness, and magnificence, now and for ever, to the ages of ages.

The View from Hawks Nest State Park#NewRiverGorge #HawksNestStatePark #AlmostHeaven #WestVirginia #Stormhour pic.twitter.com/eQabFgeepS

— Thomas R Fletcher (@ThomasRFletcher) February 18, 2023

Approval of the motion allows same-sex couples to go to Anglican churches after a legal marriage ceremony for services including prayers of dedication, thanksgiving and God’s blessing.

The motion had been brought by the Bishop of London, Dame Sarah Mullally, and was the result of six years of work on questions of identity, sexuality, relationships and marriage known as Living In Love And Faith.

The final motion was passed across the synod’s three ‘houses’. The House of Bishops voted 36 in favour, four against with two abstentions. The House of Clergy voted 111 in favour, 85 against and 3 abstentions. The House of Laity voted 103 in favour, 92 against, and 5 abstentions.

The bishops will now finalise the wording of the new prayers and also issue new guidance on whether gay clergy must remain celibate before the synod meets again in July.

Read it all.

"No-one has to offer these services and no one will be disadvantaged if they don't"

When Sunday Trading was legalised there were firm assurances that no shop-workers would be compelled to work on Sundays if they had a conscientious objection to doing so.https://t.co/MBbJ45bilo

— thoughtfully catholic (@stevhep) February 9, 2023

So, in our time, surrounded by the pagan gods of self, wealth, politics, sensuality, and death, and by a secularism aimed at neutering Christianity, we may still pray for a springtime for the Church. There are signs of dissatisfaction: with the atomism and thin value set of late liberalism, which undermine identity, character, attachments, and civic orientation; with isolation, loneliness, narcissism, anxieties, and addictions; with social divisions, gender ideology, and manufactured outrage; and with the poverty of the sacred. Worshipping private gods or oneself does not bring the fulfillment, communion, and transcendence people crave.

But if Christianity is to do great things again, it must recover its voice. We must “speak the truth in love” (Eph. 4:15), boldly in words and deeds. We must avoid retreat or retrenchment, which would make Christianity irrelevant. We must see the current chastisement of the Church as an opportunity for purification and a promise of resurrection. To survive times like these will require a desecularization and depaganization of institutions and hearts; a clear-sighted and fervent faith; effective telling of the Christian story through preaching, teaching, arts, education, and media; renewed confidence in the Christian anthropological, soteriological, and ethical vision; an affective liturgical-devotional life; lives of justice, compassion, and holiness; the renewal of supportive communities of family, parish, and school; a willingness to collaborate with people who are more post- or pre-Christian than Christian; patience, fidelity, and hope to persevere through dark times; above all, the grace of the Holy Spirit, to whom we pray Come.

As St. Peter told the persecuted Church: “Dear friends, I urge you . . . live such good lives among the pagans that, though they suspect you of wrong­doing, they may see your good deeds and glorify God for them” (1 Pet. 2:11–12). Political conflicts, culture wars, discrimination, and institutional diminution are not what we’d wish for, but neither should we despair, for they are opportunities to witness to the gospel. Only this kind of Christianity can honestly say that it loves God and humanity and will go wherever God and humanity are, without fear of being sullied or bruised. Only such a Christianity can reunite a divided Church and culture, provide a foundation for a genuinely tolerant, pluralist society, and bring God and humanity closer together. When we do these things, we are not post-Christian, or pre-Christian, or pseudo-­Christian. We are simply, authentically Christian.

Read it all.

The West: Post- or Pre-Christian? | Anthony Fisher https://t.co/YyFNXpm3oZ

— Levan Ramishvili (@levanrami) January 12, 2023

The report follows an interim announcement in June 2022, which reported for the first time, and with great dismay, that the Church Commissioners’ endowment had historic links to transatlantic chattel slavery*. The endowment traces its origins partly to Queen Anne’s Bounty, a fund established in 1704.

In response to the findings, the Church Commissioners’ Board has committed itself to trying to address some of the past wrongs by investing in a better future. It will seek to do this through committing £100 million of funding, delivered over the next nine years commencing in 2023, to a programme of investment, research and engagement. This will comprise:

Establishing a new impact investment fund to invest for a better and fairer future for all, particularly for communities affected by historic slavery. It is hoped this fund will grow over time, reinvesting returns to enable it to have a positive legacy that will exist in perpetuity, and with the potential for other institutions to participate, further enabling growth in the size and impact of the fund.

Growth in the impact fund will also enable grant funding for projects focused on improving opportunities for communities adversely impacted by historic slavery.

Further research, including into the Church Commissioners’ history, supporting dioceses, cathedrals and parishes to research and address their historic links with slavery, and sharing best practice with other organisations researching their slavery legacies. As an immediate action, Lambeth Palace Library is hosting an exhibition** with items from its archives that have links to historic transatlantic chattel slavery.

The Church Commissioners will also continue to use its voice as a responsible investor to address and combat modern slavery and human rights violations, and to seek to address injustice and inequalities.

Read it all.

This report lays bare the links of the Church Commissioners’ predecessor fund with transatlantic chattel slavery. I am deeply sorry for these links.

Only by addressing our past transparently can we face our present with integrity. https://t.co/KlyqyLY66V

— Archbishop of Canterbury (@JustinWelby) January 10, 2023

The same thing happens to Father Kendall Harmon every year during the 12 days after the Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

It happens with newcomers at his home parish, Christ-St. Paul’s in Yonges Island, South Carolina, near Charleston. It often happens when, as Canon Theologian, he visits other parishes in the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina.

“I greet people and say ‘Merry Christmas!’ all the way through the 12 days” of the season, he said, laughing. “They look at me like I’m a Martian or I’m someone who is lost. … So many people just don’t know there’s more Christmas after Christmas Day.”

Read it all.

Bright bonfires to mark end of the 12 days of Christmas season https://t.co/R65BgXK4gr #epiphany #christmas #parishministry pic.twitter.com/zDxsWREYZv

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) January 7, 2022

For this purpose, then, the incorporeal and incorruptible and immaterial Word of God comes to our realm, howbeit he was not far from us…before. For no part of Creation is left void of Him: He has filled all things everywhere, remaining present with His own Father. But He comes in condescension to show loving-kindness upon us, and to visit us. And seeing the race of rational creatures in the way to perish, and death reigning over them by corruption; seeing, too, that the threat against transgression gave a firm hold to the corruption which was upon us, and that it was monstrous that before the law was fulfilled it should fall through: seeing, once more, the unseemliness of what was come to pass: that the things whereof He Himself was Artificer were passing away: seeing, further, the exceeding wickedness of men, and how by little and little they had increased it to an intolerable pitch against themselves: and seeing, lastly, how all men were under penalty of death: He took pity on our race, and had mercy on our infirmity, and condescended to our corruption, and, unable to bear that death should have the mastery lest the creature should perish, and His Father’s handiwork in men be spent for nought He takes unto Himself a body, and that of no different sort from ours. For He did not simply will to become embodied, or will merely to appear. For if He willed merely to appear, He was able to effect His divine appearance by some other and higher means as well. But He takes a body of our kind, and not merely so, but from a spotless and stainless virgin, knowing not a man, a body clean and in very truth pure from intercourse of men. For being Himself mighty, and Artificer of everything, He prepares the body in the Virgin as a temple unto Himself, and makes it His very own as an instrument, in it manifested, and in it dwelling. And thus taking from our bodies one of like nature, because all were under penalty of the corruption of death He gave it over to death in the stead of all, and offered it to the Father doing this, moreover, of His loving-kindness, to the end that, firstly, all being held to have died in Him, the law involving the ruin of men might be undone (inasmuch as its power was fully spent in the Lord’s body, and had no longer holding-ground against men, his peers), and that, secondly, whereas men had turned toward corruption, He might turn them again toward incorruption, and quicken them from death by the appropriation of His body and by the grace of the Resurrection, banishing death from them like straw from the fire.

–Athanasius, On the Incarnation of the Word

Adoración de los Reyes Magos de Diego Velázquez, fechada en 1619 cuando el pintor contaba 20 años siendo una de sus primeras obras. #FelizNocheDeReyes 🌹

Museo del Prado #Madrid pic.twitter.com/exQz4uAs8T

— MaléficaReturns (@AliciaMimundo) January 5, 2023

‘Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever the earth and the world were made: and from age even unto age Thou art’ (v. 2). Thou therefore who art for ever, and before we were, and before the world was, hast become our refuge ever since we turned to Thee. … But he very rightly does not say, Thou wast from ages, and unto ages Thou shalt be: but puts the verb in the present, intimating that the substance of God is altogether immutable. It is not, He was, and Shall be, but only Is. Whence the expression, I Am that I Am; and, I Am ‘hath sent me unto you;’ (Exod. iii. 14.) and, ‘Thou shalt change them, and they shall be changed: but Thou art the same, and Thy years shall not fail.’ (Ps. cii. 26, 27.) Behold then the eternity that is our refuge, that we may fly thither from the mutability of time, there to remain for evermore.

–Saint Augustine, from his Exposition on the Book of Psalms, Psalm XC (my emphasis).

Happy New Year Friends! I hope 2023 is off to a great start and that it ends up being everyone’s best year yet!#Photography pic.twitter.com/VDAY6c6ciW

— Flash Mama ⚡️📸 (@flash_mama) January 1, 2023

Merciful Lord, we beseech thee to cast thy bright beams of light upon thy Church, that we, being illumined by the teaching of thine apostle and evangelist John, may so walk in the light of thy truth, that we may at length attain to the fullness of life everlasting; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

27 Dec: feast of St John the Evangelist #otd

Lieven van Lathem, Flemish
Saint John on Patmos, 1469

(The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, Ms. 37, fol. 18) pic.twitter.com/I8uNobGGNE

— John McCafferty (@jdmccafferty) December 27, 2022

Over the months that followed, the unvaccinated share of mortality fell even further, to 38 percent in May 2022. The share of deaths among people vaccinated and boosted grew significantly as well, from 12 percent in January 2022 to 36 percent in April. Those levels held roughly steady throughout the duration of the summer, during which time just about as many boosted Americans were dying as the unvaccinated. The share of deaths among older adults kept growing: In April, 79 percent of American deaths were among those 65 and older. In November, 90 percent.

As many Twitter discussions about the “base rate fallacy” have emphasized, this is not because the vaccines are ineffective — we know, also from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data, that they work very well. Estimates of the effectiveness of updated bivalent boosters suggest they reduce the risk of mortality from Covid in Americans over the age of 12 by more than 93 percent compared with the population of unvaccinated. That is a very large factor.

But it isn’t the whole story, or vaccinated older adults wouldn’t now make up a larger share of Covid deaths than the unvaccinated do. That phenomenon arises from several other factors that are often underplayed. First is the simple fact that more Americans are vaccinated than not, and those older Americans most vulnerable to severe disease are far more likely to be vaccinated than others.

It is also partly a reflection of how many fewer Americans, including older ones, have gotten boosters than got the initial vaccines: 34 percent, compared with 69 percent. The number of those who have gotten updated bivalent boosters is lower still — just 12.7 percent of Americans over the age of 5.

Finally, vaccines are not as effective among older adults because the immune system weakens with age. It’s much harder to train older immune systems, and that training diminishes more quickly. In Americans between the ages of 65 and 79, for instance, vaccination reduced mortality risk from Covid more than 87 percent, compared with the unvaccinated. This is a very significant reduction, to be sure, but less than the 15-fold decline observed among those both vaccinated and bivalent-boosted in the overall population. For those 80 and above, the reduction from vaccination alone is less than fourfold.

Read it all.

"Covid-19 Isn’t a Pandemic of the Unvaccinated Anymore" by David Wallace-Wells via NYT https://t.co/Mml9fhQrhT

— Francesco Shiel (@francescosz) December 7, 2022

Happy Thanksgiving 🦃🍁🥧🍂🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/Hr0daqjbD4

— U.S. Embassy London (@USAinUK) November 24, 2022

As GK Chesterton once put it: “If my children wake up on Christmas morning and have someone to thank for putting candy in their stockings, have I no one to thank for putting two feet in mine?”

A gift we receive is never ultimately about the gift — it’s about the relationship established between us and the one who gave it. We often say it’s the thought that counts. If that’s true, then if there is no thought behind the thing we receive, somehow, however good it is, it means less. Gratitude is better than greed, but if there is no one behind the things we enjoy, then what we have is not really a gift, because a gift needs a giver. If, however, behind the gift there is someone who gave us what we needed, or even more than we needed, whether or not we deserved it, that gift becomes something much more significant.

It becomes a token of love — a sign that, despite everything, there is a God who made us, thinks of us and cares for us, and even beyond that, gives Himself for us, an even deeper reality than the gift itself.

Read it all (subscription).

Oh do you have time
to linger
for just a little while
out of your busy

and very important day
for the goldfinches
that have gathered
in a field of thistles

for a musical battle,
to see who can sing
the highest note,
or the lowest,

or the most expressive of mirth,
or the most tender?….

Read it carefully and read it all.

American goldfinches enjoying some sweet gum goodness at Meadow Lake in Flushing Meadows Park #americangoldfinch #birdwatching pic.twitter.com/3rYN9Q9DH4

— Gigi A (@gigi_nyc) November 9, 2022

O sing to the Lord a new song;
sing to the Lord, all the earth!

Sing to the Lord, bless his name;
tell of his salvation from day to day.

Declare his glory among the nations,
his marvelous works among all the peoples!

For great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised;
he is to be feared above all gods.

–Psalm 96:1-4

Good morning… Sunday 🌧☀️🌧🐾🐾#shepherdess #sheepdog #sunday #yorkshiredales #farm #hillfarm #nature pic.twitter.com/5WdhApE9bz

— Alison O’Neill ~ theoriginalshepherdess1 (@woolismybread) November 6, 2022

Let us prefer your presence, O God, to all other company. Let us praise your name above all other names and let us love your will beyond all other desiring; for the sake of Jesus Christ. Amen.

The Langdale Pikes from Grassmere #LakeDistrict #Autumn @StormHour @ThePhotoHour pic.twitter.com/4qkyvKiOAI

— Paul Constable (@prc_photo) November 4, 2022

Elizabeth’s brother Tim’s daughter Elena got married in Mobile, Alabama, over the weekend–KSH.

Good Morning Mobile, Alabama! Today it will be Partly Cloudy today! With a high of 77F and a low of 55F. It's currently Clear with a temp of 60 . Sunrise on October 31, 2022 at 07:06AM and sunset on October 31, 2022 at 06:04PM . pic.twitter.com/9yPayU2rYn

— Southern Weather (@TravelWeather1) October 31, 2022

Turn thou to me, and be gracious to me;
for I am lonely and afflicted.
Relieve the troubles of my heart,
and bring me out of my distresses.
Consider my affliction and my trouble,
and forgive all my sins.

–Psalm 25:16-18

Good Morning pic.twitter.com/iPipFLu9ab

— philip jackson (@pajacksonartist) October 17, 2022