Have not many of us, in the weary way of life, felt, in some hours, how far easier it were to die than to live?

The martyr, when faced even by a death of bodily anguish and horror, finds in the very terror of his doom a strong stimulant and tonic. There is a vivid excitement, a thrill and fervor, which may carry through any crisis of suffering that is the birth-hour of eternal glory and rest.

But to live,–to wear on, day after day, of mean, bitter, low, harassing servitude, every nerve dampened and depressed, every power of feeling gradually smothered,–this long and wasting heart-martyrdom, this slow, daily bleeding away of the inward life, drop by drop, hour after hour,–this is the true searching test of what there may be in man or woman.

When Tom stood face to face with his persecutor, and heard his threats, and thought in his very soul that his hour was come, his heart swelled bravely in him, and he thought he could bear torture and fire, bear anything, with the vision of Jesus and heaven but just a step beyond; but, when he was gone, and the present excitement passed off, came back the pain of his bruised and weary limbs,–came back the sense of his utterly degraded, hopeless, forlorn estate; and the day passed wearily enough.

Long before his wounds were healed, Legree insisted that he should be put to the regular field-work; and then came day after day of pain and weariness, aggravated by every kind of injustice and indignity that the ill-will of a mean and malicious mind could devise. Whoever, in our circumstances, has made trial of pain, even with all the alleviations which, for us, usually attend it, must know the irritation that comes with it. Tom no longer wondered at the habitual surliness of his associates; nay, he found the placid, sunny temper, which had been the habitude of his life, broken in on, and sorely strained, by the inroads of the same thing. He had flattered himself on leisure to read his Bible; but there was no such thing as leisure there. In the height of the season, Legree did not hesitate to press all his hands through, Sundays and week-days alike. Why shouldn’t he?””he made more cotton by it, and gained his wager; and if it wore out a few more hands, he could buy better ones. At first, Tom used to read a verse or two of his Bible, by the flicker of the fire, after he had returned from his daily toil; but, after the cruel treatment he received, he used to come home so exhausted, that his head swam and his eyes failed when he tried to read; and he was fain to stretch himself down, with the others, in utter exhaustion.

Is it strange that the religious peace and trust, which had upborne him hitherto, should give way to tossings of soul and despondent darkness? The gloomiest problem of this mysterious life was constantly before his eyes, souls crushed and ruined, evil triumphant, and God silent. It was weeks and months that Tom wrestled, in his own soul, in darkness and sorrow. He thought of Miss Ophelia’s letter to his Kentucky friends, and would pray earnestly that God would send him deliverance. And then he would watch, day after day, in the vague hope of seeing somebody sent to redeem him; and, when nobody came, he would crush back to his soul bitter thoughts,that it was vain to serve God, that God had forgotten him. He sometimes saw Cassy; and sometimes, when summoned to the house, caught a glimpse of the dejected form of Emmeline, but held very little communion with either; in fact, there was no time for him to commune with anybody.

–Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin

Harriet Beecher Stowe was born #OTD 1811. She wrote the widely popular antislavery novel ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin.’ Credited with mobilizing antislavery sentiment in the North, Stowe was praised, honored, and respected among African Americans during her lifetime. pic.twitter.com/Vwrk1bW7zQ

— Oxford Classics (@OWC_Oxford) June 14, 2019

Another argument for a post-pandemic revival rests with what is known as “existential security theory,” or the “Religious Comfort Hypothesis”—social scientists’ way of saying there are no atheists in foxholes. Existential security theory was popularized by political scientists Pippa Norris and Ronald Inglehart in a 2004 study that sought to explain why the global population is getting more religious, not more secular, as conventional wisdom suggests. Their explanation: The continuing experience of death and grief causes people to turn to religion as a balm. Richer and more secure societies, the argument goes, have less “need” for religion because faith in progress and policies—and, in the United States, a belief in our protected status as blessed by the Almighty—stands in for the comforts of traditional religion.

But what happens when natural disasters and societal breakdowns happen in industrialized countries like the U.S.?

The best case study for the Religious Comfort Hypothesis was the February 2011 earthquake that devastated Christchurch in New Zealand, by any measure a highly secularized country. It was the worst disaster in the country in 80 years. One-third of the city’s buildings were destroyed and 185 people were killed in an urban region of fewer than 400,000. Chris Sibley, a psychology professor at the University of Auckland, and Joseph Bulbulia, a religious studies professor there, were in the midst of a longitudinal study of the values of New Zealanders when the earthquake struck. So they had data from before the disaster to compare with behaviors immediately afterward. “Consistent with the Religious Comfort Hypothesis, religious faith increased among the earthquake-affected, despite an overall decline in religious faith elsewhere,” they concluded.

At first blush, this seems to be true for the coronavirus response, as well. A study just published by Danish economics professor Jeanet Sinding Bentzen, a leading researcher on the religious coping phenomenon, argues that, based on rates of Google searches for prayer, “the demand for religion has risen dramatically since the onset of the pandemic.”

“A pandemic this size potentially changes our societies for years to come, especially if it impacts our deep-rooted values and beliefs. I find that the COVID-19 crisis impacts one of the deepest rooted of human behaviors: religion,” Bentzen tweeted.

Read it all.

In his ruling, Judge Dickson made several important conclusions of law. Chief among them was his ruling on the central issue of interpreting the Collective Opinions. As he noted in quoting former Chief Justice Toal, “The Court’s collective opinions in this matter give rise to great uncertainty, so that we have given little to no collective guidance in this case or in church property disputes like this going forward.” He concluded that, “This court must distill the five separate opinions, identify the court’s intent and produce a logical directive.” With respect to parish property, the law of this case follows the precedent of All Saints Parish, Waccamaw (2009). In his deciding opinion, Chief Justice Beatty, “found that the Dennis Canon, standing alone, does not unequivocally convey an intention to transfer ownership of property to the national church…” In accordance with established South Carolina law, establishment of a trust interest must meet the standard of being “legally cognizable”. The Diocese has argued that there is no such evidence of accession to the Dennis Canon that meets this standard and Judge Dickson concluded, “This court finds that no parish expressly acceded to the Dennis Canon” and “defendants failed to prove creation of a trust.” He further concluded, “TEC’s argument that their unilaterally drafted Dennis Canon created a trust under South Carolina law is rejected.”

In the case of the Trustees and St. Christopher Camp and Conference Center, Judge Dickson affirmed that under the All Saints ruling that a non-profit corporation which follows the correct steps to sever its association with another entity does so with all its property interests intact. The Collective Opinions found that the Diocese and Parishes properly disassociated. As Judge Dickson explains, “Applying neutral principles of law, this court finds the Diocese and Parishes properly disassociated and control their real and personal property with any improvements thereon. Following the narrowest grounds of the majority in the Collective opinions, this Court finds that Camp St. Christopher should remain as titled in the Trustees of the Protestant Episcopal Church in South Carolina as stated in the 1951 deed.”

On the final matter of registered trademarks, Judge Dickson said “This court finds that the Federal Court has jurisdiction over matters related to trademarks, intellectual property and service marks,” Those matters are currently on appeal before the Federal Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond.

Speaking on behalf of the Diocese, the Rev. Canon Jim Lewis observed, “The Diocese welcomes the clarity of Judge Dickson’s interpretation of the Supreme Court’s Collective Opinion. By twice denying petitions by TEC and TECSC to prevent Judge Dickson from completing this task, the Supreme Court has clearly signaled its desire to resolve these issues. We remain confident that our ability to disassociate from TEC, with all our legal rights intact, will continue to be affirmed.”

Read it all.

‘The Anglican Diocese of #SouthCarolina anticipates that Judge Dickson’s ruling will be appealed and is hopeful that if the State Supreme Court agrees to hear our case again, they will uphold the clarity brought by today’s decisions’ https://t.co/UChGLw2F1U #parishministry #law pic.twitter.com/L8oDVQd0Xk

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) June 19, 2020

• “the thirty-six Plaintiff Parishes be, and hereby are, declared and affirmed as the title owners in fee simple absolute of their respective parish real properties, with improvements thereon and their accompanying personal property.”
• “certified true copies of this order shall be filed in the Clerk of Court’s Office in the county where each parish is located.”
• “the Defendants herein have no interest in the Plaintiff Parishes’ properties.”
• “ownership to Camp St. Christopher remain as titled to the Trustees of the Corporation as stated in the 1951 deed.”
• “the Federal Court has jurisdiction over all matters related to trademarks, service marks, and intellectual property.”
• “the request for the Appointment of a Special Master, the Petition for an Accounting are denied.”

Saint Philips Charleston–A Legal Update Based on Judge Edgar W. Dickson’s ruling today https://t.co/CScT9ip43p #law #religion #anglican #parishministry #history #southcarolina #lowcountrylife #ethics #language #episcopalchurch #neutralprinciples #property pic.twitter.com/fAZtOSiohU

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) June 19, 2020

“This Court finds that no parish acceded to the 1979 Dennis Canon; the deed of Camp St. Christopher titled to the Trustee Corporation is controlling; the Federal Court has exclusive authority to decide all issues relating to the trademarks, service marks, and intellectual property; and the Defendants’ Petition for the Appointment of a Special Master and Petition for an Accounting are denied.”

Read it all.

Judge Edgar W. Dickson Dickson Unpacks the #SouthCarolina Supreme Court Ruling on the Property Dispute between TEC and the Historic #Anglican Diocese https://t.co/IcHxQnTDrD #parishministry #history #religion #lowcountrylife #law #ethics pic.twitter.com/W42aZiJZRu

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) June 19, 2020

I am deeply concerned that the U.S. Supreme Court has effectively redefined the legal meaning of ‘sex’ in our nation’s civil rights law. This is an injustice that will have implications in many areas of life.

By erasing the beautiful differences and complementary relationship between man and woman, we ignore the glory of God’s creation and harm the human family, the first building block of society. Our sex, whether we are male or female, is part of God’s plan for creation and for our lives. As Pope Francis has taught with such sensitivity, to live in the truth with God’s intended gifts in our lives requires that we receive our bodily and sexual identity with gratitude from our Creator. No one can find true happiness by pursuing a path that is contrary to God’s plan.

Every human person is made in the image and likeness of God and, without exception, must be treated with dignity, compassion, and respect. Protecting our neighbors from unjust discrimination does not require redefining human nature.

We pray that the Church, with the help of Mary, the Mother of God, will be able to continue her mission to bring Jesus Christ to every man and woman.

Read it all.

In an article for Christianity Today’s ChurchLawAndTax.com, attorney and senior editor Richard Hammar said churches retain important protections with employment decisions pertaining to clergy, despite Monday’s ruling. However, Monday’s decision fosters greater uncertainty for churches with employees in nonministerial roles, he said.“

Churches that take an adverse action against an employee or applicant for employment based on religious considerations should describe their action appropriately,” Hammar said. “Refer to the religious or doctrinal principle at issue, and avoid generic labels like ‘sex’ or other gender- or sexuality-based labels.”

Russell Moore, president of the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, wrote that the ruling will have “seismic implications for religious liberty, setting off potentially years of lawsuits and court struggles, about what this means, for example, for religious organizations with religious convictions about the meaning of sex and sexuality.”

“This Supreme Court decision should hardly be surprising, given how much has changed culturally on the meanings of sex and sexuality,” he said. “That the ‘sexual revolution’ is supported here by both ‘conservatives’ and ‘progressives’ on the court should also be of little surprise to those who have watched developments in each of these ideological corners of American life.”

Read it all and there is a lot more there as well.

Jesus’ resurrection three days after his crucifixion shows that neither the lynching tree nor the cross have the final say about those whom God values. The state thought that violence could stop God’s purposes. For the Christian, the resurrection makes clear the futility of the attempt. Further, Jesus’ profound act of forgiving his opponents provides me with the theological resources to hope.

Dare we speak of hope when chants of “I can’t breathe” echo in the streets? Do we risk the criticism commonly levied at Christians that we move too quickly to hope because faith pacifies? Resurrection hope doesn’t remove the Christian from the struggle for justice. It empties the state’s greatest weapon — the fear of death — of its power.

Hope is possible if we recognize that it does not rule out justice. It is what separates justice from vengeance. Howard Thurman wrote in his classic work “Jesus and the Disinherited” about how rage, once unleashed, tends to spill out beyond its intended target and consume everything. The hatred of our enemy that we take to the streets returns with us to our friendships, marriages and communities. It damages our own souls.

Christians contend for justice because we care about black lives, families and communities. We contend for reconciliation after the establishment of justice because there must be a future that is more than mutual contempt and suspicion. But justice and reconciliation cannot come at the cost of black lives. The only peaceful future is a just future. And because Christians should be a people for peace, we must be a people for justice even when it seems ever to elude us. Too many black lives have been lost to accept anything else.

Read it all.

This was not easy to write. I tried to speak as honestly as I could in @nytimes about Black Anger and a theology of hope.https://t.co/eeGrjbRvDN

— Esau McCaulley Ph.D (@esaumccaulley) June 14, 2020

Read it all.

Today was the day #MedgarEvers https://t.co/67q6H7e2os

— 👑🧚🏽‍♀️ (@Im__Nelle) June 12, 2020

You see, for a long time I was one of the “good blacks,” whom white friends and colleagues and associates and neighbors could turn to in order to be reassured that they weren’t racist, that America really had made a lot of racial progress since its founding, that I was an example of that progress because of the success I had attained after all I had faced and overcome.

For a long time, I wasn’t an angry black man even after growing up in an underfunded school that was still segregated four decades after Brown v. Board of Education in the heart of the Deep South.

I wasn’t angry even when I watched my oldest brother, my hero, be taken away in handcuffs for murdering a white man when I was a 9-year-old boy. He served 32 years, upending our family forever. Guilt is what I felt instead of anger. It’s akin to the guilt white liberals who go overboard in their efforts feel and are often guided by as they try to appease black people because of the racial harm they know black people have suffered since before this country’s founding.

Mine was a black guilt, a guilt stemming from the knowledge that my black brother had irreparably hurt a poor white family, guilt that helped persuade me to try to make it up to white people as best I could.

That’s why for a long time in my writings, I was more likely to focus on all the white people who didn’t yell “Nigger!” out their windows as they drove by as I jogged along Ocean Boulevard in Myrtle Beach, S.C., instead of those who did. That’s why I spent nearly two decades in a mostly white evangelical church. That’s why I tried to thread the needle on the Confederate flag, speaking forthrightly about its origins, but carefully so as not to upset my white friends and colleagues who revered a symbol of the idea that black people should forever be enslaved by white people.

Still, for a long time, none of that turned me into an angry black man….

Read it all.

Opinion | I’m Finally an Angry Black Man – The New York Times

This.

This in part is why I wrote my most recent essay on black rage. This essay is a must-read. https://t.co/GZ094CBQXR

— Danté Stewart (Stew) (@stewartdantec) June 7, 2020

So now I sit in a different place. But where do I stand? I believe the following things to be true:

1. Slavery was legal and defended morally and (ultimately) militarily from 1619 to 1865.
2. After slavery, racial discrimination was lawful and defended morally (and often violently) from 1865 to 1964.
3. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 did not end illegal discrimination or racism, it mainly gave black Americans the legal tools to fight back against legal injustices.
4. It is unreasonable to believe that social structures and cultural attitudes that were constructed over a period of 345 years will disappear in 56.
5. Moreover, the consequences of 345 years of legal and cultural discrimination, are going to be dire, deep-seated, complex, and extraordinarily difficult to comprehensively ameliorate.

It’s hard even to begin to describe all the ramifications of 345 years of legalized oppression and 56 years of contentious change, but we can say two things at once—yes, we have made great strides (and we should acknowledge that fact and remember the men and women who made it possible), but the central and salient consideration of American racial politics shouldn’t center around pride in how far we’ve come, but in humble realization of how much farther we have to go.

Moreover, taking the next steps down that road will have to mean shedding our partisan baggage. It means acknowledging and understanding that the person who is wrong on abortion and health care may be right about police brutality. It means being less outraged at a knee on football turf than at a knee on a man’s neck. And it means declaring that even though we may not agree on everything about race and American life, we can agree on some things, and we can unite where we agree.

Read it all.

The central and salient consideration of American racial politics shouldn’t center around pride in how far we’ve come, but in humble realization of how much farther we have to go.

A story of personal change: https://t.co/BaPWDkwIVM

— David French (@DavidAFrench) June 7, 2020

Inasmuch as there are canonical texts of American education, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World is one of them. But students may wonder why their teacher presents as “dystopian” a text that reads, in 2020, like an operating manual for the technocratic American Dream. The taming of reproduction and heredity by science; the banishment of boredom, discomfort, and sorrow by entertainment and pharmacology; the omnipresent availability of attachment-free sex; the defeat of death, sort of, by blissed-out euthanasia: Huxley foresaw not our fears but some of our deepest aspirations.

To read and teach Brave New World as dystopia is at best an oblivious atavism, at worst a piece of deluded self-flattery. As a character (not even an especially bright one) observes in Michel Houellebecq’s The Elementary Particles (1998), “Everyone says Brave New World is supposed to be a totalitarian nightmare, a vicious indictment of society, but that’s hypocritical bullshit.” The only thing Huxley got wrong, the character adds, is society’s acceptance of genetic caste stratification. In reality, we expect “advances in automation and robotics” to render such attine division of labor as obsolete as the sundial, the cotton gin, and the dot matrix printer.

It’s easy to look back at Huxley’s novel and attribute the radiant, meaningless future toward which it so fearfully looked as the realization of the dreams of scientists — including Huxley’s own brother, the eugenicist Julian Huxley — with their Promethean curiosity and procrustean “solutions.” But Huxley fretted about the machinations of industry as much as he did about scientists: Brave New World is peppered with the surnames of Henry Ford, Sir Alfred Mond, and Maurice Bokanowski. Huxley seemed convinced that when the last irregularity was removed from the human condition, and the last inconvenience stripped from the human experience, it would be scientists’ and industrialists’ hands wielding the plane. But where the scientists pursue knowledge for its own sake, or in service of the good as they see it, the tech titans pursue it the better to sell us what we want. How well the would-be Aldous Huxleys of our day understand that — and how much blame they place on us and our appetites — is the subject of this essay.

Read it all.

Since you’re already thinking about our dystopian future, why not think about me thinking about our dystopian future? Special bonus audio track! https://t.co/sDTbtEsvYV

— Stefan Beck (@stefanmbeck) March 12, 2020

George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four was first published #OnThisDay in 1949.

The idea for the book had come to him in 1943. Themes in an early outline included 'the nightmare feeling caused by the disappearance of objective truth'.https://t.co/RaNNcUkD6j

— History Today (@HistoryToday) June 8, 2020

Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Forces:

You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade, toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you. The hopes and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you. In company with our brave Allies and brothers-in-arms on other Fronts you will bring about the destruction of the German war machine, the elimination of Nazi tyranny over oppressed peoples of Europe, and security for ourselves in a free world.

Your task will not be an easy one. Your enemy is well trained, well equipped and battle-hardened. He will fight savagely.

Read it all (audio link also available).

"Full victory — nothing else." -Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower

Today, we honor the greatest generation. #DDay pic.twitter.com/YMPFV5wSTm

— U.S. Army (@USArmy) June 6, 2020

I have also to announce to the House that during the night and the early hours of this morning the first of the series of landings in force upon the European Continent has taken place. In this case the liberating assault fell upon the coast of France. An immense armada of upwards of 4,000 ships, together with several thousand smaller craft, crossed the Channel. Massed airborne landings have been successfully effected behind the enemy lines, and landings on the beaches are proceeding at various points at the present time. The fire of the shore batteries has been largely quelled. The obstacles that were constructed in the sea have not proved so difficult as was apprehended. The Anglo-American Allies are sustained by about 11,000 firstline aircraft, which can be drawn upon as may be needed for the purposes of the battle. I cannot, of course, commit myself to any particular details. Reports are coming in in rapid succession. So far the Commanders who are engaged report that everything is proceeding according to plan. And what a plan! This vast operation is undoubtedly the most complicated and difficult that has ever taken place. It involves tides, wind, waves, visibility, both from the air and the sea standpoint, and the combined employment of land, air and sea forces in the highest degree of intimacy and in contact with conditions which could not and cannot be fully foreseen.

There are already hopes that actual tactical surprise has been attained, and we hope to furnish the enemy with a succession of surprises during the course of the fighting. The battle that has now begun will grow constantly in scale and in intensity for many weeks to come, and I shall not attempt to speculate upon its course. This I may say, however. Complete unity prevails throughout the Allied Armies. There is a brotherhood in arms between us and our friends of the United States. There is complete confidence in the supreme commander, General Eisenhower, and his lieutenants, and also in the commander of the Expeditionary Force, General Montgomery. The ardour and spirit of the troops, as I saw myself, embarking in these last few days was splendid to witness. Nothing that equipment, science or forethought could do has been neglected, and the whole process of opening this great new front will be pursued with the utmost resolution both by the commanders and by the United States and British Governments whom they serve. I have been at the centres where the latest information is received, and I can state to the House that this operation is proceeding in a thoroughly satisfactory manner. Many dangers and difficulties which at this time last night appeared extremely formidable are behind us. The passage of the sea has been made with far less loss than we apprehended. The resistance of the batteries has been greatly weakened by the bombing of the Air Force, and the superior bombardment of our ships quickly reduced their fire to dimensions which did not affect the problem. The landings of the troops on a broad front, both British and American- -Allied troops, I will not give lists of all the different nationalities they represent-but the landings along the whole front have been effective, and our troops have penetrated, in some cases, several miles inland. Lodgments exist on a broad front.

Read it all.

“I’ve never met anybody, young or old, who walked on Omaha Beach and didn’t feel the history of that place” #DDay https://t.co/GbWH9ns3je

— National Geographic (@NatGeo) June 6, 2020

They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted;
They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

Read it all.

Days before the invasion, General Dwight D. Eisenhower was told by a top strategist that paratrooper casualties alone could be as high as 75 percent. Nevertheless, he ordered the attack. #DDay75 https://t.co/zbJe8qDYva

— HISTORY (@HISTORY) June 3, 2019

“My Fellow Americans:

“Last night, when I spoke with you about the fall of Rome, I knew at that moment that troops of the United States and our Allies were crossing the Channel in another and greater operation. It has come to pass with success thus far.

“And so, in this poignant hour, I ask you to join with me in prayer:

“Almighty God: Our sons, pride of our nation, this day have set upon a mighty endeavor, a struggle to preserve our Republic, our religion, and our civilization, and to set free a suffering humanity.

“Lead them straight and true; give strength to their arms, stoutness to their hearts, steadfastness in their faith.
“They will be sore tried, by night and by day, without rest — until the victory is won. The darkness will be rent by noise and flame. Men’s souls will be shaken with the violences of war.

“For these men are lately drawn from the ways of peace. They fight not for the lust of conquest. They fight to end conquest. They fight to liberate. They fight to let justice arise, and tolerance and goodwill among all Thy people. They yearn but for the end of battle, for their return to the haven of home.

“Some will never return. Embrace these, Father, and receive them, Thy heroic servants, into Thy kingdom.

“And for us at home — fathers, mothers, children, wives, sisters, and brothers of brave men overseas, whose thoughts and prayers are ever with them — help us, Almighty God, to rededicate ourselves in renewed faith in Thee in this hour of great sacrifice.

“Many people have urged that I call the nation into a single day of special prayer. But because the road is long and the desire is great, I ask that our people devote themselves in a continuance of prayer. As we rise to each new day, and again when each day is spent, let words of prayer be on our lips, invoking Thy help to our efforts.

“Give us strength, too — strength in our daily tasks, to redouble the contributions we make in the physical and the material support of our armed forces.

“And let our hearts be stout, to wait out the long travail, to bear sorrows that may come, to impart our courage unto our sons wheresoever they may be.

“And, O Lord, give us faith. Give us faith in Thee; faith in our sons; faith in each other; faith in our united crusade. Let not the keenness of our spirit ever be dulled. Let not the impacts of temporary events, of temporal matters of but fleeting moment — let not these deter us in our unconquerable purpose.

“With Thy blessing, we shall prevail over the unholy forces of our enemy. Help us to conquer the apostles of greed and racial arrogances. Lead us to the saving of our country, and with our sister nations into a world unity that will spell a sure peace — a peace invulnerable to the schemings of unworthy men. And a peace that will let all of men live in freedom, reaping the just rewards of their honest toil.

“Thy will be done, Almighty God.

“Amen.”

You can listen to the actual audio if you want here and today of all days is the day to do that. Also, there is more on background and another audio link there.–KSH.

Mr D Day, killed on D-day. 76 years ago today.

Pic by @franktoogood pic.twitter.com/KVS8LKWanl

— Dan Snow (@thehistoryguy) June 6, 2020

At least the dead will always be there.

All too many have been, for 76 years since that fateful June 6 on France’s Normandy beaches, when allied troops in 1944 turned the course of World War II and went on to defeat fascism in Europe in one of the most remarkable feats in military history.

Forgotten they will never be. Revered, yes. But Saturday’s anniversary will be one of the loneliest remembrances ever, as the coronavirus pandemic is keeping almost everyone away — from government leaders to frail veterans who might not get another chance for a final farewell to their unlucky comrades.

Rain and wind are also forecast, after weeks of warm, sunny weather.

“I miss the others,” said Charles Shay, who as a U.S. Army medic was in the first wave of soldiers to wade ashore at Omaha Beach under relentless fire on D-Day.

Read it all.

D-Day Commemorations Saturday will be one of “the loneliest remembrances ever,” as Coronavirus keeps people away. https://t.co/L1XXIFQnLm

— WLOS (@WLOS_13) June 5, 2020

According to the Census Bureau, African-Americans earn barely three-fifths as much as non-Hispanic whites. In 2018 average black household income was $41,400, compared with $70,600 for whites. That gap is wide. In Britain, where race relations can also be tense, blacks earn 90% as much as whites. The American gap is narrower than it was in 1970, when African-Americans earned only half as much as whites. But all the improvement happened between 1970 and 2000, and since then things have worsened again. The black income gap has been eased somewhat by post-covid federal spending increases. But it may soon yawn wider because African-Americans have many of the low- or unskilled jobs that could be most vulnerable to a coronavirus recession.

Income numbers understate the real economic disparities because they only describe people who are in work. According to a study by Patrick Bayer of Duke University and Kerwin Charles of the University of Chicago, a stunning 35% of young black men are unemployed or out of the workforce altogether, twice the share of whites. This huge number seems to be connected with the high incarceration rates of African-Americans: besides those in jail, many have given up looking for work because employers will not offer jobs to former felons. Hence the judicial disparities at the heart of the protests over Mr Floyd also reinforce income and job inequalities.

The wealth gap between blacks and whites is even wider than the income gap.

Read it all.

In 2017 the median net worth of black Americans was only a tenth that of white Americans. The gap is the same as it was in 1990 https://t.co/s3WbNn8JNI

— The Economist (@TheEconomist) June 4, 2020

Moby-Dick is such an extraordinary and impossible success not because it’s a fable about man’s environmental overreach but because it is several distinct things at once, things that at a radical level don’t add up. It displays the fascination of the hunter with the anatomy and habits of the hunted and it does so with such intensity that the fascination turns into something like love. It takes you inside the process of learning things about other species and the process of making money from killing them. Then, stuck right into the middle of that intoxicating brew are huge shards of Hamlet and ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’ in the form of the madly vengeful Ahab. If you were at a creative writing class and said you wanted to write a novel embodying the obsessive imagination of the romantic hero in the captain of a whale ship as a modern Hamlet plonked in the middle of a factory floating on the sea, your instructors would no doubt be encouraging, because that’s their role, but would gently tell you that it wasn’t quite time to give up the day job. But that completely non-viable combination is what gives this infinitely frustrating and ambling novel the propulsive energy of a time bomb, lifting it out of the fishery into the realms of cultural critique. The impersonal violence of energy-seeking capitalism, which boils down distinct entities into a fungible oil, is hijacked by the obsessive energy of a post-romantic individual. This particular man, Ahab, wants this particular whale, Moby-Dick, and will seek it through every possible sea, regardless of all physical or financial risk.

This means that the Satanic obsessive Ahab is not in league with the shipowners and whale-oil burners, nor is he the friend of Victorian ladies with their baleen stays. He’s the arch-enemy of all these. When the whale oil starts to leak into the Pequod’s hold Starbuck says they must ‘up Burtons and break out’ – raise the winches and unpack the hold – because of the lost profit that will result. ‘What will the owners say, sir?’ the deferential Starbuck asks. ‘Let the owners stand on Nantucket beach and outyell the Typhoons,’ Ahab replies. ‘What cares Ahab? Owners, owners? Thou art always prating to me, Starbuck, about those miserly owners, as if the owners were my conscience.’ If Ahab had, say, proudly worn the badge of WhaleCorpTM embroidered on his bosom and personally sucked the spermacetti from the heads of all the sperm whales in the multitudinous seas, barrelling it up to make his shipowners massively wealthy and provide his crew with their pitiful share of the spoils (in Chapter 16 Ishmael is tricked into signing up for a three hundredth ‘lay’ or share of the profits by two of the owners of the Pequod) there would be no Moby-Dick. It would just be Barrett’s touristic whaling voyage or Scoresby’s Arctic, whaling as industry with a sideline in marine biology. Moby-Dick doesn’t give the last laugh to the ocean or to man or to the environment. It asks how we can marry the obsessions of individuals together with the intrinsically deindividuating industrial-scale processes that melt life down into money. The conclusion – we can’t, or at least not without wrecking the entire ship and killing the crew – is indeed not great news for shareholders in whale boats or for whale-oil futures, but Moby-Dick is probably more on their side than on that of Ahab. The wrecking of the Pequod is the result of human obsession rather than unsustainable fishing practices or ecological collapse. Certainly one can see in Melville’s heirs – notably in the John Steinbeck of Cannery Row – a premonitory recognition of the damage done by human beings to marine ecology, but Melville’s gaze is always that squinting vision of the mid-19th-century adventurer-cum-naturalist-cum-money-maker, for whom a whale is a fascinating creature partly because of what you can get for its blubber, and partly for the beauty you can see inside when you chop off its head.

The mess​ that is Moby-Dick didn’t go down well with its early audiences….

Read it all.

‘Moby-Dick is such an extraordinary and impossible success not because it’s a fable about man’s environmental overreach but because it is several distinct things at once, things that at a radical level don’t add up.’

Colin Burrow on Melville:https://t.co/WizcHOYfif pic.twitter.com/PcTdJO4lbG

— London Review of Books (@LRB) June 4, 2020

We have all been stirred by the events surrounding the death of George Floyd as well as the protests happening across the country. I wrote, “George Floyd, a Central Park 911 Call, and All the Places Without Cameras,” last week. Over the weekend, I invited John Richards to write a guest post, “Letter From a Quarantined Home: Expressing Disappointment with Some of My White Brothers and Sisters in Christ.”
To better understand the reaction to his death, to think about how we can respond as believers to the protests, and to consdider how we should address looting and riots, I interviewed my colleague and friend Esau McCaulley. The following multi-part series will walk us through that important interview. You can listen to that interview on my Moody Radio show, Ed Stetzer Live, right here. Or, we will post the interview in several parts here.

Read it all (and make sure to catch all 4 parts).

I think that’s a good time for us to listen to our sisters and brothers in the African American context.-From my interview with @esaumccaulley on racism in America https://t.co/ZQVBFBhwD4

— Ed Stetzer (@edstetzer) June 2, 2020

How do you think our current era of criminal justice and policing is a continuation of that past?

I think the police have been the face of oppression in many ways. Even before the Civil War, law enforcement was complicit in sustaining enslavement. It was the police who were tasked with tracking down fugitive slaves from 1850 onwards in the north. After emancipation, it was law enforcement that stepped back and allowed black communities to be terrorized and victimized. We had an overthrow of government during Reconstruction, and law enforcement facilitated that. Then, throughout the first half of the twentieth century, it was law enforcement and police and our justice system that allowed people to be lynched by white mobs, sometimes literally on the courthouse lawn, and allowed the perpetrators of that terror and violence to engage in these acts of murder with impunity. They were even complicit in it. And, as courageous black people began to advocate for civil rights in the nineteen-fifties and nineteen-sixties, when these older, nonviolent black Americans would literally be on their knees, praying, they were battered and bloodied by uniformed police officers. That identity of violence and oppression is not something we can ignore. We have to address it. But, rather than address it, since the nineteen-sixties, we have been trying to distract ourselves from it and not acknowledge it, and not own up to it, and all of our efforts have been compromised by this refusal to recognize that we need to radically change the culture of police.

Now, the police are an extension of our larger society, and, when we try to disconnect them from the justice system and the lawmakers and the policymakers, we don’t accurately get at it. The history of this country, when it comes to racial justice and social justice, unlike what we do in other areas, is, like, O.K., it’s 1865, we won’t enslave you and traffic you anymore, and they were forced to make that agreement. And then, after a half century of mob lynching, it’s, like, O.K., we won’t allow the mobs to pull you out of the jail and lynch you anymore. And that came after pressure. And then it was, O.K., we won’t legally block you from voting, and legally prevent you from going into restaurants and public accommodations.

But at no point was there an acknowledgement that we were wrong and we are sorry. It was always compelled, by the Union Army, by international pressure, by the federal courts, and that dynamic has meant that there is no more remorse or regret or consciousness of wrongdoing. The police don’t think they did anything wrong over the past fifty or sixty years. And so, in that respect, we have created a culture that allows our police departments to see themselves as agents of control, and that culture has to shift. And this goes beyond the dynamics of race. We have created a culture where police officers think of themselves as warriors, not guardians.

Read it all.

“Everything we are seeing is a symptom of a larger disease”: the civil-rights lawyer Bryan Stevenson on the frustration and despair behind this week’s protests.https://t.co/wbewSqvEBH

— The New Yorker (@NewYorker) June 1, 2020

Three years after the Civil War ended, on May 5, 1868, the head of an organization of Union veterans — the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) — established Decoration Day as a time for the nation to decorate the graves of the war dead with flowers. Maj. Gen. John A. Logan declared that Decoration Day should be observed on May 30. It is believed that date was chosen because flowers would be in bloom all over the country.

The first large observance was held that year at Arlington National Cemetery, across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C.

The ceremonies centered around the mourning-draped veranda of the Arlington mansion, once the home of Gen. Robert E. Lee. Various Washington officials, including Gen. and Mrs. Ulysses S. Grant, presided over the ceremonies. After speeches, children from the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Orphan Home and members of the GAR made their way through the cemetery, strewing flowers on both Union and Confederate graves, reciting prayers and singing hymns.

Read it all.

Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial Washington, DC. #MemorialDay pic.twitter.com/jgJC6f3Ac0

— Jonathan Reiner (@JReinerMD) May 25, 2020

The muffled drum’s sad roll has beat
The soldier’s last tattoo;
No more on life’s parade shall meet
That brave and fallen few.
On Fame’s eternal camping-ground
Their silent tents are spread,
And Glory guards, with solemn round,
The bivouac of the dead.

No rumor of the foe’s advance
Now swells upon the wind;
Nor troubled thought at midnight haunts
Of loved ones left behind;
No vision of the morrow’s strife
The warrior’s dream alarms;
No braying horn nor screaming fife
At dawn shall call to arms.

Their shriveled swords are red with rust,
Their plumed heads are bowed,
Their haughty banner, trailed in dust,
Is now their martial shroud.
And plenteous funeral tears have washed
The red stains from each brow,
And the proud forms, by battle gashed
Are free from anguish now.

Read it all.

Americans who lost their lives in service:

Civil War: 498,332
World War II: 405,399
World War I: 116,516
Vietnam War: 90,220
Korean War: 54,246
Mexican War: 13,283
Iraq and Afghanistan: 8,000+

(VA) #MemorialDay pic.twitter.com/IUbXN0TzpZ

— Norbert Elekes (@NorbertElekes) May 25, 2020

• NCA maintains 3.83 million graves with 628,746 additional developed gravesites available: 356,873 available gravesites for casketed remains, 115,115 in ground gravesites for cremated remains and 156,758 columbarium niches for cremated remains.

• As of the end of FY2019, NCA manages approximately 22,368 acres within its cemeteries. Approximately 59% is undeveloped, and, along with available gravesites in developed acreage, has the potential to provide approximately 5.1 million casket gravesites.

• As of the end of FY2019, of the138 VA national cemeteries, 79 are open to all interments; 16 can accommodate cremated remains and the remains of family members for interment in the same gravesite as a previously deceased family member; and 43 will accommodate only interments of family members in the same gravesite as a previously deceased family member.

• As of the date on this fact sheet, May 2020, four additional cemeteries have been transferred by the Department of the Army to the VA, bringing the total number of VA national cemeteries to 142. Two of these four can accommodate cremated remains and the remains of family members for interment in the same gravesite as a previously deceased family member; and two will accommodate only interments of family members in the same gravesite as a previously deceased family member.

• Since 1973, when VA managed 82 national cemeteries, annual interments in VA national cemeteries have increased by more than 370% from 36,422 to 134,833 in FY 2019.

Read it all.

#MemorialDay is a time to memorialize the #Veterans who made the ultimate sacrifice for their country. Each year National Cemeteries put on display their #AveofFlags in recognition of this occasion. Below are a few examples from across the country. [Thread] pic.twitter.com/FpCqOmQcIC

— National Cemeteries (@VANatCemeteries) May 24, 2020

“The song is ended, but the melody lingers on.” -Irving Berlin#NeverForgotten

Photo by Thomas Alvarez#MemorialDay pic.twitter.com/5sL4wIWlPq

— U.S. Army (@USArmy) May 25, 2020

In Flanders Fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

–Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-1918)

In thanksgiving for all those who gave their lives for this country in years past, and for those who continue to serve; KSH.

P.S. The circumstances which led to this remarkable poem are well worth remembering:

It is a lasting legacy of the terrible battle in the Ypres salient in the spring of 1915 and to the war in general. McCrea had spent seventeen days treating injured men — Canadians, British, French, and Germans in the Ypres salient. McCrae later wrote: “I wish I could embody on paper some of the varied sensations of that seventeen days… Seventeen days of Hades! At the end of the first day if anyone had told us we had to spend seventeen days there, we would have folded our hands and said it could not have been done.” The next day McCrae witnessed the burial of a good friend, Lieut. Alexis Helmer. Later that day, sitting on the back of an ambulance parked near the field dressing station, McCrea composed the poem. A young NCO, delivering mail, watched him write it. When McCrae finished writing, he took his mail from the soldier and, without saying a word, handed his pad to the Sergeant-major. Cyril Allinson was moved by what he read: “The poem was exactly an exact description of the scene in front of us both. He used the word blow in that line because the poppies actually were being blown that morning by a gentle east wind. It never occurred to me at that time that it would ever be published. It seemed to me just an exact description of the scene.” Colonel McCrae was dissatisfied with the poem, and tossed it away. A fellow officer retrieved it and sent it to newspapers in England. The Spectator, in London, rejected it, but Punch published it on 8 December 1915. For his contributions as a surgeon, the main street in Wimereaux is named “Rue McCrae”.

Almighty God, our heavenly Father, in whose hands are the living and the dead: We give thee thanks for all thy servants who have laid down their lives in the service of our country. Grant to them thy mercy and the light of thy presence; and give us such a lively sense of thy righteous will, that the work which thou hast begun in them may be perfected; through Jesus Christ thy Son our Lord. Amen.

This #MemorialDay we pause to honor fallen service members who made the ultimate sacrifice in defense of our nation. We will never forget their courage, selfless service, & devotion to safeguarding our freedoms. #HonorOurFallen pic.twitter.com/tzRsfqwpTE

— Department of Defense 🇺🇸 (@DeptofDefense) May 25, 2020

The Prince of Wales has spoken of his shock and heartbreak at the devastation wreaked by Covid-19.

In a video message released today for the Remember Me virtual book of remembrance, launched today by St Paul’s London, Prince Charles speaks of those who “have experienced, personally, and in our community life, the shock of sudden change in response to the Covid-19 pandemic.”

For too many among us, he says, this has brought tragedy and heartbreak.

Prince Charles, who has himself had the virus, says: “For some, relatives have not been able to be present at the time of their loved one’s passing. For many, the loss of their loved ones has been made all the more agonisingly painful by the necessary restrictions on funerals, travel and gatherings. For all of us, there has been anxiety in the present as we have wondered what the future will be….

Read it all.

The Prince of Wales has spoken of his shock and heartbreak at the devastation wreaked by #Covid19, in a video message released today for the #RememberMe virtual book of remembrance, launched today by @StPaulLondon @RememberMeMemo https://t.co/nKyWlccOyH #CatholicNews

— The Tablet (@The_Tablet) May 22, 2020