My foot stands on level ground;
in the great congregation I will bless the Lord

–Psalm 26:12

Gorgeous orange glow over Downtown Charleston this morning! #chswx @stormhour pic.twitter.com/m4HBUX6soE

— Joey Sovine Live 5 (@JoeySovine) May 30, 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

When I came to you, brethren, I did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God in lofty words or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in much fear and trembling; and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.

Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to pass away. But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glorification. None of the rulers of this age understood this; for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But, as it is written,

“What no eye has seen, nor ear heard,
nor the heart of man conceived,
what God has prepared for those who love him,”

God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God.

–1 Corinthians 2:1-10

Pentecost Sunday
Gospel of the Day (John 20,19-23)

Jesus said to them again, "Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you."

And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, "Receive the holy Spirit."https://t.co/mtqLEAVf17 pic.twitter.com/OYu6wxNm3M

— Vatican News (@VaticanNews) May 28, 2023

But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation) he entered once for all into the Holy Place, taking not the blood of goats and calves but his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption. For if the sprinkling of defiled persons with the blood of goats and bulls and with the ashes of a heifer sanctifies for the purification of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify your conscience from dead works to serve the living God.

–Hebrews 9:11-14

Moon glimmer over Loch Eishort #Scotland #Highlands #IsleofSkye https://t.co/ERVTYHnQjn pic.twitter.com/aSRRsaEQYx

— Damian Shields (@DamianShields1) May 27, 2023

Of old thou didst lay the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of thy hands. They will perish, but thou dost endure; they will all wear out like a garment. Thou changest them like raiment, and they pass away; but thou art the same, and thy years have no end.

–Psalm 102:25-27

Happy Friday ☺️ #goodmorning #sunrise #fridaymorning @ThePhotoHour pic.twitter.com/dSYjV3mA8m

— The Wild Massy 🌳 (@TheWildMassy) May 26, 2023

A second paradox: Keller was a popular pastor who was allergic to the celebrity he attracted. His books, such as “The Prodigal God” and “The Meaning of Marriage,” among many others, have sold millions of copies. But he was enigmatic and avoided the spotlight. An editor of the Christian magazine World once quipped that he could organize an interview with Keller “as easily as I can set one up with Vladimir Putin.”

Keller “was not that great showman preacher,” says Collin Hansen, editor of the Gospel Coalition, a network of Presbyterian and Reformed churches. He was introverted and cerebral in a way that Billy Graham, for all his strengths, never was. But Keller’s “sense of irony,” his “professorial approach,” appealed to New Yorkers.

Keller insisted that Christian evangelism be winsome, which made him polarizing—perhaps the third paradox. “I fear that anxious evangelicals hope that if they can just be grace-centered enough” and “serve the community, and make clear that they are not Republicans, then unbelievers will turn to Christ,” Kevin DeYoung, a fellow Reformed pastor, recently wrote of Keller’s bent.

It’s a fair point. Keller warned that Christians shouldn’t be politically monolithic. He worried about American evangelicalism’s association with the political right. But there is also the risk, which Keller realized, that Christian believers become entangled with the obsessions of the political left: sexual identity, racial grievance, Marxian redistributionism and so on. Progressive Christianity is the mirror image of the moral majoritarianism of the 1980s, and it will end no better for the church’s public witness.

Read it all.

Timothy J. Keller, pastor, theologian, student of beauty. A valedictory for the single most formative influence of my early adult life. https://t.co/oeYnzIYT9S

— Kate Bachelder Odell (@katebachwsj) May 24, 2023

O give thanks to the LORD, call on his name, make known his deeds among the peoples! Sing to him, sing praises to him, tell of all his wonderful works! Glory in his holy name; let the hearts of those who seek the LORD rejoice! Seek the LORD and his strength, seek his presence continually!

–Psalm 105:1-4

🌿Guten Morgen ☀️ pic.twitter.com/qflXUHUj1E

— 💫Stein_harmonie🍀🧚‍♀️ (@SteinHarmonie) May 25, 2023

But what if ultra-powerful ai develops super-humanoid robots, too? Material needs would almost certainly be met by machine hands. One might then expect humanity to give up on toil, much like in “Wall-E”. Indeed, in 1930 John Maynard Keynes, another economist, penned an essay entitled “Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren”, in which he speculated that a century in the future people would work for less than 15 hours a week. The growth generated by technology would solve the “economic problem”, he predicted, and allow people to turn their attention to activities which are intrinsically pleasurable. Admittedly, Keynes’s 15-hour work week has not arrived—but higher levels of wealth, which reduce the benefit of working an additional hour, have cut working hours. The average number of hours worked a week in the rich world has fallen from around 60 in the late 20th century to under 40 today.

There are, nevertheless, some wants that perhaps only humans can satisfy even in a world of supercharged, embodied ai. It is also worth noting that what is intrinsically pleasurable may include work. Consider three areas where humans may still have a role: work that is blurred with play, play itself and work where humans retain some kind of an advantage.

Read it all.

Could an AI become your boss? Using economic principles, we predict what might happen if (or when) the technology becomes more capable than the most talented humans https://t.co/XaASCZMvBO

— The Economist (@TheEconomist) May 24, 2023

The seventy returned with joy, saying, “Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name!” And he said to them, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. Behold, I have given you authority to tread upon serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy; and nothing shall hurt you. Nevertheless do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you; but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”

In that same hour he rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and said, “I thank thee, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to babes; yea, Father, for such was thy gracious will. All things have been delivered to me by my Father; and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, or who the Father is except the Son and any one to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.”

Then turning to the disciples he said privately, “Blessed are the eyes which see what you see! For I tell you that many prophets and kings desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it.”

–Luke 10:17-24

Beautiful sunrise over the Ravenel Bridge on this Wednesday morning! #chswx pic.twitter.com/cVPocM6nie

— Joey Sovine Live 5 (@JoeySovine) May 24, 2023

How do brains learn? It’s a mystery, one that applies both to the spongy organs in our skulls and to their digital counterparts in our machines. Even though artificial neural networks (ANNs) are built from elaborate webs of artificial neurons, ostensibly mimicking the way our brains process information, we don’t know if they process input in similar ways.   

“There’s been a long-standing debate as to whether neural networks learn in the same way that humans do,” said Vsevolod Kapatsinski, a linguist at the University of Oregon.

Now, a study published last month suggests that natural and artificial networks learn in similar ways, at least when it comes to language. The researchers — led by Gašper Beguš, a computational linguist at the University of California, Berkeley — compared the brain waves of humans listening to a simple sound to the signal produced by a neural network analyzing the same sound. The results were uncannily alike. “To our knowledge,” Beguš and his colleagues wrote, the observed responses to the same stimulus “are the most similar brain and ANN signals reported thus far.”

Read it all.

Some Neural Networks Learn Language Like Humans https://t.co/AH0PeKfCv9 via @QuantaMagazine

— Felix Schlumpf (@Felix3S) May 22, 2023

The Lord reigns; let the earth rejoice; let the many coastlands be glad! Clouds and thick darkness are round about him; righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne. Fire goes before him, and burns up his adversaries round about. His lightnings lighten the world; the earth sees and trembles. The mountains melt like wax before the LORD, before the Lord of all the earth. The heavens proclaim his righteousness; and all the peoples behold his glory.

–Psalm 97:1-6

Hazy sunrise over Downtown Charleston! @stormhour #chswx pic.twitter.com/0HcGR82qpL

— Joey Sovine Live 5 (@JoeySovine) May 23, 2023

Therefore let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, with instruction about ablutions, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. And this we will do if God permits. For it is impossible to restore again to repentance those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, if they then commit apostasy, since they crucify the Son of God on their own account and hold him up to contempt. For land which has drunk the rain that often falls upon it, and brings forth vegetation useful to those for whose sake it is cultivated, receives a blessing from God. But if it bears thorns and thistles, it is worthless and near to being cursed; its end is to be burned.

Though we speak thus, yet in your case, beloved, we feel sure of better things that belong to salvation. For God is not so unjust as to overlook your work and the love which you showed for his sake in serving the saints, as you still do. And we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness in realizing the full assurance of hope until the end, so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.

–Hebrews 6:1-12

Tracks In The Barley. 18°C. Cow Parsley in abundance. pic.twitter.com/RTnbuFVphk

— Yorkshire Wolds Weather (@WeatherWolds) May 22, 2023

And you he made alive, when you were dead through the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience. Among these we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, following the desires of body and mind, and so we were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with him, and made us sit with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God–not because of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

–Ephesians 2:1-10

A lovely Sunday morning. (With this stunning weather, it won’t be long before the river Cam is full of punts.) @QueensCam @Cambridge_Uni #cambridge pic.twitter.com/n4FEwzIFMz

— Mohamed A. El-Erian (@elerianm) May 21, 2023

On the holy mount stands the city he founded; the LORD loves the gates of Zion more than all the dwelling places of Jacob. Glorious things are spoken of you, O city of God.

–Psalm 87:1-3

Pretty nice way to start Saturday. #IowaCity #iawx #skiesoveriowa @KopelmanWX @KGAN_Weather @WXSchnack @KWWLStormTrack7 @NWSQuadCities @KyleKielWX @Kaj_OMara @eileenloanWX @NStewCBS2 @WxMarshall @grabermike @davidlQuiram @GHeydWX @brandonlaw_wx @joe_Winters @ThePhotoHour pic.twitter.com/6c9GjYU9XB

— ICHawkeye ✈️ (@ICHawkeye) May 20, 2023

Timothy Keller, an evangelical minister who started a thriving church in New York City and cultivated a national following with a theology that separated faith from party politics and centered his vision of conservative Christianity in the hubbub of modern life, died May 19 at his home in New York. He was 72.

His death was announced in an email by Redeemer Churches and Ministries, a network of organizations established by Dr. Keller. He was diagnosed in 2020 with pancreatic cancer and had previously been treated for thyroid cancer.

Dr. Keller spent nearly three decades as pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan, a congregation he founded in 1989.

Unlike the leaders of many evangelical megachurches, he did not employ Jumbotrons or pop music in his services. He adhered to traditional liturgy and music while peppering his sermons with references to Saint Augustine and ancient Greek, Flannery O’Connor and Woody Allen, J.R.R. Tolkien and “Star Wars.”

Read it all.

Timothy Keller, an evangelical minister who cultivated a national following with a theology that separated faith from party politics and centered his vision of conservative Christianity in the hubbub of modern life, died May 19 in New York. He was 72.https://t.co/3V1q5gtPfi

— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) May 19, 2023

‘Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other.

Truth shall spring out of the earth; and righteousness shall look down from heaven.’

-Psalm 85:10-11 (KJV)

Good morning from Staithes

📸 IG/gavinjohngarner pic.twitter.com/kF5tqCJUGf

— Love North Yorkshire (@LoveNorthYorks1) May 19, 2023

And so, from the day we heard of it, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, to lead a life worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God. May you be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy, giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. He has delivered us from the dominion of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

–Colossians 1:9-14

Le lac, l’œil du paysage, Mayens d’Arbaz 💙💛😍🇨🇭#valais #suisse #switzerland #schweiz #ineedswitzerland #landscapephotography #landscape #photooftheday #photography #paysage #mountains #naturebeauty #lake #reflecfions #springday @MySwitzerland_e @Veronique_Kanel @valaiswallis pic.twitter.com/vaLBkE8nn7

— Délèze Dominique (@DelezeD) May 1, 2023

O God, thou art my God, I seek thee,
my soul thirsts for thee;
my flesh faints for thee,
as in a dry and weary land where no water is.
So I have looked upon thee in the sanctuary,
beholding thy power and glory.
Because thy steadfast love is better than life,
my lips will praise thee.
So I will bless thee as long as I live;
I will lift up my hands and call on thy name.

–Psalm 63:1-4

Good morning New York City!

Reason #… why I like living in NJ.#nyc #NewYorkCity pic.twitter.com/4R7fpMNYX3

— Edit Karacsony (@editkephoto) April 30, 2023

Thou hast turned for me my mourning into dancing: thou hast put off my sackcloth, and girded me with gladness;

To the end that [my] glory may sing praise to thee, and not be silent. O LORD my God, I will give thanks unto thee for ever.

–Psalm 30:11-12 (KJV)

Good morning all pic.twitter.com/SDaEruTyzq

— Mystic Mel (@Melshenny1) April 29, 2023

So how does this way of thinking relate to Easter — to the Christian story of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, marked by so many at this time of the year? While Lewis’s writings show him to have had a good grasp of basic Christian theological themes by 1940, his appreciation of their existential depth seems to have emerged later. His Grief Observed, from 1961, incorporates the suffering of Christ on Good Friday into his reflections on his wife’s slow and lingering death from cancer, leading him to a deeper grasp of the ability of the Christian faith to support people in times of bewilderment and suffering.

In much the same way, Lewis’s later realisation that he himself was dying seems to have prompted a more profound reflection on the meaning of Christ’s resurrection. In some of his letters in the final months of his illness, Lewis spoke of the hope that he had in the face of death. He was, he wrote, “a seed waiting in the good earth: waiting to come up a flower in the Gardener’s good time, up into the real world, the real waking.”

Many of Lewis’s fans will make the pilgrimage to Holy Trinity church and stand silently by his graveside. Yet while Lewis’s gravestone might speak of our shared mortality, his works and his witness point to something more profound — hope in a greater reality and a better realm, whose door has been thrown open by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Read it all.

“This is the land I have been looking for all my life”: What Easter came to mean for C.S. Lewis https://t.co/IhMMDhuJY7

— PastorMarty (@Padremarty1) April 6, 2023

How shall we understand freedom? Perhaps because I am in a state, South Carolina, where candidates….[not long ago] were running around saying “you are free so vote for me!” this has been much in mind.

There is a lot of sloppy thinking about freedom these days. For too many it only means the ability to choose a candidate or a product. Or it is understood to be the removal of external constraints, as in I need the government out of my—then fill in the blank: my business, my body, and on and on.

Christian thinking about freedom is a totally different animal.

For one thing, in the Scriptures, freedom has an interesting relationship to time. Freedom is something which was present in creation, and which will be fully present again at the end of history when God brings it to its conclusion. But what about the present? The people Jesus spends time with—say, for example, the woman at the well (John 4), or Zaccheus (Luke 19) are not free but constrained, imprisoned, and encased. When Jesus rescues them, freedom begins, but even then it is lived out in the tension between the already of new life in Christ and the not yet of the fullness of the eschaton.

So apart from Christ people who think they are free need to hear the bad news that their perceived freedom is an illusion. One would like to hear more from preachers these days on this score, since they are addressing parishioners who are workaholics or poweraholics or sexaholics and/or addicts to heaven knows what else. Why is it that a group like AA seems to know more about real freedom than so many churches? Because they begin with the premise which says their members are enslaved—that is the first of the twelve steps.

And there is so much more to freedom then even this. In the Bible, real freedom moves in not one or two but three directions.

Freedom from is one piece of the puzzle—freedom from sin, from the demands of the law, from the tyranny of the urgent, from whatever constricts us from being the people God intended us to be.

Equally important, however, is freedom for, freedom for Christ, for service, for God’s justice, for ministry. Paul wonderfully describes himself as a bondservant of Christ Jesus, and the Prayer Book has it right when it says God’s service is “perfect freedom.”

Freedom with should not be missed, however. For Paul in Galatians Christian freedom is not the Christian by herself changed by the gospel. This has too much in common with the individual shopper in Walmart deciding exactly what kind of popcorn or yogurt she wants. No, real freedom is to be liberated to live for Christ with the new pilgrim people of God who reflect back a little of heaven’s light on earth. A real church is one where people enjoy koinonia, fellowship, the richness of God’s life shared into them which they then share out in Christ’s name by the power of the Holy Spirit to the world.

Paul says it wonderfully in Galatians: “For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.” Do not settle for anything less than this real freedom, freedom from bondage, freedom with our fellow pilgrims, and freedom for the God who made the heavens and the earth.

–The Rev. Dr. Kendall Harmon is Theologian in residence at Church of the Holy Cross, Sullivan’s Island, SC, and the convenor of this blog

“Behold, I am with you always,
even to the end of the age, alleluia.”
Mt28:20#Easter

As you go about your ‘bits and pieces’ of this day, be conscious that God is very near to you.
So be strong, take courage, and hope in the Lord! pic.twitter.com/keswB9V9gp

— Eamon Martin (@ArchbishopEamon) April 20, 2023

Does our response to Easter reflect poorly on us? There’s not a simple answer. Easter is simply a more challenging subject than Christmas; in that sense, it’s only to be expected. It could also be that there’s some amount of modern unease with enthusiastically declaring you think somebody, historically, did really come back from the dead—that, while Christians still live in expectation, they believe some of their expectations have already been fulfilled in history. Christianity is more easily lived as a sort of everlasting Ingmar Bergman film: better to expect and expect and never have to deal with the realization of expectation—to enjoy, even prioritize, uncertainty, doubt, and anguish.

Another reason, I suspect: Christianity, or at least American Christianity, has a difficult relationship with joy. (Though given that the most recent papal exhortation is called “rejoice and be glad,” perhaps it’s a global problem.) For those American Christians whose faith has been shaped—inevitably—by a reaction to the various feel-good Christianities that abound, the safest thing to do is simply to avoid any occasion of happiness. Focusing on anything other than the cross feels like cheap grace, a concession to the facile optimism all around us. We don’t deserve Easter, the general upbeat nature of the culture makes it impossible to celebrate properly anyway, and as soon as is humanly possible we should retreat back into the shadows.

It would certainly be foolish to claim that American culture is overly penitential, or that we aren’t ridden with cheap grace. But all grace, by definition, is undeserved; that applies no less to the brooding intellectual than it does to the flagrantly wicked. And what distinguishes cheap grace from grace isn’t the extremity of our penance or devotion to suffering (read: brooding), but recognition of sin and a contrite heart—not, precisely, the same thing. Avoiding cheap grace may mean avoiding grace altogether.

Read it all.

Supper at Emmaus (Caravaggio) @NationalGallery
[1601]https://t.co/1s4en0idGD pic.twitter.com/5sB4Yt2eCY

— Mark Chaplain (@MarkAJChaplain) April 22, 2023

It pleased Darius to set over the kingdom a hundred and twenty satraps, to be throughout the whole kingdom; and over them three presidents, of whom Daniel was one, to whom these satraps should give account, so that the king might suffer no loss. Then this Daniel became distinguished above all the other presidents and satraps, because an excellent spirit was in him; and the king planned to set him over the whole kingdom. Then the presidents and the satraps sought to find a ground for complaint against Daniel with regard to the kingdom; but they could find no ground for complaint or any fault, because he was faithful, and no error or fault was found in him. Then these men said, “We shall not find any ground for complaint against this Daniel unless we find it in connection with the law of his God.”

Then these presidents and satraps came by agreement to the king and said to him, “O King Darius, live for ever! All the presidents of the kingdom, the prefects and the satraps, the counselors and the governors are agreed that the king should establish an ordinance and enforce an interdict, that whoever makes petition to any god or man for thirty days, except to you, O king, shall be cast into the den of lions. Now, O king, establish the interdict and sign the document, so that it cannot be changed, according to the law of the Medes and the Persians, which cannot be revoked.” Therefore King Darius signed the document and interdict.

When Daniel knew that the document had been signed, he went to his house where he had windows in his upper chamber open toward Jerusalem; and he got down upon his knees three times a day and prayed and gave thanks before his God, as he had done previously. Then these men came by agreement and found Daniel making petition and supplication before his God. Then they came near and said before the king, concerning the interdict, “O king! Did you not sign an interdict, that any man who makes petition to any god or man within thirty days except to you, O king, shall be cast into the den of lions?” The king answered, “The thing stands fast, according to the law of the Medes and Persians, which cannot be revoked.” Then they answered before the king, “That Daniel, who is one of the exiles from Judah, pays no heed to you, O king, or the interdict you have signed, but makes his petition three times a day.”

Then the king, when he heard these words, was much distressed, and set his mind to deliver Daniel; and he labored till the sun went down to rescue him. Then these men came by agreement to the king, and said to the king, “Know, O king, that it is a law of the Medes and Persians that no interdict or ordinance which the king establishes can be changed.”

–Daniel 6:1-15

Good Morning pic.twitter.com/1P0eVcx77e

— philip jackson (@pajacksonartist) April 28, 2023

I believe the story. With my head, looking at the evidence and thinking logically as a person who was a research physicist for twenty-five years, I believe it. And after listening to the testimony of people–from beggars to kings–through all the ages who had concluded that the story is true, I believe it. And at the innermost levels of my heart, where the deepest truths reside but are not easily put into words, I believe it is true.

And that is why I know that I will see my mother again someday. It’s not just wishful thinking, some little tale I’ve fooled myself with because I can’t face the cold hard facts of life. Yes, I will see Della Mae, and I am convinced that it will be a day of great victory and joy. St. Paul says that it will be like putting on a crown, and St. John says that it will be a time when every tear will be wiped away from my eyes. That’s what will happen someday to me. But what Jesus did affects me right here today also — I know that this Jesus who overcame death and the grave has promised not to leave me here twisting in the wind. He is with me every day, through his Spirit, to guide me, comfort me, embolden me, and use me for his glory and to serve his people, right here, right now.

Read it all.

I am the living bread which has come down from heaven.#Easter

A new day brings opportunities for faith, hope, love. pic.twitter.com/inYUxI4IYo

— Eamon Martin (@ArchbishopEamon) April 27, 2023

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

–Luke 5:1-11

Wishing you a happy Thursday from North Yorkshire 😊
📸 From my beach walk last night pic.twitter.com/nvNGH2FoA5

— Nicky (@Nicky13Johnson) April 27, 2023

If the resurrection has broken into the world, however, why do we still live a world entangled in violence, injustice and death? Why do innocent people die in bombings in Syria? Why is there senseless structural violence against black people? Why does cancer continue to eat away at our lives? Paul knows as well as we do about what he calls “the sufferings of the present time” (Romans 8:18). And that’s why he writes the third and last paragraph of our passage.

Has Jesus’s resurrection power already beamed us up into heavenly existence? No. Paul carefully explains that we are not at the end; rather, we are in the middle of an unfolding story. “In Christ all will be made alive … But each in order.” There is a careful sequencing here of three acts of the unfolding drama: “Christ the first-fruits; then at his kingly coming those who belong to Christ.” (That’s us – we who will be raised from the dead at Christ’s triumphant return.) And only then do we reach the end, the final act: when Christ hands over the kingdom to the Father who will at last destroy all the evil and pain in the world and wipe away every tear from our eyes.

So we find ourselves in the middle of the story. But notice how Paul describes the political reality of this middle time we inhabit: “It is necessary for Christ to rule until God places all his enemies under his feet.” In the present time, the Risen Christ is in fact ruling now, even though his enemies continue to carry out their ultimately futile attacks on his kingdom. Paul is painting a picture of prolonged military struggle, in which our captain, the Lord Jesus, is reclaiming territory previously occupied by enemy forces.

Read it all.

Mille grazie caro Alberto!#BuonaPasqua 🙏🏻

"The Empty Tomb"
Mikhail Nesterov (1889) pic.twitter.com/x4aTt2C997

— Cris💗Art (@CristianeGLima) April 4, 2021

Here, in their very midst was the author of Life, bringing to them the word of his peace. And that is not all: not just a mending, but something greater than they could ever think or imagine was about to happen. He gives to them a new commission. Adam and Eve had been told to govern and protect the created order as God’s custodians. But this one true human being, this Jesus, this One who is truly God, truly the Son of Man, calls a new family into his service: “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” From now on the job would be not simply to care for creation, not just a work of maintenance. Rather, his disciples are enfolded, made part of the Father’s work of restoration. They are to go, to heal, to restore what has been lost, to seek those who have been lost.

Such a role may seem too great for humankind. After all, it is God himself who is the shepherd of the sheep. But here we are at the dawn of a new creation, a new era in which God’s people are being called no longer simply servants—though servants we are—but FRIENDS. Who is up for this task? The answer is, of course, not one of us. That is why Jesus does not simply give his disciples instructions. He also gives them his very life.

Think again about the Narnia chronicles. What is it that Aslan does as soon as he has won, with the stone table cracked, the bonds broken and the deep magic accomplished? Why, he visits the dungeon of the White Witch, and begins to breathe upon those who have been petrified, frozen by her evil. He breathes, and they are restored back to life. What Jesus does here on that first Easter evening is even greater: not only does he breathe to restore the disciples back to life. No, he does more. He says to them “Receive the Holy Spirit.” Back at Eden, God gave to humankind the breath of life. Now God the Son hands over to his disciples the One who is in Himself the Breath of new life, the very Spirit of God. Not merely a life force, but the Lord of Life comes to be with these frightened disciples: and they will never be the same. It is as though Aslan had breathed upon a stone cat and made him not merely a living creature but a little lion, bursting with the same vigor of the great Aslan himself, ready to do the work of freeing and bringing joy to those in darkness and in prison.

Read it all.

The Incredulity of Saint Thomas, by Caravaggio

"Thomas answered and said to Him: my Lord and my God. Jesus saith to him: Because thou hast seen Me, Thomas, thou hast believed; blessed are they that have not seen, and have believed." pic.twitter.com/Vb85CVFauv

— Catholic Sat (@CatholicSat) April 19, 2020

Be still before the Lord, and wait patiently for him;
fret not yourself over him who prospers in his way,
over the man who carries out evil devices!

Refrain from anger, and forsake wrath!
Fret not yourself; it tends only to evil.

–Psalm 37:7-8

The clouds hung low like a shroud, casting a somber mood over the Cape Cod National Seashore this morning. Eastham, Massachusetts. #capecod #weather #NationalPark pic.twitter.com/bmBU5a3gsa

— Darius Aniunas (@dariusaniunas) April 26, 2023

Older ways of thinking about life are more humane. I exist, not as a process or as some immovable modern substance, but as a woman, as a mother, with a certain age and height and history, with a certain store of knowledge and emotional responses. All these qualities are accidents, metaphysically speaking, but that does not make them unimportant. In fact, they are the stuff of my life. The becoming of accidents that come to be in me and pass away, as I enter into new friendships, learn new things, lose loved ones—all this is held in being by me as a personal substance. Accidents give me color and distinctiveness. I give them being.

All of this makes me legible to other human beings and thereby vulnerable to “categorical ­violence.” By allowing accidents—including my femininity—to make me legible, I allow them to delimit me; but they also reveal me to the world, to the community of embodied persons, who know me as formed in certain ways. Through knowing accidents, ­Aquinas writes, the intellect “penetrates to the interior” of the substance. The postmodern world is deathly afraid of being so transparent and vulnerable to others. But it has opened itself to other risks. The loss of the “home” of the stable self perpetually undermines contemporary people, who exist in a permanent, fluid exile. No wonder we, and our culture, are imprisoned within our obsessions with security and safety.

Butler’s trouble with sexed identity arises from her fear that stability opposes the permanent exile that is human life. Rather than being a word read from her body, she prefers to be the unfinished sentence, the perpetual refugee from sexed legibility. Of course, she is right that the intellect sometimes penetrates in order to colonize. But it is also the case that love begins with a true word, spoken and understood. What causes the most ­trouble—the sexed body—also initiates what is most dear.

Read it all.

"Butler’s trouble with sexed identity arises from her fear that stability opposes the permanent exile that is human life. Rather than being a word read from her body, she prefers to be the unfinished sentence, the perpetual refugee from sexed legibility." https://t.co/LPh4B7PX8c

— Ryan Haecker (@RyanHaecker) April 24, 2023

And he went down to Capernaum, a city of Galilee. And he was teaching them on the sabbath; and they were astonished at his teaching, for his word was with authority. And in the synagogue there was a man who had the spirit of an unclean demon; and he cried out with a loud voice, “Ah! What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God.” But Jesus rebuked him, saying, “Be silent, and come out of him!” And when the demon had thrown him down in the midst, he came out of him, having done him no harm. And they were all amazed and said to one another, “What is this word? For with authority and power he commands the unclean spirits, and they come out.” And reports of him went out into every place in the surrounding region.

–Luke 4:31-37

Foggy mornings are nature's way of showing us that sometimes, the most beautiful things in life come wrapped in gray. Today’s fog over the Cove, Orleans, Cape Cod, Massachusetts. #StormHour #capecod pic.twitter.com/J3E3WTi0T6

— Darius Aniunas (@dariusaniunas) April 25, 2023