Churches Count on Nature, to run between 5-13 June 2021, is a citizen-science event covering churchyards across the England and Wales.

The project will see communities and visitors making a note of the animals, birds, insects, or fungi in their local churchyard.

Their data will then be collated on the National Biodiversity Network.

One church getting involved is St Pol de Léon’s Church, Paul, in Cornwall.

As part of their nature count the church will be marking Environment Sunday and be holding their morning service outside in their “Celtic Quiet Garden.”

Read it all.

Hundreds of churches are starting a week-long ‘nature count’.

The Churches Count on Nature will encourage communities to visit churchyards and record what they see.

What have you seen in your local churchyard? 🐾#WorldEnvironmentDayhttps://t.co/v7TwdEMapf

— The Church of England (@churchofengland) June 5, 2021

It also means companies thinking more expansively about who is qualified for a job in the first place. That is evident, for example, in the way Alex Lorick, a former South Florida nightclub bouncer, was able to become a mainframe technician at I.B.M.

Mr. Lorick often worked a shift called “devil’s nine to five” — 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. — made all the more brutal when it was interspersed with day shifts. The hours were tough, but the pay was better than in his previous jobs, one at a retirement home and another serving food at a dog track. Yet it was a far cry from the type of work he had dreamed about in high school, when he liked computers and imagined making video games for a living.

As a young adult, he took online classes in web development and programming languages, but encountered a Catch-22 many job seekers know well: Nobody wanted to hire a tech worker without experience, which meant he couldn’t get enough experience to be hired. College wasn’t for him. Hence the devil’s nine to five.

Until late last year, that is. After months on unemployment during the pandemic, he heard from I.B.M., where he had once applied and been rejected for a tech job. It invited him to apply to an apprenticeship program that would pay him to be trained as a mainframe technician. Now 24, he completed his training this month and is beginning hands-on work in what he hopes is the start of a long career.

“This is a way more stable paycheck, and more consistent hours,” Mr. Lorick said. “But the most important thing is that I feel like I’m on a path that makes sense and where I have the opportunity to grow.”

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Sometimes as a writer, you sense that something big is changing before your eyes. Stray data points and anecdotes all point to a big shift.

I think this is one of those times: Workers are gaining the upper hand over employers for the first time in ages.https://t.co/M1uCvQcLcv

— Neil Irwin (@Neil_Irwin) June 5, 2021

Almighty God, who didst call thy faithful servant Boniface to be a witness and martyr in the lands of Germany and Friesland, and by his labor and suffering didst raise up a people for thine own possession: Pour forth thy Holy Spirit upon thy Church in every land, that by the service and sacrifice of many thy holy Name may be glorified and thy kingdom enlarged; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the same Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

“Let us preach the whole of God’s plan,
to the powerful and to the humble,
to rich and to poor,
to men of every rank and age,
as far as God gives us the strength, in season and out of season.”
St Boniface (672-754)
“The Apostle of Germany”,Bishop&Martyr

St Boniface, Pray for us! pic.twitter.com/gIBO5XkQ1n

— Kalina Boulter (@KalinaBoulter) June 5, 2021

To God the Father beyond us, creator of the cosmos and the vast reaches of interstellar space as well as this lovely earth, our home,

To God the Son alongside us, who shed his blood for the redemption of the world and all mankind,

and to God the Holy Spirit within us, who graciously gives us daily the power to live the good life which has been prepared beforehand for us to walk in,

be all glory, majesty, honor and praise, Holy Trinity one God, this day and forevermore, Amen.

Holy Trinity fresco by Luca Rossetti. pic.twitter.com/3oKrbL35Le

— Digby Dyke (@DigbyDyke) May 22, 2016

Now they were bringing even infants to him that he might touch them; and when the disciples saw it, they rebuked them. But Jesus called them to him, saying, “Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them; for to such belongs the kingdom of God. Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.”

And a ruler asked him, “Good Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. You know the commandments: ‘Do not commit adultery, Do not kill, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Honor your father and mother.’” And he said, “All these I have observed from my youth.” And when Jesus heard it, he said to him, “One thing you still lack. Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” But when he heard this he became sad, for he was very rich. Jesus looking at him said, “How hard it is for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God! For it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” Those who heard it said, “Then who can be saved?” But he said, “What is impossible with men is possible with God.” And Peter said, “Lo, we have left our homes and followed you.” And he said to them, “Truly, I say to you, there is no man who has left house or wife or brothers or parents or children, for the sake of the kingdom of God, who will not receive manifold more in this time, and in the age to come eternal life.”

–Luke 18:15-30

A Skegness sunrise. pic.twitter.com/fNzTEARWgo

— Dave Z Photography (@DaveZ_uk) June 4, 2021