A Church attuned to the Spirit of surprise:

In human terms, Philip took the wrong road – and there he was met by the Spirit of God, who showed him why he was in the middle of the desert. And he found himself speaking to someone who was the wrong person, in human eyes. It was the wrong recipient of God’s message; Luke always points us to the Gospel for the excluded. The Ethiopian was a foreigner so could not enter the temple, a eunuch so wrongly considered by the people of his time to be outside God’s purpose. He was doubly outside

Luke’s stories in Gospel and Acts are of refugees, the poor, those of no honour. Seen in hospitals, schools, prisons, rubbish dumps and food centres. Seen here in the past and now.

Yet in God’s eyes there was nothing wrong. This was the right time, right road, right scripture, right person, right opportunity for baptism.

The Bible tells us to be where the Spirit sends us, not by human wisdom, and the Gospel reading shows us the foundation of what Philip was doing.

Read it all.

Great joy to celebrate the new Anglican Province of Alexandria at All Saints’ Cathedral in Cairo this evening. May it draw on the history of the saints and their inspiration; and may it proclaim the Gospel afresh in this generation! pic.twitter.com/vV9b6eQQOH

— Archbishop of Canterbury (@JustinWelby) October 8, 2021

This is a newsletter focusing on the spiritual, and on reasons to hope. It might seem weird to you today to lead off with the death of Dr. Billy Abraham, a well-known, much-beloved Irish Methodist who taught for years, until his retirement this year, at SMU in Dallas. He was 73. Though his death is a shock, and an occasion of sorrow, let me tell you why I rejoice in Billy’s life and example.

I met Billy back in 2005 at St. Seraphim Cathedral in Dallas. He was a dear friend of Archbishop Dmitri, and had come to visit. I instantly liked him. It was impossible not to. Billy was a small-o orthodox Christian, and we discussed the manifold problems within both the Catholic and the Methodist churches (I was still a Catholic at the time, and was contemplating becoming Orthodox). The difference between Billy and me was that while I back then was broken and angry, Billy was indefatigably optimistic. Actually, scratch that: he wasn’t optimistic, because he believed that for the Methodists, things were going to get worse (and they did); rather, he was hopeful. For Billy, hope wasn’t simply an act of faith, but a reasonable response to what he had seen in his own life.

Billy grew up in Northern Ireland, in the time of the Troubles — that is, the terrorist warfare between the Irish Republican Army and Protestant paramilitaries. He saw evil up close — a lot of it. I won’t go into detail in this recollection, because I don’t want to get any of the particulars wrong, and our discussion of the topic was a long time ago. But Billy told me about growing up as a Protestant in Belfast during a time when it was very, very easy for a young man to be drawn into political violence. I seem to recall him saying this happened to him and some or all of his five brothers, but my recollection is fuzzy, so I don’t want to say more. He came to Christ through the ministry of local Methodists, and changed his life. What stands out in my mind as I think today about that first encounter of mine with Billy is how grateful he was to have been liberated from the bonds of hatred….

Read it all and watch the whole video.

Grieved to learn just now of the sudden death of Dr. Billy Abraham, an Irish Methodist and beloved theologian. He died on Thursday; I don't know the cause. I met him about 15 years ago in Dallas; he was a good friend of Orthodox Archbishop Dmitri. Billy was one of the greats. pic.twitter.com/zVjVw9w7ea

— Rod Dreher (@roddreher) October 9, 2021

Like toy blocks hurled from the heavens, nearly 80,000 shipping containers are stacked in various configurations at the Port of Savannah — 50 percent more than usual.

The steel boxes are waiting for ships to carry them to their final destination, or for trucks to haul them to warehouses that are themselves stuffed to the rafters. Some 700 containers have been left at the port, on the banks of the Savannah River, by their owners for a month or more.

“They’re not coming to get their freight,” complained Griff Lynch, the executive director of the Georgia Ports Authority. “We’ve never had the yard as full as this.”

As he speaks, another vessel glides silently toward an open berth — the 1,207-foot-long Yang Ming Witness, its decks jammed with containers full of clothing, shoes, electronics and other stuff made in factories in Asia. Towering cranes soon pluck the thousands of boxes off the ship — more cargo that must be stashed somewhere.

Read it all.

It has come to this in the Great Supply Chain Disruption: they are running out of places to stash things at one of the largest ports in the United States. My story from Savannah with magnificent photos from ⁦@erinschaff⁩ https://t.co/8jVdNQB3zM

— Peter S. Goodman (@petersgoodman) October 10, 2021

The Pentagon’s first chief software officer said he resigned in protest at the slow pace of technological transformation in the US military, and because he could not stand to watch China overtake America.

In his first interview since leaving the post at the Department of Defense a week ago, Nicolas Chaillan told the Financial Times that the failure of the US to respond to Chinese cyber and other threats was putting his children’s future at risk.

“We have no competing fighting chance against China in 15 to 20 years. Right now, it’s already a done deal; it is already over in my opinion,” he said, adding there was “good reason to be angry”.

Chaillan, 37, who spent three years on a Pentagon-wide effort to boost cyber security and as first chief software officer for the US Air Force, said Beijing is heading for global dominance because of its advances in artificial intelligence, machine learning and cyber capabilities.

He argued these emerging technologies were far more critical to America’s future than hardware such as big-budget fifth-generation fighter jets such as the F-35.

Read it all.

The Pentagon’s first chief software officer said he resigned in protest at the slow pace of technological transformation in the US military, and because he could not stand to watch China overtake America. https://t.co/HNxPehxdbd @KatrinaManson

— Anne-Sylvaine Chassany (@ChassNews) October 10, 2021

Happy #Thanksgiving to everyone waking up in my beloved Canada 🍁 🇨🇦 pic.twitter.com/EMiWk7HWNu

— Rickie Josen (@RickieWrites) October 11, 2021

Holy God, no one is excluded from thy love; and thy truth transformeth the minds of all who seek thee: As thy servant Philip was led to embrace the fullness of thy salvation and to bring the stranger to Baptism, so grant unto us all the grace to be heralds of the Gospel, proclaiming thy love in Jesus Christ our Savior, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

Feast of St Philip the Deacon today in @churchofireland sanctoral pic.twitter.com/UppTfm5Yar

— laudablePractice (@cath_cov) October 11, 2014

O God, forasmuch as without you
we are not able to please you;
mercifully grant that your Holy Spirit
may in all things direct and rule our hearts;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Amen.

BEST sunrise I've seen in a long time! pic.twitter.com/KtoseZXnp1

— Brittney Bryant (@WX_BrittneyB) October 11, 2021

Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water, that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers.

–Psalm 1:1-3

Good Sunday morning from The Cross at Belin UMC in Murrells Inlet. Beautiful 📸 Becky Porter! #scwx #ncwx pic.twitter.com/M19sInKe7K

— Ed Piotrowski (@EdPiotrowski) October 10, 2021