Show, don’t tell

This is one of the first things any writing instructor tells her students. There you are trying to be Ernest Hemingway with your short, spare prose. “The woman is tired,” you write, going straight for the bottom line, but why should your readers believe you? You have told them something you apparently know about the woman, but you have not given them a chance to make up their own minds. You have kept the details entirely to yourself, so that their only choice is whether to believe you or not. Jesus is Lord. God is love. The gospel is true.

“Show them,” your teacher says. “Don’t tell them the woman is tired. Show them how tired she is.” This is much harder. Finding a way to help people see takes more time than telling them what you see. How do you know the woman is tired? What is it about her gait, her posture, her face, her breath that says “tired” to you? If you can find the right words, you may be able to help people name their own tiredness on their way to seeing just how tired this woman is.

“The woman looked as if she had been moving rocks all day, as if everything she had touched since the moment she got up had been heavy, hard, and grey.”

Read it all.

How to make your sermons come alive

Routines, deviations, and other writerly tips, according to Barbara Brown Taylorhttps://t.co/cuqiZYAPsL

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) September 14, 2024

Ever since Hamas’s slaughter of Israelis on October 7th 2023, violence has been spreading. One year on, the Middle East is an inch away from an all-out war between Israel and Iran. Israel’s skilful decapitation of Hizbullah, a Lebanese militia backed by Iran, prompted the Islamic Republic to rain missiles on Israel on October 1st. Israel may retaliate, perhaps striking Iran’s industrial, military or nuclear facilities, hoping to end once and for all the threat it poses to the Jewish state.

Iran is certainly a menace, and use of force against it by Israel or America would be both lawful and, if carefully calibrated, wise. But the idea that a single decisive attack on Iran could transform the Middle East is a fantasy. As our special section explains, containing the Iranian regime requires sustained deterrence and diplomacy. In the long run, Israel’s security also depends on ending its oppression of the Palestinians.

Iran’s latest direct attack on Israel consisted of 180 ballistic missiles. Unlike an earlier strike in April, this time Iran gave little warning. But as before, most of the projectiles were intercepted. The salvo was a response to the humiliation of its proxy, Hizbullah, which until two weeks ago was the most feared militia in the region. No one should shed tears for a terrorist outfit that has helped turn Lebanon into a failed state. For the past year Hizbullah has bombarded Israel, forcing the evacuation of civilians in its northern belt. Israel’s counter-attack, unlike its invasion of Gaza, was long-planned. It has made devastating use of intelligence, technology and air power, killing the militia’s leaders, including its chief, Hassan Nasrallah, maiming its fighters with exploding pagers and destroying perhaps half of its 120,000 or more missiles and rockets.

Read it all.

The year that shattered the Middle East pic.twitter.com/6YqtHxDnDQ

— Ibrahim Hamidi ابراهيم حميدي (@ibrahimhamidi) October 3, 2024

President Joe Biden and his administration are sticking to their position of not invoking the Taft-Hartley Act to force International Longshoremen’s Association dock workers back on the job at East and Gulf coast ports where a strike is hitting day two on Wednesday, a political decision that reflects the power of unions one month out from an election but risks losing some progress on what is the No. 1 issue for many voters: the economy.

Rhetoric from Cabinet secretaries, including Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and acting Labor Secretary Julie Su, has become sharper in recent days, pointing the finger at the ports ownership and ocean carriers. But right now, there is no sign of any progress bringing the ILA and port owners back to the table for a new round of negotiations, according to CNBC sources. And there remains a big risk on the other side of the political decision-making: wage increases that are a win for workers but ultimately ripple through the economy in the form of higher prices, both domestically and around the world.

Much of the focus about the economic impact of the ports strike to date has been focused on the direct hit to the economy from the massive trade shutdown, and the ways in which supply chain congestion and delays can result in higher prices being passed along to consumers, which will become a bigger factor the longer a strike persists. But maritime and business experts are also warning about the risk of persistent wage inflation making its way into supply chain prices that the Federal Reserve has recently been successful in taming.

Read it all.

The East and Gulf Coast ports strike could be a no-win situation for the Biden administration https://t.co/x17dHuIkW9

— CNBC (@CNBC) October 2, 2024

Under the sponsorship of the YMCA, Wilder spent the following academic year touring college campuses. He told the story of the “Mount Hermon One Hundred” and urged students to pledge themselves to become missionaries. Some 2,000 did so. To avoid allowing the bright light of this new movement to flicker out, in 1888 YMCA leaders organized the Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign Missions (known simply as the SVM). They placed the recent Cornell graduate, John R. Mott, at its head. The SVM formed organizations on college, university and seminary campuses across the nation. Students signed pledge cards stating their intention to become missionaries and joined weekly meetings to study missions. The watchword of the movement illustrates the boldness and optimism of the Christian youth of that era: “The Evangelization of the World in this Generation.”

The SVM became one of the most successful missionary-recruiting organizations of all time. Prior to its formation, American Protestants supported less than a thousand missionaries throughout the world. Between 1886 and 1920, the SVM recruited 8,742 missionaries in the U.S. Around twice that number were actually sent out as missionaries in this period, many of them influenced by the SVM though never members. SVM leaders also formed college groups around the world in countries where missionaries had established mission colleges during the previous century. Their goal was to create a missionary force large enough to evangelize every nation. They thought in military terms. Missionaries were soldiers in God’s army. The SVM sought to recruit, to support, and to place these soldiers strategically around the world. If done shrewdly, they thought they would surely conquer the world.

Read it all.

O God, the shepherd of all, we offer thanks for the lifelong commitment of thy servant John Raleigh Mott to the Christian nurture of students in many parts of the world; and we pray that, after his example, we may strive for the weaving together of all peoples in friendship, fellowship and cooperation, and while life lasts be evangelists for Jesus Christ, in whom alone is our peace; and who with thee and the Holy Spirit livest and reignest, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

#OnThisDay Jan 31
1955
Death in Orlando, Florida, of John Mott, whose missions ministry had spanned the globe. pic.twitter.com/sCeu11FZzx

— ☧ Today in Christian History (@HistoricalRook) January 31, 2021

Give us grace, O God our Father, to keep this day and always the new commandment and the great commandment and all the commandments, by loving thee with all our mind and soul and strength, and one another for thy sake; in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord.

—Daily Prayer, Eric Milner-White and G. W. Briggs, eds. (London: Penguin Books 1959 edition of the 1941 original)

Wishing you a happy Thursday from Saltburn by the Sea, North Yorkshire 😊 pic.twitter.com/Jj4rffouEv

— Nicky (@Nicky13Johnson) October 3, 2024

On a sabbath, while he was going through the grainfields, his disciples plucked and ate some heads of grain, rubbing them in their hands. But some of the Pharisees said, “Why are you doing what is not lawful to do on the sabbath?” And Jesus answered, “Have you not read what David did when he was hungry, he and those who were with him: how he entered the house of God, and took and ate the bread of the Presence, which it is not lawful for any but the priests to eat, and also gave it to those with him?” And he said to them, “The Son of man is lord of the sabbath.” On another sabbath, when he entered the synagogue and taught, a man was there whose right hand was withered. And the scribes and the Pharisees watched him, to see whether he would heal on the sabbath, so that they might find an accusation against him. But he knew their thoughts, and he said to the man who had the withered hand, “Come and stand here.” And he rose and stood there. And Jesus said to them, “I ask you, is it lawful on the sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to destroy it?” And he looked around on them all, and said to him, “Stretch out your hand.” And he did so, and his hand was restored. But they were filled with fury and discussed with one another what they might do to Jesus.

–Luke 6:1-11

early morning #treeride 🚴‍♀️ pic.twitter.com/LDPZHxJlNv

— Portmann Carrick (@PortmannCarrick) October 3, 2024