“Detaching the Church of England’s safeguarding staff from their current employers will almost inevitably create additional barriers to communication and cooperation, harming service delivery. Given that ‘service delivery’ in this context involves protecting children and vulnerable adults, any barriers whatsoever could have the most serious consequences,” the letter says.

“There is no doubt that transferring staff from 85 current employers to one yet-to-be-created employer will be destabilising, expensive, and likely to take far longer than expected,” the letter argues. “No other equivalent organisation in the UK employs its safeguarding staff in a separate body.”

It continues: “The disruption to recruitment and retention of staff, to existing relationships, and to morale would be considerable. Moreover, new structures bring new problems: a large national organisation is at least as likely to multiply layers of management as it is to improve frontline service delivery.”

Read it all.

Safeguarding professionals across the Church of England have urged the General Synod’s members not to back a proposal to outsource their work to a new national body https://t.co/aXrKJSuLfH

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) February 5, 2025

While it’s true that traditional monasticism is declining in many historic Christian traditions, new monasticism—the contemporary reappropriation of monastic wisdom—is still very much alive. More than that, the movement is gaining a new and growing following among the next generation and is meeting universal human needs that are felt more now than ever.

In our global digital age, many Christians are rediscovering the importance of community, the value of rhythms and routines amid chaotic circumstances, and the need for deeper commitment to spiritual formation. Over the past five years alone, the pandemic, incidents of racial injustice, and the church abuse crisis have led to a wake-up call. We are realizing that it may be worth sacrificing modern comforts and conveniences to live out our highest ideals and potential as God’s people and that we may need to look back in order to go forward.

Some believers have been sensitive to these needs for a long time—people who consider themselves “new monastics” (like me), who are fascinated by the desert elders’ courage to relocate to abandoned places. We are intrigued by the idea of living in a close community and making serious commitments to fundamental values. We wonder if establishing communal rules for life might tame the wild horse of late modern culture and help us better order our lives around the gospel.

Today, this reappropriation is taking the form of devotional apps like Lectio 365, introductory virtual classes on contemplative prayer, repurposed convents in Europe, and prayer spaces in alleyways and financial districts. It looks like Christian university campus houses establishing their own rules of life or communal discipleship programs, and small “colleges” of Christian students attending larger universities. It is happening through globally dispersed organizations like OMS, which takes prospective members through stages of preparation and vow-taking in a digital initiation process modeled after traditional religious orders.

Read it all.

“The entire town feels like it is in a pandemic, locked up without being able to go out and enjoy our lives due to violence.”

That is how “Jorge” – not his real name – feels about his neighbourhood of Guayaquil, a city in southern Ecuador.

His father, Marcos Elías León Maruri, was kidnapped there by the Los Tiguerones gang.

A person is killed every two hours in Ecuador and seven are kidnapped daily, according to government figures.

That’s why security is the top issue for voters ahead of the first round of the presidential election on Sunday, in which incumbent Daniel Noboa is being challenged by 15 other candidates.

Whoever wins will be tasked with restoring security to the country, which has gone from being one of the safest to among the most dangerous in the region.

Read it all (Hat tip-BBC World News America).

Ecuador chooses president against backdrop of gang violence https://t.co/LGXIXTbUaa

— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) February 7, 2025

Big Tech’s massive spending on artificial intelligence is set to continue unchecked in 2025 after Amazon topped its rivals with a planned $100bn-plus investment in infrastructure this year.

Spending by the four leading US tech companies had already surged 63 per cent to historic levels last year. Now executives are vowing to accelerate their AI investments, dismissing concerns about the vast sums being bet on the nascent technology.

Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon and Meta have reported combined capital expenditure of $246bn in 2024, up from $151bn in 2023. They forecast spending could exceed $320bn this year as they compete to build data centres and fill them with clusters of specialised chips to remain at the forefront of AI large language model research.

The scale of their spending ambitions — announced alongside their fourth-quarter earnings — has surprised the market and exacerbated a sell-off caused by the release of an innovative and cheap AI model from Chinese start-up DeepSeek in late January.

Read it all.

Big Tech is set to spend over $300 billion on AI this year. pic.twitter.com/7AL7J7i5mY

— Brew Markets (@brewmarkets) February 7, 2025

They are often called “dual diagnosis patients:” those who are in need of both mental health services and substance abuse treatment. Getting them better treatment and offering more treatment through Medicaid could help to reduce South Carolina’s high rate of opioid overdoses, officials said.

Nationally, about 35 percent of mental health patients have a dual diagnosis for substance use but under South Carolina Medicaid, it is less than 1 percent of patients. Officials say it is clearly underdiagnosed and may be due to a problem drug treatment centers have in being able to bill Medicaid for some services. The state got a $7.2 million federal grant to implement a new model that makes integrated care easier and SC Medicaid is also pursuing more than $5 million in next year’s budget to increase reimbursements.

Interim Director Eunice Medina of the South Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees Medicaid in South Carolina, made the need clear in her budget presentation Jan. 22. Speaking to members of the House Ways and Means Healthcare Subcommittee, she pointed to some grim statistics: South Carolina had the 10th worst opioid overdose rate in 2022 and those deaths had risen six percent from the previous year.

Read it all.

More substance use treatment and mental health care through Medicaid could lower deaths https://t.co/hUD1lMpElt

— The Post and Courier (@postandcourier) February 3, 2025

God of our salvation, by your Spirit help us to turn away from those habits which harm our bodies and poison. Our minds choose again your gift of life, revealed to us in Jesus Christ, our Lord Lord. Amen (slightly edited; KSH).

Happy Friday all! pic.twitter.com/H0lIoPLo56

— David Oxtaby (@Disc_light) February 7, 2025

And after six days Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain apart by themselves; and he was transfigured before them, and his garments became glistening, intensely white, as no fuller on earth could bleach them. And there appeared to them Eli′jah with Moses; and they were talking to Jesus. And Peter said to Jesus, “Master, it is well that we are here; let us make three booths, one for you and one for Moses and one for Eli′jah.” For he did not know what to say, for they were exceedingly afraid. And a cloud overshadowed them, and a voice came out of the cloud, “This is my beloved Son; listen to him.” And suddenly looking around they no longer saw any one with them but Jesus only.

And as they were coming down the mountain, he charged them to tell no one what they had seen, until the Son of man should have risen from the dead. So they kept the matter to themselves, questioning what the rising from the dead meant. And they asked him, “Why do the scribes say that first Eli′jah must come?” And he said to them, “Eli′jah does come first to restore all things; and how is it written of the Son of man, that he should suffer many things and be treated with contempt? But I tell you that Eli′jah has come, and they did to him whatever they pleased, as it is written of him.”

–Mark 9:2-13

A Fabulous February Friday… what more can I say!

Dog walked and it is a beautiful morning in Inverness

Scottish Highlands 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿☀️😎#ThePhotoHour @WoodlandTrust 🐿️👣🐾 #LoveUkWeather@metoffice #Mindfulness pic.twitter.com/Heje6vn4NQ

— Cloudymamma (@cloudymamma) February 7, 2025