Ms [Lyndall] Bywater encourages clergy to engage regularly in different types of prayer rather than “making prayer in our own image”, she says.

“Church leaders will also often have people coming to them who are struggling with prayer, and it is important to be able to help them understand how their personality interfaces with their spirituality.

“Are they essentially cataphatic: preferring knowledge and understanding? Or are they apophatic: preferring mystery and deep questioning? Do they love the task of prayer most, or the relationship of prayer? Where and how have they previously connected with God in helpful ways?

“If leaders can ask these questions and understand how to help people based on the answers, then many more people would develop a deep love for prayer.”

MOST people feel guilty about prayer, believing that they are bad at it, Ms Bywater says. Part of that comes from a “work hard, be passionate” personality, and part from comparing themselves with others, she says.

While recognising that prayer is a discipline and involves choices about making space in our lives to pray, Ms Bywater says: “What prayer is — the conversation with God — I refuse to believe it’s possible to be bad at that.

Read it all.

"One difficulty that faces ordinands as they leave the formation of their training institutions, is teaching prayer to an unchurched generation." Loved this piece. https://t.co/RfaRNaP3gB

— Madeleine Davies (@MadsDavies) July 17, 2026

The much-discussed disappearance of book readers is a clear symptom of the nation’s attention crisis: Long-form reading, once an ordinary feature of educated life, is increasingly becoming a luxury. But even the shorter forms of writing are losing their audience, with newspapers and magazines struggling to hold readers. It’s a wonder anyone still has the patience for sustained argument.

The older way of consuming media can still be found on the Friday evenings when millions of Orthodox Jews enter a world where printed pages still matter. Stacks of books, tables littered with essays and commentaries, piles of Jewish magazines—these Orthodox homes form one of the few demographics where the printed word still thrives. Parents read and children grow up watching them do so. Conversations stretch for hours without the interruption of a vibrating phone. It is one of the last large communities in America where sustained attention isn’t an aspiration but a habit, born of the prohibition of mechanical and electric technology on the Sabbath, which runs from Friday evening to Saturday night.

Over the past year, with increased urgency from the rise of artificial-intelligence chatbots, voices from well beyond the Orthodox Jewish world have begun calling for some version of a weekly Sabbath. Jonathan Haidt has become a leading advocate for a regular digital detox. Charlie Kirk argued for something similar in his book “Stop in the Name of God.” Earlier this year, President Trump encouraged Americans to embrace a “national Sabbath” and invite “friends, families, and communities of all backgrounds” to step back from their devices for a day of gratitude and rest.

Their instinct is correct. The modern world desperately needs a weekly rhythm of rest. But if unplugging promises greater focus, stronger families and richer communities, why has it proved so difficult? The answer isn’t simply that we’re addicted to our phones. It’s that unplugging isn’t enough. A Sabbath isn’t merely the absence of technology. It is the presence of something richer.

Read it all.

We're loving this thoughtful Wall Street Journal op-ed from @DBashIdeas about one of Shabbat's greatest gifts: the chance to unplug, slow down and rediscover the joy of reading a great book. Sometimes the greatest luxury is simply having time.https://t.co/UqFjZEUmVG

— Jewish Treats (@JewishTweets) July 17, 2026

As many are aware, the Final Order from the trial of Bp. Ruch in 2025 (the 71-page document, not the decision itself) left many concerns about how the trial was conducted. After consulting with the Provincial Executive Committee, our Diocese proposed two resolutions to be considered at Provincial Council. One called for the public release of the full trial transcript. The other called for the public release of the final investigation report already commissioned by the Province. 

The two resolutions to the Council, that were the result of the work of our Bishop and Standing Committee with the Executive Committee of the ACNA, were consequently withdrawn without prejudice on the day they were to be debated and voted upon. This withdrawal was not the result of any attempt to thwart the purpose of these resolutions, nor did it represent a lack of resolve on our part. Rather, God opened a door for us to gain fuller access to the proceedings of the Ruch trial through the above-mentioned agreement with the Court for the Trial of a Bishop. We are now in a very favorable position with our chancellor Ben Hagood taking the lead in the inquiry.

Because all of this happened on the ground in Tulsa and Bishop Edgar was the only one of us present, he took the lead in the negotiations. The Standing Comittee President was informed of the opportunity on Wednesday night and was an early part of the decision to withdraw the resolutions. The Standing Committee and Bishop regret the lack of process these deadlines prevented as well as the void of information that existed in the aftermath. We wholeheartedly believe that the work of this inquiry and its release to the Standing Committees of the Province represents a large step forward in our quest for transparency.

With the trial of the Archbishop currently set to begin on September 7, we will again redouble our prayers for the health and welfare of the Anglican Church in North America and our Diocese. 

Read it all.

The ACNA has posted a "Potential Timeline" for what may happen procedurally after the trial of Abp Wood, assuming it goes ahead with its currently scheduled starting date of September 7. pic.twitter.com/tJraKclI2i

— Arlie Coles (@ArlieColes) July 15, 2026

Gordon S. Wood, the great historian of the American founding, died at ninety-two on June 7, just weeks shy of the 250th anniversary of American independence. This coincidence does not quite possess the providential aura of Thomas Jefferson’s and John Adams’s deaths on July 4, 1826, the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration. But Wood’s death offers an important opportunity to reflect on his brilliant contributions to American history, and to lament the passing of a great generation of historians, including Wood, who came of age during and after World War II. We’re not likely to see a generation of scholars like Wood’s again, nor would the elite academy welcome them if we did. 

In the mid-1990s, I was admitted to Brown University to work with Wood for a Ph.D. Alas, Brown had no stipend for an iffy candidate from a southern public school, so I went elsewhere. But Wood’s works, especially The Creation of the American Republic (1969) and The Radicalism of the American Revolution (1992), seeped into my bones anyway. As I have returned to my yellowed copies of his books in the days since his passing, I find myself regularly reminded of ideas about the Revolution and the Founders that I first learned from him. Now I just teach them as historical givens. 

Wood’s professional genealogy helps explain his trajectory as a scholar. His career was connected to three other major figures of American historical scholarship. The first was Bernard Bailyn, Wood’s doctoral adviser and longtime Harvard historian who died in 2020 at age ninety-seven. Then there was Edmund Morgan, Bailyn’s contemporary who taught at Brown for a decade before moving to Yale in the mid-1950s. Bailyn and Morgan both studied at Harvard with the legendary Perry Miller, one of the most influential American historians of the twentieth century. 

In this essay there’s no space to summarize the works of these four titans. But if you pick up a book by any of them, you’ll be treated to an intellectual feast. And Gordon Wood was part of a historiographical tradition that began with Miller.  

Read it all.

"Though America’s ideals were riddled with ironies and inconsistencies, the nation still emerged as a global beacon of ordered liberty. No one better explained the history and significance of that American nation than Gordon Wood." My essay at @PublicDiscourse…

— Thomas S. Kidd (@ThomasSKidd) July 17, 2026

O Lord, who in a time of turmoil and confusion didst raise up thy servant William White, and didst endow him with wisdom, patience, and a reconciling temper, that he might lead thy Church into ways of stability and peace: Hear our prayer, we beseech thee, and give us wise and faithful leaders, that through their ministry thy people may be blessed and thy will be done; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Today the Episcopal Church commemorates William White, Bishop, 1836

Philadelphia-born and 1st Bishop of Philadelphia (consecrated at Lambeth Palace in 1787), White was a key architect of the Episcopal Church and its system of government, serving as its 1st & 4th Presiding Bishop pic.twitter.com/knxMwQrBx8

— The Anglican Church in St Petersburg (@anglicanspb) July 17, 2024

Direct us, O Lord, in all our doings, with thy most gracious favour, and further us with thy continual help; that in all our works begun, continued, and ended in thee, we may glorify thy holy Name, and finally, by thy mercy, obtain everlasting life; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

–Robert W. Rodenmayer, ed., The Pastor’s Prayerbook: Selected and arranged for various occasions (New York: Oxford University Press, 1960)

It’s a warm sunrise this morning and another beautiful glow across the land. #Shropshire pic.twitter.com/OzAk3hGc0S

— Steven Keating (@Aneedtopaint) July 17, 2026

While the people of Israel were encamped in Gilgal they kept the passover on the fourteenth day of the month at evening in the plains of Jericho. And on the morrow after the passover, on that very day, they ate of the produce of the land, unleavened cakes and parched grain. And the manna ceased on the morrow, when they ate of the produce of the land; and the people of Israel had manna no more, but ate of the fruit of the land of Canaan that year.

When Joshua was by Jericho, he lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, a man stood before him with his drawn sword in his hand; and Joshua went to him and said to him, “Are you for us, or for our adversaries?” And he said, “No; but as commander of the army of the Lord I have now come.” And Joshua fell on his face to the earth, and worshiped, and said to him, “What does my lord bid his servant?” And the commander of the Lord’s army said to Joshua, “Put off your shoes from your feet; for the place where you stand is holy.” And Joshua did so.

–Joshua 5:10-15

A hazy Peak District sunset – the low sun lighting the swaying grasses, the barn full of gathered hay and swooping swallows, and the quiet country lane stretching away into the still-warm fields. These are my memories of summer as a child and I love that they're still my present… pic.twitter.com/K2mSWv8gd8

— peaklass (@peaklass1) July 17, 2026