Sunday Musings: Advent 2 Time in the wilderness

God-with-us.

That means God everywhere, at all times, in every place. In our bodies and every body. In all our barrenness, fearsome deserts, and waste-howling wildernesses. Real ones. The ones we create.

The Kingdom is coming.

Sunday Musings: Advent 2
open.substack.com/pub/dianabut...

Episode 4211 features Dr. Diana Butler Bass, award-winning author, speaker, and independent scholar. Her sermon, "The Fullness of Time," draws from Isaiah 11... The Fullness of Time - Episode 4211 | Dr. Diana Butler Bass | Isaiah 11 v1-10, Matthew 3 v1-4

The Day1 Radio Show airs today as Dr. Diana Butler Bass (@dianabutlerbass.bsky.social) reflects on Advent and the fullness of time.

Stream the episode or hear more on the Day1 Weekly Podcast: https://youtu.be/5WanxZWuQ4Y

#FaithJourney #SundaySermon #ChristianCommunity #FullnessOfTime #SacredTime

In the woods 🌳🍂 #trees #woodland #treeclub

Looking up #trees #woodland #treeclub

Only if we understand, can we care.
Only if we care, can we help.
Only if we help, shall all be saved.
~ Dr. Jane Goodall

💚🌳 #thicktrunktuesday 🌲🍀
🌞 #JoyTrain 🌝 #biodiversity 🌛
#ThinkBIGSundayWithMarsha
🌳 #TreeClub 💚 #ConsciousPlanet 🌏
#Gratitude #TreeFriends 🌳

SCOTUS's GOP justices are about to hand Trump way more power The court's right-wing bloc sounds ready to axe independent federal agencies—and the precedents that guard them.

The six Republican appointees appear ready to race headlong into a Trumpian future in which no agency or decision is beyond the reach of the president’s political cronies.

This Is What It Looks Like When RFK Jr. Wins His handpicked ‘experts’ just voted to roll back hepatitis B vaccine guidelines—and reverse a historic public health victory.

Kennedy has gone well beyond recruiting some contrarians with novel perspectives. He has populated the advisory committee almost exclusively with people with records of attacking vaccines. And this is what that gets you: lnk.thebulwark.com/4iMMsF6

The rise of singlehood is reshaping the world In good ways and bad

It is possible that the relationship recession will not correct itself. A striking 7% of singletons say they would consider a robo-romance with an AI companion.

AI is patient, AI is kind and it won’t ask you to clean the bathroom or get a better job

Why not just safer airports and airplanes?

I don't think I'll have a pint of what he just had.

Trump’s Own Mortgages Match His Description of Mortgage Fraud, Records Reveal The Trump administration has argued that Fed board member Lisa Cook may have committed mortgage fraud by declaring more than one primary residence on her loans. We found Trump once did the very thing ...

"Trump hung up on a ProPublica reporter after being asked whether his Florida mortgages were similar to those of others he had accused of fraud." 👀

www.propublica.org/article/trum...

College campuses are at the fore of America’s sports-betting boom The fun is undeniable but so is the toll it is taking on young men

The fun is undeniable but so is the toll it is taking on young men

📌I once literally wrote the book on great grandpa's unhinged letters.
His offering this morning outdid every chapter I wrote in that book. Can you imagine if an unhinged nut like this ever became President of the United States?

Never mind ...

OMG

Cities and states are choosing to tolerate masked, barely-literate bandits terrorizing their communities. They don't have to.

Exclusive: Kazakhstan to supply some Kashagan oil to China directly due to CPC damage, sources say Kazakhstan plans to supply 50,000 metric tons of crude to China directly from the vast Kashagan field in December for the first time after a Ukrainian drone damaged the Black Sea terminal of the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC), two sources told Reuters.

Exclusive: Kazakhstan to supply some Kashagan oil to China directly due to CPC damage, sources say reut.rs/4pvFIxW

China knows how to punish countries that offend it It is skilful in the dark arts of economic leverage

It is skilful in the dark arts of economic leverage

STATEMENT FROM ALINA HABBA, ACTING U.S. ATTORNEY AND SPECIAL ATTORNEY TO THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY GENERAL For the past five years, I've fought for justice on behalf of the American people, and in my tenure under our great Attorney General Pam Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, we made New Jersey safer. Camden had its first murder-free summer in 50 years. We drove down crime, took violent offenders off the streets, caught terrorists, and put away child predators. While I was focused on delivering real results, judges in my state took advantage of a flawed blue slip tradition and became weapons for the politicized left. For months, these judges stopped conducting trials and entering sentences, leaving violent criminals on the streets. They joined New Jersey senators, who care more about fighting President Trump than the well being of residents which they serve. For four years, I fought against lawfare aimed at President Trump and against politics infecting our justice system. What these obstructionists misunderstood is that my loyalty is not to politics, a title, or a ZIP code. It is to this great country. As a result of the Third Circuit's ruling, and to protect the stability and integrity of the office which I love, I have decided to step down in my role as the U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey. But do not mistake compliance for surrender. This decision will not weaken the Justice Department and it will not weaken me. My fight will now stretch across the country. As we wait for further review of the courts ruling, I will continue to serve the Department of Justice as the Senior Advisor to the Attorney General for U.S. Attorneys. Make no mistake, you can take the girl out of New Jersey, but you cannot take New Jersey out of the girl. -DECEMBER 8, 2025-

Habba out

‘Sort of blackmail’: Billions in rural health funding hinge on states passing Trump-backed policies Democrats and health advocates described the strategy as highly unusual, and some fear it could be wielded to favor political allies.

The Trump admin offered states a deal: Want more $ for rural health care? Pass pro-MAHA laws.

“They’re holding our rural health as a hostage, essentially, for these broader policy goals," one Arizona lawmaker told me.

www.politico.com/news/2025/12... with the great @ruthreader.bsky.social

Chernobyl radiation shield has stopped working after Russian drone strikes, UN warns The confinement facility “lost its primary safety functions” after a Russian drone strike in February, nuclear watchdog says.

🚨☢️ "A structure designed to prevent radioactive leakage at the defunct Chernobyl nuclear plant in Ukraine is no longer operational after Russian drones targeted it earlier this year, the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog has found." www.politico.eu/article/cher...

And they will be promptly shot down upon entering U.S. airspace

Episode Seven: Dirty Information Years before the police killing of Breonna Taylor brought “no-knock” raids into the national spotlight, the NYPD mistakenly raided Alberta Spruill’s home — and literally scared her to death.

New York narcotics officers raided Alberta Spruill’s home, shattering her door and detonating a flash grenade. Spruill, a 57-year-old city worker, went into cardiac arrest and died two hours later.

Male Arizona Woodpecker on Mt. Lemmon

Day 7 of #ArtAdventCalendar features a handsome Arizona Woodpecker 🪶

California officials warn against foraging wild mushrooms after deadly poisoning outbreak California officials are warning foragers about a deadly outbreak linked to wild mushrooms. The state poison control system has identified 21 cases of amatoxin poisoning, likely from death cap mushroo...

Do not pick the mushrooms.

They are not a gift of the Atmospheric River.
They are not friendly.
They will melt your liver.

(That is not a metaphor.)

apnews.com/article/pois...

Snowflakes cling to the small, bright red fruit on a Japanese barberry bush. The branches have tiny spikes, one sticking straight up.

Another snowy cluster of barberries with the blurry city street behind them.

Snow on a picnic bench, with the gaps between wood dark against the snowy top.

Snow on the street, sidewalk and yarn-wrapped bike post. Red dogwood in the planters show where the bike lane is set apart from the road.

Snowy city morning.

American Freakshow: Our Reality TV-Driven Media Is Killing Our Democracy The lurid details of Olivia Nuzzi's transgressions and the popularity of The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives derive from the same culture of voyeurism.

I wrote about the Olivia Nuzzi saga and how it reflects the voyeurism and indignity that drives so much of our media—social and otherwise.

This is an essay about elite excess, The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, and the crisis of our democracy.

www.liberalcurrents.com/american-fre...

Trump’s Security Doctrine Leaves Europe at a Strategic Crossroads A new White House policy document formalizes President Trump’s long-held contempt for Europe’s leaders. It made clear that the continent now stands at a strategic crossroads.

News Analysis: President Trump has long portrayed European allies as freeloaders that fail to pay enough for their own security. That contempt is now official White House policy.

The problem with questioning birthright citizenship in the US context should not be looked at with its economic peers, but its geographic. There’s a historical reason it exists and it underpins the entire state organization in the Western Hemisphere. There exceptions in the WH also tie into that:

Charges in the RNC/DNC Bomb Planting Case Can we trust the FBI and this Justice Department after years of watching Donald Trump denigrate and politicize those previously independent agencies?

Charges in the RNC/DNC Bomb Planting Case
open.substack.com/pub/joycevan...