Aidan’s Ghost

Okay, that footnote alone just sold me.

I approve this redesignation. Before this is all over we’re going to realize how much the Citizens United, Shelby County, and Trump v United States cases alone have set us up for what’s happening now, all all were authored by Roberts.

YouTube video by The Prof G Pod – Scott Galloway Scott Galloway: Young people are pissed off

A question for my Episcopal peeps: The median age in TEC is 56. The most common age is 69. How does this insulate us from the realities that Galloway talks about and how does it skew our interests away from financial justice for younger people that we’re so desperate to attract?

A quote from Thomas Merton’s book Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander: “Governor Chandler of Kentucky, "Happy" Chandler: he came to the monastery with a party of friends and stood in the bright sun on the steps of the old guest house. He made a speech appropriate to the occasion, in which he mentioned "my young friend Thomas Merton," as if that were capable of getting him a vote-even mine. Poor syntax, in one of his statements, resulted in a curious paradox: "You monks," he said, "Know you cannot be happy because you have material possessions." I spoke of this later to the novices, pointing out the exact meaning of these words - that we were in despair because of our great possessions. One novice protested at once: "That was not what he meant." Naturally. What he meant was that we monks knew that poverty and not possessions would make men happy. How true it is that everyone instinctively pays attention not te what a politician actually says, but to what he seems to want to say.”

I posted this four months ago (I usually do every year or so), but given the shock — shock, I say! — that so many experiencing because Trump is doing exactly what he said he was going to do, I share again this bright bit of wisdom from Thomas Merton, ton reflect on how we so often deceive ourselves:

See where this goes?!? Where it’s at right now is already unacceptable. What else should we be waiting for? The sheer shamelessness of these grifters!

I can’t tell you the number of hours I spent going both north and south at the Peace Arch crossing between 1998 and 2008. This kind of drop in traffic is crazy.

Well, well, looks like that Lennon fellow was right: Instant karma really is gonna get you.

For whatever reason the spirits of satellite radio have been throwing a lot of Styx at me lately and I am not angry about this.

If you write the word “Imagine” during a Facebook messenger chat it displays a pop-up asking if you’d like Meta AI to imagine something for you. That feels like a particularly dystopian UI choice.

His lack of self-awareness, if it's real, is truly stunning.

Thought it was a photo of a young Thomas Aquinas

Pity is simultaneously the kindest and the cruelest emotion.

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary...

Fully 52% of births in Oklahoma last year were to women on Medicaid. I want to ask every member of the Oklahoma Congressional delegation (all of whom are explicitly pro-life) who just committed us to making catastrophic cuts to Medicaid, what they think will happen when that assistance is gone?

Are we entirely sure that Doge isn’t just a parody of a government operation at this point? Because it’s really beginning to feel like some misbegotten form of performance art.

Good on ya, mate. Life is about managing expectations.

My God, they really are in love with the guy, aren’t they? I thought it was just a summer thing.

Well, I mean, there’s Obama. And Clinton. And Shrub. But maybe we’re just out of the habit now.

An image with a Turkish proverb: “When a clown moves into a palace, he doesn’t become a king. The palace instead becomes a circus.”

Also, worth pointing out that, while not necessarily rare, folks like Hart are to a certain extent outliers. Expository preaching isn’t exactly a losing bet if audience share is any indicator. Its effectiveness as a discipleship tool is, of course, a different conversation.

‘Guess integrity is lost when the metaphors doesn’t reach you’

Strange to think there was a time that I respected Rusty as an honest thinker. Sadly that ship sailed long, long ago.

“The wall on which the prophets wrote
Is cracking at the seams…”

It is in their liturgical use that the Scriptures come to life.” A.M. Allchin, The World is a Wedding

“To hear the scriptures read in a community of prayer and praise is to receive another and no less valid impression of their meaning than that which we receive through their academic study. It is to learn to hear the words with our bodies as well as our minds…

For all that the MAGA types howl about Communist China their political tactics sure have been remarkably Maoist.

I’m not trying to downplay any of the events of this week, but it’s pretty wild to me that amidst this new era of whatever we’re in, Christians continue to be called to do the same things we’ve been called to do all along.

That would be a big red flag, yeah.