Mr. Kind is not the first Jewish pope, Dr. Palmer said. There have also been two Muslim popes and a transgender pope. “We haven’t yet had a Catholic pope,” she said.
‘The Only Person in the World Claiming to Be the Pope Right Now’
H/T @ayjay
Dana’O Driscoll once again has a bleak account of ecological and economic collapse.
This is no longer fixable, but does drive us to build community and local resilience.
All of this has made me consider my relationships to everything… My relationship to the garden, to the land, to the homestead. My relationship to myself. My relationship to the rain, light, wind, and soil. My relationship to the communities to which I belong. And building those relationships are meaningful and that will root and sustain me through this chaos. I take a breath and be grateful to be alive. And just maybe, I put in a larger patch of potatoes.
You have permission to be ordinary. To live a quiet life. To go for a walk without turning it into content. To do good work without chasing viral. To be present with your people instead of always ‘building something.’ Your life doesn’t have to be optimised to be meaningful. The Ordinary creates space for what truly matters.
David Keeler via @ReaderJohn
Pennhill from Leyburn Shawl
St. Margaret’s Church Preston under Scar.
A lovely account of the meaning kitchen objects can play in our lives.
Death, divorce and the magic of kitchen objects: how to find hope in loss
A five minute break in the work day to see the sea in Marske.
Alex Evans' views on international development find an unusual expression:
My computer had gone on the fritz during a password update, and in order to resolve it I’d had to tell the tech support guys my old password over the phone – while a senior official was in the room. Imagine my joy as I had to spell out “f-u-c-k-i-n-c-r-e-m-e-n-t-a-l-i-s-m” while my visitor attempted and failed to stifle their mirth.
The whole piece is a wonderful description of grass roots development.
Ali Cobby Eckermann:
Sit down sorry camp
Might be one week
Might be long long time
Tell every little story
When the people was alive
Tell every little story more
Pádraig Ó Tuama: The poem has an intelligence about lament too. And that leads me to my question: What’s a sorrow that’s been a teacher to you in your life?
For Francis, Jesus Christ was not mere abstraction, but a man of flesh: “that flesh made of passions, emotions and feelings, words that challenge and console, hands that touch and heal, looks that liberate and encourage, flesh made of hospitality, forgiveness, indignation, courage, fearlessness; in a word, love.” He ended his letter with the words of Paul Celan: “Those who truly learn to see, draw close to what is unseen.”
Borges imagines Cain and Abel eating by a fire:
When the flame illuminates Abel’s forehead, Cain sees “the mark of the stone.” He drops his bread, and asks for his brother’s forgiveness—but adds a question: “Was it you that killed me, or did I kill you?”
Abel says that he could not remember, but “here we are, together, like before.” And Cain responds: “Now I know that you have truly forgiven me, because forgetting is forgiving. I, too, will try to forget.”
My own deconstruction hasn’t been as radical as Annie’s, but this still spoke to me:
Now I don’t know anything! But I also don’t feel obligated to hate people. So that’s a good trade-off.
After a busy week and weekend at work, a welcome long hike.
Cuckoo calling by the River Rye this morning.
The corollary: if we change the policy environment, we can make these careless people – and their successors, who run other businesses we rely upon – care. They may never care about us, but we can make them care about what we might do to them if they give in to their carelessness.
It’s about tech but it applies in so many areas of public life. We can’t assume people will do the right thing, especially with vast sums of money on the table. We need publicly agreed values to be enforced.
I am grateful for the Iona Community‘s “fierce solidarity” with the trans community.
In a world of ecclesiastical fence sitting, the clarity of this statement is a balm to my soul.
Take a deep breath, and say out loud: I am not a machine, I am not meant to scale. You have a finite amount of energy, and a community of people around you who can use that energy. You can use that energy, to make it through the day, which is the most important thing. Waking up tomorrow is the name of the game.
Roseberry Topping from the Wainstones
God is not only a fact of religion: He is a fact.
Frank Sheed (via @eastbrad): God is not only a fact of religion: He is a fact. Not to see Him is to be wrong about everything, which includes being wrong about one’s self… Richard Beck: Get this first and most fundamental question wrong and everything downstream will go off track. Your life will never quite “fit” or “attune” with the cosmos. The melody of your existence will be discordant and off-pitch.
Martin Scott is helpfully provocative on the language of kingdom:
The time has come to bring an end to kingdom language. The time has come to listen carefully to the Gospel story, especially as John tells it (Jn 15:12-17), to find a real radical heart which places shared community rather than individual values at the centre.
What we need today is both an expression of Christian faith and a world order based on friends being in relationship (Jn 15:15) rather than servants of a glorious king; on community rather than kingdom; on justice, love and peace rather than kingdom, power and glory.
However, the first step is talking about this at all. A Christianity of individual salvation alone would not be recognised by its founder.