"Well well well...if it isn't the consequences of my own actions..."

A pithy saying came to mind this AM but I need (F)riends to weigh in: For evangelical/Christocentric Quakers, "the Light" is another name for Jesus Christ. For liberal/universalist Quakers, "Jesus Christ" is another name for the Light. Thoughts? @barbarabirch.bsky.social @cosmichope.bsky.social

It's routine news when the secretary of state lies that "the war is over now" when it's definitely not over. Republicans want us to accept blatant dishonesty as a normal thing in politics. They're trying to murder the truth.

"...Guite sees trees and other natural things not as objects to be exploited but as persons possessing a kind of interiority. Near the end of the book he warns, in a prophetic register, of the folly of forgetting that woods and streams are friends to humankind...."

The death toll from Russia’s strike on Dnipro rose to 11 after rescuers pulled the bodies of a woman and an 8-year-old boy from the rubble of a four-story building, regional chief Hanzha said. Thirty-seven people were injured. #Ukraine

“If the person is a U.S. citizen or otherwise lawfully in the United States, that individual will be free to go after the brief encounter.” Justice Brett Kavanaugh www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24p...

Just call on Hormuz Jeff - he doesn't care if he dies!

The Catholic Catechism and the Baptist Confession of Faith state explicitly that God is neither male nor female, has no body or physical form. To think of God as biologically male diminishes the very nature of God. Everyone from Billy Graham to the Pope to the Anglican Church agrees on this.

One person on this podcast said the left tells men their problems aren't real. I'd like to categorically state that men's problems are real; they are just self-inflicted. To solve them, just stop trying to be an "alpha," learn from others (women!), be decent, be excited about things, enjoy stuff.

"How monotonously alike all the great tyrants and conquerors have been; how gloriously different are the saints." C.S. Lewis

It’s truly astonishing to see how comprehensively the US government is tearing down every part of the system that has made it up until now a world-leading power in science, research, and technological development. The entire world will suffer from this wanton destruction.

Which of the three men on the screen would you let babysit your kid?

*whispers* The idea that God is GENDERED is actually the really creepy position to take.

This photo of Andy Kim in the moments before ICE gassed everyone at Delaney Hall is going into the history books. We need more of this from our electeds.

🤘

Pope Leo XIV: "GET IN LOSERS, WE'RE CRUSHING THE POWERFUL UNDERFOOT" www.vatican.va/content/leo-...

So tell this tale all down the years, and let your children learn that woods and streams and earth and air are kin and friends and fellow heirs, not slaves or tools, and let them share God's bounty and be theankful there for Oak and Ash and Thorn. Malcolm Guite, *Galahad and the Grail*

Samson and Delilah, by Lucas Cranach the Elder, 1528–30 (flipped), 📸 by Jason Miller

This is great. Kind of an insane thing to do one day after his huge finale show, and very funny. Plus ratings already beat Whiskey Friday wth Tony Dokoupil.

Cartoon

We have to smash the suffocating instinct to pretend that this is all normal. Nothing here is normal. You are living through the most open, shameless corruption of government in American history.

The Book of Genesis written in the language of the Kachin people, Burma. At the American Baptist Historical Society in Atlanta.

Too be clear, the empirical definition of Christian nationalism is not “loving Jesus and being patriotic.” CN is a desire to fuse a particular expression of Christianity with American civic life, with the gov’t at all levels preserving and enforcing that fusion.

In conversation with other parents on a Scouting hike yesterday, I would share that I had graduated from and also work at a seminary. In both cases, the other person (assumedly irreligious) felt the need to detail their relatives' Catholic ordinations.

The Religious Right is desperate these days to pretend that "Christian Nationalism" is (1) a recently-invented term and (2) a pejorative invented by their enemies, but neither of those claims is remotely true. Here's a short thread, but I'm sure other historians will have examples too.

BREAKING: John Travolta has deposed Serdar Berdimuhamedow in a bloodless coup and appointed himself president of Turkmenistan.

This is so good.

"We have borrowed the most individually appealing parts of religious practice — the meditation, the ritual, the transcendence — and left behind everything that felt like a duty. Or commitment. Or accountability. Or even community that makes demands on you."

One of the VERY FIRST things done after the Constitutional Convention in 1787 was to have the text of the new Constitution translated into Dutch and German, which were at the time the two largest non-English language spoken in the United States. Here's the National Archives making this point:

Slightly increase a band. Kings of Castile and Leon

Forecast is for end-July hot on Sunday in D.C.. Seems God has prepared his reply.

One side is like “can we disenfranchise all the Black voters by this weekend” and the other is like gotta follow the rules that govern the rules that control the rulebook

"Our goal is to get Christians to take prayer seriously...For whatever good you might believe a presidential proclamation about prayer serves, it simply is not - and cannot be - the type of rich prayer experience that Christ demands from his followers."

This is pretty much the way US friends and allies view the Rubio announcement, but none of them are "shocked," because this is exactly what they have come to expect from Team Trump. They also won't be shocked when he appoints a horse to the Senate...

MAGA is a pro death movement. www.nytimes.com/2026/05/05/u...

Speaking of "merit," time for a pop quiz! Who had the most experience arguing federal court appeals before becoming a federal appellate judge: Jackson, Kavanaugh, or Barrett? (Answers: Jackson 12, Kavanaugh 4, Barrett 0.)

WTF, NYer. "If we agree that college primarily serves a credentialling process that stamps select young people as worthy of work..." We do not. So much for the bastion of erudite journalism. This is sensationalism, damaging our most vital institution: education. www.newyorker.com/news/fault-l...

This is similar to historic Baptist descriptions of congregationalist polity as a uniting of monarchy (the rule of Christ) and democracy (said rule discerned collectively by the gathered community). Of course, I think Baptists and Quakers are kissing cousins, anyways...

New footage of Project Freedom in the Strait of Hormuz

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth: "We control the Strait." Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent: "We have absolute control of the Strait." Trump: “We have complete control.” News flash: South Korean cargo ship ablaze after explosion in Strait of Hormuz.

I know the comparisons are exhausted, but come on: Just imagine the months of Fox News outrage and GOP congressional subpoenas and hearings if Biden, Obama, or Hillary had posted an 11-strip US flag on the official White House social media accounts….

I'm just glad the Constitution isn't alive to see this

"Draw up from deep within yourself the hidden flow and force - the wellspring of your inner life, the Source behind the source! Malcolm Guite, *Galahad and the Grail*

How is this being treated as normal? A Republican governor is declaring a state of emergency to cancel n ongoing election for Congress. If you think this is ends with redistricting, you are not paying attention.