A must read for anyone concerned about #immigration and #migrants. Serve the poor and the stranger, even when it means persecution.

@stephsaldana.bsky.social thanks for posting about your book recently. I just received my copy of 'What We Remember Will Be Saved' yesterday. What a wonderful book! www.goodreads.com/book/show/71...

During the reign of the ancient Assyrian king Ashurbanipal, captives from fallen cities were often resettled. This relief has always moved me in particular because of the youngest deportees. In the top register, women walk while breastfeeding babies, and a toddler sits on someone’s shoulders.

With a flurry of executive orders signed by President Trump, regular migration pathways in the US have effectively been closed. "If these orders stand, the world will certainly become a more dangerous, less humane place for everybody," writes @billfrelick.bsky.social.

President Trump has suspended the US Refugee Resettlement Program. Please read the stories in this book, teach them in your schools and share them in your communities of faith and friendship. The measure of how we treat those in need is a measure of our ability to hold on to our humanity.

It is entirely within our power to make 2025 a year where not one single person drowns attempting to cross the channel. It is up to us to demand it, in these people’s names.

I wrote about how often we failed the Syrian people, and what we must confront if we hope to do better. www.americamagazine.org/faith/2024/1...

#Italy: Doctors Without Borders forced to end operation of #GeoBarents search & rescue ship due to Italian laws & policies. They made it impossible to continue with the current operational model, they disregard the lives of people crossing the #Mediterranean. Our ship saved over 12,600 lives.

More of beautiful Damascus.

"Now there is no more forever."

I assume lots of reporters will be in Syria soon. There will be lots of interest in stories about people released from Assad's torture houses. Hacks: Please consider the extreme trauma such people have gone through. Talk to trauma specialists before you go. Don't add to trauma to fill your quota.

That light. Nowhere else in the world has that light.

So many memories flooding back. Deir Mar Musa, near Nebek, Syria.

A photo I posted of graffiti in Syria in 2014. "One day the war will be over and I will return to my poem" I hope they will return to their poem

Beautiful Damascus, 2004.

Syria. The Country where I learned Arabic. Fell in love. Made some of my closest friends. So many lives lost- to war, to the sea, to prison. And now, a fragile hope... Here's a photo from the desert in Deir Mar Musa, near Nebek.

For #FrescoFriday a saint from the chapel at the monastery of Deir Mar Musa, Syria. Here the underlying painting from the first phase of the frescoes, dated to after 1058 and before 1088, with fragments of the more colourful later phase over it. #Syria #SyriaSky #MedievalSky

45 people, including unaccompanied children, were rescued last night by @msfsea.bsky.social team from an overcrowded boat in distress in international waters. The boat was taking on significant amounts of water due to bad weather conditions, making it unstable and at high risk of capsizing.

In case any of my fellow creatives also needed this reminder:

Australia passes harsh new anti-migration laws. Rather than reinforcing a system that criminalizes & punishes refugees & asylum seekers, Australia should take a rights-respecting approach, end offshore detention & invest in detention alternatives. @hrw @AnnabelHennessy www.hrw.org/news/2024/11...

‼️MSF team witnessed another tragedy this morning while arriving to rescue people in distress on a deflating rubber boat, with armed men on a fast boat in their close vicinity. Survivors reported that 29 women and children had been intercepted at gunpoint before our arrival.

Have you taken a great workshop/course on research skills for nonfiction writers? (Esp for book-length projects.) If so, I'd love to hear about it.

Whenever I feel down, I find it helpful to look at Rudolf and Leopold Blaschka's glass flowers, now located at the Harvard Natural History Museum. "Beauty will save the world," and all of that-- they never disappoint.

Intrigued by the People’s Bookshelf at the National Library of Latvia. Each book in the collection has been donated by a member of the public and is inscribed by its former owner, telling a personal story relating to the book.

This past year, I decided to cheer myself up by applying for one of my dreams: to spend time reading, writing, and sleeping in a library. Thrilled to received the Father John Thorold Scholarship to spend a week at Gladstone's @gladlib.bsky.social next year. Check their website to apply!

I think this could heal the partisan divide

I’ve mentioned this before, but if you’re short on cash but have an urge to shop, go to your library digital apps and browse the books, audiobooks, movies, shoes, magazines. It works really well to give you the same feeling without spending the cash. (Plus you’re supporting public libraries.) 💙📚

The Patriarchs and Heads of Churches in Jerusalem have issued a statement encouraging Christians in the Holy Land this year to "fully commemorate the approach and arrival of Christ's birth by giving public signs of Christmas hope."

Is there a starter kit for people who get really excited about beautiful bars of soap? Asking for a friend...

Spent the afternoon at the al-Badawi tree near Bethlehem, which is believed to be among the oldest olive trees in the world. Still, it gives new fruit every year. A truly blessed, hopeful tree during difficult times. I've learned so much from being in its shade.

Churches/other houses of worship who participate in the New Sanctuary Movement allow undocumented immigrants at risk of deportation to take up residence in their spaces, defying ICE. Historically, ICE doesn’t raid churches, due to an internal memo discouraging it. Unclear if that holds under Trump.

The blessing of the oil at the Feast of St. George in Lod/Lydda on November 16.