For the Joy of the Journey

Energizer Bunny
GILBERT, Ariz. (AP) — As Forrest Gump in the Oscar-winning 1994 film of the same name, lead actor Tom Hanks abruptly trots to a halt after more than three years of nonstop running and tells his followers: “I’m pretty tired — I think I’ll go home now.”
Jacky Hunt-Broersma can relate. On Thursday, the amputee athlete achieved her goal of running 102 marathons in as many days, setting an unofficial women’s world record.
And she can’t stop/won’t stop, saying she’ll run two more for good measure and wrap up her challenge on Saturday with 104. “I might as well end April with a marathon,” she told The Associated Press.

postoperative cognitive dysfunction (POCD) –
cognitive problems associated with surgery that persist well after the effects of anaesthetics have worn off. “At the moment, estimates suggest that the overall incidence of POCD in older patients can be as high as 50-80% at discharge, 20-50% at six weeks and 10-30% at six months post-surgery. 

Bradford Pear competition
A stinky but handsome and widely popular landscape tree has become an aggressive invader.
Callery pear trees create dense thickets that overwhelm native plants and bear four-inch spikes that can flatten tractor tires. The stench wafting from their blossoms has been compared to rotting fish, chlorine or a cheese sandwich left in a car for a week.

White Huse Correspondents Dinner
President Biden
— “Look, I know this is a tough town. I came to office with an ambitious agenda and I expected it to face stiff opposition in the Senate. I just hoped it would be from Republicans.”
— “Republicans seem to support one fella: some guy named Brandon. He’s having a really good year.”

Thoughts about sin
The absence of sin isn’t the same thing as righteousness. Righteousness is a fullness and a presence. Sin itself is an emptiness and has the character of non-being. The spiritual life is fulfilled in righteousness – true rightness of being – living in the image of God.
Fr Stephen Freeman

The moral and ethical standards of the Early Church
…were not based upon a laundry list of the deficiencies of secular society, but on the example and teaching of Christ and how that was made real or incarnate in the life of the Church.  It was not a legislated morality.  It was a lived morality.  The measure was not an abstract view of society or the body politic of the empire.  The measure was the person of Christ.  For the Early Church the Christian cosmos was two-fold.  It extended far beyond the borders of empire to the furthest extent of creation, while at the same time the entirety of that Christian cosmos could be found in the smallest gathering of believers in the most insignificant village.  It was dependent not on power or influence.  It was dependent on presence… the presence of Christ.
Duane Arnold Phoenix Preacher

Self Aware
It’s in confronting the worst aspects of ourselves and being open about them that we find growth and help inspire growth in others.
Mark Manson

Spirituality
About 3 in 10 Americans claim no religious affiliation, according to data from the Pew Research Center, and a similar number say religion has little influence in their life. Only a third of Americans attend church regularly, according to Pew. But only 4% identify as atheists. And many unaffiliated Americans have spiritual beliefs, according to Pew, even if they eschew organized religion.

View from the Front Porch
Living on life support
Life support replaces or supports a failing bodily function. When patients have curable or treatable conditions, life support is used temporarily until the illness or disease can be stabilized and the body can resume normal functioning.

With the recent addition of a pacemaker, it occurred to me that I very much living on life support. At first that was a bit frightening. “He’s on life support.” is not something you want to hear. Probably not all that unusual for 80 but reality is there are probably a half-dozen meds, devices etc which removed would put my life in jeopardy.
I am finding it comforting to know I’m on life support.

STILL ON THE JOURNEY

Celebrity
No, I’m not a celebrity, but I do experience the temptation to think and act like one.
I see the dangers for others and myself. I know that success is a dangerous basis for self-esteem and a poor source for identity. It is unhealthy to think that productivity and ministry are the same thing. It is selfish to invest more time in your platforms rather than in the people who need you.
In my own head, I’m a celebrity, so how do I get outta here? How do I think and act like Christ’s servant and not like a guy who is destined to end up on Preachers in Sneakers?
Mike Bird

Partisanship
…if you think that most-partisan cohort is seething with anger because they suffer from painful oppression, think again. The data is clear. As the More in Common project notes, the most polarized Americans are disproportionately white and college-educated on the left and disproportionately white and retired on the right. 
The people disproportionately driving polarization in the United States are not oppressed minorities, but rather some of the most powerful, most privileged, wealthiest people who’ve ever lived. They enjoy more freedom and opportunity than virtually any prior generation of humans, all while living under the protective umbrella of the most powerful military in the history of the planet.
It’s simply an astonishing level of discontent in the midst of astonishing wealth and power.
David French

Death and Resurrection
I believe that Christians make a serious mistake when we begin to speak first about God rather than first about Christ and His death on the Cross and resurrection from the dead. It is a mistake because it presumes we know something about God that is somehow “prior” to those events. We do not, or, if we think we do, we are mistaken. The death and resurrection of Christ are the alpha and the omega of God’s self-revelation to the world. Nothing in all of creation is extraneous or irrelevant to those events.
This is to say that unbelief and faith are equally a part of the death and resurrection of Christ. The death and resurrection of Christ contain the utter and complete emptiness of hell, the threat of non-being and meaninglessness, the absurdity of suffering and of injured innocence. They also contain the fullness of paradise, the complete joy of existence and the ecstasy of transcendent love. Everything is there.
Fr Stephen Freeman

Price control
“…dollar prices are like the news. They tell you about something; they aren’t the thing itself. If we don’t like what we read in the news, changing the words on the page to say something better is just propaganda. And because falsified news, like a price control, isn’t truthful, it leads people to make bad decisions, damaging to them and to others. Ultimately, the only way to change news we don’t like is to get at what is causing the unpleasantness in the first place. In the case of runaway inflation, that cause is irresponsible management of the money supply.”
For Law & Liberty, Catherine Ruth Pakaluk

Gospel
The gospel is complete in and of itself. It is the perfect offering of the love of God for us. Though it is complete, it must be extended, and it must be extended with the same character with which it was first given. I am becoming more and more convinced that we can tell people about Jesus all day long and still not extend the gospel. Why? Because the gospel is more than simply telling people about Jesus. The gospel is more than an explanation about Jesus. It is a demonstration of Jesus. In fact, if you have to make a choice between telling someone about Jesus and showing them Jesus, you should probably do the latter. Why? Because someone may not remember what you said, but he or she will never forget what you did.
We’ve all heard the apocryphal quote oft attributed to St. Francis of Assisi, “Preach the gospel everywhere. If necessary use words.” Can we be honest? People tend to like this because they would rather avoid the awkwardness of talking about Jesus. Permit me a moment of unvarnished keeping-it-real truth-telling. The nature and character of the gospel do not tend to come through the deeds of a person who does not want to talk about Jesus. (And because I know I will be hearing from my dad about my use of the term “apocryphal,” I’ll get out in front of that by saying apocryphal means Saint Francis didn’t say it. For crying out loud, Saint Francis preached the Gospel to animals—with words!)

In summary, to share the gospel is a fully embodied act of ordinary yet supernatural love for other people. It involves our words, our deeds, our dispositions, and our overall posture and bearing toward other people. It means “I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ’s afflictions, for the sake of his body, which is the church” (Col. 1:24b NRSV).
When we truly share the gospel, it always comes at a cost to ourselves, and yet it always makes us more than we were before. This is the why the power of the gospel is found only in the way of the cross.
J D Walt

The Problem with Faith
Elie Wiesel once said, “If I had not had faith, my life would have been much easier.” Faith in God, “faith in a faith” as it were, complicates evil because it begs for explanation in a world created, sustained, and overseen by a God who is good.
“Perhaps you are not looking for answers. You are looking for responses to your questions, to your life, for ways to live rather than ideas to espouse. Answers close things down; responses do not.”  Witness: Lessons from Elie Wiesel’s Classroom.

College admission essays
 It’s not fair for us to ask teenagers to describe their personalities. Teenagers are endearing but ridiculous people who can barely heat up a cup of ramen noodles and whose brains won’t be fully formed for two more presidential terms. Any teenager who is asked to describe themselves and doesn’t say, “I am scared and confused and my hormones have sort of turned me into a werewolf,” is lying.
Obviously, parents are writing many of these essays. Incredibly, many applications include the pointless step of making students check a box to verify that the application contains their own work, which is a verification system so ineffective that it makes the “I am 18” buttons on adult websites seem like the security at a Swiss bank.
College essays are arbitrary—exactly what’s being measured or why is unclear. They’re gameable—much like a pinewood derby car, many of the best ones are made by parents. They seem to benefit the wealthy—not every family can shell out big money to punch up an essay through a concerted program of expert tutelage and not-so-subtle negging. Say what you will about the SAT: The kid has to actually fill in the bubbles. They can’t take the test home and get help from Mom, Dad, teachers, the internet, and a gaggle of advisors that would seem excessive for a medieval child monarch.  

From 0.01% to 0.o0000.1%

You’ve come a long way baby!
Girls are now outperforming boys at nearly every level of education. They earn 60 percent of bachelor’s and master’s degrees, and comprise 70 percent of high school valedictorians. Women are also dominating many workplaces. Women today hold a majority of the nation’s jobs, including 51.4 percent of managerial and professional jobs—up from 26.1 percent in 1980. They make up 54 percent of all accountants and hold about half of all banking and insurance jobs. As for men, they are dropping out at alarming rates. More prime age males are out of the labor force today than during the Great Depression.
https://www.thebulwark.com/tucker-carlson-and-the-crisis-of-masculinity/

STILL ON THE JOURNEY