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November evening in a Welsh wood

Auto-generated description: A serene forest landscape with bare trees, scattered rocks, and a soft glow from the setting or rising sun.
James Thomas Watts (1850–1930), Watercolour with scratching out, c. 1885–1895. British Museum

Do you know?

Do you know Dust to Digital? Its Instagram feed of worldwide crowd-sourced musical performances is one of the few good reasons to use IG.

Eden Rock | Charles Causley

They are waiting for me somewhere beyond Eden Rock: My father, twenty-five, in the same suit Of Genuine Irish Tweed, his terrier Jack Still two years old and trembling at his feet.

My mother, twenty-three, in a sprigged dress Drawn at the waist, ribbon in her straw hat, Has spread the stiff white cloth over the grass. Her hair, the colour of wheat, takes on the light.

She pours tea from a Thermos, the milk straight From an old H.P. sauce-bottle, a screw Of paper for a cork; slowly sets out The same three plates, the tin cups painted blue.

The sky whitens as if lit by three suns. My mother shades her eyes and looks my way Over the drifted stream. My father spins A stone along the water. Leisurely,

They beckon to me from the other bank. I hear them call, ‘See where the stream-path is! Crossing is not as hard as you might think.’

I had not thought that it would be like this.

More Buechner

I was going to say that my faith, like my doubt, mostly involves my mind and not my stomach. Basically that’s true. I can’t really imagine what it would be like to behold the Lord and not as a stranger. I’m not a saint, so I haven’t had that experience. And yet, even as a not-saint, I get glimpses. I think we all have, and may there be many more of them for all of us.

The Remarkable Ordinary (2017)

What Hath Trump (But Not Exclusively Trump) Wrought?

Jonah Goldberg:

The kinds of things one might say in private, to close friends, for shock value, as a joke, or out of a shared hateful anger at this group or that, are now welcome or at least tolerated in the public square.

This is but one of Trump’s (and Twitter’s and Reality TV’s, et al.) malignancies: it’s now OK to say nasty things out loud that once were hidden or, at least, circumscribed.

“Here we are!"

… the stars shone in their watches, and were glad;
he called them, and they said, β€˜Here we are!’
They shone with gladness for him who made them.

Baruch 3:34