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you open yourself up to the devil by celebrating Halloween in the same way you open yourself up to the devil by celebrating St. Paddy's or Mardi Gras.

if you play ouija or try voodoo, you open yourself up to the devil. if you dress in a slutty costume or take psychedelics in a cemetery, you open yourself up to the devil.

likewise, if you get wasted on Guinness in downtown Savannah, you open yourself up to the devil.

if you twerk half-naked for plastic beads on Bourbon Street, you open yourself up to the devil.

these kinds of bacchanalia are by no means inherent to the holidays in question, and in fact, are extremely recent perversions of traditions which go back centuries. Centuries of Christian history.

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“What a patriot.”

The GOP VP pick is celebrating an elderly woman behaving like a complete degenerate.

Hard to think of a worse idea than universal suffrage.

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That phrasing really gave away the game. It’s all about pregnant women “maintaining their lifestyle”.

Most moderns lack virtue and are not suited for self government.

Who the fuck are you to end someone’s life “for their own good,” before they’ve even had a chance to live it? You can really see into their future and get to decide with your God-like wisdom that they’re better off dead before they’re even born? Who died and made you judge, jury, and executioner? You really look around at people in poverty, or with disabilities, and think to yourself, “damn someone should have ended them a long time ago.” What in the ever-loving arrogant audacity.

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One nice thing about having no good choices for this election means not having to worry about who wins.

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I understand why so many people are comfortable with abortion.

I thought one of my daughters might have died earlier this year. The emotional panic was unreal. It was the end of the world. Thankfully the little lady is doing just fine.

This past week my wife miscarried 3 days after we found out she was pregnant. Intellectually I know I have a child I will never meet this side of heaven. I’ve taken care to pray for this tiny one. I feel very confident about his or her fate, for our desire for baptism should apply just as it would have next year had our child been born.

But the emotional reaction on my part is far less for an actual death than just the possibility that my daughter had died. I never got to see my baby, or hold him or her in my arms, watch him or her smile. And so there is little for the emotions to grab onto, no matter how much I would wish for it.

This is why so many people are okay with abortion. No emotional involvement. But just because our emotions aren’t activated doesn’t mean the death of an unborn child has no moral weight. Iran and Israel could wipe themselves out in a nuclear exchange, with millions upon millions dead, yet I’d feel much worse interiorly if my dog was killed by a truck.

Abortion is like pressing a button causing some random person to die on the other side of the planet. We know it’s evil, but we know so intellectually rather than emotionally.

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The company(tm) cares deeply about the environment and is doing its part to fight the threat of climate change.

Our corporate headquarters is LEED certified and the CEO’s private bathroom has a reduced flow toilet.

We make thousands of employees emit carbon emissions regardless of business justification, true. Our example encourages our competitors to do likewise.

But remember.

We care.

We’re a green company.

you’d think forcing people to return to corporate cubicle land to sit in little boxes 8 hours a day with almost no natural light—knowing they can do the exact same thing from home, 20 minutes away, more comfortably—would be a funny joke about tormenting Sisyphus a little extra, or about dystopian society, or something but no, it’s a real life situation I’m in

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honestly this screenshot just says everything

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Just finished my 90th read of the year! Here are 9 recs :)

Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

Ray Bradbury, Something Wicked This Way Comes

Eloise Jarvis McGraw, Mara Daughter of the Nile

Dorothy Parker, Enough Rope

C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed

Joan Aiken, The Wolves of Willoughby Chase

Louise Glück, Vita Nova

J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring (currently rereading)

Patrick Phillips, Song of the Closing Doors: Poems

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God, who hast doomed all men to die, but hast concealed from all the hour of their death : grant that I may pass my days in the practice of holiness and justice, and that I may be made worthy to quit this world in the peace of a good conscience and in the embrace of Thy love. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

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By jackdarylphotography

🍂 Autumn Cozy on YouTube

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31 years since the Battle of Mogadishu

Via @/edaholics on X

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A misconception about the Christian faith that a lot of people (including Christians!) really struggle with is that forgiveness = no consequences for your sins. That's what people think Christianity preaches, and it is a major hurdle for them. They think that if a serial killer genuinely repents, that means that Christianity says they are able to get off scot-free with their crimes, or that it means they should be let out of jail, etc.

That is not true.

There are quite a few figures in the Bible who committed acts of evil, and repented for it. And God heard them! But oftentimes, their sins caused catastrophic damage to those around them, and they had to live (and die) with what they caused. The entirety of the Old Testament is a domino-effect of this happening over and over.

If someone genuinely repents before God, the forgiveness they receive from God is a perfect forgiveness. But we live in a fallen world affected by sin. Sin has consequences. Other people are often hurt by our sins, even if we aren't aware of it.

We have to live with the consequences of our actions in this world. Part of repentance requires accepting those consequences, otherwise it's not genuine.

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"In the lives of Christians we look not to the beginnings but to the endings. Paul began badly but ended well. The start of Judas wins praise; his end is condemned because of his treachery... The Christian life is the true Jacob's ladder on which the angels ascend and descend, while the Lord stands above it holding out His hand to those who slip and sustaining by the vision of Himself the weary steps of those who ascend."

St. Jerome, Letters, 54.6

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This is actually a good rule.

The goal of the program is to ensure adequate nutrition within a given budget. Prepared foods are more expensive since they include the cost of the food as well as preparation. Prepared foods are often higher in saturated fat, salt, sugar, etc than homemade meals. It would also be more complex in terms of rules to manage the program (you’d need to draw a line somewhere, surely you wouldn’t want people blowing half their monthly EBT at a steakhouse). Access to prepared foods would likely also lead to more political opposition to the program.

If the chicken is truly being cooked for free (i.e. cooks are unpaid volunteers, cooking oil and seasoning donated), then there isn’t anything seriously wrong with this, but if the raw chicken is being marked up, then they are scamming the government.

Solidarity

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Rear Window is an excellent movie.

70 years ago Hitchcock filmed James Stewart and Grace Kelly more or less in just a room for a whole movie. Probably cost like $50,000 plus the actors’ salaries, and I’d more readily watch that again than most anything made in the last five years.

Side note: Shop Around the Corner is better than You’ve Got Mail.