Shark week?

https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/the-uncomfortable-subject-jesus-addressed-more-than-anyone-else/

https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2026/06/nigeria-un-experts-warn-rights-violations-against-women-and-girls-christian

Our favorite local swimming spot is celebrating “Shark Week,” so we figured we would watch the beloved yearly event.

Our viewing party lasted 5 seconds as the opening scene of the episode showed a large shark thrashing a small seal to death in a swirl of blood. The footage was graphic, even haunting.

I ask myself when did humans decide that we would record and profit from violence? Or just profit from it?

The world is burning, and in the conflagration there are stories of human atrocities that far outstrip the “instinctual” feeding frenzy of a shark.

We all need to wake up and decide what we will record, what we do with that record, and where this is all going.

Jesus himself gives us the most haunting descriptions of hell. If we won’t listen to our own consciences, maybe we need to listen to him, after all, he went there for us.

We go afishing!

I believe in the subtext.

When Peter announces (post-Resurrection) that he is “going afishing” Gospel of John, KJV,

Jesus has been betrayed

Jesus has tortured

Jesus has been murdered for us

Jesus harrowed hell

Jesus rose from the dead

And then he comes back!! Sees his peeps! Breaks bread with them!!

And then Peter and I go afishing.

What are we thinking? Well, gotta eat

Normal life has to start back up some time?

Then, if we are blessed. Jesus confronts the subtext—

Nothing will ever be just “normal” again

Jesus is in the room

And it is our job to notice

Swerve

And become…

John 21:1-4 KJV
[1] After these things Jesus shewed himself again to the disciples at the sea of Tiberias; and on this wise shewed he himself. [2] There were together Simon Peter, and Thomas called Didymus, and Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, and the sons of Zebedee, and two other of his disciples. [3] Simon Peter saith unto them, I go a fishing. They say unto him, We also go with thee. They went forth, and entered into a ship immediately; and that night they caught nothing. [4] But when the morning was now come, Jesus stood on the shore: but the disciples knew not that it was Jesus.

News of His enthronement

In my head the news comes

Across the radio

Wafting through

The ordinary work—

Washing, mending, sorting

Clothes pinned to lines in the sun

While the reporters tell overlapping stories

Of a man amidst the mob

Soldiers plaiting thorns

World,

Your King has come

Naked, silent, broken, abused, mocked, slandered, burned in the fire

For my place,

I take the ordinary

thorns

Plait a crown

Just to push into farthest edge of the terrible howl

He takes for us

Silence in the Heavens

Recently two little girls were raped and murdered in India. They were 11. The horror of the last few hours of their lives haunts me.

11 is childhood.

Something terrible is broken in the minds of men who kidnap, rape, and murder children.

Revelation 8:1-13 KJV
[1] And when he had opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour. [2] And I saw the seven angels which stood before God; and to them were given seven trumpets. [3] And another angel came and stood at the altar, having a golden censer; and there was given unto him much incense, that he should offer it with the prayers of all saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne. [4] And the smoke of the incense, which came with the prayers of the saints, ascended up before God out of the angel’s hand. [5] And the angel took the censer, and filled it with fire of the altar, and cast it into the earth: and there were voices, and thunderings, and lightnings, and an earthquake. [6] And the seven angels which had the seven trumpets prepared themselves to sound. [7] The first angel sounded, and there followed hail and fire mingled with blood, and they were cast upon the earth: and the third part of trees was burnt up, and all green grass was burnt up. [8] And the second angel sounded, and as it were a great mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea: and the third part of the sea became blood; [9] And the third part of the creatures which were in the sea, and had life, died; and the third part of the ships were destroyed. [10] And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp, and it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of waters; [11] And the name of the star is called Wormwood: and the third part of the waters became wormwood; and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter. [12] And the fourth angel sounded, and the third part of the sun was smitten, and the third part of the moon, and the third part of the stars; so as the third part of them was darkened, and the day shone not for a third part of it, and the night likewise. [13] And I beheld, and heard an angel flying through the midst of heaven, saying with a loud voice, Woe, woe, woe, to the inhabiters of the earth by reason of the other voices of the trumpet of the three angels, which are yet to sound!

Sometimes the powerlessness of small ones in both life and death feels irrevocable and overwhelming.

But our God minds every sparrow

The story is not over

Until we hear his voice…