A warning: This article discusses serious mental and behavioral health issues in blunt terms.

---

This year, around mid-September, my mental health sharply declined. Since mid-November, I’ve returned close to my usual baseline. This has given me some time to reflect on what happened and lessons learned.

During therapy, I realized that my eating disorder issues were fueled by a personality trait I used to get myself through really hard moments: extreme perseverance. I can do anything I want to do. Sometimes, this is good. More often than I realized, this is bad. Like when I starve myself for months on end. This realization dealt a huge blow to my confidence, because most my hope for improving my life came from knowing that I have a will of iron.

My internal dialogue got dark, fast. I spent hours every day thinking about hurting myself. The worst days had me spending upwards of 6 hours straight ruminating about suicide and self-harm. I’ve had depression for a long time, but never like that.

In retrospect, the interesting part is that I didn’t recognize how serious it was. I knew it wasn’t normal, and that I needed help. But I can see now what I couldn’t then: It was a volatile situation. My therapist and psych were justified in how alarmed they are, and while I was getting quite sick of people saying they’re worried about me, I now think I was toeing involuntary hospitalization levels of crisis.

So lesson one is that I need to rely on others more. Both so that my own will doesn’t drag me into the mud, but also because I can enter mental states that distort my judgement of reality. For my own safety and flourishing, I need a village.

There were two things that helped. The first is that I got a new prescription regimen that made a lot more sense. Less medications overall, and medications more tailored to my present problems. That seemed to make a big difference.

The second thing that helped was existentialist philosophy and learning the concepts of existential therapy. It gave me the conceptual framework and language to work with my experiences and emotions in an empowering way. And what I needed was empowerment, because I felt like I was left without any ability to make my life better in a reliable way. What existentialism gave me, in a nutshell, was affirmation that improving your life is damn hard and that, at the end of the day, you always have a choice you can make.

Lesson two: I sometimes need to stop pressing forward and branch out to find something that’ll work. This was a new kind of mental health crisis for me which needed a new means of dealing with it. My usual supports collapsed until I introduced new ones (conceptually, as well as materially: I entered an intensive outpatient program for depression that I’ll be wrapping up soon). I wanted to believe that I had everything figured out, and that produced hopelessness. So no more of that nonsense.

The third and final lesson I’ve drawn from this: I need to be ready for next time. Because there will be a next time. The question for me is if I’m going to be able to bounce back quickly, or if it’s going to be a nearly five-figure detour into debt like this one was. (Or both. Both is possible.) Being ready means having supports already in place and a habit of openness about my mental health with others, so that they can flag for me when I’m going to a bad place.

So that’s my project in the meantime. That, and paying off the debt. It’ll be a good reminder of what I need to work towards.

Balance and Bravery: The Mixed Constitution as a School for Civic Courage

By L. Moraitis

Political courage does not emerge spontaneously. It must be cultivated, demanded, and rewarded. The mixed constitution is not primarily a compromise between classes or interests; it is a school for civic bravery, designed to mold citizens capable of governing themselves. In an age where fear—fear of social reprisal, fear of political isolation, fear of institutional retaliation—shapes public discourse, recovering the link between constitutional balance and fearless deliberation is essential.

Classical theorists understood that tyranny begins not with the tyrant, but with the citizen who has learned to hold his tongue. A population that internalizes fear, that shies away from honest disagreement, becomes governable not through law but through silence. Aristotle observed that political courage is the foundation of every other virtue in a free society. Polybius admired Rome not only because its constitution balanced the powers of consul, senate, and people, but because this balance forced Romans to become outspoken and resistant to domination. Public life demanded the constant exercise of spirited speech.

Public, fearless deliberation is the virtue that gives voice to the mixed constitution’s structure. Without it, bicameralism becomes procedural theatre, checks and balances become paperwork, and public assemblies become performative rituals. Power concentrates in the hands of those willing to use fear as a tool, and the constitutional order hollows into façade.

To prevent this decay, the mixed constitution trains citizens in three forms of bravery:

Bravery of Accountability — the willingness to challenge elites and demand justification.

Bravery of Self-Restraint — the courage to accept limits on one’s own factional ambitions.

Bravery of Exposure — the willingness to speak in public, risking criticism, ridicule, and correction.

These forms of bravery transform deliberation from mere talk into civic service. They allow public argument to serve as a nonviolent arena of contest, replacing force with reason, violence with speech, domination with persuasion. The mixed constitution’s genius lies in converting conflict from a threat into a resource.

In this light, the modern retreat from public discourse—toward anonymity, secrecy, or self-censorship—is not a cultural preference but a constitutional crisis. A republic that cannot deliberate cannot balance power; a republic that cannot balance power cannot remain free. Only by reviving a culture of fearless public argument can the mixed constitution reclaim its purpose: to preserve liberty by cultivating citizens who are strong enough to practice it.

Manteca, California. A chance to try what I was filing in my head under real Americana. Marching bands, fields of 12-foot corn, homemade sloppy joe. That week, people cared I was English.

Braving the optional lane system of the regional highways, we took a trip to San José’s Winchester Mystery House™. Expectations were low. Sounded a bit Scooby Doo.

The house — a mansion, really — was built by Sarah Winchester, widow of William Wirt Winchester, treasurer of the Winchester Repeating Arms Company who died of TB aged 43. (Him, not the TB). Sarah built the mansion with her inheritance.

As buildings go, it’s fucking weird. It’s ugly, for starters, to European eyes. America and Britain are two nations divided by Queen Anne architecture. Exhibit A: Winslow Hall (Buckinghamshire, England, lovely). Exhibit B: Carson Mansion (Old Town Eureka, USA, hideous). Clearly we’ve stumbled into a major Transatlantic taxonomical anomaly.

More significantly, it makes no sense. None. Winding stairways meet ceiling. Huge cupboard doors open up to walls. Upstairs doors lead to sheer drops. There are internal windows, nonsense circuitous layouts, and my favourite: a north-facing stained glass window.

The explanation peddled through the tour headsets was that Sarah Winchester designed the house to the exacting specification of her dead husband, as relayed by her spirit medium.

Winchester Mystery House’s oddities were designed to confuse the vengeful spirits that met their demise at the noisy end of a Winchester rifle.

Sarah’s private rooms — the only nice bit of the house — are surrounded by a labyrinthine buffer so the ghosts couldn’t find her.

Judging by the guestbook, visitors hoover up the stuff. And fair enough.

Expect jump scares. Peer into a nook and it’s very possible you’ll come face to face with someone peering into it from the other side of a wall.

Wandering around an old house which is a physical embodiment of fear is creepy.

Still, I wonder if she really believed those things. For all its oddness, there is some novel design going on. There are shallow stair cases that fill whole rooms, doubling and tripling back on themselves, built for the ailing Winchester.

There are conservatories with grilled floor tiles, with drainage underneath. Watering the plants? Go nuts.

There was a lively mind somewhere in the equation — living or dead. Pick whichever amuses you most.

#notes #july2014

In most cases, when people say a novel is good or bad, they’re wrong. Because novels can offer a variety of pleasures: an involving plot, interesting characters, beautiful prose, keen observations, titanic imagination, dialogue that is better than real life speech but not so much better that it sounds fake, an atmosphere that you enjoy getting lost in, or just a vibe that hits you in the right place at the right time.

We all value certain of these pleasures more than others, and no novel offers all of them. And our preferences for things done well and tolerance for things done badly can change from book to book.

All of which is to say I am against snobbery and don’t think, for example, having beautiful prose automatically makes your novel better than a novel with an engaging plot.

But, for God’s sake, your book has to offer something. I just read a book that fell drastically short on almost every front, and I’m intentionally not naming it because the fact that it’s an extremely shitty book is not the author’s fault.

It’s a mystery/thriller with a really good setup. Two of the main characters are interesting and feel like real people. Those are the good things I can say about it. Unfortunately two of the characters are cardboard cutouts, the prose is jaw-droppingly bad in sections, the author has a tendency to make a point and then beat you over the head with it instead of trusting you to draw an obvious conclusion, and the big “twist” I saw coming at least a hundred pages away.

But literally all of these problems could have been fixed in the editing stage. “Hey, it’s pretty obvious who the killer is because you haven’t included any credible red herrings.” “Hey, you had a character say, “now I know that love truly does conquer all,” and I threw up in my mouth. Maybe write something that sounds like a person outside a Hallmark movie might say?” “Hey, you can trust your readers to get the very obvious point you just made.” “Hey, your villain is boring and flat which makes your big reveal fall flat too.”

Again, literally all of these things are fixable. And I don’t blame the author for not fixing them. I blame the editor for not doing their job. This author is a brand name, and so the editor clearly knows that just putting that name on the cover is going to move copies, so they just didn’t bother to make the author fix the kind of early draft mistakes that many authors make.

I don’t exempt myself here! I have a tendency to apply my points with a sledgehammer in an early draft. When I’m writing to get the story down, I tend to give characterization short shrift. I could go on. But I’ve been lucky enough to work with fellow writers and with editors who have called me on my bullshit and pushed me to make my writing better.

This is literally supposed to be what editors do. But the editor in this case committed professional malpractice and left their author looking stupid because they put an underbaked draft out into the world.

Perhaps this isn’t totally the editor’s fault. Someone in publishing said to me ten years ago, “All editors do now is go to meetings and try not to get fired.” I can’t imagine this has gotten any better. But if you’re going to charge full price for a book and have it appear to be a professional product, you owe it to your readers to give them a book that’s been edited profesionally.

I was of course annoyed that I spent my time reading a novel that could have been good but wasn’t, but then I was thinking this—somewhere an author probably just had their novel submitted to this editor, who passed for whatever reason, and that author is probably sitting by their computer thinking their novel isn’t any good because a “real” editor passed on it, not knowing what a half-assed job this editor does.

Sigh. I guess I would say this—the next time you read a bad book, maybe cut the author some slack and ask why the editor was asleep at the wheel. And if you read a good book, be aware that it’s probably good because an editor pushed theauthor to make it good.

Some Sundays ago, we passed a three-hour train armed only with Top Trumps and chocolate raisins.

Ours was The Lord of the Rings. Each card includes figures for height, strength, bravery, magic and fear factor.

Straight Top Trumps gets dull quickly with only one deck. So we took liberties.

Variations

Bottom Trumps

Lowest stats win. Good cards become bad, bad good. Denethor, Gríma Wormtongue and Gollum are best. Novelty value: high. Shelf life: limited.

Mediocre Trumps

We roped in another passenger for this. Middle stat wins. Strategies will vary depending on the quirks of the set. When one player is eliminated, pivot the rules.

Mental Trumps

Starting player calls the category. Before looking, the opponent calls high or low wins. Memorising card sequences confers a theoretical advantage. In practice: random, and drags on. Interesting for a while.

Other adaptations

Ordinary card games can be adapted to Top Trumps decks. Our take on rummy was challenging: too many LOTR characters are 7 foot.

Our most successful adaptation was Trumps. Categories = suits (why not have more than 4?). A card’s suit is its best stat, and is often up for debate. Is Sauron’s suit magic or fear factor, for example?

Entertaining played in good faith.

The chocolate raisins?

Eaten.

#notes #december2013

On first hearing Black Country, New Road: I didn't like them at all. Their early material grated on my ears, and I never even gave their much-praised second album a listen. Despite myself, I caught a track or two off Live From Bush Hall that YouTube served up to me some time after its release, and I was obliged to concede I liked what I heard. Evidently a re-evaluation was in order. By the time Forever Howlong came out earlier this year I was all aboard, and bought a CD copy. Annoyingly, Live From Bush Hall isn't readily available as a silver disc (unless one gets the costly Japanese release) so I resorted to obtaining it on vinyl a few weeks ago, since which time it has returned to the turntable multiple times.

With a handful of exceptions, I never much cared for original ‘70s prog-rock, so don’t know why it should be that I greatly enjoy some 21st-Century music — such as Black Country, New Road — that is indisputably proggy.

---

I've been shaving with straight razors for nearly five years now, but have yet to attempt any razor honing. Some of the razors I bought came shave-ready; the others I sent off to be honed. Since then I've been maintaining their edges with periodic recourse to abrasive 'strop pastes'. The time has come now, I feel, to at least try honing on a whetstone, and, to that end, I'm hoping to get a Shapton Ceramic #12000 stone. I'm by no stretch of the imagination a handy person, so there's no guarantee it'll go well.

In the meantime, as of Saturday, I've come into possession of a honing stone that used to belong to my maternal grandfather. It's a drab green-grey slab embedded in a hefty block of dark wood (Fig. 6), that smells very much like it has spent the last half a century in a garage. I'll try my luck with the Shapton first before putting a sharp edge anywhere near this thing, but I should like to put it to use eventually.

---

The cheese of the week has been Perl Lâs, which I suspect must be the best-known blue cheese made in Wales: a renown, I would say, that is well-merited. Other mild blues I've taken a shine to lately have been Cashel Blue from Ireland and, from France, Bleu d'Affinois.

Day 2 of #AdventOfProgress has translations as the main topic. I want the app to support at least German and English.

Because I'm already quite familiar with next-intl, I've chosen react-i18next as the internationalization tool for this app. Which worked quite nicely. And the API looks quite similar to next-intl.

Not much to say here. I've spent around 1 hr implementing this. A big chunk of the time was wasted on a dynamic import, where I tried, out of muscle memory, to dynamically load the JSON files with the translations. Implementing dynamic loading of languages has, at this state of the app, no real impact. So I ditched dynamic loading in favor of statically loading the 2 languages.

That's it for today.

---

60 of #100DaysToOffload
#log #AdventOfProgress
Thoughts?

Morning blaze: Silhouetted branches against a fiery sunrise sky, painting a dramatic beginning to the day.

#photography #photos #landscape

This morning I proactively made breakfast for my son: pancakes with butter and a little sprinkling of sugar. As soon as he got into the kitchen and saw it, he complained and said he wanted “mini pizza” instead. Of course. Of course, this happens the day that I proactively try to make breakfast for him. Tomorrow I'll ask him when he wakes up before making anything.

A consequence of this event is that, I now have to eat the pancakes for breakfast. I wasn't just gonna throw it away. So I ate it. It did taste good though.

The difference between eating pancakes versus eggs for breakfast, is that I'm hungry 2 hours earlier. I'm having to snack already before my morning meetings. I usually can last close to lunch time without snacking. But not today. It's because the pancakes just don't have enough protein and fat to keep me full for a longer period of time.

#Journal

Silence stops being scary when you realize it’s not emptiness — it’s space you finally own.

The Christian liturgical season of Advent might be my favorite period of practice in the year. Anticipatory awe side-by-side with anticipatory joy, all bundled in the profound awareness of how much of the world is desperately awaiting relief of one sort or another. The need for food, shelter, companionship, and all kinds of safety are highlighted by the conspicuous consumption, overindulgence, illusions of peace, and chasing of happiness that seem to mark the end of the year in our broader culture. So many people are waiting on a hope that often feels like it may never come.

Adopting a posture of humility, patience, and wonder in response to the deeply worn ruts of our conditioned thinking and old habits, is a radical departure from the going along to get along that seems to be the prescription for these weeks. Waiting in hope might be the very medicine that striving in anxiety calls for.

There are plenty of reasons why anxiety can spike this time of the year. From the pressure to avoid conflict as family and friends engage in rhythms of gathering and celebrating, to the retailers praying to end the year in positive financial territory, to fundraisers hoping to remind all of us that giving generously will lift our spirits and provide a huge portion of their operating expenses in the year ahead. Whether December 31st marks the end, the end of the beginning, or the beginning of the end, so many of us are tracking goals and objectives.

Even neighbors in deep need are paying close attention to how much medical spending they can do with their remaining benefits (perhaps as an uninsured year ahead looms large), and households who rely on cold weather rules are hoping for a chance at survival by securing one of the limited number of emergency rooms for the winter. If anything, it seems like hesitating could cost some of us everything.

Contemplation that loses the capacity to be moved into loving action, especially life saving loving action, ceases to be of much value. It follows that the essential things ought to be done, even when the invitation to a posture of waiting is so strong. Discernment between what is necessary and sufficient, and what is wanted and superfluous will be of great significance here.

With that said, I invite you into the season of waiting, and the opportunity to set things down in order that you might experience the fruits of this practice more fully.

Practices:

• An Advent Wreath- putting up a wreath with four candles creates an opportunity to count down slowly, especially if you linger on each candle for every day of that week, rather than just making note of the passing time on Sundays. The nightly lighting can make room for a period of prayer and reflection, and is a perfect time to examine our consciousness for the ways we engaged the season that day.
• Centering Prayer- abiding with God in the silence is always a beautiful idea, and in this time of waiting we can experience the tender pull between the Holy One who is already deeply present, and the further expression of that presence that we long for.
• Devotions- the daily office is full of seasonal content that will enrich this time, but if that’s not one of your practices, these four weeks can be a time to engage in reading brief devotions. See an example here.
• Embrace the Earth- is the Summer Solstice drawing near as spring lengthens into the heart of growing season? Perhaps you’re contending with snow, ice, and long hours of darkness. Whatever is happening, take time to simply observe, and be present to those changes. Let your heart take inspiration from the simultaneous holiness of darkness and light, warmth and cold, rest and revival.
• A Nativity Set- this tangible reminder of the miraculous littleness and humility of it all can be a powerful experience. Consider building it piece by piece as the days go by.
• Meditate on Incarnation- the central miracle of the coming Christmas season, Emmanuel (God-With-Us) invites all sorts of creative pondering. I like to wonder which of the water bottle in the kitchen or in the aisle in the store secretly has the ocean hidden inside it. Whether it’s cherishing something in your heart, exploring it on journal pages, or making art that expresses the beautiful impossibility of it all, this theme holds infinite possibility.

I hope these ideas are a good starting point for you, as you tackle what must be done, and make space for what can be surrendered to the practice of holy waiting.

Neera Tanden, president of Center for American Progress, asks a question of Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN), 13 June 2025. Questions are fine, just not in headlines. (Photo: A. Kotok)

Here's an easy way to get through your daily media reading. Ignore stories, analyses, or opinion pieces with a headline as a question. Really.

This advice is based on my definiton of news: developments that tangibly affect the human condition. If the story reports on something important, the headline will say so.

I used this definition of news to produce Science & Enterprise for 13 years. Something real had to happen: e.g., research published, clinical trial begun, grant awarded, investment secured. As a result, S&E story headlines were in the form of declarative statements, not questions.

If a piece has a headline as a question, it's a good bet that writing is either click-bait or has little that's new. And if there's nothing really new, just more questions, you're probably wasting your time.

Now please understand: There's nothing wrong with raising questions. But if you're raising questions, at least try to provide some answers.

Give this advice a try for one or two days. You will be amazed just how much of your daily reading you can cut out. And you won't miss any real news: developments that tangibly affect the human condition. The only question will be: What will you do with that spare time?

Copyright © Technology News and Literature. All rights reserved.

On this earth there are very few things I would call perfect, It’s not for being picky but rather my strict definition of perfection. Contemplative mornings are something I consider close to faultless, To awake before your part of the world stirs awake and the humdrum of daily life deafens the sound of anything resembling nature. In the morning you can hear the birds gossip, willow trees gently whispering and feel the dew gently dropping from it’s precarious position a long the gentle curvature of a blade of grass. Mornings like this bring me a lot of introspection, It can very often feel like an exercise in meditation, it’s easier to have a still mind when the world around your mind is still. The perfect morning doesn’t mean you’re going to have amazing day or an easy time managing your thoughts, It just means that you’re giving yourself an advantageous advantage. The world comes at you fast and inundates you with so much information, protect your peace and your contemplative mornings folks.

Here is a summary of the statement issued by various Latin American organizations that focus on the intersection of technology and the environment, which participated in the recent COP in Belém, Brazil. The full version of the statement can be found here.

Although Artificial Intelligence (AI) had been considered in previous COPs, COP30, which took place in Belém, Brazil, in November 2025, marked a significant new phase in climate discussions. For the first time, AI was systematically included in the COP’s Action Agenda as a strategic theme.

However, despite the strong enthusiasm around AI's promises to help tackle climate change at COP30, very little attention was given to the other side of the AI ecosystem: its environmental impacts. Only a few side events and press conferences drew attention to how AI models and the infrastructures that power them are responsible for emitting high levels of CO₂ into the atmosphere and have also led to a heightened demand for minerals, water, and energy.

At the end of COP30 and in the context of the political discussions that must continue to be developed in future editions of the COP, we would like to express the following concerns regarding the public discourse on AI in the context of the climate and ecological crisis:

1. Artificial Intelligence is not a techno-solution to the climate and ecological crisis; moreover, AI increases the use of fossil fuels, raises greenhouse gas emissions, and thus jeopardizes the climate goals of countries with the highest concentration of AI data centers, such as China, the United States and the European Union. COP climate policies cannot be based on marketing discourse, lobbying, or magical thinking promoted by technology companies, but rather on current independent scientific evidence.

2. Artificial Intelligence is not just another natural resource or an inevitable force. Its use, adoption, and marketing in all aspects of political, social, and economic life is driven by its owners, a handful of large and powerful technology companies (concentrated mainly in two countries, the United States and China) whose incentive is to expand their capital, not to mitigate the climate and ecological crisis. COP climate policies cannot be designed to serve the economic well-being of this handful of already powerful companies: this encourages the concentration of power and dangerously strengthens their role, especially in other low-income and developing countries.

3. AI generates socio-environmental impacts far beyond CO₂ emissions. As multiple international reports based on scientific evidence show, AI is an industry that requires numerous minerals, large amounts of land, and vast quantities of fresh water and energy, which is causing a series of socio-environmental impacts around the world that go beyond Scope 1 CO₂ emissions – also demanding a serious accounting of Scope 3, the category that exposes the full lifecycle impacts across mining, supply chains, manufacturing and end-of-life. Yet COP30’s outcomes did not meaningfully incorporate these impacts, leaving a major gap in how countries assess and report the climate footprint of digital infrastructure. Looking forward, it is essential that national climate commitments (Nationally Determined Contributions – NDCs) explicitly include the emissions and resource use associated with data centers and AI supply chains, ensuring transparency and accountability in a sector whose climate impact is rapidly expanding. We are concerned that decision-makers believe that these impacts can be miraculously solved by technological innovation alone, which the evidence rules out, for example, given Jevons' paradox in AI.

4. AI’s hunger for energy threatens a just energy transition. As one of the most energy-intensive industries of the 21st century, the genuine interest of the companies behind AI at the COP is to secure access to fossil fuels in the short term and renewables in the medium term, the latter being considered a techno-solution to their CO₂ emissions, ignoring the social, economic, and environmental costs that renewable energy production currently entails, especially in communities that have not caused the climate and ecological crisis. The AI's appetite for renewable energy is such that, without political and democratic mediation, we denounce that the energy transition, especially in developing countries, will be designed for the needs of a handful of foreign technology corporations rather than for local communities and industries.

5. Governments must protect their people and ecosystems, not the industry interests. We urge decision-makers in national governments, particularly in developing countries participating in the COP, to reaffirm their commitment to scientific evidence and the well-being of their communities, biodiversity, and local industries. It is essential not to adopt AI uncritically. We are at a critical juncture in addressing the climate and ecological crisis, and any enhancement of AI without proper regulatory, socio-environmental and ethical checks will only strengthen the power of global tech corporations, ultimately undermining climate ambitions worldwide.

Signed by:

• The Latin American Institute for Terraforming
• Law and Technology Research Institute of Recife (IP.rec)
• Coding Rights
• Laboratory of Public Policy and Internet – LAPIN
• Brazilian Institute for Consumer Protection – Idec
• Heinrich Böll Foundation

#English

---

When light is rejected, what is chosen—is the darkness.

Isaiah 3

NARRATOR:


For look! the true Lord, Jehovah of armies, 
is removing from Jerusalem and Judah every kind of support and supply—
all support of bread and water. Mighty man and warrior, 
judge and prophet, diviner and elder, 
chief of fifty, dignitary, and adviser, 
the expert magician and the skilled charmer—
all will be taken away.

JEHOVAH:

I will make boys their princes, 
and the unstable will rule over them.

NARRATOR:


The people will oppress one another, 
each one his fellow man.
The boy will assault the old man, 
and the lightly esteemed one will defy the respected one. Each one will take hold of his brother in his father’s house and say:

PEOPLE:


“You have a cloak—you be our commander.
Take charge of this overthrown pile of ruins.”

NARRATOR:


But he will protest in that day:

BROTHER:


“I will not be your wound dresser; 
I have no food or clothing in my house.
Do not make me commander over the people.” For Jerusalem has stumbled, 
and Judah has fallen, 
because in word and deed they are against Jehovah; 
they behave defiantly in his glorious presence. The expression of their faces testifies against them, 
and they proclaim their sin like Sodom; 
they do not try to hide it.
Woe to them, for they are bringing disaster on themselves! Tell the righteous that it will go well for them; 
they will be rewarded for what they do.
Woe to the wicked one!
Disaster will befall him, 
for what his hands have done will be done to him. As for my people, their taskmasters are abusive, 
 and women rule over them.
My people, your leaders are causing you to wander, 
 and they confuse the direction of your paths.

NARRATOR:


Jehovah is taking his position to accuse; 
he is standing up to pass sentence on peoples.
Jehovah will enter into judgment with the elders and princes of his people.

JEHOVAH:


“You have burned down the vineyard, 
and what you have stolen from the poor is in your houses.
How dare you crush my people 
and grind the faces of the poor in the dirt?”

NARRATOR:


Jehovah says:

JEHOVAH:


“Because the daughters of Zion are haughty, 
walking with their heads high, 
flirting with their eyes, skipping along, 
making a tinkling sound with their anklets, 
I will strike the head of the daughters of Zion with scabs, 
and I will make their forehead bare. In that day I will take away 
the beauty of their bangles, 
the headbands and the crescent-shaped ornaments, 
the earrings, the bracelets, and the veils, 
the headdresses, the ankle chains, the breastbands, 
the perfume receptacles and the charms, 
the finger rings and the nose rings, 
the ceremonial robes, the overtunics, the cloaks, and the purses, 
the hand mirrors and the linen garments, 
the turbans and the veils. Instead of balsam oil, there will be a rotten smell; 
instead of a belt, a rope; 
instead of a beautiful hairstyle, baldness; 
instead of a rich garment, a garment of sackcloth; 
and a brand mark instead of beauty. By the sword your men will fall, 
and your mighty men in battle.
Her entrances will mourn and grieve, 
and she will sit on the ground desolate.”

Isaiah 4

NARRATOR:


And seven women will grab hold of one man in that day, saying:

WOMEN:


“We will eat our own bread
and wear our own clothing; 
only let us be called by your name
to take away our disgrace.”

NARRATOR:


In that day what Jehovah makes sprout will be splendid and glorious, 
and the fruitage of the land will be the pride and beauty
of the survivors of Israel. Whoever remains in Zion and is left over in Jerusalem will be called holy—
all of those in Jerusalem written down for life. When Jehovah washes away the filth of the daughters of Zion
and rinses away the bloodshed of Jerusalem
by the spirit of judgment and by a spirit of burning, 
Jehovah will create over the whole site of Mount Zion
and over the place of her conventions
a cloud and smoke by day
and a bright flaming fire by night.
Over all the glory there will be a shelter—
a booth for shade by day from the heat, 
and for refuge and protection from storms and rain.

Isaiah 5

PROPHET:


Let me sing, please, to my beloved
a song about my loved one and his vineyard. My beloved had a vineyard on a fruitful hillside.
He dug it up and rid it of stones.
He planted it with a choice red vine, 
built a tower in the middle of it, 
and hewed out a winepress in it.
Then he kept hoping for it to produce grapes, 
but it produced only wild grapes. “And now, you inhabitants of Jerusalem
and men of Judah—
please judge between me and my vineyard. What more could I have done for my vineyard
that I have not already done?
Why, when I hoped for grapes, 
did it produce only wild grapes? Now, please, let me tell you
what I will do to my vineyard: I will remove its hedge, 
and it will be burned down.
I will break down its stone wall, 
and it will be trampled on.
I will make it a wasteland; 
it will not be pruned or hoed.
It will be overgrown with thornbushes and weeds, 
and I will command the clouds not to send any rain on it.”

NARRATOR:


For the vineyard of Jehovah of armies is the house of Israel; 
the men of Judah are the plantation he was fond of.
He kept hoping for justice, 
but look—there was injustice; 
for righteousness, 
but look—a cry of distress. Woe to those who join one house to another
and who annex one field to another
until there is no more room
and you live by yourselves on the land! Jehovah of armies has sworn
that many houses, though great and beautiful, 
will become an object of horror, 
without an inhabitant.
For ten acres of vineyard will produce but one bath measure, 
and a homer of seed will produce only an ephah. Woe to those who get up early in the morning to drink alcohol, 
who linger late into the evening darkness until wine inflames them!
They have harp and stringed instrument, tambourine, flute, and wine at their feasts, 
but they do not consider the activity of Jehovah
and they do not see the work of his hands. So my people will go into exile for lack of knowledge; 
their glorious men will go hungry, 
and all their people will be parched with thirst. So the Grave has enlarged itself
and opened its mouth wide without limit; 
and her splendor, her noisy multitudes, and her revelers
will certainly go down into it. Man will bow down; man will be brought low; 
and the eyes of the haughty will be brought low.
Jehovah of armies will be exalted by his judgment; 
the true God, the Holy One, will sanctify himself through righteousness. And the lambs will graze as in their pasture; 
foreign residents will feed on the desolate places of well-fed animals. Woe to those who drag along their guilt with ropes of deception
and their sin with wagon cords—
those who say:

ARROGANT PEOPLE:


“Let Him speed up his work; 
let it come quickly that we may see it.
Let the purpose of the Holy One of Israel take place
that we may know it!”

NARRATOR:


Woe to those who say that good is bad and bad is good, 
who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness, 
who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter! Woe to those wise in their own eyes
and discreet in their own sight!
Woe to those who are mighty in drinking wine
and masters at mixing alcoholic drinks, 
those who acquit the wicked for a bribe
and deny justice to the righteous! Therefore, just as fire consumes stubble
and dry grass shrivels in the flames, 
their very roots will rot
and their blossoms will scatter like powder, 
because they rejected the law of Jehovah of armies
and disrespected the word of the Holy One of Israel. That is why the anger of Jehovah burns against his people, 
and he will stretch out his hand against them and strike them.
The mountains will quake, 
and their corpses will be like refuse in the streets.
In view of all this, his anger has not turned back, 
but his hand is still stretched out to strike. He has raised up a signal to a distant nation; 
he has whistled for them to come from the ends of the earth; 
and look! they are coming very swiftly.
None among them are tired or stumbling; 
no one is drowsy or sleeps.
The belt around their waist is not loosened, 
nor are their sandal laces broken. All their arrows are sharp, 
and all their bows are bent.
The hooves of their horses are like flint, 
and their wheels like a storm wind.
Their roaring is like that of a lion; 
they roar like young lions.
They will growl and seize the prey
and carry it off with no one to rescue it. In that day they will growl over it
like the growling of the sea.
Anyone who gazes at the land will see distressing darkness; 
even the light has grown dark because of the clouds.

Our Father Who art in heaven Hallowed be Thy name Thy Kingdom come Thy will be done on Earth as it is in heaven Give us this day our daily Bread And forgive us our trespasses As we forgive those who trespass against us And lead us not into temptation But deliver us from evil

Amen

Jesus is Lord! Come Lord Jesus!

Come Lord Jesus! Christ is Lord!