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The 2022 Chess.com Global Championship (CGC) is the first Chess.com global championship cycle open to all of our verified players. Players compete in official Chess.com verified events for their share of the $1,000,000 prize fund and the Chess.com Global Champion title.

The cycle features an Open Qualifier phase, with the first event starting on May 1. Open Qualifiers are followed by a Play-in phase beginning on July 11, succeeded by the CGC Knockout starting on September 14. The previous phases culminate in the CGC Finals occurring on October 31.

We will broadcast all the games from the Play-In phase forward. Join the action to enjoy expert commentary by GMs Daniel Naroditsky, Robert Hess, IM Danny Rensch, and more! Just tune in to Chess.com/TV or to our Twitch channel, or watch all our broadcasts on YouTube.com/Chess.comLive.

The Chess.com Global Championship kicks off on May 1 with the Open Qualifier phase, which ends on July 31, with a total of 81 events.

All Chess.com Verified players can participate in the Open Qualifier phase. Titled players or players who are already qualified for any of the subsequent phases can't play in the qualifiers. Players who are already qualified and try to play in another qualifier risk getting banned from the CGC.

Open Qualifier events run three times a day every Saturday and Sunday from May 1 through July 31, totaling 81 events. Note that the last three weekends of qualifiers overlap with the Play-in phase.

* Next day

You can check out the results of all the open qualifiers here.

The Play-in phase follows the qualifiers, starting on July 11 and ending on August 5, with a total of 16 events.

Titled verified players and the top four finishers from each event of the Open Qualifier phase are eligible to compete.

Titled players include NMs, CMs (FIDE only), FMs, IMs, GMs, WCMs, WFMs, WIMs, and WGMs. Please note that titled players are not automatically verified and therefore need to complete the verification process on our Chess.com Verified page at least 48 hours prior to the first event they want to participate in. Titled verified players will be automatically pulled into a Play-in phase private club.

The 32 players directly invited to the CGC Knockout (read further for more details) cannot participate in the Play-in phase.

Swiss Format

The total prize fund for the Play-in phase is $60,000, with $3,750 for each event.

The first and second places also qualify for the CGC Knockout.

Play-in events run twice a day every Monday and Friday from July 11 through August 5, totaling 16 events.

* Next day

The CGC Knockout occurs after the Play-in phase, starting on September 14 and ending on October 9.

The 32 players who qualify from the Play-in phase continue to the CGC Finals. They are joined by 32 players invited by Chess.com.

The top-eight players move on to the CGC Finals, while the remaining 56 players share the total prize fund of $440,000 for the CGC Knockout.

CGC Knockout events start on September 14 and end on October 9. Starting times for each round will be determined for each group based on global time zones.

The CGC Finals occur after the CGC Knockout, starting on October 31 and ending on November 5.

The eight players who advance from the CGC Knockout compete in the CGC Finals.

The finals of the Chess.com Global Championship take place in Toronto, Canada, at the 1 Hotel.

The total prize fund for the CGC Finals is $500,000.

The CGC Finals will happen from October 29 through November 6.

Any Chess.com member can apply to get their account verified at Chess.com/verified. Verified players go through a thorough fair play check, which earns them the right to play in exclusive Chess.com events.

Only verified members can play in the Chess.com Global Championship. Head over to the Chess.com verified page to learn more.

Please note that titled players are not automatically verified and therefore need to complete the verification process to participate in the CGC.

All players must abide by the following rules to play in the Chess.com Global Championship:

All Phases

"Play-In" Phase Rules

"CGC Knockout" Rules

Note: Players from Russia and Belarus can play in the event under the international flag.

Please refer to the CGC rulebook to read the detailed rules for the event.

Go here to read the rest:
Chess.com Global Championship 2022: All The Information - Chess.com

In the wake of the Uvalde, Texas, school shootings, Fathers Day feels different this year. As the national conversation has again turned to the intersection of gun access and troubled young men, we are wondering what is driving this streak of nihilism. Are boys and men in crisis? Is there something uniquely worrisome about American masculinity?

These were some of the questions bouncing around my mind when I spoke with scholar and author Warren Farrell about masculinity. Before his foray into boys and mens issues, Farrell, 78, was the only man elected to the board of the National Organization for Women three times. His commitment to feminist issues earlier in his career informed his passion to understand the experiences of men later in life.

Farrells 2018 book The Boy Crisis, which he co-wrote with John Gray, looks at why boys are falling behind girls, with an eye on the impact that absent fathers and male role models have. His work has been featured on the Dr. Phil show and Andrew Yangs podcast, and he has been a repeat guest on Jordan Petersons podcast, most recently on June 13.

We originally met months ago in his neighborhood in Mill Valley, California, just north of San Francisco, across the Golden Gate Bridge. On a balmy February afternoon, we walked alongside a meandering stream which cuts through the residential hillside bordering Muir Woods National Monument and the Pacific Ocean. Farrell took me to his church, the forest where he does some of his best thinking, and we walked under the canopy of 100-foot-tall redwoods. Here we discussed what issues are plaguing boys today and what can be done to help them.

This Q&A is a synthesis of that conversation and a recent phone interview. It has been edited for length and clarity.

Ari Blaff: Im curious to get your reaction to the recent mass shootings committed by young men. Are they connected to what you have called the boy crisis?

Warren Farrell: Weve been blaming access to guns, violence in the media, violence and video games, family values, replacement theory-style hatred (for mass shootings). And yet our daughters are exposed in the same homes with the same family values, the same access to the same guns, the same violence and the same media, the same violence and the same video games. They have similar mental illnesses, and our daughters have not been doing the killings.

Whats happening with boys is that there is a global boy crisis: boys committing suicide far more often than girls five times more often in their 20s dropping out of high school, dropping out of college more, dying from opioid overdose. All these are more than the 70 different ways that boys without fathers mostly do worse.

The difficulty is not just with boys. When boys dont do well, girls cant find good fathers (for their children) and that leads to children being raised by single mothers or divorcees.

The boy crisis resides where dads do not reside. There are about 10 causes of the boy crisis but fatherlessness, or dad deprivation, is the single biggest cause of it.

AB: You wrote an op-ed a couple of weeks back reflecting on the mass shooting in Uvalde. Is there something happening with American boys in particular? Obviously, there are instances of mass violence in Europe and even in Canada, but it doesnt seem to be the same rate or at the same frequency. Is there something about American masculinity, or a broader social crisis in American society, which is impacting boys?

WF: Well, I think theres two big things. One is the fatherlessness issue is the biggest here and in the United Kingdom. But the mass shootings are not as much in the U.K. as they are here. So it has to be more than just a fatherlessness issue. I believe that in the United States we have an addiction, and that addiction is to guns.

We also have very lax laws that a boy on his 18th birthday, without having any type of background check, was able to pick up a gun, despite having put threats on social media and showing many worrying signs of having significant problems, and none of that was detected or checked for.We have more guns in the United States than we have people. We dont have mass stabbings. We have mass shootings. The more powerful the gun, the more the boy has an ability to express his anger, and behind almost all anger is vulnerability. What we need to understand is that boys who hurt us are almost always boys who hurt.

When youre talking guns, you alienate the conservative community. However, when youre talking dads and fathers, the liberals are not very responsive. Were caught between a liberal and a conservative rock and a hard place. Very few peoples minds are opened to both issues.

Girls are not doing the mass shootings. And not all boys are the problem. It is more frequently the fatherless boys more than any other group of boys.

We need to pay attention to to three things. One is the boy crisis. No. 2 is the fatherlessness issue. And No. 3 is guns as the magnifying issue.

AB: How do you find your message is being received?

WF: Well, the people that interview me, if they are conservative, they want me to either minimize or leave out the gun issue. They are OK with my saying that guns are the third thing down the list and serve as a the magnifier for underlying issues. But if I start to talk about it in a more in-depth way, then they begin to get nervous. They get me back to families and fathers.

With liberals, I went out to interview the Democratic presidential candidates (in 2019) and there were a few people, like Andrew Yang and John Hickenlooper, who really understood. The campaign managers were not interested in having the candidates make boys and mens issues a feature of the campaign because they were afraid of alienating their feminist bases. They were also afraid that saying the father is important would alienate and offend single mothers.

AB: With Fathers Day upon us, what message do you have for parents?

WF: We really need to understand what I discussed in The Boy Crisis about the nine differences between dad-style parenting and mom-style parenting. Children do best when they have what I call checks-and-balance parenting which recognizes both mother and father communicating in a loving and respectful way.

Both mother and father bring unique parenting styles. Mom-style parenting focuses on protecting the child and being sensitive to the childs needs. The importance of the dad-style parenting is enforcing boundaries. From that, children learn to postpone gratification, to fulfill their dreams.

AB: I find it fascinating that your background complements the journey of gender equality. You began as an advocate for feminist issues in the 50s and 60s when it wasnt popular by any means and then expanded to mens rights and the importance of fathers. But for that, you get a lot of flak. Unlike feminist activism, mens rights activism appears to be a thankless pursuit. Does that surprise you?

WF: When I started speaking at colleges and universities, Id hand out these yellow pads throughout the audience. This was before computers and people would sign up to see whether they would want to join either a mens group or a womens group. I would get together with all the people that were interested, often until 1 in the morning. Id teach them how to run mens groups and womens groups and then keep in contact with them afterwards.

As I started paying attention to both of the mens group in New York, and then also to the feedback from the other mens groups and womens groups, I began to incorporate some of their insights into my presentations. It was at that point that my standing ovations became mixed standing and sitting. Then they became not mixed at all. Just sitting.

At the beginning, when I was just speaking from a feminist perspective, I got about four or five speaking engagements in referrals per event. Whereas after I started incorporating the male point of view, I would get one or zero referrals. I started to see that if I spoke about the male experience, or what was happening with boys, that I would soon be more and more unpopular.

AB: Fatherlessness is a big issue but does flow downstream from our cultural values. How would you reverse that trend?

WF: First, it involves getting women to understand that were all in the same family boat; when you focus on only one sex winning, both sexes lose. As parents, we want our daughters to have a man who is worthy of her love and respect. Someone who is able to have his act together enough to be able to take care of her and do his part in taking care of the children.

Historically speaking, every generation has had its wars, and during those wars, if Uncle Sam said, We need you. You are necessary to kill off Nazis, men signed up and came forward when they were told they were needed.

We have had to tell males now that they are no longer needed so much to kill and be killed, but to love and be loved. Women need their support, their skills, their checks, their balances to help with protecting and raising children. We need them to be father warriors now. The real warriors in the future are the ones who share the responsibilities and joys of raising children.

Read the original post:
What does fatherlessness, boy crisis have to do with mass shootings? - Deseret News

When the democrats get massacred in 2024, I hope Kamala Harris refusesto certify the results. Thats the way its done righteously, yes?

Well do it the South American Way.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/18/world/americas/jan-6-hearing-constitution-democracy.html++++++++In Constitutional Crises, Democracies Arent Always Democratic

When political leaders face a constitutional crisis, like that of Jan. 6,the process of collectively deciding how to respond can be messy, arbitrary,and sometimes change the nature of the system itself.

By Max FisherJune 18, 2022

If you look for international parallels to the moment last year whenVice President Mike Pence refused to bow to pressure from President Donald J. Trumpto help overturn their election defeat, something quickly becomes clear.

Such crises, with democracys fate left to a handful of officials, rarelyresolve purely on legal or constitutional principles, even if those might laterbe cited as justification.

Rather, their outcome is usually determined by whichever political elites happento form a quick critical mass in favor of one result. And those officials are leftto follow whatever motivation principle, partisan antipathy, self-interest happensto move them.

Taken together, the history of modern constitutional crises underscores some hardtruths about democracy. Supposedly bedrock norms, like free elections or rule of law,though portrayed as irreversibly cemented into the national foundation, are in truthonly as solid as the commitment of those in power. And while a crisis can be anopportunity for leaders to reinforce democratic norms, it can also be an opportunityto revise or outright revoke them. . .

Americans may see more in common with Peru. There, President Alberto Fujimoriin 1992 dissolved the opposition-held Congress, which had been moving to impeach him.Lawmakers across the spectrum quickly voted to replace Mr. Fujimori with hisown vice president, who had opposed the presidential power grab.

Both sides claimed to be defending democracy from the other. Both appealed to Perusmilitary, which had traditionally played a role of ultimate arbiter, almost akinto that of a supreme court. The public, deeply polarized, split. The military wasalso split.

At the critical moment, enough political and military elites signaled support forMr. Fujimori that he prevailed. They came together informally, each reacting to eventsindividually, and many appealing to different ends, such as Mr. Fujimoris economic agenda,notions of stability, or a chance for their party to prevail under the new order.

Peru fell into quasi-authoritarianism, with political rights curtailed and electionsstill held but under terms that favored Mr. Fujimori, until he was removed from officein 2000. . .

Modern Latin America has repeatedly faced such crises. This is due less to any sharedcultural traits, many scholars argue, than to a history of Cold War meddling thatweakened democratic norms. It also stems from American-style presidential systems,and deep social polarization that paves the way for extreme political combat.

Presidential democracies, by dividing power among competing branches, create moreopportunities for rival offices to clash, even to the point of usurping one anotherspowers. Such systems also blur questions of who is in charge, forcing their branchesto resolve disputes informally, on the fly and at times by force. . .

While other systems can fall into major crisis, it is often because, as in apresidential democracy, competing power centers clash to the point of trying tooverrun one another.

Still, some scholars argue that Americans hoping to understand their countrys trajectoryshould look not to Europe but to Latin America. . .

The phrase political elites can conjure images of cigar-chomping power-brokers,meeting in secret to pull societys strings. In reality, scholars use the term todescribe lawmakers, judges, bureaucrats, police and military officers, local officials,business chiefs and cultural figures, most of whom will never coordinate directly,much less agree on what is best for the country.

Still, it is those elites who collectively uphold democracy day-to-day. Much aspaper money only has value because we all treat it as valuable, elections and lawsonly have power because elites wake up every morning and treat them as paramount.It is a kind of compact, in which the powerful voluntarily bind themselves to asystem that also constrains them.

A well-functioning, orderly democracy does not require us to actively think aboutwhat sustains it, Tom Pepinsky, a Cornell University political scientist, told meshortly after the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021. Its an equilibrium; everybody isincentivized to participate as if it will continue.

But in a major constitutional crisis, when the norms and rules meant to guidedemocracy come under doubt, or fall by the wayside entirely, those elites suddenlyface the question of how or whether to keep up their democratic compact.

They will not always agree on what course is best for democracy, or for the country,or for themselves. Sometimes, the shock of seeing democracys vulnerability willlead them to redouble their commitment to it, and sometimes to jettison that systemin part or whole.

The result is often a scramble of elites pressuring one another directly, as manysenior Republicans and White House aides did throughout Jan. 6, or through publicstatements aimed at the thousands of officials operating the machinery of government.

Scholars call this a coordination game, with all those actors trying to understandand influence how the others will respond until a minimally viable consensus emerges.It can resemble less a well-defined plot than a herd of startled animals, which iswhy the outcome can be hard to predict.

Before Jan. 6, there had been little reason to wonder over lawmakers commitment todemocracy. It had not been a question of whether or not they supported democracyin a real internal sense that had never been the stakes, Dr. Pepinsky said.

Now, a crisis had forced them to decide whether to overturn the election, demonstratingthat not all of those lawmakers, if given that choice, would vote to uphold democracy.Ive been floored by how much of this really does depend on 535 people, Dr. Pepinskysaid, referring to the number of lawmakers in Congress.++++

Wonder what theyll be teaching in high-school civics classes in 2030.

Read the rest here:
The Texas GOP party platform the madness continues - Freethought Blogs

The Rev. Helen Orr, at home in Cambridge

I wanted to share with you some good news, for once. What follows is the text of my last two Substack newsletters, to which you can subscribe here. I use the newsletter to focus on spiritual, religious, and aesthetic interests which is to say, no culture-warring or politics. Though I am unhappy to be a displaced person (Im in the UK, waiting on getting a visa to get back to Europe), graces abound. Read on. RD

[The first one, titled, The Abbess of The Moorings]

You readers are going to get two of these today. Im on my way back to England, having been deported by the Austrian authorities when I tried to return to Vienna last night. My papers werent in order. Totally my fault! And the border police were actually very nice about it. Still, I have to go back to the UK and appeal to the Austrian Embassy in London for a visa. Further bad news: my research trip to France is now impossible, because I cant get anywhere into the EU without a visa.

The good news is that I will now have more time to write. The further good news is that Ill be returning to The Moorings, the Cambridge home of my friends James and Helen Orr, who hosted me there this week. I have to tell you, their rambling home on the banks of the river Cam, north of the town, is an oasis of peace and Benedictine hospitality.

James Orr is one of the bravest men in British public life for instance, he led the resistance to the universitys attempt to crush free speech and keep Jordan Peterson from speaking there but Helen is the happy genius of their household. I had not met her until this trip. She is the daughter of a prominent Anglican bishop, the late Simon Barrington-Ward, and is herself an Anglican parish priest. She and James, and their two children, host Christian student boarders in their house, and have built a kind of Benedict Option community there. The place and its people are so welcoming, and I think its mostly down to Helen.

(Ive added her as a subscriber to this newsletter, so I know she will be reading this and will probably be embarrassed by my praise, but sometimes one has to push on ascetically through such trials.)

When I arrived there earlier this week, Helen took me on a walk through their back garden. One of the best things about England is their gardens. Im an ardent Francophile in most things, but on gardens, I much prefer to messy English approach to the Cartesian severity of the French style. Helen told me of her plans to build a chapel there, and to keep working to make it a real center of art and healing in Christ.

She knew about my divorce situation from her husband, with whom I have been friends for several years. We stood down by the river and she spoke to me about it with directness and pastoral compassion in equal measure. I sure needed to hear what she had to say. In an earlier time and place, she would have been a great abbess of a vast and famous monastery. Today, she is vicar ofthe countryside parish of Bassingbourn, which dates back at least to the 13th century.

Over the past few days, Ive watched Helen oversee people coming and going from her house, feeding us, taking her kids to their activities, running a lodger to the doctor, and so forth. It was really something to see, how much passion she poured into making us all feel at home and cared for. And then when she sat down to talk with me from time to time about life in Christ, her words were always deep, wise, and comforting in fact, comfortingbecausedeep and wise. She has a rare gift of being able to speak with casual cheerfulness about profound things. Helen makes one feel seen. Whatever one thinks of womens ordination I think its impossible for us Orthodox, but the Anglicans can do what they want Helen has a pastoral gift that might be more powerful than any I have ever seen.

It might be that she made such a powerful impression on me because she reminds me of my Aunt Lois and Aunt Hilda, about whom Ive written a number of times over the years. Lois and Hilda were sisters of my fathers grandmother. They were born in the 1890s, and were very old when I was a little boy, and knew them. I would go to their tiny cabin at the end of a pecan orchard every day to visit, and to be dazzled by their presence, and their stories. Here they are with little me, about 1969:

Thats Hilda on the left, and Lois on the right. They were formidable, let me tell you. They had volunteered to be Red Cross nurses during World War I. I trace my abiding love of France to their stories about serving in the canteen in Dijon, and traveling around France after the war. Hilda was especially indomitable. In the great 1927 Mississippi River flood, she wanted to deliver relief supplies to the stranded in rural north Louisiana, but the Red Cross wouldnt allow its female workers to take that risk. So Hilda disguised herself as a man, took command of a supply boat, and went into the wild.

Thats the kind of women they were. So is Helen, I divine.

I wish I had been able to get through the border police and back to my apartment in Vienna. But it is not necessarily a bad thing that Im headed back to Cambridge, and to the home of the Orr family. Last night I bedded down in the airport chapel here in Vienna, comforted by the thought of sleeping where travelers pray. I was thinking that though my interrupted travel is unwelcome, maybe God allowed it to happen because He has something He needs to show me back in England. Helen is so full of life and curiosity about the world God has made that I can easily believe enchanted things are about to happen.

More later today I have to transcribe and publish here an amazing interview I did with an Anglican ordinand. And I want to share with you some things I read in the Venerable Bede last night, about St. Cuthbert. I had never really thought about the Anglo-Saxon saints until hearing about them this week in England. You just never know who you are going to meet, and what you are going to learn once you step off the everyday path.

The plane is boarding here in Vienna now. Back to Blighty!

[Here is the second one, titled The Pearls Of The Abbess]

Well, the adventure continues. Last night at the vacant terminal at the Vienna airport, I took comfort in the fact that the only place I could find to sleep not on the floor was in the airport chapel. It calmed me deeply, because I was resting where God is praised. It made me trust that despite the unpleasantness of being deported, and losing my pilgrimage to holy places in France next week (because I cant get back into the European Union/Schengen area until I get a visa, for which I have now applied), I felt assured that God was in it. That He has a plan here. I should have been quite distressed and unhappy, but somehow, I was calm, and thought, OK, God, what are you up to?

I arrived back at Londons Stansted airport, and waited in a very long passport control line. Theres a rail strike on here now, so trains were running off schedule. I finally caught a local up to Cambridge, and arrived in the sweltering heat not long after eleven a.m. I couldnt get an Uber none available, unusually so I decided to walk to The Moorings. Only twenty minutes away, though the weather was hot, and I was toting three bags. Still, I just wanted to get a shower and fall into bed, so off I went.

On the way, I began to pray the Jesus Prayer. I usually do when Im walking.Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.I walked a few minutes like that, but then the thought crossed my mind: back in the Before Times, I used to love calling my wife and sharing, in delight, the craziness of things like this (Can you believe it? I got deported! Isnt that just how it goes?). Now I cant do that. I havent been able to do this for about a decade. I miss it so much. That thought settled in, and brought with it sadness, and anger, and suddenly, I couldnt pray any more.

Dont surrender to it, I thought.Keep praying.But I remember making a deliberate choice to poke the sore tooth with my tongue, to linger on my unhappiness, and my sense of dislocation, of exile. I thought about this for the rest of the walk to The Moorings.

I let myself through the gate, and found the Abbess in her living room. I set my bags down, and flopped onto the sofa, while she flurried to the kitchen to get me something to drink. When she sat down, she showed me the handsome strand of pearls she was wearing.

I put them on today to remind myself to tell you the story about them, she said. The Abbess told me that she loved these pearls, but one day, she noticed they had gone missing. She looked everywhere for them, but couldnt find them. She was heartbroken, but figured that was just the way it goes sometimes.

As the year went on, Helen began to doubt whether she was doing the right things with her life. Finally, she prayed, Lord, if I am where Im supposed to be, doing the things Im supposed to do, please bring me back my pearls.

The next day, the Abbess got a call from her sister in Scotland. Did you lose your pearls? the sister asked. My friend found some pearls in the back garden. She thought maybe they were costume jewelry. I told her that no, I think those are my sisters pearls. Are they?

They were! The sister pointed out that her dog had gotten into Helens bag when she, her husband James, and the kids had been visiting last. The dog must have pulled the pearls out, and dropped them in the garden. For a year, people had been treading that garden, mowing it, and tending it, but no one had seen the pearls until that day. Until Helen had asked God to return them to her as a sign.

I wanted to share that with you because its a sign of enchantment, she told me. And of course I agreed.

We talked a bit more. She mentioned her late father, Anglican Bishop Simon Barrington-Ward, and how intimate was his friendship with C.S. Lewis and indeed, how before the bishop died in 2020, had been one of the last people left living who had been close to Lewis.

Soon I apologized to my hostess, and told her, My mind is so discombobulated that I cant form a coherent thought. I need to go down to the room, get a shower, and get some sleep.

At that moment, a neighbor showed up, poked her head in the back door, and gave Helen some information. I cant remember what it was about, but what I do remember was that the neighbor said that she felt so discombobulated. I dont know when I last used or heard that word, but now it had been spoken twice within four minutes. By now in my life, Ive learned to take that kind of thing as a synchronicity, as a meaningful coincidence. It always means, simply,pay attention, God is revealing something to you.

I went down to my room at the side of the garden, and got the last of my clean clothes to take to the bathroom for a shower. Ten minutes later, I was freshly washed and lying in the cool darkness of the room. Before I fell asleep, I looked at my e-mail. There was this from my friend Wesley J. Smith, a fellow Orthodox convert:

Just read of your travail in being barred from the EU.

If you are in England for a while, please spend a day or two at theMonastery of St. John in Essex.Founded by St. Sophrony the Athonite. Experience the Jesus Prayer service. Imagine hours of the JP chanted in different languages. It has to be experienced, it cant be described. I prayed at his tomb, and I have never felt the Holy Spirit so strongly. Completely off the grid. You have to call. Do. It is sublime.

Well, turns out that that monastery is not too far from where Im staying in Cambridge. Maybe I can get there.

Then there was a letter from another reader of this Substack, a priest, who sent this video. Its from eight years ago, with Helen interviewing her father, the late and much beloved Bishop Simon about the Jesus Prayer! I started watching it, and look, here is the first image, of Helen introducing her dad:

Shes wearing the pearls.

I thought, okay, this is a real synchronicity. I need to watch this video, but only when Im in my right mind. I closed my laptop and fell asleep.

A few hours later, when I woke up, I watched it. Here it is:

It is plain and gentle and like cool, clear water. The bishop who, Helen told me, wrote two books about the Jesus Prayer talks about what it is and why its so important. He mentions going to the Monastery in Essex, becoming close friends with the Abbot Sophrony, and learning the Jesus Prayer from him. In the video, the bishop holds a prayer rope that the future canonized saint gave him. Bishop Simon simply tells how to pray the Jesus Prayer, and why (e.g., he explainstheosis). None of it was new information to me, but it was like being stopped wandering off the road, and pointed back to the straight path by this dear old Christian Englishman, the father of my new friend the Abbess.

Do I even need to tell you that I am going to do my very best to get out to that Monastery this weekend, or at least while I am in England waiting on my visa problem to get sorted? I am so sorry to be missing Mont-Saint-Michel and Rocamadour next week, but I will get there eventually. There is something God has for me to learn here, in England, at St. Sophronys monastery.

When I finished the video, I came up to the house, and found the Abbess finishing her sermon for this Sunday. She told me that she has never watched that video of herself and her dad, but maybe now she should. What if it is, for Helen, another strand of pearls, lost in the garden, but now turned up at just the right moment?

I asked the Abbess if I could photograph her with the pearls. Yes, she said, but do so in front of this colorful painting hanging in her living room. She bought it many years ago, after a painful crisis in her life, one that she was coming out of with some professional success (before she became a vicar, Helen was a recording artist). She explained that she was walking in Notting Hill one day after signing a recording deal, saw the painting in a shop, and was so moved by the brightness of it, the warmth, and the life in its colors. But she figured it would be too expensive. It wasnt, so she bought it.

Helens husband James, a Cambridge professor, commented, That painting has enlivened every house we lived in, no matter how Dickensian. And there is the happy genius of her household, wearing pearls, in front of the painting.

Later, she loaned me one of her late fathers prayer ropes (not the one from St. Sophrony, which is with a friend at the moment), so I can pray the Jesus Prayer on it while Im here. I will pray it tonight, and ask for Bishop Simon and his friend St. Sophrony to join me in prayer. Im onto something. Turns out I was right to be calm in the airport chapel last night, and to trust that God was going to use that crisis to show me something I needed to see.

But what? Ill soon find out. And you know Ill report back!

Helen just showed me something she wrote down a while back to comfort her husband in a time of stress, and has kept near to hand in their bedroom. She wants me to share it as the Abbesss pastoral message to you all this evening:

Read more:
The Abbess Of The Moorings - The American Conservative

The Republican Party in Texas made a series of far-right declarations as part of its official party platform over the weekend, claiming that President Biden was not legitimately elected, issuing a rebuke to Senator John Cornyn for his work on bipartisan gun legislation and referring to homosexuality as an abnormal lifestyle choice.

The platform was voted on in Houston at the state partys convention, which concluded on Saturday.

The resolutions about Mr. Biden and Mr. Cornyn were approved by a voice vote of the delegates, according to James Wesolek, the communications director for the Republican Party of Texas. The statements about homosexuality as well as additional stances on abortion that called for students to learn about the Humanity of the Preborn Child were among more than 270 planks that were approved by a platform committee and voted on by the larger group of convention delegates using paper ballots. The results of those votes were still pending on Sunday, but Mr. Wesolek said it was rare for a plank to be voted down by the full convention after being approved by the committee.

The resolutions adopting the false claims that former President Donald J. Trump was the victim of a stolen election in 2020 as well as the other declarations were the latest examples of Texas Republicans moving further to the right in recent months. Republicans control both chambers of the legislature, the governors mansion and every statewide office, and have used their dominance to push tough anti-abortion legislation, create supply-chain problems by temporarily adding additional state inspections at the border and renominate the Trump-backed state attorney general over a member of the Bush family in a primary runoff in May.

Mr. Wesolek disputed the notion that the declarations were tied to the state partys rightward tilt. That was the will of the body, Mr. Wesolek said on Sunday. We pride ourselves on being a grass-roots party.

State party conventions in Texas have at times been venues for publicly airing internal rifts. In 2012, Gov. Rick Perry was loudly booed at the state Republican convention when he said he was backing the powerful lieutenant governor over Ted Cruz in a contested primary for Senate. On Friday, Mr. Cornyn a key negotiator in the gun talks with Democrats was booed by convention goers during a speech in which he tried to assure Republicans that the new legislation would not infringe on the rights of gun owners.

The state partys resolution embracing the baseless 2020 stolen-election claims stated that substantial election fraud in key metropolitan areas significantly affected the results in five key states in favor of Mr. Biden. The state party, the resolution continued, rejected the certified results of the 2020 Presidential election, and we hold that acting President Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. was not legitimately elected by the people of the United States.

The resolution encouraged Republicans to show up to vote in November, and to bring your friends and family, volunteer for your local Republicans and overwhelm any possible fraud.

State Representative Steve Toth, a Republican who represents part of Montgomery County, a Houston suburb, said he left the convention before voting on the resolutions, but he expressed support for them. He said he hoped the Biden resolution would encourage Republicans and Democrats to come together and to call for a forensic audit of the 2020 election.

Jason Vaughn, 38, a Republican delegate from Houston, claimed credit for adding the show up to vote language in the Biden resolution. My fear is that if we keep telling people the election was stolen, theyre going to not go and vote, Mr. Vaughn said.

Mary Lowe, a delegate from the Fort Worth suburbs who was focused on education issues at the convention, said she was surprised the 2020 election results were a focus of attention by her Republican colleagues. But, she added, I dont know too many people that felt that Biden won.

Ms. Lowe, the chairwoman of the Tarrant County chapter of a group known as Moms for Liberty, said she was among those delegates openly critical of Mr. Cornyn. But she added that she was embarrassed by the booing and did not participate in it.

I dont believe that booing is polite, Ms. Lowe said. I feel elected officials should be treated with proper decorum.

Jamie Haynes, 47, a Republican delegate who lives in the Texas Panhandle with her husband and who says that, together, they own a lot of guns, said the boos directed at Mr. Cornyn showed there was a resounding strong opinion that Republicans do not want their gun rights shaved not just taken away but even just shaved in any form.

The resolution rebuking Mr. Cornyn that passed at the convention opposed red flag laws, which allow guns to be seized from people deemed to be dangerous. Those laws, according to the resolution, violate ones right to due process and are a pre-crime punishment of people not adjudicated guilty.

The homosexuality plank passed the platform committee by a vote of 17 to 14, according to Mr. Vaughn, an openly gay member of the committee who voted against it.

It does nothing to move us forward as a party and gain voters, he said in a video of the committee meeting. In an interview, Mr. Vaughn said the shift at the convention was the result of a small number of people who make the process miserable because they want to do all this extreme, far-right stuff.

Mr. Toth disagreed, saying that on abortion, gay rights and the 2020 election, the Republican Party has been consistent in sticking to its conservative principles. Defense of marriage? Abortion? Second Amendment? Where have we moved to the right? he asked. The Republicans have always been strong defenders of constitutional family values.

One Texas congressman and Democrat, Representative Colin Allred, called the Republican Partys actions regressive.

The Texas Republican Party is trying to take us back to a time when women couldnt make decisions about their own bodies and when Americans lived in fear that they would be punished for being themselves, Mr. Allred said in a statement.

Excerpt from:
Texas Republicans Approve Far-Right Platform Declaring Bidens Election Illegitimate - The New York Times