Podcasts about paired

If you've ever needed a guide on what not to do on a road trip, Wrong Turn is here for you! We're not saying everyone could have escaped the cannibals, but we are saying more of them could have survived. This movie is iconic early aughts horror, spawning five sequels and a two-movie reboot! Listen up as we quickly get off the rails discussing Wrong Turn 2 almost as as much as we discuss Wrong Turn because legend, Henry Rollins is in Wrong Turn 2 (worth a watch!). In this episode we get into trespassing in backwoods of West Virginia, good gore, and what kind of dating profiles we could make these cannibal brothers. Paired with a Pepto Bismol cocktail. IYKYK Rate! Review! Follow! Follow us on Instagram and Letterboxd @toastyhorror Check out our website toasttoromcoms.com Email us at toasttoromcoms@gmail.com

Hey this is Alex, welcome to... the chillest week in AI, since ... a long time. Chill, if you consider Moderna and MERK announcing a cancer vaccine and surging 115% in a day, a chill week. This week, the only two model drops we really saw came from the excellent Z.ai folks, they announced GLM 5.3, API only for now, and an amazing tiny release of Qwen 3.89 27B. In other big AI news, OpenAI announced they are pausing RL efforts (Reinforcement Learning) to focus on security and alignment post the scary AI Swarms hacking incident, dedicating up to 20% of compute towards reviewing agent thinking processes, and Stripe buying OpenRouter for a reported $8B! Sometimes the chill weeks are actually good, we're able to chat about how we use AI, what changed for us, and give our guests a bit of breathing room. This week, I invited Francesco from CUA to talk about computer use in open source + their new history plugin, Bin from HeyGen to talk about HyperFrames, a way for your agents to create videos and a breaking news guest, Jeff Huber from Chroma jumped on to talk about their new Foundations release, a unified memory for your agents! This was a great episode, I hope you'll like it, it's up here on Substack and everywhere you get your pod (Spotify, Youtube, Apple Podcasts). ThursdAI - Highest signal weekly AI news show is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Are we being fed slop again? (Is Claude dumb again?)Before we get to releases, this week on the show, I complained, again, that I feel my AI's are degrading. If this feels like de-ja-vu to you, it's because the same happened a year ago in September 2025 (and Anthropic admitting this 2 weeks later), and ... now this happens with Fable?You see, I use pretty much the same prompts, every week, preparing for the show. This is partly my way to evaluate new models and compare to existing and previous ones while also bringing you the best researched weekly show in AI. Well, this week, one after another, Claude Fable, which is... like the best intelligence, gave me such poor output, that I couldn't believe what I'm seeing. First, literally ignoring instructions that say “hey, show me all the items I've collected and let me pick the most important ones”, Fable instead sent all of them to my research pipeline, without showing me. This has worked, consistently, without fail, for the past... year? maybe more! This worked with open source models, worked with GPT, and now Fable, a Mythos Level LLM, is doing the most basic dumb s**t possible, ignoring the main reason I even have this workflow. And this wasn't just a fluke either, when asked to create a run of show document, and given an example, Fable produced this... whatever this is. This is the same document and same format that Fable produced for me during AI Engineer which got me thinking “ok, this is AGI”, and here, given an example, I got a completely unusable artifact, despite direct instructions, structure and example! I got to say, given that privately this week, Anthropic disclosed that they have passed $65B in revenue, which is absolutely insane, this doesn't add up. So I figured, ok Alex, maybe this is your prompts or skills. But no, LDJ came in with some charts that show degradation, one from MarginLab.ai that shows significant lowering on number of tool calls and average runtime recently (this is for Opus 5) and And another chart from modelverify.ai model drift monitor showing drift scores.Do we have anoher Claude Gate on our hands? Is your Fable/Opus behaving weird lately? Or did you completely switched away to other models? OpenAI pausing RL and focusing on safetyLook, when we covered the HF hacking incident and then the pacing the frontier letter, I didn't imagine that results will come this fast, but this week, OpenAI publicly announced that they are pausing RL training, which is the last step of models, until they get their sandboxes in order and align the models better. We all agreed on stage that this is likely a very good move, and Peter was really awe-struck at the 20% dedication of resources towards reviewing thought processes of models. Is this a good enough response to the scary hacking incident? we'll see, but I think this is the right move from OpenAI, and still, waiting for the full postmortem on the OpenAI security incident. Open Source LLMsQwen3.8-27B ties GPT-5.6 Luna and runs on a 4090 (X, HF, Announcement)Following the release of their flagship, Alibaba dropped a model that became a community darling overnight, Qwen 3.8 with just 27B parameters. This “tiny” model scores 52 on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, same score as GPT 5.6 Luna at Max reasoning and 51 on Agentic index, beating Opus 4.8 MaxAll while running at around 68t/s on a 4090 GPU, and around 40 on max via MLX, hell it even does 11t/s on Xenova's WebGPU kernels right in the browser! This model exploded on the HuggingFace hub, with tons of quants, over 152 fine-tunes, it was downloaded over 10M times overall

Hour 3 - The ol' McAfee Fatigue paired with new tunes & breaking news, Texans PREDICTION Time with the fellas-

Waterfalls are nature's white noise! The consistent sleep sound fills the ears with bliss as the water cascades over the rocky edge. Paired with the dynamic pitter-patter of rain sounds for sleeping, and you have a truly wonderous ambience that can tire your eyes even on the most restless of nights! Listening to the constant waterfall white noise and rain sounds to sleep can ease your mind when busy thoughts keep you awake. Not to mention, this relaxing white noise can help mask those distracting sounds from outside your room so you can sleep uninterrupted! If you struggle to fall asleep in silence but don't want to play music or the TV, listen to this water falling sound and sleep rain noise for the slumber you have been wishing for!At Relaxing White Noise, our goal is to help you sleep well. This episode is twelve hours long with no advertisements in the middle, so you can use it as a sleeping sound throughout the night. Listening to our white noise sounds via the podcast gives you the freedom to lock your phone at night, keeping your bedroom dark as you fall asleep. It also allows you to switch between apps while studying or working with no interruption in the ambient sound.⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Contact Us for Partnership Inquiries⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Relaxing White Noise is the number one destination on YouTube for white noise and nature sounds to help you sleep, study or soothe a baby. With more than a billion views across YouTube and other platforms, we are excited to now share our popular ambient tracks on the Relaxing White Noise podcast. People use white noise for sleeping, focus, sound masking or relaxation. We couldn't be happier to help folks live better lives. This podcast has the sound for you whether you use white noise for studying, to soothe a colicky baby, to fall asleep or for simply enjoying a peaceful moment. No need to buy a white noise machine when you can listen to these sounds for free. Cheers to living your best life!DISCLAIMER: Remember that loud sounds can potentially damage your hearing. When playing one of our ambiences, if you cannot have a conversation over the sound without raising your voice, the sound may be too loud for your ears. Please do not place speakers right next to a baby's ears. If you have difficulty hearing or hear ringing in your ears, please immediately discontinue listening to the white noise sounds and consult an audiologist or your physician. The sounds provided by Relaxing White Noise are for entertainment purposes only and are not a treatment for sleep disorders or tinnitus. If you have significant difficulty sleeping on a regular basis, experience fitful/restless sleep, or feel tired during the day, please consult your physician.⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Relaxing White Noise Privacy Policy⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠© Relaxing White Noise LLC, 2026. All rights reserved. Any reproduction or republication of all or part of this text/visual/audio is prohibited.

This is the climax of the summer's Matthew arc. Everything since Trinity has been building toward Peter's answer to the question Jesus finally asks him directly: “Who do you say that I am?” Today Peter answers, and the answer shapes everything that follows.* Track One begins Exodus — the birth of Moses, protected by an unlikely coalition of women who defy Pharaoh's murderous order. Psalm 124 sings the deliverance from the other side. * Track Two brings us Isaiah's call to remember the rock from which we were hewn, paired with Psalm 138's personal thanksgiving. * The Epistle turns an important corner: after eleven chapters of theological argument, Paul opens Romans 12 with “therefore” — the practical application begins. Present your bodies. One body, many members. Different gifts, all needed.For preachers continuing a series: this is the destination. The confession is what the summer has been building toward. Next week the Gospel will turn — Peter will be corrected, the way of the cross will be named — but this week we stop and let the confession stand.The ReadingsExodus 1:8–2:10First Reading (Track One) — The Midwives and the Birth of MosesSummaryA new king arises in Egypt who does not know Joseph. Threatened by the growing number of Hebrews, he enslaves them and orders the Hebrew midwives to kill every male child at birth. But the midwives — Shiphrah and Puah, named by the text against Pharaoh's namelessness — refuse. When Pharaoh escalates and orders all male children thrown into the Nile, three more women defy him: Moses's mother, who hides him and then places him in a basket on the river; his sister, who watches from the reeds; and Pharaoh's own daughter, who finds the baby and takes him as her own. Deliverance begins through the courage of women.Key Ideas for Preaching* The story of Israel's deliverance begins with women whose defiance no one wrote down until much later. An unlikely coalition forms across ethnic and class lines. Where in your congregation might God's deliverance be already beginning through people whose work no one has yet noticed?* Shiphrah and Puah are named by the text. Pharaoh, the most powerful man in the story, is not. The narrator has decided who matters. What might it mean for your congregation to notice whose names Scripture chooses to lift up?* The midwives lie — or, dissemble at the very least — to Pharaoh, and the text approves — God deals well with them. Where in your congregation has an obedience to institutional authority been quietly mistaken for faithfulness, when a deeper faithfulness would have refused?Significant Cautions* Do not idealize any of the characters. The midwives are ordinary working women doing what they can. Pharaoh's daughter defies her father but does not free the Hebrews. Their courage is real and it is also partial.* The civil disobedience reading of this text is available, but should not be pressed into any particular contemporary political program.* Say the names — Shiphrah and Puah — from the pulpit when you can. Pharaoh's namelessness is part of the text's judgment on him.Psalm 124The Psalm (Track One) — If It Had Not Been the LordSummaryA psalm of thanksgiving for deliverance, sung from the safe side. If it had not been the Lord who was on our side when enemies rose against us, when the waters would have swept us away, we would have been overwhelmed. Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth.Key Ideas for Preaching* The psalm is written in retrospect — thanksgiving from safety, not desperate pleading in the moment. What might it look like for your congregation to make a practice of naming past deliverances honestly, so that hope in future ones is grounded in something remembered?* Paired with today's Exodus reading, the psalm reads like a song sung generations after the midwives did their quiet work in a birthing room. What began as unnoticed courage becomes a whole people singing.Significant Cautions* Be careful not to preach this in a way that identifies contemporary political opponents as the “enemies” God delivers us from. The psalm is looking back at Egypt, not writing policy for today.Isaiah 51:1–6First Reading (Track Two) — Look to the RockSummaryA word of comfort to God's people in exile. Look to the rock from which you were hewn, the quarry from which you were dug — remember Abraham and Sarah, from whom your whole people came. God is bringing comfort to Zion, making her wilderness like Eden. Instruction will go out; justice will be a light to the peoples. The heavens will vanish like smoke and the earth wear out like a garment, but God's salvation will endure forever.Key Ideas for Preaching* The prophet asks the people to remember. Look to the rock. Remember Abraham and Sarah. Where in your congregation has the loss of memory made the current moment feel more precarious than it should?* The pairing of “the heavens will vanish like smoke” with “my salvation will be forever” is a striking piece of realism about what lasts. Where has your congregation been placing lasting trust in what will not last?* Paired with the Gospel, this text sets up the wordplay Jesus will use with Peter — “on this rock.” Isaiah's rock is Abraham and Sarah; Matthew's rock is Peter's confession. Both texts are asking about the ground beneath our feet.Significant Cautions* The imagery of Zion's restoration is specific to Israel's exile. Do not press it into a program for any modern nation.* “Look to the rock from which you were hewn” is an invitation to remember, not a mandate to romanticize the past.Psalm 138The Psalm (Track Two) — Do Not Forsake the Work of Your HandsSummaryA psalm of personal thanksgiving that expands to a global vision. The psalmist gives thanks with his whole heart and praises God's steadfast love. All the kings of the earth will one day praise God. The closing line is a prayer that God will not forsake the work of God's hands.Key Ideas for Preaching* “The Lord will fulfill his purpose for me… do not forsake the work of your hands.” That is one of the most reassuring sentences in the Psalter — a prayer that trusts God is not done. Where in your congregation are people who need to hear that they are still the work of God's hands?* The psalm begins with a personal thanksgiving and ends with all the kings of the earth. What might your sermon do with a psalm whose horizon widens that quickly?Significant Cautions* “All the kings of the earth” praising God should not be read as a program for religious empire. It is a prayer for a widening praise, not a mandate.Romans 12:1–8The Epistle — A Living Sacrifice; One Body, Many MembersSummaryAfter eleven chapters of theological argument, Paul turns a corner. “I appeal to you, therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice.” Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds. Paul then turns to community life: think of yourselves with sober judgment. We are one body with many members, and no member is complete without the others. Different gifts have been given — prophecy, ministry, teaching, encouragement, giving, leading, showing mercy — and each should be exercised in the measure of faith God has given.Key Ideas for Preaching* “Present your bodies as a living sacrifice” is one of the strangest images in Paul. Sacrifices in the ancient world were dead. Living sacrifices are not a category. Paul is describing a whole life, offered without being consumed. What does it look like to preach whole-life offering in a culture that keeps splitting body from soul, work from worship?* Paul opens the practical section with an appeal for humility — think of yourself with sober judgment, not more highly than you ought. This is his first instruction for community life. Where in your congregation might humble self-assessment be the missing precondition for everything else Paul goes on to ask?* The list of gifts is illustrative, not comprehensive. Some are visible (prophecy, teaching, leading). Others are quieter (ministry, showing mercy, giving with generosity). Where in your congregation have visible gifts been overvalued and quieter gifts overlooked?Significant Cautions* “Present your bodies as a living sacrifice” has been misused to justify Christians accepting abuse or unhealthy suffering. That is not what Paul is describing. Handle the language carefully in pastoral contexts where suffering is not chosen.* The gifts list has sometimes been made into a personality test. Paul is describing what happens in a healthy community, not offering a diagnostic for individuals.Matthew 16:13–20The Gospel — Peter's Confession at Caesarea PhilippiSummaryJesus takes his disciples to Caesarea Philippi — a city built by Herod's son at the base of Mount Hermon, next to a massive rock cave that was a shrine to the Greek god Pan, and named after Caesar. In this heavily symbolic place, Jesus asks two questions. First: who do people say that the Son of Man is? The disciples report the various answers — John the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah, one of the prophets. Then the sharper question: who do you say that I am? Peter answers: you are the Messiah, the Son of the living God. Jesus blesses him — this insight, he says, has come from God, not from human reasoning. Then comes the famous wordplay: you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church.* (see excursus below) Peter is given the keys of the kingdom. And the disciples are charged to tell no one that Jesus is the Messiah.Photo by Emile Guillemot on UnsplashKey Ideas for Preaching* The setting is not accidental. Caesarea Philippi was named after Caesar and built next to a shrine to Pan. When Jesus asks “who do you say that I am?” he is asking in the shadow of empire and of another religion's holy place. What does it mean for your congregation to make Peter's confession in the shadows of the powers of our own moment?* The other answers the disciples report — John the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah — are good answers. Great prophets. Faithful witnesses. But they are not enough. Where might your congregation be settling for a good answer to who Jesus is when a deeper one is being offered?* Jesus tells Peter the confession did not come from “flesh and blood” — it was given to him by God. The confession is not a reward for Peter's cleverness; it is a gift from the Father. Where in your congregation has faith been imagined as something we work out, when the text describes it as something we receive?* Whatever your tradition makes of the Petros/petra wordplay, the fundamental picture is worth preaching: the church is built on a confession. Not on our cleverness, not on our numbers, not on our building, not on our institutional strength. On a confession. What would change if your congregation actually believed that?Significant Cautions* The Petros/petra wordplay has been the site of long controversy between Catholic and Protestant traditions. Both readings have real defenders; do not preach one as the only faithful option.* “The gates of Hades will not prevail” has been used triumphally in ways Jesus's own life will complicate — he is about to head to Jerusalem and be crucified. The victory the passage promises is not the kind that avoids the cross.* The command to tell no one has puzzled readers for centuries. This is the “messianic secret” that runs through Matthew and Mark, and scholars have not settled its meaning. Do not preach a confident theory as if it were obvious.An exursus on the text: I found the following brief commentary from You.com to be helpful in my deliberation of how much to make of the difference between Petros and petra:* The Petros/Πέτρος vs. Petra/πέτρα Contrast (Matthew 16:18)Lexical and Grammatical Background* Πέτρος (Petros): Masculine, used as Simon's new name, means “rock” or “stone.” In Koine Greek, it is not used generically for “small stone”—that would be λίθος (lithos)* πέτρα (petra): Feminine, means “bedrock,” “massive rock,” or “rock formation.” Used metaphorically for a strong foundation* Gender Accommodation: The distinction is primarily grammatical—πέτρα is feminine and unsuitable as a male name, so the masculine Πέτρος is used for SimonAramaic Background* Kepha (כֵּיפָא): In Aramaic, the same word is used for both Peter's name and “rock,” with no gender distinctionJesus likely spoke Aramaic, so the Greek distinction is a translation artifact, not a theological oneMatthew 16:13–20 is a foundational passage for Christian theology and ecclesiology. The Petros/petra wordplay, rooted in Aramaic and preserved in Greek, affirms Peter's foundational role without excluding the importance of his confession or the broader apostolic witness. The passage's other key terms—ἐκκλησία, πύλαι ᾅδου, κλεῖδες τῆς βασιλείας, δήσῃς/λύσῃς, Υἱὸς τοῦ θεοῦ τοῦ ζῶντος—draw deeply from Jewish, Old Testament, and Greco-Roman backgrounds, establishing the church as a new, Christ-centered community with authority, resilience, and a confession rooted in divine revelation.Thematic ConnectionsThe Gospel is the climax of the summer's Matthew arc. Since Trinity we have been reading with Peter and the disciples — call, sending, warning, welcome, feeding, walking on water, encounter with the Canaanite woman — and today the question that has been building finally gets asked directly. Peter answers, and the answer shapes everything that follows.On Track One, the Exodus reading pairs with the Gospel in a specific way. Israel's deliverance begins with midwives whose courage no one recorded until later; the church, in the Gospel, is built on a confession made by a fisherman in the shadow of a pagan shrine. Both texts insist that the beginnings of God's great works often happen in unnoticed places, through unexpected people.On Track Two, Isaiah's “look to the rock from which you were hewn” and the Gospel's “on this rock” are worth reading side by side. Isaiah asks the people to remember Abraham and Sarah as their foundation. Jesus builds the church on the foundation of Peter's confession. Both texts are asking the same question in different tenses: what is the ground beneath your feet?Romans 12 sits inside the day as the “so what.” If Peter's confession is true, something has to change about how we live. Present your bodies. Think of yourselves with sober judgment. Use your gifts for the good of the whole body. Paul is describing what a community looks like when it takes Peter's confession seriously.For preachers finishing the summer series: this is the destination. Next week the Gospel will turn — Peter will be corrected, the way of the cross will be named — but this week we stop and let the confession stand. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit lectionarypro.substack.com/subscribe

It's the one we've been waiting for! Join us for an exciting new release with guests Jen of Neighbors Neighboring fame and her husband Jason as we discuss the new horror sensation sweeping the nation, Obsession. This movie, featuring sad sack Bear, is the perfect first date movie so you can root out the red flag dudes before they become a red flag! Bear is simply the worst, there's no getting around it and right now he's one of the scariest horror villains out there. We were blown away by Inde Navarrette's performance as freaky Nikki. Listen up as we discuss music store staff, blue phobias, and if any characters in this movie are redeemable! Paired with a Look in the Mirror Cocktail. Rate! Review! Follow! Follow us on Instagram and Letterboxd @toastyhorror Check out our website toasttoromcoms.com Email us at toasttoromcoms@gmail.com

This week we step into the darkness with two classic adventures from The Shadow, starring the legendary Orson Welles as Lamont Cranston and Agnes Moorehead as the ever-resourceful Margo Lane. When Orson Welles took over the title role in 1937, he was only 22 years old, yet his commanding performance helped define one of radio's greatest heroes. Paired with Agnes Moorehead, whose remarkable talent made every scene come alive, the two created radio magic that still captivates listeners nearly ninety years later. These two stories also showcase something that made The Shadow unique. Being invisible wasn't enough—The Shadow succeeded because he understood how criminals thought. Whether facing a ruthless counterfeiting ring or solving a murder aboard an ocean liner, he always stayed one step ahead. So dim the lights, let your imagination take over, and enjoy an evening of radio at its finest. In This Episode Introduction to The Shadow and the legendary partnership of Orson Welles and Agnes Moorehead. The League of Terror (January 9, 1938) Thoughts on why The Shadow was the perfect hero for radio. Aboard the Steamship Amazon (May 8, 1938) Reflections on imagination, suspense, and why these stories continue to entertain today. Featured Stories The League of Terror Originally aired January 9, 1938- A ruthless counterfeiting gang uses extortion and murder to protect its criminal empire. With the help of the daughter of one of the gang's victims, The Shadow devises an ingenious plan to bring the organization crashing down. Aboard the Steamship Amazon Originally aired May 8, 1938 - A relaxing ocean voyage turns deadly when Randolph Todd is murdered aboard the Steamship Amazon. With Lamont Cranston locked inside his stateroom, only The Shadow can uncover the truth before the killer strikes again. Ron's Amazing Stories Is Sponsored by: Audible - You can get a free audiobook and a 30 day free trial at audibletrial.com/ronsamazingstories. Your Stories: Do you have a story that you would like to share on the podcast or the blog? Head to the main website, click on Story Submission, leave your story, give it a title, and please tell me where you're from. I will read it if I can. Links are below. Music Used In This Podcast: Most of the music you hear on Ron's Amazing Stories has been composed by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) and is Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0. Other pieces are in the public domain. You can find great free music at FreePd.com which is a site owned by Kevin. Program Info: Ron's Amazing Stories is published each Thursday. You can download it from Apple Podcasts, stream it on Stitcher Radio or on the mobile version of Spotify. Do you prefer the radio? We are heard every Thursday at 10:00 pm and Sunday Night at 11:00 PM (EST) on AMFM247.COM. Check your local listing or find the station closest to you at this link. Social Links: Main Podcast Site by LibSynThe Blog Site by WordPressFacebook LinkTwitter Link Contact Links: EmailStory Submissions Contact Ron

It's Friday and we are back to to tackle two major industry deep-dives, but not before touching base on Microsoft and EA, comparing BBC quotes  and teasing a Patreon-exclusive story about a spectacularly failed kosher salt business. First up, Shams and Fernando unpacks Joakim Achren's newsletter breakdown (link here) on the "Six Reasons VCs Pulled Back from Games," examining why early-stage bets and public game studio IPOs are falling flat. Paired with insights from Thomas Bidaux's ICO Partners newsletter, which recently tracked an all-time record number of Steam releases, they further explore why standing out is harder than ever. Next up, it's time to dissect Matthew Ball's massive, "doorstop" state-of-the-industry deck "The State of Video Gaming in 2026" (link here). Ball's data reveals a sobering picture: actual growth is heavily carried by Roblox and subscriptions, overall gamer numbers might be shrinking due to screen fatigue, and median players are sticking to forever-games rather than buying new titles. And of course this is just the tip of the iceberg in Ball´s presentation. Thanks for listening! Shams quoted in BBC Ico Partners Newsletter Almost Ready Games Fund That page in Ball´s deck around time spent on new games that Fernando mentioned? Page 35 (link to deck once more here)

On this episode of The Pirate Street Journal on Chistopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different, the trio tackled three major business stories that mainstream financial media fumbled. From Google’s record-breaking quarter to AI disrupting the legal industry and a historic merger of black-owned banks, the conversation offered a perspective that most financial journalists simply miss because they focus on companies rather than market categories. This is just one of the topics that Pirates Christopher Lochhead, Eddie Yoon and Bri Clark discuss on this episode of Pirate Street Journal. Each week, the Category Pirates pick three headlines worth paying attention to and break down the category underneath. You're listening to Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different. We are the real dialogue podcast for people with a different mind. So get your mind in a different place, and hey ho, let's go.   Google’s Negative Free Cash Flow Is Not the Story You Think It Is Google’s parent company, Alphabet, posted second-quarter revenue of $119.8 billion, up 24% year over year. Cloud revenue surged 82%, net income jumped nearly 300% to $112 billion, and the cloud backlog hit $514 billion. By nearly every rational business measure, this was a historic performance. Yet the stock fell because free cash flow turned negative for the first time in company history, prompting the Wall Street Journal to run a dramatic chart they called “Alphabet’s cash flow falling off a cliff.” What the Journal conveniently left out is that Alphabet is sitting on $242 billion in cash and marketable securities. The negative free cash flow is the direct result of Google doubling its capital expenditures to $44.9 billion in a single quarter, raising its full-year CapEx guidance past $200 billion. This is not a company bleeding out. This is a company making one of the largest strategic bets in the history of technology.   Google Is Quietly Achieving Something That Almost Never Happens For the first time in recent memory, Google Cloud’s incremental revenue growth in absolute dollar terms outpaced Google Search. Cloud added $11 billion in incremental revenue during the quarter while Search added $8.3 billion. Search is still a monster business, still growing, still one of the greatest category king positions ever built on the internet. But Cloud has crossed a threshold that very few people are talking about seriously enough. This is extraordinary because history shows that dominant category kings almost never successfully pioneer into a new category at scale. Google is refuting the Innovator’s Dilemma in real time, alongside Microsoft. Both companies are investing in AI infrastructure at a pace that reflects how massive the category potential truly is. The aggregate CapEx guidance for the Mag Seven this year sits between $700 and $750 billion, and that arms race exists because the stakes are unlike anything the technology industry has ever seen before.   Google’s Sleeper Advantage Could Define the Next Era of Consumer Technology Beyond the financial results, Google holds a strategic position that most analysts overlook entirely. The company that successfully builds a mega consumer AI agent, one that aggregates your email, calendar, messages, social activity, and daily life into a single intelligent interface, will own what Christopher calls the experience layer of AI. Google, with Gmail, Google Calendar, and its vast suite of personal productivity tools, is one of only two companies genuinely positioned to build that product. Apple is the other. What gives Google an additional edge that even Apple cannot easily replicate is YouTube. YouTube functions as the world’s largest knowledge repository, a platform where human expertise, creativity, and information accumulate at an unimaginable scale. The moment Google’s Gemini AI can perform deep inference learning on YouTube’s content library, the competitive moat becomes extraordinarily difficult to cross. Paired with the return of co-founder Sergey Brin and a CEO who appears to be operating in genuine partnership with the company’s founding vision, Google is not a company in decline. It is a company in transformation, and that is a very different thing entirely. To hear about all the topics in this week's The Pirate Street Journal, download and listen to this episode. You can also read more Pirate Street Journal entries in the Category Pirates newsletter.   We hope you enjoyed this episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), LinkedIn, and subscribe on Apple Podcast / Spotify!  

The Gospel picks up on the same night as last week's feeding of the five thousand. Immediately after Jesus feeds the crowd, he sends the disciples across the sea, dismisses the crowd, and goes up the mountain to pray alone. A storm rises. Some time before dawn, Jesus comes to them, walking on the water. Peter, characteristically, asks to join him — and takes a few steps before he starts to sink. It is one of the most famous scenes in the Gospels, and one of the most misused. We want to handle it with care.The Old Testament tracks reach the Gospel by very different paths. Track One begins the Joseph story — the coat, the favoritism, the brothers' plot, and the trafficking of Joseph into Egypt. Psalm 105 remembers that same descent as part of God's long providence. Track Two brings us Elijah at Horeb, exhausted and suicidal, meeting God not in the wind or earthquake or fire but in the sound of sheer silence — paired with Psalm 85's beautiful image of steadfast love and faithfulness meeting each other. The Epistle continues into Romans 10, with Paul's insistence that the word of faith is not far away but near — on our lips, in our hearts — and his celebration of the beautiful feet of those who carry good news.For preachers continuing a series: the Matthew narrative arc is picking up momentum. The identity of Jesus is being asked with increasing urgency — the disciples' confession at the end of this scene (“Truly you are the Son of God”) anticipates the great confession at Caesarea Philippi in two weeks. Something is building.The ReadingsGenesis 37:1–4, 12–28First Reading (Track One) — Joseph Sold Into SlaverySummaryThe Joseph story begins; this will become the longest narrative in the book of Genesis. Jacob favors Joseph — the son of his old age — and dresses him in the famous coat that will follow him into legend. The brothers see the favoritism, feel the sting of Joseph's dreams that place him above them, and cannot bring themselves to speak peaceably to him. When Jacob sends Joseph to check on his brothers at pasture, they see him coming from a distance and plot his death. Reuben talks them out of murder and throws him into a pit, hoping to rescue him later. Judah spots a caravan of traders and suggests selling him instead. The brothers sit down to a meal while Joseph is in the pit. Then they pull him out, sell him for twenty pieces of silver, and let him disappear into Egypt.Key Ideas for Preaching* The family in this story is genuinely dysfunctional. Parental favoritism produces jealousy; jealousy produces murderous rage; rage becomes trafficking. Genesis does not clean any of this up. What does it look like to preach honestly about the destructive patterns in a family that many of your people have inherited in their own?* Reuben tries to save Joseph without confronting the brothers. Judah calculates a middle path — profit rather than murder. Neither of these is heroism. Where in your congregation has quiet compromise passed for moral courage, and how might the text expose that?* The most chilling detail in the scene is that the brothers sit down to eat while Joseph is in the pit. Cruelty and appetite living together in the same body. Where has your congregation grown comfortable eating while others suffer, and what would it look like to notice again?* The Joseph story that begins here will end with reconciliation and rescue. But the reconciliation is decades away. What does it look like to preach the opening of a story whose good ending we know, without collapsing the pain of the beginning?Significant Cautions* The trafficking of Joseph is a real evil, not just a plot device. Do not use it as a metaphor in a way that minimizes what actually happened to him — or what still happens to trafficked people today.* “God used it for good” is where this story eventually ends up, but it does not begin there. Do not use the eventual outcome to blame the victim or to bless the brothers' cruelty in advance.* Joseph is not blameless in the family dynamic. His dreams and his coat are part of what has produced the tension. But that does not make him deserve any of what happens.* Do not preach Jacob's favoritism as a charming quirk. It is a wound the family will carry for generations.Psalm 105:1–6, 16–22, 45bThe Psalm (Track One) — Joseph in FettersSummaryThis section of the great remembering psalm now focuses on Joseph specifically. God sent a famine on the land; he sent a man before them — Joseph, sold as a slave. His feet were hurt with fetters, his neck put in a collar of iron, until his word came true and God's word tested him. Then the king sent for him and set him over his household. The psalm remembers Joseph's suffering openly, as part of God's long faithfulness.Key Ideas for Preaching* The psalm names Joseph's suffering openly — feet in fetters, neck in iron — before it names his elevation. It does not skip over the pain. What does it look like for your congregation to remember the hard chapters of God's people alongside the good ones, without pretending either did not happen?* “The word of the Lord tested him.” That is a striking phrase. Joseph's suffering is not caused by God's word, but it is what he had to endure while God's word did its slow work. Where in your congregation are people enduring something long and hard while God's promise seems to be delayed?Significant Cautions* “The word of the Lord tested him” can be misread to suggest that God causes suffering to test people. The psalm is describing the experience of waiting for God's promise, not endorsing a theology of trial.1 Kings 19:9–18First Reading (Track Two) — Elijah at HorebSummaryElijah has just fled Queen Jezebel's threat on his life after killing the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel. Exhausted and suicidal — in the verses just before our reading, he asks God to take his life — he has walked forty days into the wilderness and arrived at Horeb, the mountain of Moses. He goes into a cave. The Lord's voice asks: “What are you doing here, Elijah?” Elijah answers with a complaint. God tells him to stand on the mountain. Wind splits rocks; earthquake shakes; fire burns — but the Lord is in none of these. Then a sound of sheer silence — or, in older translations, a still small voice. Elijah wraps his face in his mantle. God asks the same question again. Elijah gives the same answer. God sends him back with an assignment to anoint successors, and with the correction that seven thousand others in Israel have not bowed to Baal.Key Ideas for Preaching* Elijah is not simply tired. He is suicidal. Just before our reading, he has asked God to take his life. What does it look like to preach on this text with tenderness for those in your congregation who have been that low, without preaching over their heads?* God does not lecture Elijah out of his despair. In the verses just before ours, God feeds him and lets him sleep before saying anything at all. Only then comes the question — twice — “What are you doing here?” That is pastoral care, not correction. How might your sermon model the same slowness with people in crisis?* The famous line is that the Lord was not in the wind or the earthquake or the fire, but in the sound of sheer silence. That is not a general rule about how God speaks; it is what Elijah needed to hear that day. Where in your congregation are people expecting God only in the dramatic, and how might this text open the possibility of a quieter meeting?* God's correction of Elijah's “I alone am left” is the one honest word in the whole scene. Elijah has been sure of his isolation, and he has been wrong. Seven thousand others have stayed faithful. Where in your congregation are people convinced they are alone in their faithfulness, and how might the text steady them?* God sends Elijah back to work. The vision is not the end. The next day begins. What does it look like to preach that quiet encounters lead to ordinary faithfulness, not away from it?Significant Cautions* Do not universalize “God is in the quiet.” God is in the dramatic too, elsewhere in Scripture. The text describes what Elijah needed that day, not a doctrine about how God always comes.* Do not treat Elijah's suicidal despair as a stage he had to move through to reach the still small voice. The despair is real, and any congregant hearing this text may be living it. Handle with care, and if it fits your context, name real resources for those who need them.* The seven thousand who have not bowed to Baal are named to correct Elijah's loneliness, not to diminish his suffering. Do not use this line to tell someone in real isolation that they are wrong to feel alone.* “Still small voice” is one translation choice among several. “Sound of sheer silence” is another. If you dwell on the phrase, mention that faithful translators disagree — both readings are honest attempts at a Hebrew phrase that resists a single English equivalent.Psalm 85:8–13The Psalm (Track Two) — Steadfast Love and Faithfulness MeetSummaryA short psalm of confidence. The psalmist commits to hear what God will speak — a word of peace to God's people. God's salvation is near. Steadfast love and faithfulness will meet; righteousness and peace will kiss each other. The land will yield its increase; righteousness will go before God and prepare a way.Key Ideas for Preaching* The image at the center is remarkable: steadfast love and faithfulness meeting, righteousness and peace kissing. The qualities we sometimes hold apart — mercy and truth, justice and peace — belong together in God. Where has your congregation been forced to choose between qualities that should meet, and how might this psalm free them from the false choice?* Paired with the Gospel, the psalm's promise that God speaks peace prepares us to hear Jesus' “take heart; do not be afraid” across the water. What might it look like to let the psalm set the ear before the Gospel arrives?Significant Cautions* The kiss of righteousness and peace is a poetic image, not a policy platform. Do not press it into a specific political program on the pulpit.Romans 10:5–15The Epistle — The Word Is Near YouSummaryPaul insists that the word of faith is not far away. It is not up in heaven or down in the deep; it is near — on our lips and in our hearts. If we confess with our lips and believe in our hearts, we are saved. There is no distinction between Jew and Greek: the same Lord is Lord of all, and everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. Paul closes with the chain that has echoed through Christian preaching ever since — how are they to call if they have not believed? how are they to believe if they have not heard? how are they to hear without someone to proclaim? And how beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news.Key Ideas for Preaching* Paul's insistence is that the word is near — not far, not hard to reach, not on the other side of a wall. The proclamation of the gospel does not require a journey to a mountain. Where has your congregation been treating the word as if it were still up in heaven, and how might Paul's nearness correct that?* “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news.” The image is homely — ordinary walking feet on ordinary ground. Where in your congregation are people already walking with good news, without knowing that the walking itself is being called beautiful?* Paul's chain — how are they to hear without a proclaimer? — is not about ministerial guilt. It is a description of how the word travels. What might your congregation do differently if they saw themselves as one link in that chain, not as those who have to carry the whole load?Significant Cautions* “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” has been used narrowly, to test who is inside and outside. Paul's flow of thought here is expansive, not restrictive. The point is how widely the invitation goes, not how narrow the gate is.* The “no distinction between Jew and Greek” line has sometimes been misread to argue that Christianity has replaced Judaism. Paul, a Jew, is not saying that. He is saying that God's covenant is expanding, not being reassigned.* “How beautiful are the feet” has been used to guilt people into evangelistic performance. Paul is celebrating the goodness of the walking, not measuring how many miles you have covered.Matthew 14:22–33The Gospel — Walking on WaterSummaryImmediately after the feeding of the five thousand, Jesus makes the disciples get into the boat and cross the sea while he stays behind to dismiss the crowds. He goes up the mountain to pray, alone. The boat is far from shore, battered by the wind, when in the fourth watch of the night — sometime before dawn — Jesus comes to them, walking on the sea. They are terrified. He speaks: take heart; it is I; do not be afraid. Peter, characteristically, asks for proof — command me to come to you on the water. Jesus does. Peter walks a few steps on the water toward Jesus. Then he notices the wind, becomes afraid, and starts to sink. Lord, save me. Jesus immediately reaches out and catches him: you of little faith, why did you doubt? They climb into the boat; the wind stops. The disciples in the boat worship him: truly you are the Son of God.Key Ideas for Preaching* Notice where Jesus is when the storm starts. He is on the mountain praying, alone. Last week we watched him serve from within his grief; this week he is in the deeper solitude that grief-serving people need. What does it mean that the compassion of Christ is fed by his own solitude with the Father?* Jesus does not calm the storm before coming to the disciples. He comes across the storm, in the storm, walking on the very water that is battering them. Where in your congregation are people waiting for the storm to end before Christ arrives, when the text is showing them a Christ who comes in the middle of it?* “Take heart; it is I; do not be afraid.” The Greek behind “it is I” is ego eimi — “I am” — the same phrase used for God's name at the burning bush. Matthew is signaling that this walking figure is not just a man. What might it mean for your congregation to hear the walking Jesus as the God who once named himself I AM at Sinai?* Peter's boldness and Peter's fear are the same Peter. He asks to walk; he walks; he notices the wind; he sinks. Every reader recognizes this. Where in your congregation are people ashamed of the same mix — of the boldness that took them out onto the water and the fear that pulled them back — and what would it mean for them to hear that Peter is us?* Jesus reaches out immediately. There is no delay. There is no lecture first. There is no letting Peter sink a little longer so that he learns. Christ catches him as soon as he cries out. Where in your congregation are people afraid that Christ will let them sink, and how might this immediacy steady them?* “You of little faith, why did you doubt?” The phrasing is often preached as harsh, but the tone in the Greek is more tender — a real question, an invitation to wonder. Jesus is not shaming Peter for the doubt; he is asking him to look at it. How might your sermon receive this question the way it might have been asked — quietly, on the water, one hand still in Peter's?Significant Cautions* “You of little faith” has been used to shame doubt for centuries. The tone in Matthew is not the tone of most sermons that quote it. Handle with care.* Do not preach this as a “have more faith” sermon. Peter did not sink because his faith was too small; he sank because he took his eyes off Christ and looked at the storm. The prescription is not more effort but redirected attention.* “Walking on water” has been metaphorized in ways that empty the story of its actual claim about who Jesus is. The scene is not a self-help image; it is Matthew making a claim about the identity of Christ.* Do not use this text to blame those whose lives are storm-tossed for their lack of faith. The storm was not caused by the disciples' unfaithfulness; it was simply where they were.* The disciples' confession at the end — “truly you are the Son of God” — is the first time in Matthew a group of disciples says this out loud. Do not skip past its weight. It is the fruit of the encounter, not just a closing line.Thematic ConnectionsThe Gospel is the natural center for the day. Matthew has placed the walking on water immediately after the feeding of the five thousand — the same Christ, the same disciples, the same night. The feeding showed us what Christ does when the crowd is hungry. The walking on water shows us what he does when his own disciples are afraid. Both scenes hinge on a compassion that acts from within the situation, not at a safe distance.On Track One, Joseph's story is beginning. The opening chapter of a long saga in which God's promise is delayed by human cruelty, delivered eventually, and revealed as having been at work through the whole terrible middle. The pairing with the Gospel is more thematic than direct: Joseph, like Peter, is going to spend time sinking before he is caught. Psalm 105 gives us the tradition's own reading of Joseph's suffering — feet in fetters, neck in iron — as part of the long work of God's fidelity. Preachers can hold Joseph's descent and Peter's sinking together, both as stories of God's people going down before God's rescue comes.On Track Two, Elijah at Horeb and the Gospel share a striking feature: God comes not in the loud and dramatic but in something quieter — the sound of sheer silence for Elijah, and, for the disciples in the storm, the walking figure and the tender “take heart.” Psalm 85's promise that God speaks peace prepares the ear. The whole track invites a congregation to trust that God shows up in ways more tender than dramatic. But it can also honor the moments when the dramatic is what is needed — as it is when Peter is sinking and Jesus reaches out immediately.Romans 10 sits inside the day as the invitation. The word is near — on our lips, in our hearts. There is no distance to cross to reach God's love. The Christ who walks across the water in the Gospel is the one whose word is already inside us in Romans. And the beautiful feet of the messengers are also, quite specifically, the feet that stepped out of the boat and, briefly, walked on the water.For preachers continuing a series: the Matthew arc keeps unfolding. The identity of Jesus is being asked with more urgency each week. Peter's confession at the end of this scene (“truly you are the Son of God”) anticipates the great confession at Caesarea Philippi in two weeks. The Gospel is building toward something. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit lectionarypro.substack.com/subscribe

(Please excuse any sound quality issues, as some interviews were recorded in a large hall where background noise and echoes were hard to avoid.) Fertility & Sterility on Air is at the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology 42nd Annual Meeting in London (Part 1)! In this episode, our hosts Micah Hill and Yannick Hurni cover:  (01:49) ASRM President Robert Brannigan on the effect of lifestyle factors on male fertility and a look ahead at the 2026 ASRM Annual Meeting (07:25) The 2-shot protocol: a randomised controlled trial of a novel two-injection ovarian stimulation strategy with Valeria Donno (14:49) Paired trophectoderm and ICM analysis redefines segmental aneuploidy and embryo usability in poor-prognosis IVF patients with Balsam Al Hashimi View Fertility and Sterility at https://www.fertstert.org/  

We got ANOTHER listener request, and man, does it have a killer soundtrack -- Cutting Class! This 1989 movie starring a young Brad Pitt has some of the wildest adult behavior since Sleepaway Camp, but do they all get their comeuppance? Get your Entenmann's (not a sponsor) lil powdered donuts ready as we discuss plot twists that aren't really plot twists, how geography works, and the proper handling of evidence! Buckle up for a classic, silly 80s slasher! Paired with a Cutting Class cocktail. Rate! Review! Follow! Follow on Instagram and Letterboxd @toastyhorror Email us at toasttoromcoms@gmail.com Check out our website toasttoromcoms.com

What if a patient who is years — even decades — out from their stroke could still make meaningful gains in their affected arm? In this episode, host Erin Gallardo, PT, DPT, NCS, talks with Mason Hearn, PT, DPT, NCS, about Vivistim, the FDA-approved paired vagus nerve stimulation system for chronic ischemic stroke, and why the "paired" piece — stimulation delivered in the same moment as intensive, task-specific therapy — is what makes it work. Mason breaks down the triple-blinded RCT behind the device, why patients an average of three years post-stroke saw two to three times greater improvement on the Fugl-Meyer, and how the real-world results coming out of clinics are landing even higher. This episode gets into what the protocol actually asks of patients (90-minute sessions, three times a week, 300–500 reps), how at-home "swiping" turns everyday tasks like getting dressed or cutting into a baked potato into neuroplasticity-building practice, who is and isn't a candidate, and how therapists can think about screening and advocacy without feeling like they're "referring someone for surgery." It's a hopeful, practical conversation about giving chronic stroke survivors real agency over the next stage of recovery and the clinicians who can open that door for them. Learn more at: Vivistim.com https://www.vivistimacademy.com/ Here is the safety profile: http://www.Vivistim.com/safety  

This Sunday marks a shift in the Gospel. The parables arc that ran through the last three Sundays gives way to a return to Jesus in action. Matthew 14 gives us the feeding of the five thousand — one of the most famous miracles in Christian memory, and the only miracle told in all four Gospels. After weeks of listening to Jesus tell stories about the kingdom, we now watch him embody the kingdom — with a hungry crowd, a deserted place, and five loaves.Photo by nilufar nattaq on UnsplashThe Old Testament tracks lead toward the Gospel in different ways. Track One brings us one of the most famous scenes in Genesis — Jacob's night at the river Jabbok, wrestling with a stranger who turns out to be more than a stranger. Track Two gives us Isaiah's great invitation to the thirsty and hungry to come and eat without money and without price. Both pair naturally with the Gospel's feeding.The Epistle turns a corner as well. Romans 8 has been running under the Sundays since Proper 9, and it culminated last week in the great crescendo: nothing can separate us from the love of God. Today Paul opens Romans 9 in a completely different key — anguish, unceasing sorrow, grief for his own people, Israel. It is a difficult passage and easy to preach badly. The guide handles it with care.For preachers continuing a series: the parables arc has closed. The next several weeks return to Matthew's narrative — the feeding this week, walking on water next week, the Canaanite woman the week after. Jesus is on the move again, and Matthew's pen is following him.The ReadingsGenesis 32:22–31First Reading (Track One) — Jacob at PenielSummaryJacob is returning to face his brother Esau after twenty years away. He has sent his family and possessions across the Jabbok in the night and been left alone. There, in the darkness, a man wrestles with him until daybreak. Neither prevails; the stranger strikes Jacob's hip, and Jacob's hip is put out of joint. As morning is coming, the man asks to be released. Jacob refuses without a blessing. He receives one: a new name — Israel, “one who has striven with God and prevailed.” Jacob names the place Peniel, “the face of God,” because, he says, he has seen God face to face and lived. He limps away into the sunrise.Key Ideas for Preaching* Jacob is at the darkest point of the story so far. He has cheated his brother, been cheated by his uncle, and now must face the brother he wronged. The wrestling comes at exactly this moment. Where in your congregation are people in the darkest stretch of their story, and what might it mean for them to hear that this is exactly where God has been known to show up?* The wrestling is not tidy. Jacob is not blessed for pious cooperation. He is blessed because he held on through a struggle he did not choose. What might it mean for your people that a faithful life includes wrestling — with God, with the questions we cannot resolve, with our own patterns — and not only calm assent?* Jacob asks for a blessing and receives a limp. The blessing is real, and so is the wound. He walks away permanently changed. Where in your congregation have people received both a blessing and a mark from their encounter with God, and how might this text help them make peace with the mark?* The new name — Israel, “one who has striven with God” — becomes the name of a whole people. The identity of God's people is not “one who has agreed with God” but “one who has striven with God.” What does it look like to preach faithful striving, not just faithful agreement?Significant Cautions* Do not romanticize the wrestling into an image of triumphant persistence. Jacob does not defeat God. He simply refuses to let go, and he is wounded in the encounter.* “I have seen God face to face” is Jacob's claim in awe, not a doctrine. Do not build a theological system on the specific language of the encounter.* The wound to the hip is not a moral punishment. It is what encounter with the holy sometimes costs. Preach it gently.Psalm 17:1–7, 15The Psalm (Track One) — I Shall Behold Your FaceSummaryA prayer for help from someone under real pressure. The psalmist asks God to hear his cry, to test his heart, to keep him under God's wing. He is being pursued by enemies who want to bring him down. The closing verse turns to hope: “I shall behold your face in righteousness; when I awake I shall be satisfied.”Key Ideas for Preaching* The psalmist is honest about the pressure he is under. He is not pretending to be calm. Where in your congregation are people under real pressure who need permission to name it in prayer without dressing it up?* Paired with Jacob's wrestling, the psalm's closing hope — “I shall behold your face” — takes on unexpected weight. Both texts imagine a face-to-face meeting with God as the goal, however costly the road there. What does it mean to preach a faith where seeing God face to face is worth the wrestle?Significant Cautions* The psalmist's claim of innocence can sound self-righteous. Read in context, it is a plea for a fair hearing, not a boast about moral perfection.Isaiah 55:1–5First Reading (Track Two) — Come to the WatersSummaryOne of the great invitations in the prophets. Everyone who thirsts is called to come to the waters. Everyone without money is called to come, buy, and eat — without money and without price. The prophet asks why we spend our money on what is not bread, our labor on what does not satisfy. God's covenant is renewed as an everlasting one, in the pattern of God's steadfast love for David.Key Ideas for Preaching* The invitation is remarkable. Come, buy, and eat — without money and without price. God's economy runs on a different currency than the market's. Where in your congregation has the culture of transaction crept into people's sense of what they can receive from God?* “Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy?” That is a question worth reading slowly in a culture built on selling us things that will not satisfy. What might your sermon do with that question, alongside the Gospel's picture of a crowd fed for free?* Paired with today's Gospel, the connection is direct. Both texts describe God feeding people freely. What does it mean for your congregation that the free feeding of the multitude is not a departure from the God of Israel but an expression of exactly who this God has been all along?Significant Cautions* The invitation to “come, buy, and eat without money” is easy to spiritualize in ways that let the church off the hook for the actual hungry. Do not use this text to sanitize scarcity in the world.Psalm 145:8–9, 14–21The Psalm (Track Two) — You Open Your HandSummaryAnother section of the great hymn to God's compassion. God is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, good to all. God upholds the falling, feeds every living thing in its season, and is near to all who call. The closing verses affirm that God fulfills the desires of those who fear him and preserves those who love him.Key Ideas for Preaching* “The eyes of all look to you, and you give them their food in due season. You open your hand, satisfying the desire of every living thing.” This is divine hospitality on a cosmic scale. How might your sermon place today's feeding of the five thousand inside this larger picture — God's steady, ongoing feeding of everything alive?* “The Lord is near to all who call on him.” Not near to some. Not near to the deserving. Near to all. Where has your congregation quietly assumed nearness was on a shorter list?Significant Cautions* “The Lord watches over all who love him, but the wicked he will destroy” appears in this section of the psalm. Handle it carefully. Do not use it to license human judgment against people we have decided are wicked.Romans 9:1–5The Epistle — Paul's Grief for His PeopleSummaryThe tone in Romans changes sharply. After the crescendo of chapter 8, Paul opens chapter 9 in grief. He has, he says, unceasing sorrow in his heart. He would wish himself cut off from Christ if it would somehow bring his own people, the Israelites, into what he has come to know in Jesus. The passage names what belongs to Israel: the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, the promises, the patriarchs, and — according to the flesh — the Messiah himself.Key Ideas for Preaching* Paul is anguished about his own people. He is not writing them off. He is not preaching against them. He is grieving because he loves them and because he has come to believe something that separates them from him. What does it look like to preach on grief for people we love who see the world differently — not with contempt, but with the ache Paul is describing?* The list Paul gives — adoption, glory, covenants, law, worship, promises, patriarchs, and the Messiah — is a list of gifts to Israel. Paul is not disparaging his own tradition; he is celebrating it, even in his grief. How might your sermon guard against the anti-Jewish readings that have plagued this passage in Christian history?* Paul's willingness to wish himself cut off from Christ, if it would help his people, is one of the most striking lines in the letter. He is not being noble; he is naming the depth of his love for people he cannot make see what he sees. Where in your congregation has love for someone across a divide taken people to that kind of place?Significant Cautions* This passage has been used to argue that Christianity has replaced Judaism, or that Jewish people have been cut off from God. Paul does not say this. He says the opposite — the covenants, the promises, the patriarchs, and even the Messiah belong to Israel. Preach against the anti-Jewish uses of this passage plainly.* “According to the flesh comes the Christ” should not be pressed into subtle anti-Jewish readings. Paul's point is that the Messiah is Jewish — a claim he is making with pride, not with distance.* Paul's grief for people he loves who do not yet share his faith should not be turned into a permission slip for aggressive evangelism. His posture is anguished, not strategic.Matthew 14:13–21The Gospel — The Feeding of the Five ThousandSummaryJesus has just heard the news of John the Baptist's execution. He withdraws to a deserted place by himself, but the crowds follow him on foot from the towns. When he sees them, he has compassion for them and cures their sick. Evening comes. The disciples want him to send the crowd away so they can buy food in the villages. Jesus tells them: “You give them something to eat.” They protest that they have only five loaves and two fish. He orders the crowds to sit down on the grass. Then he takes the loaves and the fish, looks up to heaven, blesses, breaks, and gives them to the disciples, who give them to the crowd. All eat and are filled. Twelve baskets of leftovers are gathered. Five thousand men were there, besides women and children.Key Ideas for Preaching* Jesus does this in grief. He has just lost John the Baptist — his cousin, his herald, the one who baptized him. He withdrew, we are told, to a deserted place by himself. The crowd follows him anyway. And he has compassion for them. What does it look like for your congregation to hear that the compassion of Christ comes even from within his own grief — not after it, not despite it, but from within it?* “You give them something to eat.” That is what Jesus says to the disciples' request that the crowd be sent away. The disciples want the problem to become someone else's. Jesus places it in their hands. Where has your congregation quietly asked God to send the hungry away, and how might Jesus' instruction reset that?* The math is off. Five loaves, two fish, five thousand men plus women and children. The disciples are not wrong that the numbers do not work. Jesus is not asking them to make the numbers work; he is asking them to bring what they have. What does it look like for your congregation to bring what they have without pretending it will be enough?* Jesus takes, blesses, breaks, and gives. Those four verbs are eucharistic language. Matthew wants us to hear this feeding and the Last Supper together — one continuous action of Christ receiving and blessing and breaking and giving what has been placed in his hands. How might your sermon let your people feel that the meal they celebrate at this table participates in the meal on the grass?* Twelve baskets of leftovers — one for each disciple. The abundance is not only for the crowd; it is also, quite specifically, for the ones who thought there would not be enough. What does it look like to preach the specific reassurance of the leftovers for the ones who serve, who fear running out?Significant Cautions* Two common readings of the miracle circulate. One is that Jesus miraculously multiplied the loaves. The other is that Jesus shamed people out of their hoarded food and everyone shared. Both readings have their defenders. Do not be dogmatic about which is right. Both are ways of taking the story seriously.* “You give them something to eat” has been used to bless a heroic view of Christian service that leaves people burned out. Jesus takes what the disciples bring and multiplies it; he does not ask them to solve the problem alone.* The crowd is not fed as a reward for good behavior. They are fed because they are hungry. Do not preach this text in a way that suggests God's feeding is conditional on our faithfulness.* Do not moralize the miracle into a lesson primarily about our attitudes. The story is fundamentally about what Christ does with what is placed in his hands.Thematic ConnectionsThe Gospel is the natural center for the day and one of the most famous scenes in Christian memory. The feeding of the five thousand is the only miracle story that appears in all four Gospels. Matthew tells it here with particular attention to Jesus' grief, the disciples' anxiety about scarcity, and the four eucharistic verbs — take, bless, break, give.On Track One, Jacob's night at the Jabbok pairs with the Gospel in a way that is more thematic than direct. Both scenes describe an encounter with God that changes something. Jacob is renamed and limps away. The disciples are handed a task that seems impossible and end up with twelve baskets of leftovers. Both stories insist that God works through what feels like the wrong scale.On Track Two, the connection to the Gospel is direct. Isaiah's invitation to come to the waters and buy food without money, and Psalm 145's picture of God feeding every living thing in its season, both flow into the Gospel's picture of a crowd being fed on the grass. The God of the Old Testament tracks is the God of the Gospel feeding. This is one story about one God.Romans 9 sits inside the day as its most difficult companion. Paul's grief for his people who do not yet see what he sees is a heavy word to preach, and preachers should handle it with care to avoid the anti-Jewish readings that have plagued this passage. Read alongside the Gospel, one connection is worth noticing: Paul, like Jesus in Matthew 14, is grieving. He is not withdrawn from the world's pain; he is inside it. His anguish is the anguish of a person who loves someone he cannot fix.For preachers continuing the series: the parables arc has closed. Matthew 14 returns us to Jesus in action, with the feeding this week, walking on water next week, and the Canaanite woman the following week. The Matthew narrative is picking back up — and it is picking back up in a scene of extravagant, embodied grace. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit lectionarypro.substack.com/subscribe

Do you ever catch yourself doing something and only later wonder why you actually did it? Fr Columba shares a simple discernment tool from St Faustina's diary: before any decision, stop and ask whether it's for God's glory, the good of your own soul, or the good of others. Paired with St John Paul II's contrast between love and use, it becomes a quick, honest way to check your real motives, even when the answer is uncomfortable. If you've ever wondered what's actually driving your choices, this is a simple place to start.

This week on eTown, we're featuring indie-folk-rock band Big Thief and legendary Americana singer-songwriter Lucinda Williams, live from Red Rocks Amphitheater in Morrison, Colorado. While the theatre of Red Rocks is dramatic in and of itself, this year's show was electric as storms brewed overhead before, during and after. Paired with incredible music from Big Thief and Lucinda Williams, the set and setting combined for a night that was nothing short of magic.   That's all this week on eTown!    Visit our Youtube Channel to see artist interviews, live recordings, studio sessions, and more! Be a part of the audience at our next recording: https://www.etown.org/etown-hall/all-events/ Your support helps us bring concerts, tapings and conversations to audiences while fostering connection through music, ideas and community. If you'd like to support eTown's mission to educate, entertain and inspire a diverse audience through music and conversation, please consider a donation: https://www.etown.org/get-involved/donate-orig/.

In this episode, Lex chats with Jeff Grimes — who is Head of Live Events Products at Perplexity, the AI company that has evolved from an "answer engine" into an "agent platform" built around Perplexity Computer, its multi-agent digital worker. They discuss how Perplexity has shifted financial research from the how to the what, letting a user describe an outcome in a single sentence while Computer orchestrates 20+ frontier models, direct tool calls to licensed live data, and finance-specific skills to produce the artifact. Jeff explains the enterprise strategy behind traceability - the north star that 100% of every quantitative figure traces back to its source filing - alongside bring-your-own-license connections via MCP and the consumer "personal CFO" vision powered by Plaid. They explore what 5x revenue growth on a 34% headcount increase signals for finance jobs, and why the future looks like a 24/7 family office that proactively surfaces and, with permission, executes financial actions for everyone. NOTABLE DISCUSSION POINTS: The “how to what” collapse is the real product thesis, not just better models. The shift to zero-shot rests on three stacked unlocks: direct tool calls to licensed live data (Quartr for earnings transcripts, unusual whales for insider and political holdings, SEC filings for historicals) instead of relying on web freshness; a thinking-model router that orchestrates 20+ frontier models in parallel, matching the model to the job (a heavy thinking model for macro analysis, a lighter one for ticker-matching 550 names); and ~20 opinionated finance skills (DCF, three-statement, LBO, comps) tuned through expert-led evals. Together they turn one sentence into a polished equity-research artifact. Traceability is the enterprise wedge, framed as “don't trust and verify.” The stated north star is that 100% of every number in any output is hover-traceable back to the source filing - pre-scrolled to the page, highlighted, with the full chain of calculations exposed. The framing inverts the usual “trust but verify”: assume the user won't trust the model, so trust must be earned per number. Paired with bring-your-own-license via MCP (FactSet, LSEG, Morningstar, CarbonArc, PitchBook), this is the concrete answer to why regulated institutions get comfortable adopting. The productivity and jobs signal is quantified and lived internally. Perplexity grew annual run rate 5x while increasing headcount only ~34%. Computer began as a company-wide Slack bot where every request was visible to all employees; Jeff now runs 9–10 scheduled cron jobs each morning and says essentially all code is written first by his agents. On the consumer side, the emergent pattern is build-your-own long-tail apps that no roadmap-bound product could serve - a DraftKings-addiction accountability system that emails a user's spouse on any bet, or a GitHub-style heatmap of daily spending - which is the real substance of the personal-CFO bet. TOPICS Perplexity, Perplexity Computer, Perplexity AI, Google, Shadebot, Plaid, Yodlee, Claude, ChatGPT, AI, Artificial Intelligence, LLM, CFO, financial services, AI commerce   ABOUT THE FINTECH BLUEPRINT

Welcome back to BollottaFide. This week its all about the size because size matters.Your hosts, Anthony and Alex, also pick their Word of the Week! which is little loud this week. Then, tat the Tipsy Cart, your mixologist Alex serves up a sweet treat that keep you wake. https://www.bollotta.com/podcast

Hello, Beautiful...I'm so grateful you're here with me. Known as the frequency of transformation and renewal, 528Hz tones create a calming atmosphere for relaxation and deep sleep. Paired with soothing ambient sounds, this sleep meditation supports stress relief, emotional balance, and restorative rest. Let the gentle vibrations help restore your mind, body, and spirit. Love,

Here in the middle of summer (and, perhaps, one of our sparser crowds of the season) we have a very busy parable section in Matthew 13: five short parables packed into a dozen verses. That's a lot of focus to to try to hold in one sermon — so we likely have some choices to make heading into sermon prep this week.This is the third Sunday inside Matthew's parables chapter, and it is the busiest of them. The Gospel gives us five short parables — mustard seed, yeast, hidden treasure, pearl, and net — each doing its own quick work. A single sermon can barely do justice to one of them. The preacher's honest choice this week is whether to preach one image well or gesture at all five superficially (and, most likely, ineffectively). This guide covers each parable but assumes the preacher will pick.The Old Testament tracks head in very different directions. * Track One continues with Jacob — now at his uncle Laban's house, working seven years for Rachel and being deceived at the wedding. It is a painful text, and its painfulness is part of what it has to say. * Track Two brings us to Solomon at Gibeon, offered anything in a dream and asking for wisdom to lead God's people well. * The Epistle continues in Romans 8 and gives us some of the most beloved verses Paul ever wrote — the Spirit interceding with sighs too deep for words, all things working together for good, nothing able to separate us from the love of God in Christ.For preachers continuing the series: this is week three of the parables arc. The Sower (Proper 10) named God's lavish scattering. The Wheat and the Weeds (Proper 11) named God's patient sorting. This week the parables come in a burst, each offering a different angle on what the kingdom of heaven is actually like.The ReadingsGenesis 29:15–28First Reading (Track One) — Jacob, Leah, and RachelSummaryJacob has fled his own family and arrived at his uncle Laban's household. He falls in love with his younger cousin Rachel and agrees to work seven years for her. Seven years pass; the wedding feast is held; and Jacob wakes in the morning to discover he has been given Leah, the older sister, instead. He confronts Laban. Laban answers, without apology, that the younger cannot be given before the elder in that country. Jacob agrees to serve another seven years for Rachel. The deceiver from earlier chapters has been deceived himself, and the family that will grow out of these two marriages will carry the weight of the wedding-night trick for generations.Key Ideas for Preaching* This is Jacob's first taste of being on the receiving end of the kind of scheming he has been practicing. In earlier chapters, he tricked his brother and his father; now his uncle tricks him. The narrator does not moralize — the pattern is simply allowed to sit there. What does it look like for your congregation to notice the patterns they have set in motion, without either shame or excuse?* Laban's “the younger cannot be given before the elder” is a pointed line. Jacob, the younger, took what belonged to Esau, the elder. Now he is told he cannot take the younger before the elder. The text is doing quiet, painful work. Where in your congregation might God be doing similarly quiet work — through consequences, not lectures?* The story does not pretend Leah is loved. It does not pretend Rachel is safe from her sister's grief. It refuses to give us the reassuring resolution we might want. What does it look like to preach honestly on a text that leaves this much untidy?Significant Cautions* Do not romanticize the line about seven years feeling like a few days. Read in context, it opens a story that will produce enormous grief for at least three of the four people involved.* The women in this story — Leah and Rachel — pay the highest price for the men's schemes. Be honest about that, without turning them into abstractions or setting one against the other.* Do not use this text to comment on modern marriage practices in ways it cannot bear. It is a story about deception and consequences, not a template for how marriages should work.Psalm 105:1–11, 45bThe Psalm (Track One, primary option) — Remember the CovenantSummaryA hymn of thanksgiving for God's faithfulness across the long history of Israel. The opening verses call the people to praise and to remember. The middle rehearses the covenant with Abraham — the promise of the land, the seed, the everlasting covenant — which the lectionary selects to keep the focus tight. The closing line is a single word of praise.Key Ideas for Preaching* The psalm is essentially a call to remember. What God did for Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is not distant history but the reason today's community has cause to sing. What does it mean for your people to keep the long memory of what God has done, in a culture that keeps them focused on the immediate?* Read alongside today's Genesis reading, the psalm's serene retelling sits in some tension with the messy reality Jacob is living through in Genesis 29. The psalm knows the story ends well; Jacob does not. Where in your people's lives is God's long faithfulness working through a story that does not yet feel serene?Significant Cautions* The “land I have promised” language has a long and painful history when misused to justify the taking of land from other people. Handle it with care.* The psalm's cheerfulness can mask real complexity in the underlying history. Do not erase Leah's grief with a hymn about Jacob's story.Psalm 128The Psalm (Track One, alternative option) — Blessed Is EveryoneSummaryA short psalm of blessing for the person who fears the Lord. Their labor is fruitful; their household flourishes; they live to see their children's children. The psalm assumes a stable, agricultural, patriarchal household and pronounces blessing over it.Key Ideas for Preaching* The psalm's picture of blessing is domestic, ordinary, and generational — not heroic, not dramatic. Just a table set, a family gathered, a life lived faithfully across time. Where in your congregation has the ordinary been undervalued, and how might this psalm give it its due?* Paired with the Genesis reading, this psalm offers a striking contrast — Jacob's marriage is not the picture of blessing this psalm describes. What might it look like to preach both — the ideal the psalm names and the reality the Jacob story exposes — without pretending they can be neatly resolved?Significant Cautions* The psalm's vision of a blessed household is culturally specific. Do not preach it in a way that suggests those without spouses or children are outside God's blessing.1 Kings 3:5–12First Reading (Track Two) — Solomon Asks for WisdomSummaryEarly in his reign, Solomon has a dream at Gibeon. God appears and asks him what he wants. Solomon does not ask for wealth, or long life, or victory over his enemies. He asks for an understanding heart — the wisdom to lead God's people well. He is a young king, he says, and does not know how to govern. God is pleased and gives him what he asked for, along with the things he did not ask for.Key Ideas for Preaching* Solomon's request is startling for its self-awareness. He knows he does not know. Where in your congregation has the honest admission of what we do not know been avoided in favor of confident-sounding leadership, and what might this text invite instead?* The wisdom Solomon asks for is specifically for the sake of others — to govern God's people well. This is not personal enlightenment; it is a request for the equipment to serve. How might your people hear this as a model for the kind of wisdom their vocations actually need?Significant Cautions* The wider story of Solomon complicates this scene. He will not, over the long run, live up to the wisdom he receives here. Do not preach the dream as if it were the whole of Solomon's reign.* “Ask for whatever you want” language can be misused. God is not a wish-granter; the text is showing us what a rightly ordered heart asks for, not licensing bargain-hunting prayer.Psalm 119:129–136The Psalm (Track Two) — The Unfolding of Your WordsSummaryAnother short section of the great acrostic psalm on God's word and law. The chosen verses celebrate God's decrees as wonderful, ask for God's face to shine on the psalmist, and end with a line of surprising grief: “my eyes shed streams of tears, because your law is not kept.”Key Ideas for Preaching* The psalmist's tears are the grief of someone who loves what God intended and sees the world falling short of it. What in your congregation's life would break their hearts if they let it — and what does the psalm suggest we do with that grief?* “The unfolding of your words gives light.” The word does not give light all at once; it unfolds. How might your sermon honor the slow way God's word actually opens itself to us?Significant Cautions* The psalmist's love for God's law can be misread as legalism. It is not. It is a love for what God has revealed as good.Romans 8:26–39The Epistle — Nothing Can Separate UsSummaryThe climax of Romans 8, and some of the most beloved verses Paul ever wrote. The Spirit intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words. All things work together for good for those who love God. And then the closing crescendo, one of the great passages of the New Testament: nothing — not hardship, persecution, famine, sword, powers, principalities, or anything else in all creation — can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.Key Ideas for Preaching* The Spirit intercedes for us when we do not know how to pray. That is one of the most comforting sentences in the New Testament for people in seasons when prayer has stopped working. Where in your congregation are people quietly convinced they are failing at prayer, and how might Paul steady them?* “All things work together for good” has become a widely repeated line and is often misused. Paul is not saying every bad thing that happens is secretly good, or that suffering will always be visibly redeemed. He is naming something more specific — that God is at work within all things toward good. How might your sermon preserve the comfort of the verse while defending it from its worst uses?* The closing crescendo names actual sufferings by name — hardship, persecution, famine, sword. Paul is not offering an abstract promise. He is naming the very things his readers were facing and insisting that none of them can separate them from the love of God. Where in your congregation are people quietly assuming they might have been separated already, and what would it mean for them to hear this list read aloud with their own name in it?Significant Cautions* “All things work together for good” is one of the most misused verses in the Bible — especially at funerals and in hospital rooms, where it has been used to justify or minimize real suffering. Preach against that misuse plainly.* “Those God foreknew he also predestined” opens onto centuries of debate. Faithful readers come down differently. Do not preach as if the question has been settled.* The comfort of the closing verses is only meaningful when the sufferings named are taken seriously. Do not skip lightly over famine and sword; they are what Paul's hearers were living, and they are what many of ours are living too.Matthew 13:31–33, 44–52The Gospel — Five Parables of the KingdomSummaryFive short parables in quick succession. The kingdom is like a mustard seed — tiny at first but growing into something birds nest in. Like yeast a woman works into flour until the whole batch is leavened. Like treasure hidden in a field that someone finds and joyfully sells everything to buy. Like a merchant finding one pearl worth all he has. Like a net cast into the sea that catches everything and is only sorted after being pulled in. Jesus asks the disciples if they have understood, and closes with one more image: the scribe trained for the kingdom, bringing out of his storeroom what is new and what is old.Key Ideas for Preaching* The mustard seed is a strange choice. Mustard was considered an invasive weed in first-century Palestine, not a tree. Jesus is comparing the kingdom to what is often unwanted, wild, and hard to contain. Where in your congregation has the kingdom been imagined as tidy, and what would it look like to hear it named as invasive?* The yeast image is done by a woman — quiet, hidden, domestic work. The kingdom is often like that: invisible until the whole batch has risen. Where in your congregation has the visible been overvalued, and what would it mean to honor the yeast?* The hidden treasure parable turns on joy. The person sells everything not out of duty but out of gladness. When has your congregation known that kind of joy — a joy that made the giving up easy? How might your sermon call it forth again?* The pearl merchant is not a lucky farmer stumbling on treasure. He is searching. Some people come to the kingdom by accident; some by long looking. Which of your people are the seekers, and what might they need to hear this morning?* The net catches everything — good and bad — and is only sorted at the end. This is the wheat and weeds again, in miniature. What does it mean that the same kingdom-shape shows up in five different images? Where might your congregation be tempted to prefer one image and dismiss the others?* The closing line about the scribe bringing out what is new and what is old is one of the most graceful sentences in Matthew. What does it look like for your congregation to hold both — the ancient wisdom of the tradition and the new thing God is doing among them — without pitting one against the other?Significant Cautions* The mustard-seed-as-invasive-weed reading is worth naming, but do not turn the whole parable into a horticulture lecture. Let the image do its work.* The “sold all he had” imagery has been used to bless coercive giving. Jesus is describing joy, not running a stewardship campaign.* The net parable closes with fierce judgment language — furnace, weeping, gnashing of teeth. Handle it with the same care as last week's wheat and weeds. The point is that the sorting is not ours.A single sermon cannot honestly cover all five parables. Do not try. Pick one — or a pair — and let it breathe.Thematic ConnectionsThis is week three of the parables arc, and the pattern is coming into focus. Two weeks ago the Parable of the Sower named God's lavish scattering. Last week the Parable of the Wheat and the Weeds named God's patient sorting. This week we get five different angles on what the kingdom is actually like. Small and invasive (the mustard seed). Hidden and pervasive (the yeast). Discovered by accident and worth everything (the treasure). Discovered by long searching and worth everything (the pearl). Mixed and eventually sorted (the net).Preachers have a real choice this week. The mustard seed and yeast pair naturally, both about small things producing outsized results. The treasure and pearl pair naturally, both about joyfully giving up everything for something worth more. The net stands alone and pulls the arc back toward last week's parable. Almost any one of these will preach; trying to do all five will not.On Track One, the Genesis reading offers a striking counterpoint to the Gospel's celebration of the kingdom. Jacob thinks he is buying joy for seven years of labor. He discovers he has bought Leah, and must labor seven more years for Rachel. The parables of the treasure and the pearl both assume that what is bought is truly worth what it costs. Jacob's story shows what happens when we buy the wrong thing. A preacher can hold both — the joy the parables assume and the ache the Genesis story exposes — without pretending they resolve neatly.On Track Two, Solomon at Gibeon asks for the very wisdom the parables describe. The scribe trained for the kingdom, the one Jesus names at the close of the Gospel, could just as well be Solomon at the dream — a young leader who knows he does not know, asking for what only God can give.Romans 8 sits under the day as the great steadying word. The Spirit intercedes for us in our confusion. All things are held together in God's purpose. Nothing can separate us from the love of Christ. Whether we are seeking the kingdom or stumbling into it this week, God's love is prior to our finding it. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit lectionarypro.substack.com/subscribe

All-Star Game Junior Caminero was hit on the hand by ex-Rays prospect Riley O'Brien during the exhibition. Scans came back relatively positive and Junior was gracious about the incident. Debate on whether star players should risk injury in exhibition games. Mat proposed moving the All-Star Game to Las Vegas after the World Series, bundled with the Hall of Fame ceremony and GM meetings to create a marquee baseball event. Where is the Brotherly love -  Philly crowd booing non-Phillies players Longo Weekend The Rays honored Evan Longoria in a retirement weekend that drew 23,000-plus fans on Sunday, requiring the upper deck to open. Both hosts praised the tribute as long overdue and speculated on his future in coaching or front office roles.Grady Emerson & the Draft Mat called top pick Grady Emerson a potential franchise cornerstone, comparing him to a Longoria/Taylor Walls hybrid at shortstop. Paired with Junior Caminero long-term, Mat sees a legitimate dynasty window. The Rays also selected shortstop Taj Marchand and went heavy on high school pitching, signaling confidence in their current system depth.Junior Caminero Extension Junior publicly stated he wants to stay in Tampa Bay. Both hosts stressed locking him up now. Mat credited Stu Sternberg for building the culture that makes players want to stay.Trade Deadline rumor of Rays-Tigers talks around Tarik Skubal. With only roughly 12 million left on his contract.  A potential package could include Jacob Melton, Brody Hopkins, Xavier Isaac, and pitching prospects.  A playoff rotation of McClanahan, Skubal, and Rasmussen, plus Manuel Rodriguez returning to close, would make the Rays serious contenders.Women in Baseball The Women's Baseball World Cup group stage runs July 22-26 in Rockford, Illinois at the historic Rockford Peaches field (iwbc.org). Special thanks to Ryan Woodward, Kat Williams & Leslie Heaphy for bringing this to Rockford The Women's Pro Baseball League (WPBL) launches soon with four teams: Boston Hunters, Los Angeles Queens, New York Heights, and San Francisco FireBelles, each named after a historical female trailblazer. MLB.com is covering the league. Mark honored the late Sue Zipay, whose American Girls Baseball initiative laid the groundwork for the WPBL.Season Outlook The Rays head into an 11-game road trip (Boston, Toronto, Cleveland) starting July 17. Both hosts admitted their preseason predictions were off and couldn't be happier about it  

A bi-weekly news show informing you on the latest in Bitcoin, privacy and open source tech hosted by Ungovernables, Max and Q. AOBEnvoy 2.3.0Full 2.3.0 out of beta: redesigned Send flow with inter-account transfers, message signing, Address Explorer, sub-satoshi fee rates, QR-density adjustment for Passport signing.Passport Prime 1.3.0-betaVault imports, BIP85 passwords, mass 2FA imports, universal QR scanner and loads of bug fixesVisual improvements to the docs siteApp showcase is now liveNEWSEU "Chat Control" — scanning derogation survives Parliament, permanent client-side-scanning law stalls again - TFTC: EU Chat Control, private message scanning, and Bitcoin's open protocols / Patrick Breyer: Chat ControlRadar Chat launches: a Signal fork with self-custodial Lightning payments built in - Decrypt: Radar Chat wants to make sending Bitcoin as easy as firing off a text / Atlas21Bull Bitcoin sues the French Finance Ministry over DAC8/CARF crypto surveillance reporting - The Rage: French Finance Ministry sued over global surveillance databaseMiCA deadline forces a self-custody exodus: ~70% of departing Binance EU users chose self-custody over a licensed exchange - Blockonomi: Binance reveals 70% of EU users chose self-custody after MiCA / CoinDesk: Binance to stop EU services after failing to secure MiCA licenceCLARITY Act developer safe-harbor (BRCA / Section 604) goes to the wire as Wyden fights to keep it intact - TFTC: Wyden, CLARITY Act, Section 604 developer safe harbor / Coin Center: The BRCA survived CLARITY's markup, do not give it up nowBIP-110 data-filtering soft fork heads for its deadline with miner signaling near zero - CoinDesk: Bitcoin's BIP-110 fork deadline nears with miner support at zero / Bitcoin Optech #412RELEASESBitcoin core / protocolBitcoin Core 30.3 - 2026-07-10Point release on the current 30.x line. Grab binaries from bitcoincore.org (deterministic + signed), not GitHub attachments.Bitcoin Core 29.4 - 2026-07-10Maintenance release keeping the older stable branch patched for sovereign self-hosters.Hardware / signingSeedSigner 0.8.7 "Summer of SeedSigner" - 2026-07-0880 PRs from 20 contributors: localization to 22 languages (first RTL language, Persian), BBQr PSBT decoding, and a big codebase professionalization pass. Airgapped DIY signing for a much wider audience.BitBox02 Firmware 9.26.4 - 2026-07-09Small fix following the 9.26.3 security batch (out-of-bounds write fix, silent-payments and EIP-712 validation hardening). Paired with BitBoxApp 4.51.3.LightningCore Lightning 26.06.3 - 2026-07-09Latest in-window CLN (a coincurve dep bump in pyln-proto superseded 26.06.2 from 06-30).lnd 0.20.2-beta - 2026-07-10Maintenance release on the 0.20 branch, no migrations, built with go1.25.5. Follows the zero-timestamp DoS fix discussed last episode.LNbits 1.5.5 - 2026-07-08Revolut + Square payment options, better payment reliability across backends, faster theming, cached rates, improved CSV exports and OIDC/SSO fixes. (A same-day 1.5.6 followed.)Zeus 13.1.2 - 2026-07-02Bug fixes and UX polish: pasteable amount input, copy Lightning address, UTXO-picker label and LND address-generation fixes.EcashCashu TS 4.7.0 - 2026-07-09LTS release for the JS/TS Cashu library: NUT-29 batch quote checks plus fixes for malformed tokens and NUT-28 locking slots. Foundation layer for ecash wallets/mints.Cashu CDK 0.17.2 - 2026-06-29Exposes NUT-27 mint backup through the wallet bindings; Android 16KB page-size and Swift compatibility. (A 0.17.3 with NIP-47/NWC support shipped 07-13.)On-chain privacy / coinjoinAshigaru Desktop 1.1.0 - 2026-07-11Major redesign: dedicated Whirlpool mixing experience, private Electrum server discovery over Tor, card-based UTXO views with PayNym support, and a Whirlpool Stats tool. Post-Samourai sovereign coinjoin keeps shipping (this is a 1.0 -> 1.1 jump from last episode's launch).Wasabi Wallet 2.8.0 - 2026-06-27 [borderline, grace window]P2P sync of compact block filters (drops the central-server dependency), pay-in-coinjoin, sub-1 sat/vByte fees, payment batching, and arm64 Linux/Tails/Whonix support.P2P / no-KYCBull Bitcoin 6.12.8 - 2026-07-11Coins (UTXO) view, Coldcard NFC support, BitBox02 Nova Bluetooth on iOS, sub-1 sat/vByte fees, and swap recovery via mnemonic. Self-custody + non-KYC buy/sell.Aqua Wallet 0.5.1 - 2026-07-07OpenCryptoPay QR compatibility, broader LNURL support, more reliable Lightning via direct Boltz broadcasting.Bisq 1.10.3 - 2026-07-06Security update: disables filter-provided BTC nodes, hardens deposit-tx checks, and requires message signatures from the expected trade peer.Mostro Mobile 1.3.0 - 2026-07-03Transport-protocol v2 migration and more African payment methods (KES, MZN, TZS, UGX, ZAR, ZMW). Nostr-native P2P Bitcoin trading, no KYC.BasicSwap DEX 0.17.0 - 2026-07-09Cross-chain atomic-swap DEX. (A 0.17.1 patch followed 07-12.)Arkade 0.9.13 - 2026-07-07Small indexer fix. Ark self-custodial off-chain scaling.Self-hosting / infraumbrelOS 1.7.4 - 2026-07-10Fixes connectivity where remote access over Tor and Tor-using apps could fail to connect.StartOS start-wrt 1.0.0 - 2026-07-11First stable release of StartWRT, Start9's OpenWrt-based router OS. Sovereign networking layer to pair with a self-hosted server.Nostrngit-cli 2.6.3 - 2026-07-10ngit init now gives actionable account-setup guidance. Git-over-Nostr tooling, directly relevant to the GitHub-exodus / censorship-resistant-code thread.EDUCATIONEvolving Casa's Defenses Against Social Engineering -Practical writeup on how attackers social-engineer Bitcoin holders and how to defend. Pairs directly with the Lopp voice item for a self-custody-security segment listeners can act on.Bitcoin Privacy Tools Compared: CoinJoin vs PayJoin vs Silent Payments -Clean side-by-side of the main on-chain privacy techniques. Good "where do I actually start" pointer, topical given the Ashigaru and Wasabi releases and the ongoing Silent Payments rollout (BIP 352 reached Complete and the secp256k1 module merged in June; Sparrow shipped SP receiving last fortnight).Cove Wallet tutorial (BTC Sessions) -BTC Sessions walkthrough of the Cove wallet. Useful hands-on onboarding content if you want a "new self-custodian" education beat, which pairs with the MiCA self-custody-exodus news item.TO DONATE TO ROMAN'S DEFENSE FUND: https://freeromanstorm.com/donateHELP GET SAMOURAI A PARDONSIGN THE PETITION ----> https://www.change.org/p/stand-up-for-freedom-pardon-the-innocent-coders-jailed-for-building-privacy-tools DONATE TO THE FAMILIES ----> https://www.givesendgo.com/billandkeonneSUPPORT ON SOCIAL MEDIA ---> https://billandkeonne.org/VALUE FOR VALUEThanks for listening you Ungovernable Misfits, we appreciate your continued support and hope you enjoy the shows.You can support this episode using your time, talent or treasure.TIME:- create fountain clips for the show- create a meetup- help boost the signal on social mediaTALENT:- create ungovernable misfit inspired art, animation or music- design or implement some software that can make the podcast better- use whatever talents you have to make a contribution to the show!TREASURE:- BOOST IT OR STREAM SATS on the Podcasting 2.0 apps @ https://podcastapps.com- DONATE via Monero @ https://xmrchat.com/ugmf- BUY SOME STICKERS @ https://www.ungovernablemisfits.com/shop/FOUNDATIONhttps://foundation.xyz/ungovernableFoundation builds Bitcoin-centric tools that empower you to reclaim your digital sovereignty.As a sovereign computing company, Foundation is the antithesis of today's tech conglomerates. Returning to cypherpunk principles, they build open source technology that “can't be evil”.Thank you Foundation Devices for sponsoring the show!Use code: Ungovernable for $10 off of your purchaseCAKE WALLEThttps://cakewallet.comCake Wallet is an open-source, non-custodial wallet available on Android, iOS, macOS, and Linux.Features:- Built-in Exchange: Swap easily between Bitcoin and Monero.- User-Friendly: Simple interface for all users.Monero Users:- Batch Transactions: Send multiple payments at once.- Faster Syncing: Optimized syncing via specified restore heights- Proxy Support: Enhance privacy with proxy node options.

In this episode of Emerging Tech Horizons, Dr. Arun Seraphin speaks with Bruce Friedrich, CEO and Co-founder of the Good Food Institute, about why alternative proteins and food biomanufacturing are emerging as strategic biotechnologyinnovations. As biotechnology reshapes industries ranging from pharmaceuticals to manufacturing, advances in cultivated meat, precision fermentation, and plant-based proteins could strengthen military logistics, improve supply chain resilience, and reinforce America's technological competitiveness through emerging technology.The conversation explores how food biomanufacturing could reduce dependence on vulnerable supply chains by enabling deployable food production, from remote operating bases to submarines and even future space missions. Bruce also explains how these biotechnology innovations are progressing from scientific breakthroughs to scalable biomanufacturing, while highlighting the policy and investment challenges that remain.The discussion also examines the growing international competition in biotechnology, particularly China's investments in food biomanufacturing, and why maintaining U.S. leadership in emerging technology will require sustained innovation, workforce development, commercialization support, and continued investment in biotechnology.Read ETI's Report "Food Biomanufacturing for National Security: Growing a New Segment of the U.S. Defense Industrial Base ": https://www.emergingtechnologiesinstitute.org/-/media/ndia-eti/reports/food-biomanufacturing/eti_foodbiomanufacturing_report_final.pdfRead Bruce Friedrich's book, Meat: https://meatbook.org/ Learn more about the Good Food Institute: https://gfi.org/  For updates on our content, sign up for our weekly mailer: https://www.emergingtechnologiesinstitute.org/sign-upBe sure to follow us on social media for updates, early access to upcoming events, inside scoops, & more:LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/4htROo0Twitter: https://bit.ly/48LHAx3Facebook: https://bit.ly/47vlht8And for more podcasts, articles, & publications on emerging technologies, visit ndiaeti.org.#Biotechnology #NationalSecurity #Biomanufacturing #EmergingTechKeywords:-          Biotechnology-          Biomanufacturing-          Emerging Technology

We're back with another listener request: Jeepers Creepers! Justin Long's first foray into horror is quite the ride. He plays the brother in a brother/sister duo on their way home from college. A slew of absolutely horrendous decisions leads them on a run for their lives. The mystery of the villain in the begging of the movie is awesome, but is he the real villain (yes, we actually debate this)? There are some good horror moments in this movie that make it worth watching and it has one heck of an ending! Paired with a Jeepers Creepers Punch. Rate! Review! Follow! Follow us on Instagram and Letterboxd @toastyhorror Email us at toasttoromcoms.com Check out our website toasttoromcoms.com

Preview for Later Today: Lorenzo Fior recommends an Italian meal near the Dolomites, focusing on ciabatta bread paired with various sauces and white wines. He suggests concluding the dining experience with the traditional combination of chocolate and grappa.1540 MILAN

In Episode 212 of the Equipping ELLs podcast, Beth Vaucher opens the practical application series with the domain she believes has the single biggest impact on language acquisition — and the one most ELL classrooms are still not doing enough of. Not speaking in general. Not asking a question and hoping someone answers. Structured, intentional, daily speaking practice designed to work for every student at every language level in the room.Beth opens with something every ELL teacher will recognize — the moment you build speaking time into a lesson, give students a prompt, say "talk to your partner," and watch higher-level students carry the conversation while lower-level students nod along or wait for it to be over. She names the actual problem clearly: it was not the speaking practice that failed. It was the structure. And she lays down the foundational principle that runs through the entire episode: structure is not a limitation on speaking. It is the condition for speaking.For ELL students at Stages 1 through 3, the reason they do not speak is almost never that they have nothing to say. It is that they do not yet have the language to say it. Sentence frames, conversation cards, and talk moves give students the bridge from their idea to the English words to express it. That bridge — not the idea itself — is what structured speaking activities provide.Beth walks through five activities in depth. Sentence frame partner talk is the most versatile entry point — a four-step protocol that takes three to four minutes, can be used at any point in a lesson, and reaches every level through tiered frames. Beth adds two specific techniques that dramatically increase quality: whisper time before partner time, and deliberately varying partners rather than defaulting to whoever is sitting nearby.Think-pair-share with the ELL upgrade goes beyond the standard protocol by adding a sentence starter for the share-out — "My partner said blank and I agreed because" or "My partner said blank and I had a different idea because." This elevates the linguistic demand from repetition to paraphrasing and synthesizing, which is some of the most important academic language development possible.Numbered Heads Together — a Kagan cooperative learning structure — solves the accountability problem in partner and group talk. Every student gets a number, every student must be ready to share, and the discussion within the group prepares ELL students to share out with confidence rather than being cold-called. Paired with a share-out sentence frame it gives lower-level students the exact structure they need to participate in front of the class.Academic conversation cards shift speaking from answering questions to genuinely engaging with another person's ideas — building on, respectfully disagreeing, asking for clarification. Beth identifies this as one of the most overlooked and most important language functions for academic language development, noting that even adult learners need explicit structures to do this well.The five-minute daily speaking routine is Beth's highest-impact recommendation — not a specific activity but a consistent daily structure that starts every session the same way. A picture prompt on the board, a sentence frame, thirty seconds of whisper time, partner talk, and a brief share-out. Members of Equipping ELLs consistently report this routine as one of the biggest drivers of language growth because consistency compounds over time. Routine beats variety for language acquisition.FREE CHALLENGE: equippingells.com/challenge or DM CHALLENGE to @EquippingELLs. Includes speaking activity templates and over $100 in free resources.

This episode, we mark the 250th anniversary of the United States with books about American history, one of the prompts on the Summer Books & Bites Bingo reading challenge. Carrie and Michael share nonfiction about people and events that are often left out of the historical record, while Jacqueline discusses a teen novel about the more recent past. Listen below!Our PicksWild Girls: How the Outdoors Shaped the Women Who Challenged a Nation by Tiya Miles. Paired with Hibiscus Mint Tea from The Blue Zones Kitchen One Pot Meals by Dan Buettner.Two Degrees by Alan Gratz. Paired with Chai Latte.Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine, and the Murder of a President by Candice Miller. Paired with Squirrel Soup.

SCOTUS has sent down some seriously important decisions. Today we discuss Trump v Barbara, the Birthright Citizenship case, including its errors and how it can be handled.Next we tackle Trump v Slaughter, the case that will allow Trump to actually Drain the Swamp by firing resisters. Paired with that is Trump v Cook, where the Court demonstrates cognitive dissonance with the Fed.Finally, our remaining time covers three gun cases, Hemani, Wolford, and Viramontes. The first was a surprising total victory for the Second Amendment. Wolford told Hawaii that the spirit of aloha wasn't a legal principle, with another solid 2A victory. And the in the third, the Court decided to hear a gun ban case, which should yield us a big win next year.

Welcome back to BollottaFide. This week its all about showcasing.Your hosts, Anthony and Alex, also pick their Word of the Week! which is little loud this week. Then, tat the Tipsy Cart, your mixologist Alex serves up a UK inspired cocktail. 

Among the special circumstances alleged against David Anthony Burke in the first-degree murder charge is financial gain — a specific allegation that prosecutors say Celeste Rivas Hernandez was killed because she was threatening to expose a relationship that endangered Burke's music career. This look back, with criminal defense attorney Bob Motta, examines what that allegation means legally and how it shapes the prosecution's entire theory.The financial-gain special circumstance is not about money changing hands — it's about prosecutors asserting that the motive for the killing was the preservation of a lucrative career. Paired with the lying-in-wait and witness-killing special circumstances, it creates a layered structure in which each charge reinforces the others: the alleged relationship with a child under fourteen created the secret, the threat to the career created the motive, and the alleged killing eliminated the person who could expose both. Motta explains how that layering functions procedurally, what the prosecution must prove for each element, and where the evidentiary burdens diverge.The defense team's public statement — that Burke "was not the cause of her death" — is itself a substantive signal. Motta analyzes what that formulation suggests about the defense theory, what kinds of alternative narratives it could support, and what the defense must ultimately present to counter charges of this magnitude. The segment also considers the degradation of evidence acknowledged by the LAPD chief, the implications of the now-unsealed medical examiner's findings, and the resistance to testimony from individuals in Burke's circle. Burke has pleaded not guilty. We revisit where the matter stood at the time of our reporting.Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/ Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1 Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspod X Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePodThis publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.#D4VD #CelesteRivasHernandez #DavidAnthonyBurke #FinancialGain #SpecialCircumstances #BobMotta #FirstDegreeMurder #TrueCrime #JusticeForCeleste #HiddenKillers

Up this week is another listener request: The Crazies! This is a fast-paced zombie movie where the zombies are reminiscent of the rage zombies al a 28 Days Later, but these ones have critical thinking and fine motor skills. There are definitely tense scenes that keep you on the edge of your seat, along with some jump scares, but do plot holes overwhelm the positives? Listen up as we talk about one of the ultimate cool guys, Timothy Olyphant, how a little empathy can go a long way, and what not to do when driving away from a nuclear explosion! Paired with a Ranch Water cocktail. Rate! Review! Follow! Follow us on Instagram and Letterboxd @toastyhorror Email us at toasttoromcoms@gmail.com Check out our website toasttoromcoms.com

This is a modified pathworking which utilizes the first kundalini awakening I had experienced based on the initiatory framework of the nirvana or avatar state accomplished by curating the 7 chakras process explained by the season finale of the last air bender, a kids cartoon series I had grown fond of growing up. Paired with a initiatory process a fellow Aphrodite devotee had bestowed to me, that I had accompanied NLP frameworks and a shanti healing implement, shanti coming from Sanskrit meaning tranquility, used to heal all limiting beliefs doubts and preconceived notions to restore ones self to ones true origin. Also known as Kangen. As an initiation this is only the beginning, utilize this technique and make it your own after the initial version to access personal gnosis to aid you on your journeys progression.

This guide covers the readings appointed in the Revised Common Lectionary for the Fifth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 8), Year A, falling on June 28, 2026.This Sunday closes the four-week arc of Jesus' sending discourse in Matthew 10. The shape of that arc is worth holding in view as you prepare. Four weeks ago, Jesus called Matthew the tax collector from his table. Three weeks ago, he sent the twelve out with empty hands. Two weeks ago, he warned them about the cost of being sent. This week, the discourse closes with three short verses about welcome — a cup of cold water, a household opening its door, a small kindness that Jesus says is received as if it were given to him. After the heaviness of last week, the gentleness of this closing is itself part of the message: found, sent, warned, now received.The Old Testament tracks pull in very different directions. Track One brings us Genesis 22 — the binding of Isaac — paired with Psalm 13's repeated cry of “how long.” This is one of the hardest texts in all of Scripture, and the guide says so plainly. Some preachers will choose to preach it, and the guide tries to help them do so with care. Some will choose not to, and that is a legitimate decision; the cautions section makes the case that the choice should be made with information rather than avoidance. Track Two brings us Jeremiah's confrontation with the false prophet Hananiah, paired with Psalm 89's exuberant praise. The Epistle continues in Romans 6, where Paul presses the practical implications of having been freed in baptism.The ReadingsGenesis 22:1–14First Reading (Track One) — The Binding of IsaacSummaryThis is one of the most difficult passages in all of Scripture. Without warning, the narrator tells us that God is going to test Abraham, and then God asks him to do something unspeakable — to take his beloved son Isaac, the long-awaited child of the promise, and offer him as a burnt offering. Abraham rises early the next morning, says nothing to anyone, and sets out with two servants and the boy. On the third day, he leaves the servants behind. He places the wood on Isaac's back. Isaac, walking beside him, finally speaks the question that shatters the silence of the scene: “Father, the fire and the wood are here, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” Abraham answers, “God himself will provide.” At the place of sacrifice, Abraham builds an altar, binds his son, places him on the wood, and reaches out his hand for the knife. At the last possible moment, an angel calls his name. Do not lay a hand on the boy. Abraham looks up and sees a ram caught in a thicket. He calls the place “The Lord will provide.”Key Ideas for Preaching* Three times in this chapter, Abraham answers with the same word — “Here I am.” Once to God, once to Isaac, once to the angel who stops him. The same single-hearted availability that gets Abraham into this terrible scene is also what lets him hear the voice that stops him. What might it mean for your congregation that the posture of being fully present to God includes the readiness to be interrupted?* The line “God will provide” is spoken by Abraham before the ram appears. He does not say it after the rescue, looking back; he says it on the way up the mountain, before he knows how. What might it look like for your people to speak the provision before they can see it — not as denial of the situation, but as honest trust in the character of God?* The ram was caught in the thicket the whole time. The provision was already there. Abraham had to keep climbing to find it. Where in your congregation has the help they are pleading for actually been present all along, waiting to be seen rather than waiting to be made?* The story ends with a name: “The Lord will provide.” Generations of pilgrims will later climb that mountain remembering not the test but the providing. What might it mean for your congregation to name the places in their own lives the same way — not by what almost happened, but by what God did?* Some preachers will choose not to preach this text, and that is a legitimate decision. The text is genuinely painful, and the work of holding it carefully is real. If you do preach it, what would it look like to let your people feel the horror of the scene rather than rushing past it toward a moral?Significant Cautions* This text has been used to argue that faith requires the suspension of ordinary ethics — that whatever God commands, however terrible, must be obeyed without question. That is a dangerous reading, especially in a world where people have committed real violence claiming divine instruction. The story actually ends the practice of child sacrifice in its ancient context; it does not bless it.* The text has often been read as a kind of preview of God's giving up his own Son on the cross. There are echoes worth noticing, but pressed too hard, this reading turns God into someone who almost kills children. That has done real damage in a hospital room or beside a grave. Handle the connection gently if you make it at all.* “God tested Abraham” can land cruelly on people whose suffering has been described to them as a test. The text does not offer a general theology of suffering as divine examination. Be careful not to extend the scene into a blanket explanation for any congregation member's grief.* Sarah is entirely absent from this chapter. Some Jewish tradition has heard her cry in the silence, and her death in the very next chapter has been linked to this scene. Be honest about her absence rather than papering over it.* The story has been used to bless the harm of family members in the name of religious obedience. Be especially careful that nothing in your sermon could be heard that way — particularly in light of the kinds of misuses we noted last week in Matthew 10.Psalm 13The Psalm (Track One) — How Long?SummaryThis is one of the shortest psalms in the Bible — six verses — and one of the most concentrated. It opens with the question “how long” asked four times in two verses: how long will God forget? how long will God hide? how long must the psalmist bear pain? how long will the enemy be exalted? Then a brief, urgent prayer for God to look and answer. And then, unexpectedly, a turn. “But I trusted in your steadfast love. My heart shall rejoice in your salvation. I will sing to the Lord, because he has dealt bountifully with me.” The lament does not erase itself, but it ends in trust.Key Ideas for Preaching* “How long” appears four times in two verses. There is no embarrassment about the repetition. Where in your congregation are people quietly afraid that their “how long” prayer has gone on too long, and what would it free in them to hear that the Bible knows that prayer by heart?* The turn at the end of the psalm is not a resolution. The problem has not gone away. What has shifted is who the psalmist is remembering. How might this teach your people what to do when their situation has not changed but their grip on God needs steadying?* Read alongside Genesis 22, the psalm gives voice to what Abraham, and perhaps Isaac, and perhaps Sarah could not say out loud. How might pairing the two texts honor the unspoken cry inside the more famous story?Significant Cautions* “I will rejoice in your salvation” can be turned into a command to feel better. The psalmist arrives at that line; he does not start there. Be careful not to use this psalm to shame those who are still living in the “how long” verses.Jeremiah 28:5–9First Reading (Track Two) — The Test of a ProphetSummaryThis is part of a longer scene. Jeremiah has been prophesying that the Babylonian exile will be long — a generation or more. Hananiah, another prophet, has been promising the opposite: that the exile will be brief and that God is about to break the yoke of Babylon quickly. The selected verses give Jeremiah's reply. He says, in effect: I would love for your prophecy to be true. May God do what you say. But the prophets who came before us prophesied war and disaster and pestilence; the prophet who promises peace is recognized as a true prophet only when the peace actually arrives. The test of a true word from God is whether it bears out in time.Key Ideas for Preaching* Jeremiah does not dismiss Hananiah out of hand. He says, in effect, “amen — may the Lord do as you have prophesied.” Then he names the harder truth. What does it look like for your congregation to take seriously the appeal of every comforting message, including the ones that turn out to be false?* Jeremiah's test of a true prophet is whether the word comes to pass. That is a slow test. It does not yield quick certainty. Where in your congregation has the desire for fast answers led people toward voices that sound encouraging but do not bear out?* The bigger backdrop is that the people of God are being asked to live faithfully through a long, hard time — not to expect a quick rescue. What might it mean for your congregation to hear that some of the most pressing questions of faith are about how to live well inside a hard season, not how to escape it?Significant Cautions* This text has been used to demand that anyone with a hopeful word be dismissed as a false prophet. Jeremiah does not say that. He says that some hopeful words turn out to be false. He does not say all of them are.* Be careful with the implication that suffering and hardship are always the more spiritually credible message. That framing has its own pastoral dangers, especially in contexts where genuine deliverance is in fact what God is bringing.Psalm 89:1–4, 15–18The Psalm (Track Two) — Of Your Steadfast Love I Will SingSummaryA hymn celebrating God's steadfast love and faithfulness. The opening verses promise to sing God's praise forever, and remember God's covenant with David — the promise to establish his line. The second set of verses turns to the people: happy are those who know the festal shout, who walk in the light of God's face. Their strength is from God; their joy is in God's name. The lectionary selects only the praise sections of a longer psalm that, by its end, becomes a sustained complaint about whether God has kept the very promises being celebrated here.Key Ideas for Preaching* “I will sing of your steadfast love forever.” The opening commitment is to a long song, not a passing feeling. What does it look like for your congregation's praise to be the kind of thing they intend to keep singing for a long time, regardless of how a given week has gone?* “Happy are the people who know the festal shout.” That suggests there is a kind of joy that has to be learned — practiced, taught, shouted out loud. Where might your people need permission to practice praise rather than wait for it to arrive on its own?* Paired with Jeremiah's hard-eyed realism, this psalm reminds us that honest realism about difficulty and unembarrassed praise are not opposites. Both belong. How might your sermon hold these two together?Significant Cautions* The lectionary's selection omits the long complaint that closes Psalm 89. If you preach the praise alone, be honest with your congregation that this is one voice within a longer, more complicated prayer — not the whole of the psalm.Romans 6:12–23The Epistle — Wages and GiftSummaryPaul picks up where last week left off. The argument has been that baptism unites us with Christ in his death and frees us from the rule of sin. Now Paul presses the practical implications. Do not let sin reign in your bodies. Do not present yourselves to sin as instruments of wrongdoing; present yourselves to God as people alive from the dead. Then he reaches for a metaphor that lands uncomfortably on modern ears: you were once slaves of sin, now you are slaves of righteousness. Paul acknowledges that the metaphor is limited — “I am speaking in human terms,” he says, “because of your natural limitations.” The passage closes with one of his most famous lines: the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.Key Ideas for Preaching* Paul assumes that we are always under some kind of authority — and that the question is not whether we will serve something, but what we will serve. Where in your congregation might it be freeing to hear that the choice is not between independence and submission, but between two very different kinds of belonging?* The “wages of sin is death” line has often been preached as a scare tactic. But Paul sets it next to a contrast: the free gift of God is eternal life. Wages are earned. Gifts are not. What might it shift in your people to hear that what God offers is fundamentally not a paycheck?* Paul says he is speaking in human terms “because of your natural limitations.” He admits openly that the metaphor he is using is imperfect. What does it look like to preach with the same kind of humility — using the words available while admitting that they cannot quite contain what is being said?Significant Cautions* Paul's slavery language is rough. It was uncomfortable in its own century, and it is much more so now, in a world where actual chattel slavery has shaped enormous suffering. Be honest that the metaphor has its limits and has been misused.* “The wages of sin is death” has been wielded as a threat. The structure of the verse actually points the other way — the news, the good news, is the free gift on the other side of the comma.* “Slaves to righteousness” should not be flattened into a demand for moralism. Paul's freedom is freedom from a set of destructive authorities, not freedom into a list of rules.Matthew 10:40–42The Gospel — A Cup of Cold WaterSummaryThis is the close of the long sending discourse, and after the difficult sayings of last week, the tone here is unexpectedly gentle. Jesus speaks of welcome — how those who welcome the disciples welcome him, and how those who welcome him welcome the One who sent him. Then he names the smallest possible kindness: even a cup of cold water given to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple will not lose its reward. The whole sending speech, which began with sober instructions and warnings, closes here on what almost sounds like a warm afterthought — but an afterthought that turns out to carry real weight.Key Ideas for Preaching* The discourse closes not with grandeur but with the smallest possible act of hospitality — a cup of cold water. Where in your congregation has the imagination for “real” ministry crowded out the small kindnesses that Jesus actually names here?* Jesus says that welcoming a disciple is welcoming him. That goes both directions. It promises something to your people when they are welcomed — they carry Christ with them. And it asks something of your people when they are the welcomers. How might this two-way welcome shape your congregation's sense of both being received and receiving?* This is the fourth and final Sunday of the Matthew 10 arc. Three weeks ago, the disciples were sent with empty hands. Two weeks ago, they were warned that the road would be hard. Today, the discourse closes with the promise that the smallest welcome is not lost. How might your sermon let your people feel the shape of the whole arc — and the unexpected tenderness of its close?Significant Cautions* “These little ones” is a tender phrase, but it has sometimes been preached condescendingly, as if the speaker were the welcomer and someone else were the recipient. In this passage, the disciples are the little ones. Be careful which direction your sermon casts the metaphor.* The “reward” language is easy to flatten into transactional thinking — do this small thing and earn that big thing. Jesus is not running a points system. He is saying that nothing offered in his name goes unnoticed.* The cup of cold water has sometimes been used to bless the substitution of small charity for real engagement with the systems that produce thirst in the first place. Both the small act and the larger work matter. Do not let one be used to excuse the absence of the other.Thematic ConnectionsAfter three Sundays of increasingly difficult Gospel readings, the lectionary closes the Matthew 10 arc with three short, gentle verses about welcome. The four-week shape is worth holding together: found, sent, warned, received. The disciples who were called from their tables, then sent out with empty hands, then warned about the cost, are now placed inside a network of hospitality — disciples who carry Christ with them, and households who welcome them as Christ.The Old Testament tracks pull in very different directions, and the preacher's choice matters. Track One brings Genesis 22 alongside the brief Gospel — the agonizing test of Abraham paired with the small kindness of a cup of cold water. The contrast is severe, and the preacher has real work to do to make that pairing serve a congregation rather than overwhelm it. Psalm 13's repeated “how long” gives voice to the silence inside Abraham's obedience.Track Two brings Jeremiah's confrontation with false prophecy — the hard-eyed test of whether a word from God actually bears out — and pairs it with Psalm 89's exuberant praise. The combination invites a congregation to hold honest realism and unembarrassed worship together.Romans is on both tracks and continues to develop the question of what kind of life baptism actually launches. The wages-and-gift contrast at the close of the reading offers a clean line for a sermon on either track.The Gospel itself is short enough that it may not seem to carry an entire sermon, but its closing image — a cup of cold water — is worth a sermon in its own right. After the heaviness of last week, the smallness of this week's instruction is itself the good news. The disciples Jesus has been preparing are not asked to do impossible things; they are asked to receive and to give the smallest kindnesses faithfully — and to trust that those kindnesses are received as if they were given to him. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit lectionarypro.substack.com/subscribe

Send us Fan MailOn this episode of Standup Comedy “Your Host & MC”, we feature the multi-talented Ed Solomon—writer of many hit movies, and Jerry Seinfeld from the  iconic TV show Seinfeld—alongside comedian Chris Hobbs for a fun and engaging comedy showcase.Ed Solomon brings a unique perspective from both the writing room and the stage, sharing his creative journey through television, music, and comedy. Paired with the sharp and entertaining Chris Hobbs, this episode delivers a great mix of humor, storytelling, and behind-the-scenes insight into the world of stand-up and television comedy.The comedy material from a young Jerry Seinfeld really shows how even in the beginning he had great relatable material.If you enjoy comedy with depth, creativity, and a touch of TV history, this is an episode you won't want to miss!Hosted by: R. Scott EdwardsSupport the show  www.StandupComedyPodcastNetwork.comWebsite....check it out, podcast, jokes, blogs, and More!"NEW" Video Podcast: Tag Team Talent Podcast on Spotify & YouTubeInterested in Standup Comedy? Check out my books on Amazon and the "BookBaby" Book Store for Discounted copies!"20 Questions Answered about Being a Standup Comic""Be a Standup Comic...or just look like one"

Tait Duryea is the founder of Turbine Capital, a private equity firm specializing in commercial real estate and oil and gas investments, and a commercial airline captain with over 15,000 flight hours on the Airbus A321.    In this second episode of a two-part series, Tait breaks down why oil and gas has become a powerful portfolio complement to real estate, especially for high-income W-2 earners looking for active tax write-offs.From the mechanics of horizontal drilling and 98–99% commercial success rates, to writing off 80–90% of your investment against W-2 income in year one, this episode is a masterclass in smart portfolio diversification for accredited investors ready to look beyond traditional real estate.    If you're a surgeon, business owner, or high-income professional sitting on passive losses you can't use, this episode was made for you.   5 Key Takeaways   Oil and Gas Isn't What It Used to Be — Horizontal drilling technology has pushed commercial success rates to 98–99%, but the tax incentives created during the risky era of vertical drilling have never gone away. That gap is the opportunity. The W-2 Deduction No One Talks About — Unlike passive real estate losses, non-operating working interest in oil and gas wells is treated as active income under IRS code 263 Alpha. High-income earners can write off 80–90% of their investment against W-2 income in year one. Diversify Through a Fund, Not a Single Well — Buying into one or two wells exposes you to catastrophic concentration risk. Turbine Capital's Waypoint Energy fund offers exposure to 40–60 wells alongside major operators like ExxonMobil and Devon — a very different proposition. Front-Loaded Cash Flow Is a Feature, Not a Bug — Oil and gas wells produce the bulk of their returns in the first 24 months. Paired with the year-one tax refund, this creates rapid capital velocity — funds that can then be redeployed into longer-duration real estate deals. Know Where You Are in the Real Estate Cycle — With cap rates expanding into the 6s and values still suppressed, Tait sees this as a prime entry point for commercial real estate. Senior housing and small-bay industrial are his two highest-conviction plays for the next cycle.   Key Talking Points of the Episode 00:00 Introduction 00:22 Meet Tait Duryea: Airline pilot turned Private Equity founder of Turbine Capital 01:50 The 3-Paydays Book 02:13 Why high-income investors are adding oil and gas to their portfolios 04:05 Mineral rights vs. new drilling opportunities 05:45 The oil and gas tax advantage that's been in the tax code since the 1950's 07:54 How to invest in oil & gas: Fund minimums, structure, and entry points 10:48 Understanding the returns from oil & gas investments 12:13 The 3-Paydays System 14:42 How to balance oil & gas and real estate for faster portfolio growth 15:32 Get connected with Tait Duryea and the Turbine Capital Investor Relations team 16:04 Is now a good time to buy commercial real estate? 17:44 Why Tait is bullish on senior housing and small-bay industrial real estate 20:53 The opportunities in self-storage and manufactured housing 22:35 Final thoughts and how to connect with Turbine Capital 23:35 How Propsperity.io helps real estate investors manage and scale their portfolio   Links   Turbine Capital https://www.turbinecap.com/   Turbine Capital Investor Email investors@turbinecap.com   Tait Duryea tait@turbinecap.com   Oil and Gas Fund Through Turbine Capital https://www.waypoint-energy.com/   3 Paydays® Live https://3paydayslive.com/podcast   Free Discovery Call https://smartrealestatecoachpodcast.com/discovery   3 Paydays® System Mastery Course - Use coupon code for 50% off https://smartrealestatecoach.com/qls Coupon code: pod   Apprentice Program 3PaydaysApprentice.com/Podcast    Masterclass https://smartrealestatecoach.com/masterspodcast   3 Paydays Books https://3paydaysbooks.com/podcast   Partners https://smartrealestatecoach.com/podcastresources

The 7.62x39 is one of the most recognizable and widely used rifle cartridges ever created. Paired with AK-pattern rifles, it has earned a reputation for reliability, effectiveness, and global popularity. But what turned this intermediate cartridge into a worldwide phenomenon? In this episode, AK enthusiast Scott Hollfelder emerges from his bunker to break down the history, performance, military legacy, and enduring appeal of the 7.62x39. From its battlefield origins to its continued popularity among shooters today, discover why this cartridge remains one of the most influential rifle rounds ever designed. As always, we want to hear your feedback! Let us know if there are any topics you'd like covered on the Vortex Nation™ podcast by asking us on Instagram @vortexnationpodcast

Buckle up for this listener request! We're discussing 2023's The Boogeyman, a fresh take on Stephen King's short story. Don't let this PG-13 rating fool you, this movie is creepy AF. This movie thrives on sneak peaks and what might be lurking in the dark. When you finally get to see the creature, it's an imaginative take on the unknown. Listen up as we talk about awful friends, worse parents, HIPAA violations, and how the paranormal affects house insurance! Paired with a Boogeyman cocktail. Rate! Review! Follow! Follow us on Instagram and Letterboxd @toastyhorror Check out our website toasttoromcoms.com Email us at toasttoromcoms@gmail.com

This guide covers the readings appointed in the Revised Common Lectionary for the Fourth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 7), Year A, falling on June 21, 2026. We are well into the green season now — the long, ordinary stretch of Sundays during which the church listens, week by week, to the long witness of Scripture.This Sunday's readings are not gentle. The Gospel continues last week's account of Jesus sending out the Twelve, but where last week was the calling, this week names the cost. Jesus tells the disciples three times not to be afraid, then warns them that the message will divide families, that they will be hated, and that those who try to hold on to their lives will lose them. The Old Testament tracks each offer their own difficult companion. Track One follows Hagar and her son into the wilderness after they are cast out at Sarah's demand — one of the most painful scenes in Genesis. Track Two gives us Jeremiah's famous lament, in which the prophet accuses God of having tricked him into a vocation that has cost him everything. The Epistle, from Romans 6, sets the baptized at the heart of this difficulty: we have died with Christ, and so what could ordinarily destroy us no longer has the final word.This is a Sunday that asks the preacher for both courage and tenderness. The Gospel in particular has been used in some of the most damaging ways in the church's history — to justify family estrangement, to coerce loyalty, to bless suffering that people did not choose. The guide names those misuses plainly in the cautions, because the texts will preach better when their misuses are named than when those misuses are left to lurk.The ReadingsGenesis 21:8–21First Reading (Track One) — Hagar and Ishmael in the WildernessSummaryThe day Isaac is weaned, Abraham throws a great feast. Sarah looks across the celebration and sees Ishmael — the son Hagar bore to Abraham years earlier — and something hardens in her. She tells Abraham to send Hagar and the boy away, so that Ishmael will not inherit alongside Isaac. The text says the matter is very distressing to Abraham, but God tells him to do as Sarah says, with the promise that God will also make a nation of Ishmael. The next morning Abraham sends Hagar out with bread, a skin of water, and the boy. The water runs out in the wilderness. Hagar puts the child under a bush so she will not have to watch him die, and she lifts up her voice and weeps. God hears the boy's voice. An angel speaks to Hagar — do not be afraid, God has heard him where he is. God opens her eyes, and she sees a well that was there all along. The boy grows up in the wilderness and becomes the ancestor of a great nation.Key Ideas for Preaching* The text says God heard the voice of the boy — and the name Ishmael means “God hears.” The story is its own argument: there is no one whose voice God does not hear, including the ones the official story has cast out. Where does your congregation tend to assume that some voices reach God and others do not, and how might Ishmael's name interrupt that assumption?* Hagar does not see the well until God opens her eyes. The water was already there. What might it mean for your people that the help they have been pleading for may already be present, waiting to be seen rather than waiting to be made?* God's promise expands rather than narrows. Isaac receives the promise, and Ishmael will also become a great nation. The text refuses to make this an either/or. Where in your congregation has the assumption taken hold that God's blessing is a finite resource — that someone else's portion must come out of ours?* The story sits uncomfortably with us, and it should. There is real cruelty here, and real grief. What might it look like to preach this scene without rushing toward a moral, letting your people sit with the painful complexity of a family text that does not resolve neatly?Significant Cautions* Hagar's story has been used in the church to claim that one religious people has displaced another — most painfully in claims that Christianity has replaced Judaism, or that the Arab descendants of Ishmael are outside God's care. The text itself refuses this reading. God's blessing extends to both lines.* Sarah's demand and Abraham's quick compliance are easy to moralize — to make Sarah a villain or Abraham a coward. The text is more honest than that. They are real, flawed people inside a real, flawed family system, and the story does not ask us to pick sides among them.* The line that God told Abraham to listen to Sarah has sometimes been used in troubling ways. Read in context, it is God's particular guidance about this particular moment — not a general endorsement of any voice that arrives within a family.* This is a Genesis story that Muslims also hold as sacred — Ishmael is the ancestor of the Arab peoples, and the well in this text is foundational to Islam. Be particularly careful with any language that would imply Christians have an exclusive claim on the material.Hagar and Ishmael in the Desert by Christoffer Wilhelm EckersbergPsalm 86:1–10, 16–17The Psalm (Track One) — Incline Your Ear, O LordSummaryThis is a psalm of supplication from someone in deep need. “Incline your ear, O Lord,” it begins; “I am poor and needy.” The psalmist names God's character — good and forgiving, abounding in steadfast love — and pleads for an answer. The middle of the psalm widens the view: God is unique among all the gods of the nations, the maker of all peoples, the one to whom every people will one day come. The selected verses close with another plea: turn to me, give me strength, save me, show me a sign of your favor.Key Ideas for Preaching* The psalmist names himself “poor and needy” — and names it to God, not hides it. What does it look like for your congregation to bring their actual need to God without first trying to dress it up?* The psalm holds together a private cry and a cosmic vision. In the same breath the psalmist asks God to listen to him and reminds himself that all the nations will one day come and bow down. How might your sermon hold those two together — the intimate and the vast — without flattening either?* The plea is grounded in who God is, not in who the psalmist is. God is good and forgiving, abounding in steadfast love. Where in your congregation has prayer started to feel like throwing words into a void, and how might naming who God is steady that?Significant Cautions* The psalmist asks God to act so that “those who hate me may be put to shame.” That is honest prayer, but it can also become a weapon. Be careful about preaching this verse in a way that licenses contempt for those we disagree with.* “I am devoted to you” can be heard as the psalmist claiming exceptional faithfulness. Read in the context of the whole psalm, it is relationship language, not a boast about merit.Jeremiah 20:7–13First Reading (Track Two) — A Fire Shut Up in My BonesSummaryJeremiah turns to God in something close to anger. You have tricked me, he accuses; you have overpowered me. He has become a laughingstock. Everyone mocks him; his message of judgment has cost him friends and reputation. He has tried to keep silent — but the word of God, he says, is like a fire shut up in his bones, and he cannot hold it in. Even his closest acquaintances are watching for him to stumble. And then, in the middle of the lament, the tone turns. He remembers that God is on his side, that the Lord is with him like a dread warrior. He calls on the assembly to sing to the Lord. The lament does not erase itself, but it ends — for now — in praise.Key Ideas for Preaching* Jeremiah accuses God of trickery and gets away with it. The text does not punish him for the accusation; it preserves it as Scripture. What might it mean for your congregation to hear that even rage toward God can be a faithful prayer?* The word inside Jeremiah is “like a fire shut up in my bones.” He cannot keep it in even when keeping it in would be easier. Where in your congregation is there a truth that needs to come out, and what is it costing your people to hold it in?* The lament ends in praise — not because the problem has been solved, but because Jeremiah remembers who is with him. What does it look like for your people to praise from inside a difficulty that has not yet resolved?Significant Cautions* Jeremiah's lament can be used to suggest that faithful people quickly arrive at peace and praise after suffering. The turn is real in this passage, but it is not automatic, and the rest of Jeremiah's life is not exactly peaceful. Do not rush a lament toward resolution.* “There is something like a burning fire in my bones” has sometimes been used to pressure people into evangelism, as if a faithful Christian must always feel compelled to proclaim. Jeremiah's compulsion is the experience of a particular prophet under particular circumstances, not a universal test of faithfulness.Psalm 69:7–10, (11–15), 16–18The Psalm (Track Two) — A Stranger to My KindredSummaryA lament from someone who has been alienated by their devotion to God. It is for your sake, the psalmist says, that I have borne reproach — I have become a stranger to my kindred. Zeal for God's house has consumed him. He is mocked in the streets; even drunkards make him the subject of their songs. The psalm pleads with God to draw near, to answer, to redeem him from the muck. The selected verses close with an urgent appeal: do not hide your face from me; come near and redeem me.Key Ideas for Preaching* The psalmist's faithfulness has cost him relationships — even with his own family. This pairs powerfully with the Gospel's hard language about division. What does your congregation know about the real cost of taking faith seriously, and how might this psalm give them words for it?* The image of being stuck in the mire, where there is no foothold, is one of the most physical pictures in the psalms. It is not abstract theology; it is what real trouble feels like in the body. How might your sermon let the body of the psalm meet the bodies of your people?* The psalmist does not pretend to be patient. “Do not hide your face from me” is urgent, almost demanding. What might it free in your people to hear that urgent prayer is faithful prayer?Significant Cautions* The psalm has been used to claim a kind of spiritual martyrdom for ordinary discomfort — to dramatize mild inconvenience as suffering for the gospel. The cost the psalmist describes is real. Be careful applying his words to a much smaller scale.* Some verses near these (not included in the reading) contain sharp curses against the psalmist's enemies. The lectionary leaves them out for a reason. If you reach for them, handle them with care.Romans 6:1b–11The Epistle — Buried with Him by BaptismSummaryPaul has just argued in Romans 5 that grace abounds where sin abounds. He hears the objection coming: shall we then sin all the more, so that grace can abound all the more? Absolutely not, he says. And the picture he gives in answer is baptism. To be baptized into Christ is to be baptized into his death — buried with him so that we might also walk into a new kind of life. The old self has been crucified with him. The pull of the old life no longer has the final word. Christ, having been raised, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. And so, Paul says, we are to consider ourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.Key Ideas for Preaching* Paul defines baptism not as a religious rite added on top of a person's life but as a death and a resurrection. The old self has been crucified. The new life is something already begun. How might it shift your congregation's sense of baptism — their own, and any they are about to celebrate — to hear it described in these terms?* “Death no longer has dominion over him” — and so, by extension, over us. This is the same Romans 6 that ties directly to today's Gospel, where Jesus tells the disciples not to fear those who can kill the body. The two readings are saying the same thing in different keys. What changes in your people when the deepest threats lose their final authority?* Paul tells us to “consider ourselves dead to sin and alive to God.” That is not a description of how it feels; it is a posture, a reckoning, a choosing to remember what is true even when experience suggests otherwise. Where in your congregation might this practice of remembering provide more steadiness than trying to feel a particular way?Significant Cautions* “Dead to sin” has sometimes been read as the claim that Christians no longer struggle. Paul is not saying that — he goes on in chapter 7 to describe at length the ongoing struggle. He is describing an orientation, not a finished condition. Say so plainly.* The language of being “crucified with Christ” can be used to romanticize suffering, or to suggest that hardship is the proof of faith. Paul's image is about baptismal identity, not a measuring stick for who is suffering enough.* “Walking in newness of life” can be flattened into self-improvement language. Paul's vision is much larger — a whole new sphere of life in which the powers that used to determine us no longer have the final say.Matthew 10:24–39The Gospel — Do Not Be AfraidSummaryThe sending discourse continues, and Jesus turns to the cost. He warns the disciples that they will be treated as he is treated — if people call the master of the house Beelzebul, his household should expect worse. Three times he tells them not to be afraid. Do not fear those who can kill only the body; fear instead the one who has authority over both body and soul. Do not be afraid: even the sparrows are not forgotten, and you are worth more than many sparrows. Acknowledge me before others, Jesus says, and I will acknowledge you before my Father. And then the hardest verses: do not think I came to bring peace; I came to bring a sword. Loyalty to me will cause division — even within families. Whoever loves family more than me is not worthy of me. Whoever does not take up the cross is not worthy of me. Those who try to hold on to their life will lose it. Those who lose their life for my sake will find it.Key Ideas for Preaching* The phrase “do not be afraid” appears three times in this passage. It is the constant beneath everything else. The hard language about division and loss is held inside that frame. What would it look like for your sermon to make the “do not fear” as loud as the difficult verses around it?* Jesus uses sparrows — the cheapest birds at the market — to make a point about God's attention. Not one of them falls without God noticing; and you are worth more. How might this small, almost throwaway image be exactly the picture your congregation needs of a God whose attention reaches the least-counted parts of their lives?* The “sword” Jesus brings is not his intention but his effect. He is naming a social reality: following him will not be welcome everywhere, even in some families. He is preparing his disciples for that, not endorsing the division. How might your sermon help your people tell the difference between division that follows costly faithfulness and division that follows from cruelty or stubbornness?* “Take up the cross” was, in the first century, the specific image of a condemned prisoner carrying the crossbeam of their execution. It was a death-march image, not a metaphor for ordinary hardship. What is your congregation actually being asked to die to for the sake of Jesus, and how can you name it without trivializing the image?* “Those who lose their life for my sake will find it” is one of the central paradoxes of the Gospels. It is not a license for self-destruction; it is the strange truth that the life that tries to protect itself shrinks, and the life that is given for something larger grows. Where in your people's lives is a small, protected life keeping them from a larger, given one?Significant Cautions* “Do not fear those who kill the body” has sometimes been used to pressure people toward martyrdom or to invalidate ordinary fear. Jesus is not condemning fear; he is steadying people facing genuine threat. Don't use this verse to shame the afraid.* The verse about fearing the one who can destroy both body and soul is genuinely difficult, and many faithful readers have understood the subject of that verse differently. Be cautious about turning it into a casual threat. The weight of the passage is not on the warning; it is on the comfort that immediately follows.* “I came not to bring peace but a sword” has been used in some of the most damaging ways imaginable — to justify religious violence, to bless the cutting off of LGBTQ+ family members, and to license abusive religious leaders demanding total loyalty. Be especially clear: Jesus is naming a social effect, not endorsing harm to anyone.* “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me” has been weaponized by spiritually abusive systems to demand that members cut off family. The wider witness of Scripture — including Jesus' own care for his mother from the cross, and the command to honor parents — flatly contradicts that use.* “Take up the cross” should not be applied to suffering that people did not freely choose — illness, abuse, poverty, grief. Such suffering is not their cross to bear, and calling it that has been used to silence people who needed to be heard.* “Lose your life to find it” should never be used to validate self-harm, the staying in dangerous situations, or the spending of oneself in service of leaders or institutions that demand it. Jesus is talking about the freedom of the gospel, not about self-destruction.Thematic ConnectionsBoth tracks open onto the same difficult Gospel, and both offer it different company.Track One brings Hagar's wilderness story. A woman and her son have been cast out — by the official story, by the family that should have held them. The water runs out. The mother cannot bear to watch the child die. And God hears. The story does not solve what Sarah has done; it does not undo the cruelty. But it insists that no voice is unheard, no person is forgotten, and that the help God provides may already be present, waiting to be seen. Paired with the Gospel's “do not fear” and the sparrow image, the message is the same in two keys: God's attention reaches the ones the world has overlooked.Track Two brings Jeremiah's lament and Psalm 69's cry of alienation. Both texts give voice to the cost of faithfulness — the rejection, the social isolation, the impossibility of keeping silent. Read alongside the Gospel, they put words in the mouths of disciples for whom following has cost something. The whole day, on this track, gives a congregation permission to be honest about how hard faithfulness has been, and a promise that the honesty is itself a form of prayer.Romans 6 anchors both tracks in baptismal identity. Whatever the world's hostility can do, the worst of it has already lost its dominion. Christ has gone down into death and come back out the other side, and the baptized have gone with him.The Gospel is the natural preaching center either way, and it asks particular courage from the preacher. These texts have been weaponized; the cautions in this guide are not theoretical. But the heart of the passage is the threefold “do not be afraid” and the small, almost tossed-off promise about the sparrows. A sermon that lets those quieter verses set the temperature, while taking the harder verses seriously and naming their misuses plainly, will land more honestly than one that either avoids the difficulty or leans into it as something to admire.For preachers following the recent series: this is the third Sunday in the Matthew 10 arc. Two weeks ago, Jesus called Matthew from his table. Last week, he sent the twelve out with empty hands and the compassion of the Lord of the harvest. This week, he is honest with them about what the sending will cost. The shape is now complete: found, sent, warned. Next week, the lectionary begins to move into the parables of the kingdom. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit lectionarypro.substack.com/subscribe

Gaze out of your cabin window and watch the gorgeous mountainside pass by as you listen to train sounds and white noise for sleeping! The deep rumble of a train traveling along the tracks creates a calming atmosphere that will make you feel sleepy. Paired with relaxing white noise to sleep and you have a recipe for the best slumber ever! If you often struggle with insomnia, tinnitus, or just want a soothing sleep sound to fill your room as you go to bed, this sleep white noise has you covered! Finally, you can get the rest you have been wanting by falling asleep with white noise and train sounds!At Relaxing White Noise, our goal is to help you sleep well. This episode is eight hours long with no advertisements in the middle, so you can use it as a sleeping sound throughout the night. Listening to our white noise sounds via the podcast gives you the freedom to lock your phone at night, keeping your bedroom dark as you fall asleep. It also allows you to switch between apps while studying or working with no interruption in the ambient sound.⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Contact Us for Partnership Inquiries⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Relaxing White Noise is the number one destination on YouTube for white noise and nature sounds to help you sleep, study or soothe a baby. With more than a billion views across YouTube and other platforms, we are excited to now share our popular ambient tracks on the Relaxing White Noise podcast. People use white noise for sleeping, focus, sound masking or relaxation. We couldn't be happier to help folks live better lives. This podcast has the sound for you whether you use white noise for studying, to soothe a colicky baby, to fall asleep or for simply enjoying a peaceful moment. No need to buy a white noise machine when you can listen to these sounds for free. Cheers to living your best life!DISCLAIMER: Remember that loud sounds can potentially damage your hearing. When playing one of our ambiences, if you cannot have a conversation over the sound without raising your voice, the sound may be too loud for your ears. Please do not place speakers right next to a baby's ears. If you have difficulty hearing or hear ringing in your ears, please immediately discontinue listening to the white noise sounds and consult an audiologist or your physician. The sounds provided by Relaxing White Noise are for entertainment purposes only and are not a treatment for sleep disorders or tinnitus. If you have significant difficulty sleeping on a regular basis, experience fitful/restless sleep, or feel tired during the day, please consult your physician.⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Relaxing White Noise Privacy Policy⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠© Relaxing White Noise LLC, 2026. All rights reserved. Any reproduction or republication of all or part of this text/visual/audio is prohibited.

Welcome back to BollottaFide. This week its all about the lost art of a first impression.Your hosts, Anthony and Alex, also pick their Word of the Week! Then, this week at the Tipsy Cart, your mixologist Alex serves up her twist on a strawberry cucumber Margarita.Thanks to Michael on the Rocks Bolmey for bringing us our sponsor this week Pasion Tequila bollotta.com

Macabre, baroque, drastic. So goes the debut album from Brooklyn’s Bella Litsa, but it’s also been at her core since she began playing the piano at six years old, finding an affinity for minor chords and rewriting pieces from songbooks to make them reflect darker, deeper tones. Paired with a spectral-like, operatic voice and inspiration […] The post Bella Litsa: “Angelica” appeared first on KUT & KUTX Studios -- Podcasts.

Send us Fan Mail Financial Matters with Richard OringRichard Oring, from New Century Financial Group in Princeton, New Jersey, discusses...Listen on: Apple Podcasts

Left-behind dog poop is annoying. But it's also a sign of anti-sociality.Spotting unidentified poop outside is an unfortunate and unavoidable part of being alive, but in some cities, there's a scourge being left behind by some people's four-legged friends. Manuela López-Restrepo, writer and producer at All Things Considered, couldn't stop noticing it – and she wondered if it might be a sign of something deeper going on. Paired with dogs popping up in places they maybe shouldn't be – she wondered: can dogs be a vector for anti-social behavior? And what would it look like for people – and their pets – to share space more harmoniously? Manuela shares her reporting with Brittany and they get deeper into the story of the dookie. For more episodes about culture and how we share public space, check out:The Coldplay kiss cam & moral surveillanceCrime is down. Why don't people feel safe?In search of a safe place to cry...Support Public Media. Join NPR Plus.Follow Brittany on Instagram: @bmluseFor handpicked podcast recommendations every week, subscribe to NPR's Pod Club newsletter at npr.org/podclub.See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

Calling all Jeff Goldblum fans! This one is for you! Except, we are talking about 1986's The Fly, and even Pittsburgh natives can agree, Jeff Goldblum's character is the worst in this movie. Don't get us wrong, we love a man who wants to change the world, but not through dangerous experiments that kills innocent animals in an unlocked apartment. Way to go Brundlefly. This movie's practical effects are fantastic, and now we know more about a fly life cycle than we ever wanted to. Watch this movie on an empty stomach! Paired with a Transfusion cocktail. Rate! Review! Follow! Follow us on Instagram @toastyhorror for pics and drink recipes! Email us at toasttoromcoms@gmail.com Check out our website toasttoromcoms.com

Andy Isaacson is a writer and photographer. His work for The Times has taken him to every corner of the world, and he has transmitted what he's experienced through his images. But recently, Isaacson took a trip unlike any he'd taken before. Not because of where he traveled, but because of how he traveled. Paired with a set of unlikely travel companions, he put down his camera and experienced the word through touch, smell and sound. On today's episode of “The Sunday Daily,” Isaacson talks with Host Michael Barbaro about a trip that forever changed the way he travels.   On today's episode: Andy Isaacson, a contributing writer and photographer for The New York Times.   Background Reading Sites Unseen: What Travel Is Like for Those Who Can't See   Photo credit: Andy Isaacson Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Rabbi Josh turns to an unlikely teacher, the 19th-century composer Franz Schubert, to close out the five-part series on uncertainty and anxiety. Paired with Rabbi Tarfon's ancient insight , it is not your job to finish the work , the episode invites listeners to release their grip on perfection. Listen for a guided mindfulness practice helps listeners sit with what's unfinished. Be in touch at josh@unpacked.media. This episode is sponsored by Jonathan and Kori Kalafer and the Somerset Patriots: The Bridgewater, NJ-based AA Affiliate of the New York Yankees. --------------- This podcast is brought to you by Unpacked, an OpenDor Media Brand.For other podcasts from Unpacked, check out:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Jewish History Nerds⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Stars of David with Elon Gold⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Unpacking Israeli History⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Wondering Jews⁠⁠

These are quantum command codes. Specifically architected affirmation sequences designed to lock in the merging between you and your future self. Every spiritual tradition has used a version of this — the Vedic tradition called them mantras, the Sufis called them dhikr, the Christian mystics called them prayers of the heart. The names change. The mechanism is identical. A specific arrangement of words, repeated with intention and feeling, restructures the consciousness of the person speaking them.     But most affirmations circulating online operate at the surface layer. What you are about to hear operates at the command layer — the level where identity, reality, energy, and timeline converge simultaneously. I built this activation around my four-category quantum command phrases framework: Identity-Transformation codes that install at the level of who you are using phrases like "I AM" and "I have become." Reality-Restructuring codes that reorganize the external world using "I now command" and "It is done." Energetic Alignment codes that synchronize your field using "I am aligned with" and "I am now in harmony with." And Timeline-Acceleration codes that collapse the distance between present and future using "I have already received" and "I am magnetizing." Twelve waves. Every wave targets a different dimension of your reality. Paired with quantum erasers — pattern-disrupting verbs that delete old subconscious code before the new installation begins. By the end, every layer of your consciousness has been addressed. Listen daily for maximum impact.  

True love comes in many forms. But they all have violence in common. You'll see what I mean. — Support and sponsor this show! Venmo Tip Jar: @wellthatsinteresting Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@wellthatsinterestingpod⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Bluesky: @wtipod Threads: @wellthatsinterestingpod Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@wti_pod⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Listen on YouTube!! Oh, BTW. You're interesting. Email YOUR facts, stories, experiences... Nothing is too big or too small. I'll read it on the show: wellthatsinterestingpod@gmail.com WTI is a part of the Airwave Media podcast network! Visit AirwaveMedia.com to listen and subscribe to other incredible shows. Want to advertise your glorious product on WTI? Email me: wellthatsinterestingpod@gmail.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On April 19th, 1997, news of a double homicide sent shockwaves through the small New Jersey community of Franklin Borough. 25-year-old pizzeria owner Giorgio Gallara and his 22-year-old employee Jeremy Giordano were gunned down during a pizza delivery. Paired with paranoia was an overwhelming sense of fear among residents. People wondered, would police be able to track down the gunman? Or would someone close to them be targeted next?  Subscribe to Jami's YouTube channel @JamiOnAir: https://www.youtube.com/@jamionair Follow Jami @JamiOnAir on Instagram and TikTok. Sponsors Kikoff: Visit getkikoff.com/murderish to get your first month for as little as $1. Factor: Visit factormeals.com/murderish50off and use code murderish50off for 50% + free daily greens per box. Laundry Sauce: Visit laundrysauce.com and use code murderish to get 20% off your entire order. Shopify: Visit shopify.com/murderish to sign up for a $1/month trial. Dirty Money Moves: Women in White Collar Crime - Listen on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/dirty-money-moves-women-in-white-collar-crime/id1619521092. Research and writing by: Alison Schwartz. Miguel Oilveras (missing person): Anyone with information regarding Miguel Oilveras's disappearance should contact your local FBI Office or the nearest American Embassy or Consulate. The FBI is offering a reward of up to $25,000 for information leading to Miguel's recovery.    Want to advertise on this show? We've partnered with Cloud10 Media to handle our advertising requests. If you're interested in advertising on MURDERISH, please send an email to Sahiba Krieger sahiba@cloud10.fm and copy jami@murderish.com.  Visit Murderish.com to learn more about the podcast and Creator/Host, Jami, and to view a list of sources for this episode.  Listening to this podcast doesn't make you a murderer, it just means you're murder..ish. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices