Bobby Maddex speaks with Benedict Sheehan, composer and conductor of the new release on Capella Records, "Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom" featuring St. Tikhon Choir. Purchase a copy to support this work here!

Bobby Maddex interviews Elaine Piniat, a brand new OCMC missionary to Sweden. Click here to read Elaine's newsletter. You can find her bio on the OCMC website here. Find out how you can donate to her missionary efforts.

Bobby Maddex interviews Fr. Chad Hatfield and Hollie Benton about an exciting event coming up in September at St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary. The meeting is called The National Orthodox Advanced Leadership Conference.

Bobby Maddex interviews Hollie Benton, Executive Director of the Orthodox Christian Leadership Initiative, and Fr. Chad Hatfield, President of St. Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary, about the upcoming 5th annual National Orthodox Advanced Leadership Conference. The conference will be taking place at St. Vladimir's Seminary from Sept. 17-19. To find out more about the conference, the lineup of speakers, and how to get a registration discount, visit the Orthodox Christian Leadership Initiative website.

Bobby Maddex interviews Benedict Sheehan and Lydia Given about Benedict's new composition out on Capella Records, simply titled, "Vespers". Together they discuss the creative process, inspiration, and development of this beautiful project as well as a unique perspective on American Orthodox music. Listeners can learn more and find links to purchase or stream the album at the Capella Romana website.

John Maddex is joined by Fr. Chad Hatfield and Dr. Andrew Geleris to talk about the upcoming Advanced Leadership Conference sponsored by the Orthodox Christian Leadership Initiative. The dates are September 16-18, 2022 and the topic is "Money - The Gospel Changes Everything." This discussion centers on the issue of funding for parishes and organizations and the mind set that hinder growth. The book by Dr. Andrew Geleris that was referenced is Money and Salvation - An Invitation to the Good Way.

Bobby Maddex interviews author Susan Cushman about her life and her latest book, Pilgrim Interrupted. Pilgrim Interrupted is a collection of 35 essays, 3 poems, and 5 excerpts from Susan's novels and short stories. Coming of age during the turbulent 1960s in Jackson, Mississippi; marrying young and adopting three children; leaving the Presbyterian Church of her childhood for the Eastern Orthodox Christian faith in 1987; Susan finally began to chronicle her journey in the early 2000s. Pilgrim Interrupted is her eighth book. Susan's Amazon Page: https://www.amazon.com/Susan-Cushman/e/B00T3OPP18/ref=dp_byline_cont_pop_ebooks_1 Susan's Personal Website: https://susancushman.com

Bobby Maddex interviews Fr. Kevin Kalish about his new book She Who Loved Much, the Sinful Woman in St. Ephrem the Syrian and the Orthodox Tradition. Published by Holy Trinity Publications. Information about his book is available @ http://bookstore.jordanville.org/ https://kevinkalish.substack.com https://orthodoxlife.org/jordanville-readings/ephrem-graecus-sinful-woman/

Bobby Maddex interviews Hallvard Lid and Fr. Theodor Svane of The Annunciation of the Holy Virgin Mary Orthodox Church in Bergen, Norway, about the religious climate in Norway, the state of Orthodoxy there, and the pressing needs of their own Orthodox parish.

The death toll from Hurricane Helene has now reached 91 as Asheville, isolated by floods, struggles to get supplies airlifted to emergency workers. / Associated Press

Every time a climate disaster like Helene happens, insurance companies gouge customers, who complain to politicians, who claim climate disasters rarely happen. / How Things Work

Leonard Leo led the right-wing takeover of America's judiciary. Now one of his organizations is trying to block the efforts of a group that educates lawyers and judges about the climate crisis. / The Guardian

See also: Using an absurd legal basis, a Leo-funded think tank is suing the Consumer Product Safety Commission, arguing its structure is unconstitutional. / Rolling Stone

From inside Shein warehouses, gig workers—who don't have the same protections as full-time staff—are posting videos to expose grueling working conditions. / WIRED

"Perhaps this is appealing to you, but I find this revolting." The future of your Instagram and Facebook feeds is Meta's own AI-generated content. / Pixel Envy

Why AI is like the advent of the microwave oven: It's good at certain tasks and underwhelming at others—and just try to convince its advocates otherwise. / The Atlantic

Hardly a surprise, but according to a new FTC report, social media companies are gathering data far beyond users' expectations, sometimes with thousands of attributes per user. / EFF

See also: Ireland is fining Meta $101 million for "storing hundreds of millions of user passwords in plaintext and making them broadly available to company employees." / Ars Technica

According to a new study, "There will never be enough computing power to create AGI… because we'd run out of natural resources long before we'd even get close." / Radboud Universiteit

When AI scores higher on an IQ test than a third of people, have we "reached peak human?" That depends on whether "more" is necessarily "better." / VentureBeat

See also: The case for having lots of kids. / The New Yorker

Because of a legal dispute with a copyright group, a vast swath of popular music is currently blocked on YouTube. / Variety

Postcards were the memes of their day a century ago, replete with cats and everything. / BBC

How the 1937 hoax photo of a man holding a giant grasshopper—that later became a popular postcard—came to be. / Boing Boing

On Friday, the Chicago White Sox lost their 121st game of the season, the most for any Major League Baseball team in modern history. / ESPN

In a list of the world's 38 coolest neighborhoods, Marseille's Notre-Dame-du-Mont tops them all. / Time Out

Unrelated: A collaborative map for anyone interested in urban fruit harvesting. / Falling Fruit

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In light of Israel's incursion into southern Lebanon, a look back at its 1982 invasion that became an 18-year occupation. / Politico Magazine

Viewers say last night's vice presidential debate was an even match, and an overwhelming majority felt the tone was positive. / CBS News

Interviews with 10-year-olds about the presidential election: "I wouldn't like someone who committed crimes to be my president." / CNN

A fact-check finds that no, there are not 13,099 illegal immigrant murders roaming free on American streets. / Alex Nowrasteh

See also: Researchers say a second Trump term could add an extra 4 billion metric tons of carbon to the atmosphere by 2030. / Grist

A visit to Michigan and China shows how the US lost the solar power race. In short? Good old capitalism. / Bloomberg

New milk-tea chains in China have an aesthetic known as guochao, meaning "national and hip." / The New Yorker

Geologists make the counterintuitive case that Mount Everest is growing taller thanks to erosion. / Smithsoniian Magazine

DNA testing company 23andMe is sinking quickly, partly because it's run out of customers. / WIRED

Drug developers are developing birth control pills aimed at male Gen Zers and millennials. / axios

A study finds cannabis enhances the enjoyment of music, "confirming what every stoner already knows." / Marijuana Moment

A smartphone in San Francisco's Mission District is broadcasting what songs are currently playing nearby. / Bop Spotter

Video of "a particularly beautiful" murmuration of starlings observed in The Netherlands. / Kottke

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Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu reportedly calls President Biden to discuss Israel's plans to strike Iran. / axios

The UK's Security Service says it has responded to 20 plots backed by Iran since 2022. / BBC News

A review of China as a sentinel state—phone monitoring, "grid management," and the forthcoming cyberspace ID scheme. / China Media Project

In light of this year's Nobel Prizes connected to AI, an explainer on how proteins fold. / The Economist

A team is protecting Wikipedia from AI-generated slop. / 404 Media

An audio sample finds Google Notebook's podcast bots experiencing an existential crisis. / Reddit

See also: In light of AI energy-consumption, the Department of Energy wants you to know your conservation efforts are making a difference. / McSweeney's

Mobile homes and manufactured houses are proving to be among the most vulnerable types of housing stock in climate disasters. / Grist

The White House launches a Reddit page to correct misinformation about storms. / The Hill

Schools are implementing backpack bans, which makes "the already difficult experience of navigating one's period as a teen even more difficult." / The Cut

One uncomfortable finding in psychology: trainees can be just as effective as fully licensed therapists. / Experimental History

Fifteen years later, Interview Project's 121 video profiles are now available on YouTube. / Open Culture

Something we didn't know: Nearly every station in the London Underground contains a plaque depicting a labyrinth. / Futility Closet

An artwork at a Dutch museum gets tossed in the trash for resembling a pair of beer cans too realistically. / euronews

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Millions are without power after Hurricane Milton tears across Florida. / The Tampa Bay Times

The hurricane also tore open the Tampa Bay Rays' roof and felled a crane. / The Weather Channel, X

Photographs of Los Angeles's 400-mile network of aqueducts and hydropower plants. / Science History Institute

New Mexico works to preserve its network of ancient gravity-fed irrigation ditches. / Undark Magazine

A theory tries to explain why more Latinos are supporting Donald Trump—basically, because they're a diverse group of people with diverse interests. / The New Yorker

A round-up of under-discussed political races. / Wake Up to Politics

A few things learned from Melania Trump's new memoir. / The Cut

Fashion experts analyze outfits worn by the presidential and vice presidential candidates. / GQ

Unrelated: An analysis of the top fanfic pairings—"who gets shipped and why?" / The Pudding

Abu Dhabi overtakes Oslo to become the world's richest city in terms of assets managed by sovereign wealth funds. / Semafor

Elon Musk has long promised a fully autonomous vehicle, but don't expect him to follow through this week. / The Verge

Caitlin Dewey: Silicon Valley has—alarmingly, and increasingly—never looked more macho. / Links I Would Gchat You If We Were Friends

Wimbledon will replace line judges with electronic line calling next year, ending a 147-year tradition. / sky news

Rafael Nadal plans to retire next month at age 38. / Tennis & Beyond

South Korea's Han Kang receives this year's Nobel Prize in Literature "for her intense poetic prose." / The Literary Saloon

A profile of Kang from 2023: "That will be a problem when I die—I won't be able to finish all my ideas." / The Independent

Selections from Tara Booth's comics that were made to "cope with life" or "just lighten the mood." / It's Nice That

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China's appetite for an Iran-Israel war is said to be limited. / The Economist

Five takeaways from Kamala Harris's interview with Charlamagne Tha God. / The New York Times [+]

Donald Trump turns a town hall into a 39-minute "living-room listening session." / The Washington Post [+]

Why does the media still struggle to portray Trump accurately? Partly because of the "myth of the reasonable man." / Degenerate Art

A reporter's road trip through the Southwest, talking to voters, finds that "Latinos are as American as anyone else, if not more so." / The Los Angeles Times

Farmers worry that Trump's proposed "mass deportations" will decimate the US food supply. / Grist

Unrelated: Russia to unveil a new statue of Joseph Stalin. / Politico

Billionaires are said to be dominated by existential crises, "although each displays nuance when it comes to confrontation." / MacGuffin

Who left the United States a $7 billion payment? Theories suggest a Texan investment manager, but it's maybe someone still alive trying to minimize their taxes. / Sherwood

See also: There's no evidence the Internet Archive was hacked to edit history—but what if it was? / Interconnected

Unrelated: A video tour of New York City's so-called fake buildings. / Open Culture

TikTok is turning users with relatively low follower counts into paid shopping influencers. / rest of world

A new AI company enables users to create bots in the likeness of any person—without their consent. / WIRED

Old fashioned bookshops are now cool destinations for young people. "I can spend hours browsing—I think that's a big part of it." / The Guardian

Writers and authors create adhoc writing programs to compete with institutional workshops. / Airmail

Astrophysicists are "exulting" in new findings about the universe's first billion years, such as an image of the earliest known galaxy. / Quanta Magazine

Video and photos of 14,000 prescription lenses dangling in a Japanese forest. / Colossal

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Regarding the election, most of Europe is pro-Harris. Israel, Russia, India, and other countries favor Trump. / Semafor

A round-up of the rampant disinformation circulating about the election. / The New York Times [+]

Related: Vladimir Putin hosts a summit for global leaders, including China's Xi Jinping and India's Narendra Modi. / The Hill

Do political fundraising texts actually work? "A well-done text marketing program can be really good at fundraising." / Vox

According to a nonpartisan aommittee, Trump's Social Security plan would empty the coffers by 2032, three years ahead of current projections. / Quartz

"[Tax cuts] are the political equivalent of someone chopping your house to pieces with an axe and then offering the remains back to you under a sign that says, 'Free Firewood!'" / How Things Work

Journalists are composing "pre-writes" to prepare for whoever wins. One shares his ahead of time. / Wake Up to Politics

Interviews with Harris's sorority sisters: "The first Black woman to fill-in-the-blank is almost always a sorority woman." / The New Yorker

A new coronavirus variant, XEC, is spreading across the United States. / Newsweek

Experts say a proposed revamp to the recycling symbol is still deceptive. / Grist

Boar's Head, a privately owned company run by two intensely guarded families, is said to be "the Jay Gatsby of the meat industry." / The New York Times [+]

Meanwhile, a German crime ring is found to be delivering cocaine by tucking it under pizzas. / The Guardian

NASA debuts a new traffic management system for aircraft operating above 60,000 feet. / NASA

Inside a tool purchased by law enforcement agencies that can track smartphones at abortion clinics. / 404 Media

Anthropic's latest model of Claude AI can now use a computer on your behalf. / Platformer

Your odd words of the week: condisciple, scripturiency, refocillation. / Futility Closet

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Foreign interference in this year's election is said to be far more sophisticated, and far more difficult to track. / The New York Times [+]

China is considering approving $1.4 trillion in extra debt to revive its economy. / Reuters

Related: If "Xi Jinping Thought" is not a vision for a genuine socialist movement driving toward a communist utopia, what is it? / China Books Review

An explainer for why forecasts continue to miss the pace and persistence of falling birth rates. / The Financial Times [+]

The United States' Nuclear Emergency Support Team (NEST) is a group of volunteers who have high-level security clearances. / NPR

Personal assistants for billionaires earn around $250,000 a year—and the job is a logistics nightmare. / The Cut

Related: "Private rail cars were, and still are, very much a high-end luxury." / Why is this interesting?

Regarding yesterday's news about the art market, Maurizio Cattelan's Comedian—a banana fixed to a wall with duct tape—is estimated to sell for $1.5 million. / Artsy

A brief video about the tumbleweed's 19th-century arrival in America. / YouTube

A short film about two brothers traveling alone from Boston to the 1967 World's Fair in Montreal by pony cart. / The New York Times [+]

Britain's cheese world suffers the loss of over £300,000 worth of clothbound Cheddar. / NPR


How do different species respond to death? "In ways that are learned rather than instinctive, not rigidly responsive to specific stimuli, and highly variable." / The New Yorker

European scientists develop an algorithm capable of interpreting pig sounds. / Reuters

Examples of people who cultivate "divine discontent." "The tendency to revise, in particular, seems especially common." / Personal Canon

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Before any political news, some wanderlust to kick things off: pictures of a modern cabin in Vermont. / The New York Times [+]

Also, some fashion illustrations from the roaring twenties in Très Parisien magazine. / Flashbak

(Fwiw, today's clothes are made using enormous amounts of petrochemicals and fossil fuels.) (Clothes have long been political.) / The Walrus, X

Donald Trump wins the American presidency despite a 34-count felony conviction and two assassination attempts. / Politico

Susan Glasser: Rule number one in politics is never underestimate your enemy. / The New Yorker

Trump is also the first Republican to (likely) win the popular vote since George W. Bush's reelection in 2004. / The Hill

Unrelated: Let's begin by assuming that "no 'cosmic purpose' or divine intention is at work." / Plankton Valhalla

Non-white non-college-educated voters moved 13 points toward Trump. It was the GOP's best presidential performance among Latino voters in modern times. / ABC News, Slate

The new president will have a Republican Senate, and possibly a GOP House. / BBC News, The New York Times

Meanwhile, a right-wing site allows anyone to search for a voter's physical address and party affiliation. / 404 Media

Seven ballot measures protecting abortion rights also won. For Democrats, six reasons to feel hopeful. / Vox, The Cut

See also: A few short fantasy stories about strangers joining forces to save each other. / Metafilter

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June 9 marks the 50th wedding anniversary for Fr. Tom and Matushka Anne Hopko. In this special episode, the 2 of them are interviewed in their home by Frs. John Shimchick and Alexander Garklavs. Together they remember their early years and God's blessing on their lives. May God grant them many years!

Fr. David Bozeman, Fr. James Bozeman, and Fr. Christopher Foley discuss their experience as members of the band Luxury and introduce the new documentary about that experience. The entire band suffered through an accident in the early Nineties that led to their conversion to Eastern Orthodoxy. Here is the trailer for the documentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Y4jIPn96Ig.

Most of us know about the so-called Great Schism, which tragically divided the Christian Church between East and West in 1054. But there was an earlier division in the 5th century, following the Fourth Ecumenical Council in Chalcedon in 451, which clarified how Jesus is both God and Man. Charges of heresy were brought, anathemas were proclaimed, and communion was broken. Which Churches did not accept the decision of the Council and the subsequent three Councils that followed? Today they are known as the Oriental Orthodox Churches, including the Coptic, Armenian, Syrian, Malankara, Eritrean, and Ethiopian Orthodox Churches. What specifically separates us theologically? Are there reasons to hope that we are closer to these believers than we thought? What efforts have been made to better understand each other in recent decades? On this special edition of Ancient Faith Today Live, Fr. Tom Soroka and John Maddex examine the causes of our division and consider what any path to unity might involve. Panelists include: Bishop (Dr.) Daniel (Findikyan) Dr. Peter Bouteneff Christine Chaillot Dr. David Ford Dr. Emmanuel Gergis Dr. Chad Hatfield Dr. Michael Ibrahim Rev. Dr. Joseph Lucas Dr. Sam Noble Rev Dr. Timothy Thomas

Fr. Tom Soroka and John Maddex will dive into the topic of Universalism and speak with Orthodox panelists who fall into one of three categories: Confident Universalists, Hopeful Universalists, and those who say Universalism was condemned as a heresy. We read in Scripture that God is not willing that any should perish (2 Peter 3:9). But we also read that It is appointed unto man once to die, and after that comes the judgment (Hebrews 9:27). There are those who claim that, since Christ died for all, we can be assured that all will indeed be saved and not face eternal condemnation. This is called “universalism” or “apocatastasis.” Was this teaching condemned by the Church? Who among the Church Fathers embraced universal salvation?

The release of Windows 11 is still a number of months away, and we're still learning a lot about Microsoft's latest operating system update. In addition to the confusion about hardware requirements, there have been questions about other necessities.

Fr. Pat explains the importance of hearing the word of God, putting on Christ, and having common sense.

Fr. Pat makes three points with respect to the central teaching of Chalcedon, particularly as we prepare for the Feast of the Transfiguration.

Fr. Pat continues the allegory that Jesus began in the parable of the sowing of the seed.

Fr. Pat explains that what God's Son did for the crippled woman is what He came to do for all mankind—to raise us up and straighten out our twisted lives.

Fr. Pat shares his homily on the Feast of Theophany.

True freedom is not the ability to choose; it is found through habitual thanksgiving, and it leads to a blessed and transfigured soul.

Fr. Pat examines Psalm 3, a prayer that should be recited anytime a believer feels desperate and inundated.

The parable of the Publican and the Pharisee teaches us much about prayer. Father Pat looks at three things: the meaning of the temple, the issue of repeated prayer, and authenticity when speaking with God.

Fr. Pat looks at three moral impediments to faith: chameleon morality, narcissistic morality, and indolent morality.

Each of us is the servant of the Lord, which means that we do not belong to ourselves. And if we do not belong to ourselves, we certainly do not belong to the world, we belong to God.

While imprisoned in Caesarea, St. Paul, influenced by the medical expertise of his companion Luke, contemplates the armor of the soldier guarding him.

In Matthew 19, a young man has an encounter with Christ. Fr. Pat looks at three qualities of that encounter.

Fr. Pat considers with us the Icon of the invisible God from three perspectives that Christ Himself gave to us when He declared "I am the Way, the Truth and the Life.”

The tensile integrity of a three-stranded cord is far greater than the sum of each of the strands within it. In rhetoric and in literature, there’s something about three-ness that suggests strength, stability, and finality. Fr. Pat looks at a very famous tripodic construction from the Bible.

In this homily given on the Sunday of the Paralytic, Fr. Pat explores three aspects of our obedience to God in response to God’s self-revelation to us.

The Christian must guard against anything antithetical to the Holy Spirit, whom, in 2 Corinthians 1, Paul calls the downpayment and guarantee of salvation. Fr. Pat considers three such things which should be of special concern given the world in which we live.

In the Hebrew Scriptures, the angelic announcement of a conception is a special sign of some new resolve of God; a resolve of God to alter the course of history. Fr. Pat's reflections given on the Feast of the Conception of the Forerunner and Baptist John.

The story of the Gadarene Demoniac in Luke 8 provokes three questions which are important for us to ask today.

Using 1 Thessalonians 1:1-3 as his text, Fr. Pat looks at three qualities of the Thessalonian Church, and finds these qualities exemplified in the lives of three Old Testament saints.

On the Sunday before the Nativity, Fr. Pat looks for the Biblical David in two works of Western art: Michelangelo’s David and Rembrandt’s sketch of David in prayer. The works can be seen here: Michelangelo's "David" and here: Rembrandt's "David in Prayer"

Fr. Pat looks at three stages and three sources of Josiah's moral instruction.

Timothy’s mother and grandmother not only raised him in the faith, but they instructed him in the study of sacred grammar. Fr. Pat suggests three blessings that came to young Timothy through this study, which pertain to all of us, not just those raising children.

Jesus tells us that the Holy Spirit will be our teacher and instructor; He will lead us into all truth. When we pray Psalm 118:66 we ask the Holy Spirit to teach us goodness, discipline, and knowledge. Fr. Pat looks a these three things.

The English word “time” has various meanings. Fr. Pat looks at three of these in regard to our experience and knowledge of God.

Fr. Pat looks at the story of the paralytic in Matthew 9 from three literary perspectives.

Preaching from Galatians 2:16-20, Fr. Patrick Henry Reardon reflects upon justification through faith.

Mark’s account of the Lord’s questions about baptism and the cup (Mark 10:32-45) are especially poignant for the Christians at Rome, who are thereby instructed about an important dimension of their own participation in the sacraments.

We all have schedules and agendas, and we’re mindful of our own and of those with whom we interact. Using stories from the Gospels and Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, Fr. Pat considers with us God's schedules and hidden agenda.