The following video is of author Ann Voskamp talking about the importance of gratitude. One of the highlights: “If Jesus [staring into the very face of evil] can give thanks in that, you can give thanks in anything. If Jesus chooses gratitude as elemental in destroying evil, do you have a better weapon against the dark?” Watch it below.

There seems to be a constant battle between science and religion, with one always attempting to slam the other as having less than legitimate ways of knowing the “truth.” This article suggests that both science and religion rely on a kind of faith. “Much of what’s in our heads are credences, not beliefs we can justify—and there’s nothing wrong with this. Life is too brief; there is too much to know and not enough time. We need epistemological shortcuts.” Do you agree?

There have been a few reflections published on the Church of England’s decision to ban an ad featuring the Lord’ Prayer, but this one from Michael Jensen caught our eye. “The world of advertising is quite overt about its mission to turn ordinary saleable consumer goods into objects of reverence and worship. It turns cars into fetishes, ice creams into sins, home appliances into household gods, banks into churches, and shopping centres into labyrinthine cathedrals of glass. It invites us to tithe to the phone company, to take the contemporary sacrament of coffee, and to go on a pilgrimage to the holiday resort, all the while adorned with garments that not only cover us but are intended to express our inner selves. Perhaps what the refusal to show the Lord’s Prayer ad reveals is just how nervous the church of consumer goods is about having us find something other than its products to worship.”

Meanwhile, this unfortunate Costco tag in the US has caused a bit of a stir on social media:

And we’re still trying to figure out this headline from The Age. What is a “psalm thing”? (Read the full article, here.)