"The decision to cut Shatner's scene improved the 2009 Star Trek ending by allowing the new cast to shine without overshadowing them. Shatner's cameo would have taken away from Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto, robbing them of their own agency and deepening their characters."
Mark Donaldson (ScreenRant)
Link:
https://screenrant.com/star-trek-william-shatner-not-in-2009-movie-good/
Quotes:
"It also improved the ending of Star Trek (2009) as a result.
A few months after the release of Star Trek in 2009, Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci revealed that they had written a scene for William Shatner (via TrekMovie). In the scene, Prime Spock presents his Kelvin Timeline counterpart with a pendant that turns out to be a holo-emitter, containing a message from William Shatner's Kirk. It's revealed that the pendant was a birthday message from Kirk to Spock in which he reflects on their friendship, and reveals his desire to live out his retirement with his best friend.

I suppose I’d always imagined us…outgrowing Starfleet together. Watching life swing us into our Emeritus years…

William Shatner's voice-over would then continue over the scenes of Chris Pine's Kirk being honored by Starfleet Command for defeating Nero (Eric Bana). As Prime Kirk reflects on when he and Spock "stepped onto the Enterprise as boys", Kelvin Kirk accepts command of the Kelvin Timeline's version of the starship Enterprise. Touchingly, Prime Kirk acknowledges the Kelvin Timeline crew, by saying that "it's their time now". However, it's also clear that the spirit of adventure is still alive in this older Captain Kirk, who closes the scene by saying:

You once said being a starship captain was my first, best destiny… if that’s true, then yours is to be by my side. If there’s any true logic to the universe… we’ll end up on that bridge again someday.

While the scene as written is a touching little coda, acting as a melancholy farewell between the prime timeline's Kirk and Spock, it does undermine Star Trek's new leads. When handing his Kelvin timeline counterpart the pendant, Prime Spock says that it's a "dream" that the young Kirk and Spock can now fulfill. The implication being that the Kelvin timeline's Kirk and Spock are only friends because of an obligation to mirror their prime timeline counterparts. This robs Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto's Star Trek characters of their agency, reducing them to performing hollow William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy tribute acts.
[...]
Reminding theater audiences of the original, iconic, Captain James T. Kirk at the exact moment that Chris Pine's version takes command of the USS Enterprise would have been a serious misstep. It's good, therefore, that the scene was cut from the finished Star Trek script, though it's also worth noting that notoriously cameo-averse actor William Shatner may have declined to return anyway."
Mark Donaldson (ScreenRant)
Link:
https://screenrant.com/star-trek-william-shatner-not-in-2009-movie-good/

Me and Lila always carved dozens of jack o’ lanterns every October, so they’d absolutely saturate our lawn on Halloween night. It was our thing. But looking back on it, now that I’ve lost her, I just feel bad for the pumpkins. I almost relate to them, somehow. The way they were carved up, had everything of substance inside of them torn out, and left as hollow, rotting shells with forced smiles.
Needless to say, I didn’t cope with her death well. I didn’t want to cope with it. I wanted the world to drown in the black sludge of my grief. I loathed the people I saw going about their lives, unaware that the world had already ended the moment Lila died. The Earth shouldn’t keep spinning. Life shouldn’t go on. Not without her.
Even my relatives bringing me along on a trip to Kauai only made it worse. The most gorgeous place on Earth, and it made me sick with hatred. Nothing that beautiful deserved to exist if Lila wasn’t ever going to get to see it. It wasn’t fair.
I thought I’d never enjoy or care about anything again. Then I discovered media preservation.
It started with taking some of Lila’s old VHS tapes to a video repair place to fix some issues with the footage before it’s digitized. The job fascinated me. In a universe based on entropy, where everything inevitably fades away and is forgotten… restoring something lost is like snatching it from the jaws of death, right? Like flipping the bird to the universe and its so-called ‘natural order’. People die, but information doesn’t have to.
Now, it doesn’t matter how small — be it some god-awful plug-and-play licensed game, or a cereal commercial from 80’s — it’s my mission to recover it in as high a quality as I’m able, and make sure it’s freely available online for as long as possible.
A couple weeks ago, I came across a big haul. Four boxes of old VHS tapes offered up on E-Bay for dirt cheap. Most of the tapes were just recordings of Cheers episodes already preserved in higher qualities, but one Maxell E-240 caught my interest.
First of all, I’d never seen one so melted. Sure, sometimes they were left in an attic too long, and the colors and audio start to degrade. But this one looked like it had survived a house fire. It was covered in soot and the smell of smoke, and had the overall shape of a chocolate bar left out in the sun a little too long.
Second was the label, which read in neat sharpie: ᴇᴘɪꜱᴏᴅᴇ 4,679,329 ᴍᴀʀ 8 2035.
The casing was so disfigured, I had to bust it apart just pull out the tapes and respool them in a fresh cassette. I tried to iron out the creases in the tape as best I could, but I had no illusions about it accomplishing much — the mylar surface had been irreparably warped in places by whatever fire had half-melted the thing.
Imagine my despair at the sight of that dreaded ‘ɴᴏ ꜱɪɢɴᴀʟ’. I could clearly see the tape wasn’t blank, yet no amount of adjusting the tracking or trying different TVs or VCRs accomplished anything. Just as I was about to give up, though, the thing just suddenly started playing properly at the exact instant the clock struck 3 AM, as if it had only now decided to work. My all-nighter had paid off.
I didn’t dwell on the fact that this ‘miracle fix’ had been impossible. If I’d had any sense, I’d have torn the horrid thing out of my VCR and buried it beneath holy ground. Instead, fool I was, I sat down and watched.
At first, the thing seemed unwatchable. The audio was so distorted that the show’s theme song emerged as a low, crackling, staticky wail that made my head throb, and the logo was completely indistinguishable through the flickering and interference. I thought it was a lost cause for a moment. But then a figure appeared and cleared away the static, like Moses parting the Red Sea.
It was the sight of the show’s host that hooked me. He was just… perfect. Perfect in every way. I knew it just looking at him. Infinitely handsome and likable and charismatic, and he always said the exact perfect thing. The only issue is, I don’t remember a single thing about him now, in the same way you can’t remember a dream that seemed so clear to you while you were experiencing it. He just appears in my memory as this abstract blur in a sharp suit. Yet at the time, I was awestruck, even before he said a single word.
I can’t even remember a word he said. It was like he was speaking another language, one I felt as opposed to heard. I’ll try and transcribe it as best I can into words, but know that it’s only a pathetic imitation.
“... for another night of laughs, prizes, and fun for the whole family, with your host, #####!” I noticed that the audio and visual distortion seemed to suddenly intensify the instant he said his name, rendering it completely illegible. Idiot I was, I figured that was a coincidence. “Tonight is a night of celebration, folks, because thanks to the support of loyal viewers like you, we have just been approved for, get this: two hundred thousand more seasons!”
The “live studio audience” went wild with applause. I put that in scare quotes because, as far as I could tell, besides the host, the studio seemed completely empty. As if he was standing on a plain white stage that extended outwards into infinite darkness on all sides.
“For those just joining us, the game here is simple…” He explained that this was some sort of a trivia show. Every time a guest got an answer wrong, it brought them a little closer to some sort of unspecified ‘punishment’. And if they got it right? He smirked. “Well, they get to delay the inevitable.”
I wondered what he meant by ‘inevitable’. I didn’t have to wonder long.
The host gestured to a curtain that hadn’t been there moments ago, which raised to reveal a middle-aged man. You know the type — bushy mustache, gray hair, round-rimmed glasses. Kind of guy you’d have doing your plumbing. He couldn’t look any more out of place stood up and restrained in that — what the hell is that?
I recognized that metal coffin-looking thing from a medieval torture museum I went to once. The iron maiden. The lid hung open, countless long, needle-like blades poking inwards, threaten to poke a million new holes in him if it was shut.
His situation was not lost on him. “Where… where am I? What the hell is this!?”
“Oh, lucky guess!” The host ‘joked’. More canned laughter. “I know you always loved watching those trivia shows, Malcolm? Weren’t you always sitting there, grinding your teeth, seething that it wasn’t fair? That you should be the one up on stage, winning big?”
The man paused. Even he seemed mesmerized by the unreal perfection of the host before him. “I… this is a… game show?”
“All you have to do is answer a few questions! Think you can handle that, Malcolm?” He pulled out a cue card without waiting for an answer. “And our first question! What were you doing the night of February 18th, 1998?”
The man seemed baffled. “Just… sat on my couch watching the NFL, I think? I’m not sure how I’m supposed to remember —“
He let out a startled squeal as a horrid buzzer sounded. On cue, the lid slid a third of the way closed, making him flinch. “Oooh, I’m afraid that’s the wrong answer, Frank! But you know what? I’ll give you one more chance. What were you —“
“Following a girl home!” The man cried out. “F-from the bar. There, are you happy?”
“Cor-rect!” The canned audience began cheering! “Such honesty! Now, our second question: just what were you carrying while you followed her?”
He hesitated for a little too long. And then the buzzer sounded again, and the lid slid so near to closing that its blades began poking uncomfortably against his skin. He tried to press himself against the back of the maiden as well as his restraints would allow. “Jesus! Okay! A knife, a knife!”
“Awww, if only you’d said that just a second earlier!” Another big question. “Our third question: why, Malcolm? Why did you do it?”
That set Malcolm off. He started thrashing, clawing, screaming. “Let me out of this thing, you maniac! You can’t do this to me! Do you know who I am? Is this some sort of sick joke? My lawyers will have your head for this, you—“
And then the buzzer. All of a sudden, the lid slammed shut full-force, and the man was utterly silenced save for an unnatural, drawn-out wheeze. “Another wrong answer, Malcolm! I’m afraid I was looking for: ‘because if I can’t have her, no one can’!”
I admit it. I laughed. Out of shock more than anything. How was this allowed on TV? I took it as some sort of dark comedy show, and it was kind of satisfying to see that freaky character get his comeuppance. Still, there was something unnerving to me, seeing the man’s eyes through the openings in the maiden. Wide and red and terrified. They just looked a little… too real.
But the maiden disappeared as quickly as it came, before I could dwell on it too much. “Oh, envy! Definitely one of my favorite sins.” More laughter. “Stay tuned, folks! We’ve still got a night of fun and games in store for you! But first… how’s about a word from our sponsors?”
Cut to a corporate logo which I again couldn't recognize.
“This segment was made possible by Buer Health, which has recently announced a brilliant new initiative to protect our citizens from skin cancer by removing their skin completely.”
The camera cut to a massive industrial building, resembling a solid concrete cube around 50 meters in width and height. Its surface bore arcane symbols etched using carvings of wailing, tormented faces. The host would occasionally be rendered inaudible by a deafening metallic scraping from within, though he didn’t seem to notice. The only protrusion from the building’s cubic shape was a single smokestack, belching a scarlet red smoke into the atmosphere. A queue of gaunt figures waited at the entrance, herded and coerced by their grim overseers, and there were no words to describe the procession of scarlet ghouls limping out the building’s other end.
“Owing to the nonlinearity of time, the brand new Grand Skinpeeling Machine has spontaneously appeared several years before construction deadlines, and indeed, before it was even conceived of by anyone in our timeline. People have rushed all the way from Malebolge just to try this miracle of technology out on opening day, and so far, the reviews have been stellar!”
He shoved his microphone in the face of a shambling thing that could only scarcely be called a human. Tatters of flesh clung to its exposed musculature, blowing in the wind. Its eyes were the only hint of color in that sea of bloody red, and they were wide, white and terrified. The thing screamed and wailed for as long as it could before the last tendons connecting its jaw to its face snapped, and it was left to choke and gurgle.
“An amazing wail! The results speak for themselves, folks. The Grand Skinpeeling Machine is a hit!”
So far, I was still laughing along and having a good time. The sight of the next ‘guest’, however, started making me nervous.
It was an old lady.
She couldn’t be a day younger than sixty, the sort of sweet elderly woman who in a just world would be cooking chocolate chip cookies for her grandchildren in a comfy cottage somewhere. But here she was, tied to a metal chair, eyes wide, shaking like a leaf. Unlike the last contestant, she seemed to know exactly what was happening.
“In exchange for our loving endorsement, they’ve agreed to loan us one of their star employees. Ladies and gentlemen, put your hands together for: the Liqisma!”
Something slunk from the darkness far behind her — or perhaps it’d be more apt to say that the darkness birthed it whole-cloth. It was like a living shadow, and it took my eyes a moment to register what I was even seeing.
How do I even begin describing this creature? I could say it looked almost human, or at least like something that may have been human long ago. Or I could start with its skin, which was all black and shiny as latex and seemingly smooth on first glance, but if you looked closer you’d realize it was covered in a million tiny reptilian scales, almost like a shark. Its head was a bald man’s, utterly devoid of any distinguishing features, like the basic stock template for a human being. It was notable only for a complete lack of pupils and irises, its eyes a pure white.
Its body defied basic biology in so many key ways, I had to stare it at for what felt like an eternity just to wrap my mind around its physiology. It was at least five or six meters long, by my estimate, composed of multiple human torsos stacked one on top of the other like segments of a centipede, each melding with the ones around it at the waist and shoulders. Each torso sported a pair of short, stubby arms that propelled it with terrifying grace. It ended with a pair of human legs, perpetually bent on their knees, beneath a ‘tail’ that looked more like its coccyx was poking free from its body.
The old last could clearly hear it, and kept futilely trying to turn her head around enough to get a peek at what stood behind her. I mouthed uselessly, don’t. You don’t want to know.
“Glad you could join us again, Miss Wethersby! Judging by our ratings last week, you seemed to have been a fan favorite!”
Her voice was so soft, I could barely hear it below the static. “Oh, God. Please, why won’t you people let me go? I’ve told you, I’ve never done anything, never hurt anybody. There must be some sort of—”
He waved a hand over her, and it seemed to forcefully snap her mouth shut. “Please, Miss Wethersby, save your breath for our questions!” Another cue card. “Your first question, my friend: where did you and your husband buy your first home?”
She had to think about it for a long time. Eventually, she cried out, “Alabama! Tuscaloosa, Alabama!”
“Ding ding ding! Why, you’re already doing better than our first contestant! Next question: what breed of dog was your childhood pet?”
She had a pained look on her face as she thought. Eventually, a timer started ticking down. It wasn’t visible, so it wasn’t clear how much time she had left exactly, but the sound it made got more shrill and high-pitched with every second. “Miss Wethersby, need I remind you that we have a time limit on this show?”
A tear ran down her cheek. “I… I keep telling you people, I don’t know. I have dementia, I can’t remember, please—”
That buzzer again. “I’m afraid that was the wrong answer! Liqisma?” The old lady shuddered at the sounds of hundreds of feet drawing a little closer to her. “Now, your first grandchild. What did he look like? What color were his eyes? His hair?”
She was crying harder now, like it hurt her that she couldn’t remember something so dear to her. “I told you I can’t remember! Why are you doing this to me!?”
“If you don’t remember them, why would they remember you?” The host mocked as the buzzer sounded, and the beast drew a little closer. “Really, do you believe they still even think about you? Or do you think they’re glad that the old bag of bones isn’t there sucking up their inheritance?”
This went on for… God, it could have been an hour. I was glued to the screen all the while, frozen with terror, praying for this nightmare to just end, for her to make it out okay somehow. He poured over every little detail of the life she lived and the people she loved, delighting in how little of it she could still recall.
And the thing grew closer, and closer… until she finally felt multiple pairs of hands resting upon her shoulders. The thing was looming over her now, and a long, black tongue a few feet in length emerged from its mouth and ran trails of dark saliva over the back of her head. She looked broken down, eyes raw from crying, and I could tell by the dampness of her dress that she’d wet herself.
“Now, Miss Wethersby, our time here has been fun, but I do believe it is time for our final question. Tell me, what is the name… of your only son?”
She couldn’t even answer anymore. She just stared ahead, like her mind was a million miles away. He cackled as the buzzer sounded one final time, and threw his cue cards aside. “Thank you for playing, Miss Wethersby. Better luck next time.”
I would say the thing unhinged its jaw like a snake, but that’d be an understatement. The way the thing’s face malformed and wrinkled and stretched as it opened its maw, it no longer looked even remotely human. Its jaws must have parted at least thirty centimeters apart, revealing a second, pharyngeal pair of jaws that lashed out and gripped the woman’s skull, pulling her headlong into that darkness.
I could hear bones crunching and snapping as its throat constricted down around her body, peristaltic muscles compacting her into a meat slurry, bit by bit. Yet she just wouldn’t die. Even as her skull and upper body were already crushed and compacted, organs and muscles pressed into mulch, she still kicked her legs, twitched her fingers, let out a gurgling that must have been some attempt at screaming. She was squirming even as the beast snapped its jaw shut around the last of her, condemning her to whatever torments awaited her inside the creature.
And all the while, that horrible laughter. “Don’t worry, folks! She’ll be back next week! And the next. And the next…”
Needless to say, I wasn’t having fun anymore. In fact, I had to turn away and fight the urge to throw up. I stood, about to turn the TV off and —
“Ah, ah, ah! Don’t touch that dial, now!” I froze. There was something chilling about the way he said that, staring right into the screen as if reacting to what I was doing. I hated that grin on his face. “The real show is just beginning.”
And with the barely restrained excitement of a child on Christmas morning, he yanked back another curtain, and I recognized everything.
I recognized that crappy bootleg knockoff Always Sunny in Philadelphia jacket that was so gaudy and terrible it instantly became her favorite thing in her wardrobe. I recognized those subtle hints of slight acne she disguised as fake freckles. I recognized the way her gray eyes would remind me of those overcast mornings at the beach at Hilton Head and pointing out all the cannonball jellyfish washed up on the sands. I recognized that tattoo of the name ʀᴏᴄᴋʏ, how I’d held her all night long as she cried into my shirt after her childhood cat had died.
It was Lila.
I shuddered, gasped, fell from my seat as if I’d been punched in the stomach and the air had been knocked out of me. I couldn’t breathe. This couldn’t be real. I was dreaming right now. I must be. I just had to wake up.
But I couldn’t wake up. Nothing I could do dispelled the sight of her curled up in that… that thing. That bronze statue of a bull, horns jutting on either side of a head that roaring silently up at the heavens, all while the love of my life was locked in its hollowed out belly, visible only through a pane of glass. I could hear her cry out in shock at where she’d found herself, and every whimper felt like it drove a knife through my chest.
The host soaked in the moment. It was ecstasy for him, the suffering of it all. He stared dead into the camera like he was looking right at me as she called, “What is this? Where am I?”
“Why, I have good news, my dear Lila! You’re exactly where every American dreams of being: you’re on TV.” He pointed to the camera. “And we have a very special guest in the audience tonight. Your very own beloved Jackson!”
I shuddered, hearing my own name ooze from his fetid lips. His façade of perfection was slipping, and there was something so profoundly ugly beneath it. Her eyes snapped to the camera, confused, despairing. “Jackson? Baby? What — what’s happening? What is this?”
I don’t know, I thought, gripping the sides of the TV so hard my knuckles turned white, but I’m going to get you out of there, baby. I’m going to find whoever did this and I’m going to bury them all so far beneath that studio that they’ll never-
“I’m afraid Jackson hasn’t joined us quite yet, my dear. But if you truly love him, surely you’ll give him a show to remember, won’t you?” He taunted her. “All I want, after all, is to ask you a few questions! In fact, I’ll offer you a special deal: get even a single answer right, and I’ll let you go free! But get one wrong and, well…”
On cue, a fire was lit beneath her. Small, smoldering for now, but she whimpered as she noticed the heat. We both realized in that instant what this was. By now, I was screaming things I can’t repeat here, and slamming my hands against the TV screen as if I could reach through and save her.
She bit her lip and acquiesced. Not like she had any room to argue. The host grinned and readied a cue card. “Your first question: where are you, Lila?”
“I… I don’t know. How am I supposed to know?”
“You do know, Lila. You know exactly where you are.” He smirked at her. “Here’s a free hint: what’s the last thing you remember, before you woke up here?
She thought about it… and choked back a sob, visibly shaking as the realization slowly settled in. “But… but why? I… I…”
The horrible wail of the buzzer cut her off. “Oooh, too bad! I’m afraid you’ve run out of time!”
Seemingly as if on its own, the fire doubled in size. Sparks licked the belly of the bronze bull, and began to ever-so-slowly heat the surface. She pawed around in the tight confines, searching for any reprieve from the scalding heat all around her as the metal grew hot like it’d been left out in the sun on a summer’s day. “Please! Oh, God, let me out of this thing! It hurts! It hurts!”
The host seemed to breathe in her pain as if stealing a moment’s indulgence. “Now that there is no doubt about where you are, my dear, let us proceed to the second question.” He switched to his next card. “Did you believe in God, in the end?”
“O-of course!” She pled her case as if she was being tried in court. “My entire life… every day I gave to the poor, helped the sick, did whatever I could to honor Hi-“
“I’m afraid you misunderstood my question. I asked, did you believe in him at the end? The very moment your pitiful little life was snuffed out?”
“I always believed! I’d never forsake Him!”
“Yes, yes, I know. You lived a good and holy life, didn’t you?” He cackled. “But what of the very end? You and your little husband were so excited to deliver your first little baby boy. But o, tragedy! It all went wrong, didn’t it? Your precious little boy didn’t make it through childbirth… and you followed closely behind.”
“That whole business with the botched pregnancy, it was… what do you call it? Ah, yes. A ‘test of faith’. And I’m afraid you failed. In your final moments, you watched the light fade from your child’s eyes, and you assumed — wisely, in my humble opinion — that no ‘kind’ and ‘loving’ God would allow something like that to happen.” He laughed. “Funny how after a lifetime of dutiful service, all it takes is one little mistake at the end… to bring you here. To us.”
I’d never seen such depths of despair in a person’s eyes. Such emptiness. Like with every word, he’d been scooping out another piece of her until she was hollow. And then that buzzer roared again, more shrill than ever, and I could barely see her little window through the smoke and flames. The belly of the bull was turning orange in places, and I could hear her flesh start to sizzle like meat on a grill. There are no words for the noises she made. No words at all.
“And our last, final question,” he continued. “What were your last words to your poor, beloved Jackson?”
“I love you!” I called out the answer. Bloody fingerprints stained the TV screen from my slamming my hands against it, as I screamed the answer over and over. “I love you, I love you, I love you!” At some point, I forgot that there was ever a question. I was just screaming it at her as if hoping that she could hear it, that it could bring her a modicum of comfort in that place.
The buzzer sounded again. I couldn't bring myself to look. All I could hear was the roaring of the bull, and the steam rising from its bronze nostrils.
The curtain fell. Silence drowned the sound. The host dropped all pretense that he hadn’t been speaking directly to me. “Now, Jackson. You just might be one of my new favorite audience members this show had ever had. I know this must have been hard for you. But if you’ll just stay tuned, I have one more show I know you’re certain to love!”
I didn’t bother to touch the remote. After all, nothing could be worse than what I’d just seen, right?
Wrong. Horror wracked me as the curtain rose, and I saw the man chained to a chair. I pulled away like a caveman witnessing fire, cringing and stuttering, face wet with sweat. It was the sort of fear that worked its way into your bones like a bad chill, that left you shaking, teeth chattering.
It was me.
An older me, sure. But not by much. Ten years, maybe. A gaunt and hollow version of me, one twisted by ten years of depression and hard drugs. But it was unmistakable.
His eyes widened as he recognized the host. “Oh — oh God, God please no! It can’t be — oh Christ, let me out of this chair, you —“
“Come, now! We wouldn’t want to use the lord’s name in vain, would we? I mean, that would be a sin!” The host laid a hand on the other me’s shoulder. “It may have been a few years since you watched our program, but I’m sure you remember the rules, don’t you, old friend?”
The other me was wordless, on the verge of hyperventilating, just as I was. The host was giddy with delight. “Now! Our first and only question is one I’m sure our viewer will be very interested in: what sins, exactly, do you think landed you here?”
The other me tried to speak, but the words caught in his throat. I could see it in his eyes. The years of self-destruction, the bitter hopelessness, the whirlpool of nihilism and vice and decay. The suffocating depths of a man. The darkness. How could he put it into words?
The sound of the buzzer was like a pig’s squeal. “Mmm, I’m afraid that our viewer is going to have to figure that out for himself! In the meantime, your punishment? Well, we wouldn’t want to spoil anything…”
The curtains slowly began to fall just as a couple other of those black, grotesque monstrosities emerged from the darkness. The curtain covered them all before I could get a good look at their obscene, twisted, asymmetrical figures. All I could hear was the crunching, the sound of skin tearing like paper, the screaming that went on for longer and louder than a human throat or vocal chords could endure.
The image and audio were beginning to distort, glitch, burn away. The tapes were physically melting as they played. My VCR was starting to overheat, sparks pouring from its front panel. The host voice jumped around in tone, his voice fading into the static blur as the tapes bubbled and boiled and distorted. “But, my friends, I’m afraid that concludes tonight’s episode of our show! So, with a final farewell to our dear, beloved viewer, Jackson…”
Just before the image melted away, the camera seemed to jump forward until his face filled the screen, his eyes piercing into mine as he cackled in that singsong voice.
“See you sooooon~”

Jim Simons, a Pioneer of Quantitative Trading, Dies at 86
A mathematician, he helped usher in a revolution in trading, embracing a computer-oriented, quantitative style in the 1980s
https://www.wsj.com/arts-culture/books/jim-simons-a-pioneer-of-quantitative-trading-dies-6621d66e?mod=djemalertNEWS
Jim Simons, a mathematician who became one of the most successful investors in modern financial history, has died at age 86.
A cutting-edge code breaker and geometer, Simons helped pioneer a revolution in trading, embracing a computer-oriented, quantitative style in the 1980s well ahead of the Wall Street crowd. He and his team employed trading algorithms and artificial intelligence to outperform the market—and the likes of Warren Buffett and George Soros. Later, Simons became a political donor and an influential philanthropist in the worlds of science, health and education.
Simons, the son of a Boston shoe-factory executive, developed an early passion for mathematics and ignored the advice of the family physician who urged him to steer clear of the field because he wouldn’t make a living. The warning proved misplaced.
Simons began his career as a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University. He proved popular with students. One year, Simons amused a graduate class by confessing that he didn’t know much about the topic—partial differential equations—but that he viewed teaching the course as a good way to learn.
Simons became restless, though. He started businesses with friends and dabbled in trading. Friends and family detected a desire for wealth.
“Jim understood at an early age that money is power,” said Barbara Simons, his first wife, in an interview.
During the Cold War, in 1964, Simons joined a U.S. intelligence organization fighting the Soviet Union. He successfully broke Russian code but was fired when he took a public stance against the Vietnam War, upsetting his boss, who had spoken in favor of the war.
Simons joined Stony Brook University in Long Island, N.Y., where he ran the math department, developing an ability to recruit talented professors. At 37, he won geometry’s highest honor, cementing his reputation in the world of mathematics. His Chern-Simons theory remains one of the most widely cited math papers of the past century.

Farewell to academia

In 1978, at the age of 40, Simons astonished his colleagues by quitting academia to try his hand at trading. He started an investment firm in a dreary Long Island strip mall, next to a women’s clothing boutique and two doors from a pizza joint. At the time, many rivals were “fundamental” investors, chatting with corporate managers, scrutinizing balance sheets and relying on judgment and intuition to predict the ups and downs of investments.
Where others saw the zigs and zags as chaos, Simons, who had been trained to scrutinize large data sets, sensed that financial markets had more structure than most presumed.
“I developed a view that markets are not random, and [were] to some extent predictable,” he later said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. “There were statistical anomalies that could be exploited.”
Early on, Simons traded like most others, reading the news and betting on gold prices and other investments. He scored gains but found it hard to endure the market’s volatility. He developed stomach pains and berated himself for miscues.
“One day you’re a genius, the next you feel like a dope,” Simons said. “Fundamental trading gave me ulcers.”
Simons set out to build an automated trading system that could discover fleeting and overlooked patterns in prices.
“I want models that will make money while I sleep,” Simons told a friend at the time. “A pure system without humans interfering.”
Simons hired scientists and mathematicians who used data going back centuries, predictive algorithms and machine learning. They often met with frustration.
“There’s a pattern here; there has to be a pattern,” Simons insisted one day.
At one point, their trading system inadvertently came close to cornering the market for Maine potatoes, to the dismay of regulators.
“We were viewed as flakes with ridiculous ideas,” said Elwyn Berlekamp, who helped lead the firm in the 1980s, in a 2017 interview.

A payoff, finally

By 1990, Simons and his team, in their East Setauket, N.Y., headquarters, had identified ways to profit from currency, commodity and other markets using short-term patterns they had found. It took years longer, but the firm, by then called Renaissance Technologies, eventually discovered a way to make billions of dollars on stocks.
Their winning strategy: holding investments for short periods, even minutes, turning almost all of the trading decisions to computers—and maintaining a veil of secrecy unlike almost any in Wall Street’s history. Colleagues said one reason for the firm’s success was Simons’s ability to coax accomplished mathematicians and scientists to join his firm, and get them to work together—his genius was managing genius.
“There is one GOAT [greatest of all time]. His name was Jim Simons,” said Clifford Asness, managing and founding principal of AQR Capital Management. “That he was also a nice, kind, generous and caring man just makes it that much more amazing.”
Between 1988 and 2018, Renaissance’s flagship Medallion Fund produced gains of more than $100 billion and average annual returns of 66% before the firm’s unusually hefty investor fees. The annual gains were 39% after those fees, a performance that topped those of Buffett, Soros, Peter Lynch and other investors during that period. Medallion years ago became a fund only open to Simons and his colleagues.
Simons defied the odds in other ways. He was a regular cigarette smoker, lighting up in office buildings, restaurants and most everywhere else. Once, during a presentation to potential clients, Simons couldn’t find an ashtray so he buried his cigarette butt deep in a sheet cake, amazing his guests.

Many converts

Today, more investors have embraced Simons’s mathematical, computer-oriented approach. About one-third of all money is managed by so-called quant firms, and businesses in various industries rely on algorithms.
Away from trading, Simons suffered tragedy. One son, Paul, died in a bicycle accident. Another, Nicholas, died while scuba diving.
“My life is either aces or deuces,” Simons once told a colleague.
Over the years, Simons reduced his role at the firm while focusing on science, education and other philanthropies. In 2010 he resigned as Renaissance’s chief executive, yielding the job to longtime employee and former International Business Machines computer scientist Peter Brown. Simons retired as chairman in 2021.
Simons’s health had deteriorated recently.
Simons gave away more than $6 billion during his lifetime. The Simons Foundation became a leading private funder of research in basic science. Simons also provided annual stipends of $15,000 to more than 1,000 top math and science teachers in New York City. He funded efforts to discover treatments for autism and spent $75 million to build an observatory in Chile to gain an understanding of creation’s earliest moments.
In 2021, Simons and senior Renaissance executives agreed to pay up to $7 billion to settle a long-running tax probe related to how the firm converted short-term gains into long-term profits, which are typically taxed at a lower rate. It was one of the biggest settlements in Internal Revenue Service history.
Simons was one of the biggest backers of Democratic candidates, supporting the presidential campaigns of Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton. Meanwhile, Robert Mercer, then the co-CEO of Renaissance, in 2016 became one of then-presidential-candidate Donald Trump’s most important backers.
In a 2019 speech, Simons offered a life lesson to MIT students.
“Be guided by beauty,” he said. “It can be a way a company runs, or the way an experiment comes out, or the way a theorem comes out, but there’s a sense of beauty when something is working well, almost an aesthetic to it.”
Simons is survived by his wife, Marilyn Simons, and three children. His earlier marriage to Barbara Simons ended in divorce.

The Collect
Almighty God, whose blessed Son our Savior Jesus Christ ascended far above all heavens that he might fill all things: Mercifully give us faith to perceive that, according to his promise, he abides with his Church on earth, even to the end of the ages; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen.
Readings:
Psalm 47 or 93Reading Ephesians 1:15–23
Gospel: Luke 24:44–53
44 And he said unto them,These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me.
45 Then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures,
46 And said unto them,Thus it is written, and thus it behooved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day:
47And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.
48And ye are witnesses of these things.
49And, behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you: but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high.
50 And he led them out as far as to Bethany, and he lifted up his hands, and blessed them.
51 And it came to pass, while he blessed them, he was parted from them, and carried up into heaven.
52 And they worshipped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy:
53 And were continually in the temple, praising and blessing God. Amen.
Commentary:
Just over a month ago on Thursday 4 April, we examined verses 36b to 48 of this last chapter of Luke. While some may think that going over these verses again, this soon, might be redundant or an unnecessary repetition, I have found personally, that each time I study a passage I always come away from the experience with a deeper knowledge, perhaps even picking up on a point I had missed in the past.
This study picks up, in the days after Jesus’ triumph over death, he has appeared numerous times to various people revealing himself, and now makes his final appearance in this Gospel, as he appears in their midst. They had assembled, the surviving disciples and other followers, discussing the miraculous reports that some had given of having seen the risen Christ.
Naturally they were frightened, they at first thought it was a ghost standing in their midst, but the Son of God said “Peace be unto you.” (v. 36) And proceeded to prove he was not a ghost or spirit by telling them to observe the wounds on his hands and feet, he told them to touch these wounds inflicted during the crucifixion, and he reasoned with them, saying, “...a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have.” The next bit of evidence he offered to them to prove he was not some sort of spirit, which to me also demonstrates his sense of humor, he asked them, “Have ye here any meat?” (v. 41) Luke writes that they gave him a piece of broiled fish and some honeycomb.
As we study these verses, we have to keep in mind that the disciples—although Jesus had told them repeatedly of what was to take place—still were almost clueless as to what was happening around them. We have the luxury of knowing the outcome, a privilege that they simply did not have.
There was simply no precedence, no prior events in history for them to reflect upon and have some idea of the significance of this event. Their beloved teacher and religious leader, had told them he would be taken up and persecuted, but he would arise again on the third day. Sure enough, he was taken, persecuted without mercy, publicly executed and put to death. Now he was standing in their midst. I aks you to take a moment and reflect on this situation, and ask yourself if you had been in their position, what would you be thinking at that moment when he asked them to touch his wounded hands and feet?
“And he said unto them,These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me.” (v. 44) Jesus almost said, “I told you so” by reminding them that all had happened just as He said it would.
“ Jesus first demonstrated the physical reality of his resurrected by body by inviting the disciples to look at him and to touch him and also by eating food in their presence. We have the sense that they watch in stunned silence. Now Jesus takes the next step in the revelatory process, first reminding the disciples of what he said to them earlier—and then helping them to understand the scriptures—scriptures that speak of the Messiah suffering and rising from the dead on the third day (v. 46)—scriptures that speak of “repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name to all the nations, beginning at Jerusalem” (v. 47).” (Donovan)
“All things must be fulfilled which were written. Christ had given them this general hint for the regulating of their expectations—that whatever they found written concerning the Messiah, in the Old Testament, must be fulfilled in him, what was written concerning his sufferings as well as what was written concerning his kingdom; these God had joined together in the prediction, and it could not be thought that they should be put asunder in the event. All things must be fulfilled, even the hardest, even the heaviest, even the vinegar; he could not die till he had that, because he could not till then say, It is finished.” (Henry)
“Then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures, And said unto them,Thus it is written, and thus it behooved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day:” (vs. 45-46)
Jesus wanted them to understand that the cross was not some unfortunate obstacle that had to be hurdled. It was a necessary part of God’s redemptive plan for man, and that it would be in the name of a crucified and risen Savior that repentance and remission of sins will be brought to the world.“” (Guzik)
“Christ's way of working faith in the soul, and gaining the throne there, is by opening the understanding to discern the evidence of those things that are to be believed. Thus he comes into the soul by the door, while Satan, as a thief and a robber, climbs up some other way. ” (Henry)
“Neither does Luke specify which scriptures Jesus opens their minds to understand. There is no single Old Testament scripture that incorporates all the three major themes of vv. 46-47—three themes that will form the core of the church’s kerygma: (1) the suffering and death of the Messiah, (2) his resurrection on the third day, and (3) the proclamation of repentance and forgiveness to all nations. There are, however, a number of Old Testament scriptures that address particular elements. Luke alludes to or quotes a number of these in Acts ” (Donovan)
“And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.” (v. 47)
“And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name” While this is not in the imperative mood (Jesus does not say, “You shall proclaim”) it nevertheless constitutes Jesus’ mission statement for the disciples. They are to proclaim two things—repentance and forgiveness of sins. They are to do so in the name of the Messiah, who is the one who makes forgiveness possible.
“What they must preach. They must preach the gospel, must preach the New Testament as the full accomplishment of the Old, as the continuation and conclusion of divine revelation.” (Henry)
“The great gospel privilege of the remission of sins must be proposed to all, and assured to all that repent, and believe the gospel. "Go, tell a guilty world, that stands convicted and condemned at God's bar, that an act of indemnity has passed the royal assent, which all that repent and believe shall have the benefit of, and not only be pardoned, but preferred by. Tell them that there is hope concerning them."” (ibid)
“among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.” “They were told by their great Master what to preach, and where to preach it, and how to preach it, and even where to begin to preach it.” (Spurgeon)
“This proclamation is to begin from Jerusalem, but it will not be limited to Jerusalem. The disciples are to be Jesus’ witnesses “in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the uttermost parts of the earth” (Acts 1:8—also written by Luke). Prior to Jesus, the Jews had assumed a centripetal model, with the world being drawn toward a central point, Jerusalem. After Jesus, the model reverses, spinning outward from Jerusalem. In Mark and Matthew Jesus issues even more explicit commissioning statements. Whereas Luke emphasizes repentance and forgiveness of sins (v. 47), Mark emphasizes preaching the Gospel (Mark 16:15) and Matthew emphasizes making disciples and teaching (Matthew 28:19-20a).” (Donovan)
“And ye are witnesses of these things.” (v. 48) A witness was a person who had seen something and could testify to the facts of the case. That was the case with these disciples, who had seen Jesus with their own eyes. They could testify to having seen Jesus after his resurrection (vv. 36-49). They could also testify to seeing him ascend into heaven (vv. 50-53).
“Now these disciples will testify to what they have seen, and some will be killed as a consequence. They were to tell the story. To tell it not as hearsay, but as of their own knowledge (I John 1:1). And to tell it at cost. There was no other plan” (Scherer, 433).
“And, behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you: but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high.” (v.49)
“ Jesus does not reveal here what the Father has promised. In the Acts of the Apostles, Luke’s sequel to this Gospel, Jesus repeats this promise (Acts 1:5) and reveals that the gift is the baptism of the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:5). Luke further records Peter’s Pentecost Day sermon, in which Peter quotes the prophet Joel, “It will be in the last days, says God, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh” (Acts 2:17; see Joel 2:28). Peter assures his listeners that they have seen this prophecy fulfilled in the sound of a violent wind, the tongues of fire, and the glossolalia that they observed that day (Acts 2:1-13, 16)—manifestations of the Spirit.” (Donovan)
“They could not do the work Jesus had called them to do unless they were endued with power from on high, and that power would come as the Holy Spirit was poured out upon them.” (Guzik)
“And he led them out as far as to Bethany, and he lifted up his hands, and blessed them. And it came to pass, while he blessed them, he was parted from them, and carried up into heaven. And they worshipped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy:And were continually in the temple, praising and blessing God. Amen.” (vs. 50-53)
“How solemnly Christ took leave of his disciples. Christ's design being to reconcile heaven and earth, and to continue a days-man between them, it was necessary that he should lay his hands on them both, and, in order thereunto, that he should pass and repass. He had business to do in both worlds, and accordingly came from heaven to earth in his incarnation, to despatch his business here, and, having finished this, he returned to heaven, to reside there, and negotiate our affairs with the Father. Observe, 1. Whence he ascended: from Bethany, near Jerusalem, adjoining to the mount of Olives. There he had done eminent services for his Father's glory, and there he entered upon his glory. There was the garden in which his sufferings began, there he was in his agony; and Bethany signifies the house of sorrow. Those that would go to heaven must ascend thither from the house of sufferings and sorrow, must go by agonies to their joys. The mount of Olives was pitched upon long since to be the place of Christ's ascension: His feet shall stand in that day upon the mount of Olives, Zec. 14:4. And here it was that awhile ago he began his triumphant entry into Jerusalem, ch. 19:29. 2. Who were the witnesses of his ascension: He led out his disciples to see him. Probably, it was very early in the morning that he ascended, before people were stirring; for he never showed himself openly to all the people after his resurrection, but only to chosen witnesses. The disciples did not see him rise out of the grace, because his resurrection was capable of being proved by their seeing him alive afterwards; but they saw him ascend into heaven, because they could not otherwise have an ocular demonstration of his ascension. They were led out on purpose to see him ascend, had their eye upon him when he ascended, and were not looking another way. 3. What was the farewell he gave them: He lifted up his hands, and blessed them. He did not go away in displeasure, but in love; he left a blessing behind him; he lifted up his hands, as the high priest did when he blessed the people; see Lev. 9:22. He blessed as one having authority, commanded the blessing which he had purchased” (Henry)
“There still is no other plan. We have not seen the risen Christ with our own eyes, but we have experienced him in our lives. Our responsibility is to tell the story as we have experienced it, and to do so at cost if need be. Over time, fewer and fewer Christians would have seen the resurrected Jesus with their own eyes. However, they would tell the story—and tell it at cost, often at the cost of their own lives. As a result, this word martys would come to mean martyr—those who were killed because of their Christian witness.” (Donovan)
Benediction
Almighty and everlasting God, by whose Spirit the whole body of your faithful people is governed and sanctified: Receive our supplications and prayers, which we offer before you for all members and all denominations of your holy Church, that in their vocation and ministry they may truly and devoutly serve you; through the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
Thought for the Day:
I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else. --C. S. Lewis

The Collect
Almighty God, whose blessed Son our Savior Jesus Christ ascended far above all heavens that he might fill all things: Mercifully give us faith to perceive that, according to his promise, he abides with his Church on earth, even to the end of the ages; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen.
Readings:
Psalm 47 or 93Reading Ephesians 1:15–23
Gospel: Luke 24:44–53
44 And he said unto them,These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me.
45 Then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures,
46 And said unto them,Thus it is written, and thus it behooved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day:
47And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.
48And ye are witnesses of these things.
49And, behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you: but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high.
50 And he led them out as far as to Bethany, and he lifted up his hands, and blessed them.
51 And it came to pass, while he blessed them, he was parted from them, and carried up into heaven.
52 And they worshipped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy:
53 And were continually in the temple, praising and blessing God. Amen.
Commentary:
Just over a month ago on Thursday 4 April, we examined verses 36b to 48 of this last chapter of Luke. While some may think that going over these verses again, this soon, might be redundant or an unnecessary repetition, I have found personally, that each time I study a passage I always come away from the experience with a deeper knowledge, perhaps even picking up on a point I had missed in the past.
This study picks up, in the days after Jesus’ triumph over death, he has appeared numerous times to various people revealing himself, and now makes his final appearance in this Gospel, as he appears in their midst. They had assembled, the surviving disciples and other followers, discussing the miraculous reports that some had given of having seen the risen Christ.
Naturally they were frightened, they at first thought it was a ghost standing in their midst, but the Son of God said “Peace be unto you.” (v. 36) And proceeded to prove he was not a ghost or spirit by telling them to observe the wounds on his hands and feet, he told them to touch these wounds inflicted during the crucifixion, and he reasoned with them, saying, “...a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have.” The next bit of evidence he offered to them to prove he was not some sort of spirit, which to me also demonstrates his sense of humor, he asked them, “Have ye here any meat?” (v. 41) Luke writes that they gave him a piece of broiled fish and some honeycomb.
As we study these verses, we have to keep in mind that the disciples—although Jesus had told them repeatedly of what was to take place—still were almost clueless as to what was happening around them. We have the luxury of knowing the outcome, a privilege that they simply did not have.
There was simply no precedence, no prior events in history for them to reflect upon and have some idea of the significance of this event. Their beloved teacher and religious leader, had told them he would be taken up and persecuted, but he would arise again on the third day. Sure enough, he was taken, persecuted without mercy, publicly executed and put to death. Now he was standing in their midst. I aks you to take a moment and reflect on this situation, and ask yourself if you had been in their position, what would you be thinking at that moment when he asked them to touch his wounded hands and feet?
“And he said unto them,These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me.” (v. 44) Jesus almost said, “I told you so” by reminding them that all had happened just as He said it would.
“ Jesus first demonstrated the physical reality of his resurrected by body by inviting the disciples to look at him and to touch him and also by eating food in their presence. We have the sense that they watch in stunned silence. Now Jesus takes the next step in the revelatory process, first reminding the disciples of what he said to them earlier—and then helping them to understand the scriptures—scriptures that speak of the Messiah suffering and rising from the dead on the third day (v. 46)—scriptures that speak of “repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name to all the nations, beginning at Jerusalem” (v. 47).” (Donovan)
“All things must be fulfilled which were written. Christ had given them this general hint for the regulating of their expectations—that whatever they found written concerning the Messiah, in the Old Testament, must be fulfilled in him, what was written concerning his sufferings as well as what was written concerning his kingdom; these God had joined together in the prediction, and it could not be thought that they should be put asunder in the event. All things must be fulfilled, even the hardest, even the heaviest, even the vinegar; he could not die till he had that, because he could not till then say, It is finished.” (Henry)
“Then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures, And said unto them,Thus it is written, and thus it behooved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day:” (vs. 45-46)
Jesus wanted them to understand that the cross was not some unfortunate obstacle that had to be hurdled. It was a necessary part of God’s redemptive plan for man, and that it would be in the name of a crucified and risen Savior that repentance and remission of sins will be brought to the world.“” (Guzik)
“Christ's way of working faith in the soul, and gaining the throne there, is by opening the understanding to discern the evidence of those things that are to be believed. Thus he comes into the soul by the door, while Satan, as a thief and a robber, climbs up some other way. ” (Henry)
“Neither does Luke specify which scriptures Jesus opens their minds to understand. There is no single Old Testament scripture that incorporates all the three major themes of vv. 46-47—three themes that will form the core of the church’s kerygma: (1) the suffering and death of the Messiah, (2) his resurrection on the third day, and (3) the proclamation of repentance and forgiveness to all nations. There are, however, a number of Old Testament scriptures that address particular elements. Luke alludes to or quotes a number of these in Acts ” (Donovan)
“And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.” (v. 47)
“And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name” While this is not in the imperative mood (Jesus does not say, “You shall proclaim”) it nevertheless constitutes Jesus’ mission statement for the disciples. They are to proclaim two things—repentance and forgiveness of sins. They are to do so in the name of the Messiah, who is the one who makes forgiveness possible.
“What they must preach. They must preach the gospel, must preach the New Testament as the full accomplishment of the Old, as the continuation and conclusion of divine revelation.” (Henry)
“The great gospel privilege of the remission of sins must be proposed to all, and assured to all that repent, and believe the gospel. "Go, tell a guilty world, that stands convicted and condemned at God's bar, that an act of indemnity has passed the royal assent, which all that repent and believe shall have the benefit of, and not only be pardoned, but preferred by. Tell them that there is hope concerning them."” (ibid)
“among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.” “They were told by their great Master what to preach, and where to preach it, and how to preach it, and even where to begin to preach it.” (Spurgeon)
“This proclamation is to begin from Jerusalem, but it will not be limited to Jerusalem. The disciples are to be Jesus’ witnesses “in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the uttermost parts of the earth” (Acts 1:8—also written by Luke). Prior to Jesus, the Jews had assumed a centripetal model, with the world being drawn toward a central point, Jerusalem. After Jesus, the model reverses, spinning outward from Jerusalem. In Mark and Matthew Jesus issues even more explicit commissioning statements. Whereas Luke emphasizes repentance and forgiveness of sins (v. 47), Mark emphasizes preaching the Gospel (Mark 16:15) and Matthew emphasizes making disciples and teaching (Matthew 28:19-20a).” (Donovan)
“And ye are witnesses of these things.” (v. 48) A witness was a person who had seen something and could testify to the facts of the case. That was the case with these disciples, who had seen Jesus with their own eyes. They could testify to having seen Jesus after his resurrection (vv. 36-49). They could also testify to seeing him ascend into heaven (vv. 50-53).
“Now these disciples will testify to what they have seen, and some will be killed as a consequence. They were to tell the story. To tell it not as hearsay, but as of their own knowledge (I John 1:1). And to tell it at cost. There was no other plan” (Scherer, 433).
“And, behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you: but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high.” (v.49)
“ Jesus does not reveal here what the Father has promised. In the Acts of the Apostles, Luke’s sequel to this Gospel, Jesus repeats this promise (Acts 1:5) and reveals that the gift is the baptism of the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:5). Luke further records Peter’s Pentecost Day sermon, in which Peter quotes the prophet Joel, “It will be in the last days, says God, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh” (Acts 2:17; see Joel 2:28). Peter assures his listeners that they have seen this prophecy fulfilled in the sound of a violent wind, the tongues of fire, and the glossolalia that they observed that day (Acts 2:1-13, 16)—manifestations of the Spirit.” (Donovan)
“They could not do the work Jesus had called them to do unless they were endued with power from on high, and that power would come as the Holy Spirit was poured out upon them.” (Guzik)
“And he led them out as far as to Bethany, and he lifted up his hands, and blessed them. And it came to pass, while he blessed them, he was parted from them, and carried up into heaven. And they worshipped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy:And were continually in the temple, praising and blessing God. Amen.” (vs. 50-53)
“How solemnly Christ took leave of his disciples. Christ's design being to reconcile heaven and earth, and to continue a days-man between them, it was necessary that he should lay his hands on them both, and, in order thereunto, that he should pass and repass. He had business to do in both worlds, and accordingly came from heaven to earth in his incarnation, to despatch his business here, and, having finished this, he returned to heaven, to reside there, and negotiate our affairs with the Father. Observe, 1. Whence he ascended: from Bethany, near Jerusalem, adjoining to the mount of Olives. There he had done eminent services for his Father's glory, and there he entered upon his glory. There was the garden in which his sufferings began, there he was in his agony; and Bethany signifies the house of sorrow. Those that would go to heaven must ascend thither from the house of sufferings and sorrow, must go by agonies to their joys. The mount of Olives was pitched upon long since to be the place of Christ's ascension: His feet shall stand in that day upon the mount of Olives, Zec. 14:4. And here it was that awhile ago he began his triumphant entry into Jerusalem, ch. 19:29. 2. Who were the witnesses of his ascension: He led out his disciples to see him. Probably, it was very early in the morning that he ascended, before people were stirring; for he never showed himself openly to all the people after his resurrection, but only to chosen witnesses. The disciples did not see him rise out of the grace, because his resurrection was capable of being proved by their seeing him alive afterwards; but they saw him ascend into heaven, because they could not otherwise have an ocular demonstration of his ascension. They were led out on purpose to see him ascend, had their eye upon him when he ascended, and were not looking another way. 3. What was the farewell he gave them: He lifted up his hands, and blessed them. He did not go away in displeasure, but in love; he left a blessing behind him; he lifted up his hands, as the high priest did when he blessed the people; see Lev. 9:22. He blessed as one having authority, commanded the blessing which he had purchased” (Henry)
“There still is no other plan. We have not seen the risen Christ with our own eyes, but we have experienced him in our lives. Our responsibility is to tell the story as we have experienced it, and to do so at cost if need be. Over time, fewer and fewer Christians would have seen the resurrected Jesus with their own eyes. However, they would tell the story—and tell it at cost, often at the cost of their own lives. As a result, this word martys would come to mean martyr—those who were killed because of their Christian witness.” (Donovan)
Benediction
Almighty and everlasting God, by whose Spirit the whole body of your faithful people is governed and sanctified: Receive our supplications and prayers, which we offer before you for all members and all denominations of your holy Church, that in their vocation and ministry they may truly and devoutly serve you; through the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
Thought for the Day:
I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else. --C. S. Lewis

The Collect
Almighty God, whose blessed Son our Savior Jesus Christ ascended far above all heavens that he might fill all things: Mercifully give us faith to perceive that, according to his promise, he abides with his Church on earth, even to the end of the ages; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen.
Readings:
Psalm 47 or 93Reading Ephesians 1:15–23
Gospel: Luke 24:44–53
44 And he said unto them,These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me.
45 Then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures,
46 And said unto them,Thus it is written, and thus it behooved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day:
47And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.
48And ye are witnesses of these things.
49And, behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you: but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high.
50 And he led them out as far as to Bethany, and he lifted up his hands, and blessed them.
51 And it came to pass, while he blessed them, he was parted from them, and carried up into heaven.
52 And they worshipped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy:
53 And were continually in the temple, praising and blessing God. Amen.
Commentary:
Just over a month ago on Thursday 4 April, we examined verses 36b to 48 of this last chapter of Luke. While some may think that going over these verses again, this soon, might be redundant or an unnecessary repetition, I have found personally, that each time I study a passage I always come away from the experience with a deeper knowledge, perhaps even picking up on a point I had missed in the past.
This study picks up, in the days after Jesus’ triumph over death, he has appeared numerous times to various people revealing himself, and now makes his final appearance in this Gospel, as he appears in their midst. They had assembled, the surviving disciples and other followers, discussing the miraculous reports that some had given of having seen the risen Christ.
Naturally they were frightened, they at first thought it was a ghost standing in their midst, but the Son of God said “Peace be unto you.” (v. 36) And proceeded to prove he was not a ghost or spirit by telling them to observe the wounds on his hands and feet, he told them to touch these wounds inflicted during the crucifixion, and he reasoned with them, saying, “...a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have.” The next bit of evidence he offered to them to prove he was not some sort of spirit, which to me also demonstrates his sense of humor, he asked them, “Have ye here any meat?” (v. 41) Luke writes that they gave him a piece of broiled fish and some honeycomb.
As we study these verses, we have to keep in mind that the disciples—although Jesus had told them repeatedly of what was to take place—still were almost clueless as to what was happening around them. We have the luxury of knowing the outcome, a privilege that they simply did not have.
There was simply no precedence, no prior events in history for them to reflect upon and have some idea of the significance of this event. Their beloved teacher and religious leader, had told them he would be taken up and persecuted, but he would arise again on the third day. Sure enough, he was taken, persecuted without mercy, publicly executed and put to death. Now he was standing in their midst. I aks you to take a moment and reflect on this situation, and ask yourself if you had been in their position, what would you be thinking at that moment when he asked them to touch his wounded hands and feet?
“And he said unto them,These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me.” (v. 44) Jesus almost said, “I told you so” by reminding them that all had happened just as He said it would.
“ Jesus first demonstrated the physical reality of his resurrected by body by inviting the disciples to look at him and to touch him and also by eating food in their presence. We have the sense that they watch in stunned silence. Now Jesus takes the next step in the revelatory process, first reminding the disciples of what he said to them earlier—and then helping them to understand the scriptures—scriptures that speak of the Messiah suffering and rising from the dead on the third day (v. 46)—scriptures that speak of “repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name to all the nations, beginning at Jerusalem” (v. 47).” (Donovan)
“All things must be fulfilled which were written. Christ had given them this general hint for the regulating of their expectations—that whatever they found written concerning the Messiah, in the Old Testament, must be fulfilled in him, what was written concerning his sufferings as well as what was written concerning his kingdom; these God had joined together in the prediction, and it could not be thought that they should be put asunder in the event. All things must be fulfilled, even the hardest, even the heaviest, even the vinegar; he could not die till he had that, because he could not till then say, It is finished.” (Henry)
“Then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures, And said unto them,Thus it is written, and thus it behooved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day:” (vs. 45-46)
Jesus wanted them to understand that the cross was not some unfortunate obstacle that had to be hurdled. It was a necessary part of God’s redemptive plan for man, and that it would be in the name of a crucified and risen Savior that repentance and remission of sins will be brought to the world.“” (Guzik)
“Christ's way of working faith in the soul, and gaining the throne there, is by opening the understanding to discern the evidence of those things that are to be believed. Thus he comes into the soul by the door, while Satan, as a thief and a robber, climbs up some other way. ” (Henry)
“Neither does Luke specify which scriptures Jesus opens their minds to understand. There is no single Old Testament scripture that incorporates all the three major themes of vv. 46-47—three themes that will form the core of the church’s kerygma: (1) the suffering and death of the Messiah, (2) his resurrection on the third day, and (3) the proclamation of repentance and forgiveness to all nations. There are, however, a number of Old Testament scriptures that address particular elements. Luke alludes to or quotes a number of these in Acts ” (Donovan)
“And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.” (v. 47)
“And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name” While this is not in the imperative mood (Jesus does not say, “You shall proclaim”) it nevertheless constitutes Jesus’ mission statement for the disciples. They are to proclaim two things—repentance and forgiveness of sins. They are to do so in the name of the Messiah, who is the one who makes forgiveness possible.
“What they must preach. They must preach the gospel, must preach the New Testament as the full accomplishment of the Old, as the continuation and conclusion of divine revelation.” (Henry)
“The great gospel privilege of the remission of sins must be proposed to all, and assured to all that repent, and believe the gospel. "Go, tell a guilty world, that stands convicted and condemned at God's bar, that an act of indemnity has passed the royal assent, which all that repent and believe shall have the benefit of, and not only be pardoned, but preferred by. Tell them that there is hope concerning them."” (ibid)
“among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.” “They were told by their great Master what to preach, and where to preach it, and how to preach it, and even where to begin to preach it.” (Spurgeon)
“This proclamation is to begin from Jerusalem, but it will not be limited to Jerusalem. The disciples are to be Jesus’ witnesses “in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the uttermost parts of the earth” (Acts 1:8—also written by Luke). Prior to Jesus, the Jews had assumed a centripetal model, with the world being drawn toward a central point, Jerusalem. After Jesus, the model reverses, spinning outward from Jerusalem. In Mark and Matthew Jesus issues even more explicit commissioning statements. Whereas Luke emphasizes repentance and forgiveness of sins (v. 47), Mark emphasizes preaching the Gospel (Mark 16:15) and Matthew emphasizes making disciples and teaching (Matthew 28:19-20a).” (Donovan)
“And ye are witnesses of these things.” (v. 48) A witness was a person who had seen something and could testify to the facts of the case. That was the case with these disciples, who had seen Jesus with their own eyes. They could testify to having seen Jesus after his resurrection (vv. 36-49). They could also testify to seeing him ascend into heaven (vv. 50-53).
“Now these disciples will testify to what they have seen, and some will be killed as a consequence. They were to tell the story. To tell it not as hearsay, but as of their own knowledge (I John 1:1). And to tell it at cost. There was no other plan” (Scherer, 433).
“And, behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you: but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high.” (v.49)
“ Jesus does not reveal here what the Father has promised. In the Acts of the Apostles, Luke’s sequel to this Gospel, Jesus repeats this promise (Acts 1:5) and reveals that the gift is the baptism of the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:5). Luke further records Peter’s Pentecost Day sermon, in which Peter quotes the prophet Joel, “It will be in the last days, says God, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh” (Acts 2:17; see Joel 2:28). Peter assures his listeners that they have seen this prophecy fulfilled in the sound of a violent wind, the tongues of fire, and the glossolalia that they observed that day (Acts 2:1-13, 16)—manifestations of the Spirit.” (Donovan)
“They could not do the work Jesus had called them to do unless they were endued with power from on high, and that power would come as the Holy Spirit was poured out upon them.” (Guzik)
“And he led them out as far as to Bethany, and he lifted up his hands, and blessed them. And it came to pass, while he blessed them, he was parted from them, and carried up into heaven. And they worshipped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy:And were continually in the temple, praising and blessing God. Amen.” (vs. 50-53)
“How solemnly Christ took leave of his disciples. Christ's design being to reconcile heaven and earth, and to continue a days-man between them, it was necessary that he should lay his hands on them both, and, in order thereunto, that he should pass and repass. He had business to do in both worlds, and accordingly came from heaven to earth in his incarnation, to despatch his business here, and, having finished this, he returned to heaven, to reside there, and negotiate our affairs with the Father. Observe, 1. Whence he ascended: from Bethany, near Jerusalem, adjoining to the mount of Olives. There he had done eminent services for his Father's glory, and there he entered upon his glory. There was the garden in which his sufferings began, there he was in his agony; and Bethany signifies the house of sorrow. Those that would go to heaven must ascend thither from the house of sufferings and sorrow, must go by agonies to their joys. The mount of Olives was pitched upon long since to be the place of Christ's ascension: His feet shall stand in that day upon the mount of Olives, Zec. 14:4. And here it was that awhile ago he began his triumphant entry into Jerusalem, ch. 19:29. 2. Who were the witnesses of his ascension: He led out his disciples to see him. Probably, it was very early in the morning that he ascended, before people were stirring; for he never showed himself openly to all the people after his resurrection, but only to chosen witnesses. The disciples did not see him rise out of the grace, because his resurrection was capable of being proved by their seeing him alive afterwards; but they saw him ascend into heaven, because they could not otherwise have an ocular demonstration of his ascension. They were led out on purpose to see him ascend, had their eye upon him when he ascended, and were not looking another way. 3. What was the farewell he gave them: He lifted up his hands, and blessed them. He did not go away in displeasure, but in love; he left a blessing behind him; he lifted up his hands, as the high priest did when he blessed the people; see Lev. 9:22. He blessed as one having authority, commanded the blessing which he had purchased” (Henry)
“There still is no other plan. We have not seen the risen Christ with our own eyes, but we have experienced him in our lives. Our responsibility is to tell the story as we have experienced it, and to do so at cost if need be. Over time, fewer and fewer Christians would have seen the resurrected Jesus with their own eyes. However, they would tell the story—and tell it at cost, often at the cost of their own lives. As a result, this word martys would come to mean martyr—those who were killed because of their Christian witness.” (Donovan)
Benediction
Almighty and everlasting God, by whose Spirit the whole body of your faithful people is governed and sanctified: Receive our supplications and prayers, which we offer before you for all members and all denominations of your holy Church, that in their vocation and ministry they may truly and devoutly serve you; through the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
Thought for the Day:
I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else. --C. S. Lewis

The Collect
Almighty God, whose blessed Son our Savior Jesus Christ ascended far above all heavens that he might fill all things: Mercifully give us faith to perceive that, according to his promise, he abides with his Church on earth, even to the end of the ages; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen.
Readings:
Psalm 47 or 93Reading Ephesians 1:15–23
Gospel: Luke 24:44–53
44 And he said unto them,These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me.
45 Then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures,
46 And said unto them,Thus it is written, and thus it behooved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day:
47And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.
48And ye are witnesses of these things.
49And, behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you: but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high.
50 And he led them out as far as to Bethany, and he lifted up his hands, and blessed them.
51 And it came to pass, while he blessed them, he was parted from them, and carried up into heaven.
52 And they worshipped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy:
53 And were continually in the temple, praising and blessing God. Amen.
Commentary:
Just over a month ago on Thursday 4 April, we examined verses 36b to 48 of this last chapter of Luke. While some may think that going over these verses again, this soon, might be redundant or an unnecessary repetition, I have found personally, that each time I study a passage I always come away from the experience with a deeper knowledge, perhaps even picking up on a point I had missed in the past.
This study picks up, in the days after Jesus’ triumph over death, he has appeared numerous times to various people revealing himself, and now makes his final appearance in this Gospel, as he appears in their midst. They had assembled, the surviving disciples and other followers, discussing the miraculous reports that some had given of having seen the risen Christ.
Naturally they were frightened, they at first thought it was a ghost standing in their midst, but the Son of God said “Peace be unto you.” (v. 36) And proceeded to prove he was not a ghost or spirit by telling them to observe the wounds on his hands and feet, he told them to touch these wounds inflicted during the crucifixion, and he reasoned with them, saying, “...a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have.” The next bit of evidence he offered to them to prove he was not some sort of spirit, which to me also demonstrates his sense of humor, he asked them, “Have ye here any meat?” (v. 41) Luke writes that they gave him a piece of broiled fish and some honeycomb.
As we study these verses, we have to keep in mind that the disciples—although Jesus had told them repeatedly of what was to take place—still were almost clueless as to what was happening around them. We have the luxury of knowing the outcome, a privilege that they simply did not have.
There was simply no precedence, no prior events in history for them to reflect upon and have some idea of the significance of this event. Their beloved teacher and religious leader, had told them he would be taken up and persecuted, but he would arise again on the third day. Sure enough, he was taken, persecuted without mercy, publicly executed and put to death. Now he was standing in their midst. I aks you to take a moment and reflect on this situation, and ask yourself if you had been in their position, what would you be thinking at that moment when he asked them to touch his wounded hands and feet?
“And he said unto them,These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me.” (v. 44) Jesus almost said, “I told you so” by reminding them that all had happened just as He said it would.
“ Jesus first demonstrated the physical reality of his resurrected by body by inviting the disciples to look at him and to touch him and also by eating food in their presence. We have the sense that they watch in stunned silence. Now Jesus takes the next step in the revelatory process, first reminding the disciples of what he said to them earlier—and then helping them to understand the scriptures—scriptures that speak of the Messiah suffering and rising from the dead on the third day (v. 46)—scriptures that speak of “repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name to all the nations, beginning at Jerusalem” (v. 47).” (Donovan)
“All things must be fulfilled which were written. Christ had given them this general hint for the regulating of their expectations—that whatever they found written concerning the Messiah, in the Old Testament, must be fulfilled in him, what was written concerning his sufferings as well as what was written concerning his kingdom; these God had joined together in the prediction, and it could not be thought that they should be put asunder in the event. All things must be fulfilled, even the hardest, even the heaviest, even the vinegar; he could not die till he had that, because he could not till then say, It is finished.” (Henry)
“Then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures, And said unto them,Thus it is written, and thus it behooved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day:” (vs. 45-46)
Jesus wanted them to understand that the cross was not some unfortunate obstacle that had to be hurdled. It was a necessary part of God’s redemptive plan for man, and that it would be in the name of a crucified and risen Savior that repentance and remission of sins will be brought to the world.“” (Guzik)
“Christ's way of working faith in the soul, and gaining the throne there, is by opening the understanding to discern the evidence of those things that are to be believed. Thus he comes into the soul by the door, while Satan, as a thief and a robber, climbs up some other way. ” (Henry)
“Neither does Luke specify which scriptures Jesus opens their minds to understand. There is no single Old Testament scripture that incorporates all the three major themes of vv. 46-47—three themes that will form the core of the church’s kerygma: (1) the suffering and death of the Messiah, (2) his resurrection on the third day, and (3) the proclamation of repentance and forgiveness to all nations. There are, however, a number of Old Testament scriptures that address particular elements. Luke alludes to or quotes a number of these in Acts ” (Donovan)
“And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.” (v. 47)
“And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name” While this is not in the imperative mood (Jesus does not say, “You shall proclaim”) it nevertheless constitutes Jesus’ mission statement for the disciples. They are to proclaim two things—repentance and forgiveness of sins. They are to do so in the name of the Messiah, who is the one who makes forgiveness possible.
“What they must preach. They must preach the gospel, must preach the New Testament as the full accomplishment of the Old, as the continuation and conclusion of divine revelation.” (Henry)
“The great gospel privilege of the remission of sins must be proposed to all, and assured to all that repent, and believe the gospel. "Go, tell a guilty world, that stands convicted and condemned at God's bar, that an act of indemnity has passed the royal assent, which all that repent and believe shall have the benefit of, and not only be pardoned, but preferred by. Tell them that there is hope concerning them."” (ibid)
“among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.” “They were told by their great Master what to preach, and where to preach it, and how to preach it, and even where to begin to preach it.” (Spurgeon)
“This proclamation is to begin from Jerusalem, but it will not be limited to Jerusalem. The disciples are to be Jesus’ witnesses “in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the uttermost parts of the earth” (Acts 1:8—also written by Luke). Prior to Jesus, the Jews had assumed a centripetal model, with the world being drawn toward a central point, Jerusalem. After Jesus, the model reverses, spinning outward from Jerusalem. In Mark and Matthew Jesus issues even more explicit commissioning statements. Whereas Luke emphasizes repentance and forgiveness of sins (v. 47), Mark emphasizes preaching the Gospel (Mark 16:15) and Matthew emphasizes making disciples and teaching (Matthew 28:19-20a).” (Donovan)
“And ye are witnesses of these things.” (v. 48) A witness was a person who had seen something and could testify to the facts of the case. That was the case with these disciples, who had seen Jesus with their own eyes. They could testify to having seen Jesus after his resurrection (vv. 36-49). They could also testify to seeing him ascend into heaven (vv. 50-53).
“Now these disciples will testify to what they have seen, and some will be killed as a consequence. They were to tell the story. To tell it not as hearsay, but as of their own knowledge (I John 1:1). And to tell it at cost. There was no other plan” (Scherer, 433).
“And, behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you: but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high.” (v.49)
“ Jesus does not reveal here what the Father has promised. In the Acts of the Apostles, Luke’s sequel to this Gospel, Jesus repeats this promise (Acts 1:5) and reveals that the gift is the baptism of the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:5). Luke further records Peter’s Pentecost Day sermon, in which Peter quotes the prophet Joel, “It will be in the last days, says God, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh” (Acts 2:17; see Joel 2:28). Peter assures his listeners that they have seen this prophecy fulfilled in the sound of a violent wind, the tongues of fire, and the glossolalia that they observed that day (Acts 2:1-13, 16)—manifestations of the Spirit.” (Donovan)
“They could not do the work Jesus had called them to do unless they were endued with power from on high, and that power would come as the Holy Spirit was poured out upon them.” (Guzik)
“And he led them out as far as to Bethany, and he lifted up his hands, and blessed them. And it came to pass, while he blessed them, he was parted from them, and carried up into heaven. And they worshipped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy:And were continually in the temple, praising and blessing God. Amen.” (vs. 50-53)
“How solemnly Christ took leave of his disciples. Christ's design being to reconcile heaven and earth, and to continue a days-man between them, it was necessary that he should lay his hands on them both, and, in order thereunto, that he should pass and repass. He had business to do in both worlds, and accordingly came from heaven to earth in his incarnation, to despatch his business here, and, having finished this, he returned to heaven, to reside there, and negotiate our affairs with the Father. Observe, 1. Whence he ascended: from Bethany, near Jerusalem, adjoining to the mount of Olives. There he had done eminent services for his Father's glory, and there he entered upon his glory. There was the garden in which his sufferings began, there he was in his agony; and Bethany signifies the house of sorrow. Those that would go to heaven must ascend thither from the house of sufferings and sorrow, must go by agonies to their joys. The mount of Olives was pitched upon long since to be the place of Christ's ascension: His feet shall stand in that day upon the mount of Olives, Zec. 14:4. And here it was that awhile ago he began his triumphant entry into Jerusalem, ch. 19:29. 2. Who were the witnesses of his ascension: He led out his disciples to see him. Probably, it was very early in the morning that he ascended, before people were stirring; for he never showed himself openly to all the people after his resurrection, but only to chosen witnesses. The disciples did not see him rise out of the grace, because his resurrection was capable of being proved by their seeing him alive afterwards; but they saw him ascend into heaven, because they could not otherwise have an ocular demonstration of his ascension. They were led out on purpose to see him ascend, had their eye upon him when he ascended, and were not looking another way. 3. What was the farewell he gave them: He lifted up his hands, and blessed them. He did not go away in displeasure, but in love; he left a blessing behind him; he lifted up his hands, as the high priest did when he blessed the people; see Lev. 9:22. He blessed as one having authority, commanded the blessing which he had purchased” (Henry)
“There still is no other plan. We have not seen the risen Christ with our own eyes, but we have experienced him in our lives. Our responsibility is to tell the story as we have experienced it, and to do so at cost if need be. Over time, fewer and fewer Christians would have seen the resurrected Jesus with their own eyes. However, they would tell the story—and tell it at cost, often at the cost of their own lives. As a result, this word martys would come to mean martyr—those who were killed because of their Christian witness.” (Donovan)
Benediction
Almighty and everlasting God, by whose Spirit the whole body of your faithful people is governed and sanctified: Receive our supplications and prayers, which we offer before you for all members and all denominations of your holy Church, that in their vocation and ministry they may truly and devoutly serve you; through the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
Thought for the Day:
I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else. --C. S. Lewis

The Collect
Almighty God, whose blessed Son our Savior Jesus Christ ascended far above all heavens that he might fill all things: Mercifully give us faith to perceive that, according to his promise, he abides with his Church on earth, even to the end of the ages; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen.
Readings:
Psalm 47 or 93Reading Ephesians 1:15–23
Gospel: Luke 24:44–53
44 And he said unto them,These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me.
45 Then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures,
46 And said unto them,Thus it is written, and thus it behooved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day:
47And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.
48And ye are witnesses of these things.
49And, behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you: but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high.
50 And he led them out as far as to Bethany, and he lifted up his hands, and blessed them.
51 And it came to pass, while he blessed them, he was parted from them, and carried up into heaven.
52 And they worshipped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy:
53 And were continually in the temple, praising and blessing God. Amen.
Commentary:
Just over a month ago on Thursday 4 April, we examined verses 36b to 48 of this last chapter of Luke. While some may think that going over these verses again, this soon, might be redundant or an unnecessary repetition, I have found personally, that each time I study a passage I always come away from the experience with a deeper knowledge, perhaps even picking up on a point I had missed in the past.
This study picks up, in the days after Jesus’ triumph over death, he has appeared numerous times to various people revealing himself, and now makes his final appearance in this Gospel, as he appears in their midst. They had assembled, the surviving disciples and other followers, discussing the miraculous reports that some had given of having seen the risen Christ.
Naturally they were frightened, they at first thought it was a ghost standing in their midst, but the Son of God said “Peace be unto you.” (v. 36) And proceeded to prove he was not a ghost or spirit by telling them to observe the wounds on his hands and feet, he told them to touch these wounds inflicted during the crucifixion, and he reasoned with them, saying, “...a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have.” The next bit of evidence he offered to them to prove he was not some sort of spirit, which to me also demonstrates his sense of humor, he asked them, “Have ye here any meat?” (v. 41) Luke writes that they gave him a piece of broiled fish and some honeycomb.
As we study these verses, we have to keep in mind that the disciples—although Jesus had told them repeatedly of what was to take place—still were almost clueless as to what was happening around them. We have the luxury of knowing the outcome, a privilege that they simply did not have.
There was simply no precedence, no prior events in history for them to reflect upon and have some idea of the significance of this event. Their beloved teacher and religious leader, had told them he would be taken up and persecuted, but he would arise again on the third day. Sure enough, he was taken, persecuted without mercy, publicly executed and put to death. Now he was standing in their midst. I aks you to take a moment and reflect on this situation, and ask yourself if you had been in their position, what would you be thinking at that moment when he asked them to touch his wounded hands and feet?
“And he said unto them,These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me.” (v. 44) Jesus almost said, “I told you so” by reminding them that all had happened just as He said it would.
“ Jesus first demonstrated the physical reality of his resurrected by body by inviting the disciples to look at him and to touch him and also by eating food in their presence. We have the sense that they watch in stunned silence. Now Jesus takes the next step in the revelatory process, first reminding the disciples of what he said to them earlier—and then helping them to understand the scriptures—scriptures that speak of the Messiah suffering and rising from the dead on the third day (v. 46)—scriptures that speak of “repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name to all the nations, beginning at Jerusalem” (v. 47).” (Donovan)
“All things must be fulfilled which were written. Christ had given them this general hint for the regulating of their expectations—that whatever they found written concerning the Messiah, in the Old Testament, must be fulfilled in him, what was written concerning his sufferings as well as what was written concerning his kingdom; these God had joined together in the prediction, and it could not be thought that they should be put asunder in the event. All things must be fulfilled, even the hardest, even the heaviest, even the vinegar; he could not die till he had that, because he could not till then say, It is finished.” (Henry)
“Then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures, And said unto them,Thus it is written, and thus it behooved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day:” (vs. 45-46)
Jesus wanted them to understand that the cross was not some unfortunate obstacle that had to be hurdled. It was a necessary part of God’s redemptive plan for man, and that it would be in the name of a crucified and risen Savior that repentance and remission of sins will be brought to the world.“” (Guzik)
“Christ's way of working faith in the soul, and gaining the throne there, is by opening the understanding to discern the evidence of those things that are to be believed. Thus he comes into the soul by the door, while Satan, as a thief and a robber, climbs up some other way. ” (Henry)
“Neither does Luke specify which scriptures Jesus opens their minds to understand. There is no single Old Testament scripture that incorporates all the three major themes of vv. 46-47—three themes that will form the core of the church’s kerygma: (1) the suffering and death of the Messiah, (2) his resurrection on the third day, and (3) the proclamation of repentance and forgiveness to all nations. There are, however, a number of Old Testament scriptures that address particular elements. Luke alludes to or quotes a number of these in Acts ” (Donovan)
“And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.” (v. 47)
“And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name” While this is not in the imperative mood (Jesus does not say, “You shall proclaim”) it nevertheless constitutes Jesus’ mission statement for the disciples. They are to proclaim two things—repentance and forgiveness of sins. They are to do so in the name of the Messiah, who is the one who makes forgiveness possible.
“What they must preach. They must preach the gospel, must preach the New Testament as the full accomplishment of the Old, as the continuation and conclusion of divine revelation.” (Henry)
“The great gospel privilege of the remission of sins must be proposed to all, and assured to all that repent, and believe the gospel. "Go, tell a guilty world, that stands convicted and condemned at God's bar, that an act of indemnity has passed the royal assent, which all that repent and believe shall have the benefit of, and not only be pardoned, but preferred by. Tell them that there is hope concerning them."” (ibid)
“among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.” “They were told by their great Master what to preach, and where to preach it, and how to preach it, and even where to begin to preach it.” (Spurgeon)
“This proclamation is to begin from Jerusalem, but it will not be limited to Jerusalem. The disciples are to be Jesus’ witnesses “in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the uttermost parts of the earth” (Acts 1:8—also written by Luke). Prior to Jesus, the Jews had assumed a centripetal model, with the world being drawn toward a central point, Jerusalem. After Jesus, the model reverses, spinning outward from Jerusalem. In Mark and Matthew Jesus issues even more explicit commissioning statements. Whereas Luke emphasizes repentance and forgiveness of sins (v. 47), Mark emphasizes preaching the Gospel (Mark 16:15) and Matthew emphasizes making disciples and teaching (Matthew 28:19-20a).” (Donovan)
“And ye are witnesses of these things.” (v. 48) A witness was a person who had seen something and could testify to the facts of the case. That was the case with these disciples, who had seen Jesus with their own eyes. They could testify to having seen Jesus after his resurrection (vv. 36-49). They could also testify to seeing him ascend into heaven (vv. 50-53).
“Now these disciples will testify to what they have seen, and some will be killed as a consequence. They were to tell the story. To tell it not as hearsay, but as of their own knowledge (I John 1:1). And to tell it at cost. There was no other plan” (Scherer, 433).
“And, behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you: but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high.” (v.49)
“ Jesus does not reveal here what the Father has promised. In the Acts of the Apostles, Luke’s sequel to this Gospel, Jesus repeats this promise (Acts 1:5) and reveals that the gift is the baptism of the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:5). Luke further records Peter’s Pentecost Day sermon, in which Peter quotes the prophet Joel, “It will be in the last days, says God, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh” (Acts 2:17; see Joel 2:28). Peter assures his listeners that they have seen this prophecy fulfilled in the sound of a violent wind, the tongues of fire, and the glossolalia that they observed that day (Acts 2:1-13, 16)—manifestations of the Spirit.” (Donovan)
“They could not do the work Jesus had called them to do unless they were endued with power from on high, and that power would come as the Holy Spirit was poured out upon them.” (Guzik)
“And he led them out as far as to Bethany, and he lifted up his hands, and blessed them. And it came to pass, while he blessed them, he was parted from them, and carried up into heaven. And they worshipped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy:And were continually in the temple, praising and blessing God. Amen.” (vs. 50-53)
“How solemnly Christ took leave of his disciples. Christ's design being to reconcile heaven and earth, and to continue a days-man between them, it was necessary that he should lay his hands on them both, and, in order thereunto, that he should pass and repass. He had business to do in both worlds, and accordingly came from heaven to earth in his incarnation, to despatch his business here, and, having finished this, he returned to heaven, to reside there, and negotiate our affairs with the Father. Observe, 1. Whence he ascended: from Bethany, near Jerusalem, adjoining to the mount of Olives. There he had done eminent services for his Father's glory, and there he entered upon his glory. There was the garden in which his sufferings began, there he was in his agony; and Bethany signifies the house of sorrow. Those that would go to heaven must ascend thither from the house of sufferings and sorrow, must go by agonies to their joys. The mount of Olives was pitched upon long since to be the place of Christ's ascension: His feet shall stand in that day upon the mount of Olives, Zec. 14:4. And here it was that awhile ago he began his triumphant entry into Jerusalem, ch. 19:29. 2. Who were the witnesses of his ascension: He led out his disciples to see him. Probably, it was very early in the morning that he ascended, before people were stirring; for he never showed himself openly to all the people after his resurrection, but only to chosen witnesses. The disciples did not see him rise out of the grace, because his resurrection was capable of being proved by their seeing him alive afterwards; but they saw him ascend into heaven, because they could not otherwise have an ocular demonstration of his ascension. They were led out on purpose to see him ascend, had their eye upon him when he ascended, and were not looking another way. 3. What was the farewell he gave them: He lifted up his hands, and blessed them. He did not go away in displeasure, but in love; he left a blessing behind him; he lifted up his hands, as the high priest did when he blessed the people; see Lev. 9:22. He blessed as one having authority, commanded the blessing which he had purchased” (Henry)
“There still is no other plan. We have not seen the risen Christ with our own eyes, but we have experienced him in our lives. Our responsibility is to tell the story as we have experienced it, and to do so at cost if need be. Over time, fewer and fewer Christians would have seen the resurrected Jesus with their own eyes. However, they would tell the story—and tell it at cost, often at the cost of their own lives. As a result, this word martys would come to mean martyr—those who were killed because of their Christian witness.” (Donovan)
Benediction
Almighty and everlasting God, by whose Spirit the whole body of your faithful people is governed and sanctified: Receive our supplications and prayers, which we offer before you for all members and all denominations of your holy Church, that in their vocation and ministry they may truly and devoutly serve you; through the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
Thought for the Day:
I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else. --C. S. Lewis

My VERY FIRST Stephen King read!
Originally posted as a guest post at Eliza Stopps' Blog.

… Where the world ends is where you must begin…’

I mean, where do I even start with this? Well, firstly, ‘The Dark Tower’ by Stephen King is one of those series that I wanted to get into since quite some time, but just hadn’t managed to do so for some or the other reason. It’s one of the most popular epic fantasy series out there, and having watched the movie – ‘The Dark Tower’ (2017) starring Idris Elba and Matthew McConaughey (it was decent and quite enjoyable to be honest), I was eager to read the source material (which is apparently WAY different than the movie!). I was definitely skeptical though given the nature of the first book – ‘The Gunslinger’, which has been dubbed as strange, confusing, and as being “not the best start to a series”. But the opportunity finally beckoned when Eliza very kindly accepted my request to do a guest post for her blog. And for that, I would really like to thank her from the bottom of my heart.

“The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.“

This is one of the most famous/iconic opening lines of a book… like, ever! Don’t tell me you haven’t heard it before!
The foreword by Stephen King himself is actually very nicely written as well, I must say. Without going into too much detail, he definitely made me curious about starting the journey for the Dark Tower. Here’s a brief excerpt from the same –
“More than anything else, I wanted to tell a tale of wonder. If you find yourself falling under the spell of the Dark Tower, even a little bit, I reckon I will have done my job, which was begun in 1970 and largely finished in 2003. Yet Roland would be the first to point out that such a span of time means very little. In fact, when one quests for the Dark Tower, time is a matter of no concern at all.“
Aren’t you intrigued? I most certainly was!

Alright then, let’s dive into it!

The gunslinger, Roland Deschain of Gilead, is the last of his kind. He is desperately chasing a person referred to only as “the man in black” across a harsh desert which seems to go on for eternity. The latter is seemingly a sorcerer, and a quite dangerous and tricky one at that. The hardpan is no easy place to navigate, or to pursue your nemesis who is still seemingly quite the distance away. The “devil-grass” is the only companion with the gunslinger, but Roland is content and determined to hunt down his quarry at all costs. How long can he keep up in such challenging conditions? Just when things start getting much more difficult, Roland comes across a dweller named Brown, and his scrawny raven (who can talk, of course) named Zoltan. The gunslinger decides to seek some respite, and Brown offers him a place to rest for a while, along with providing for food and water. In exchange, the gunslinger narrates the recent, horrifying past events of not too long ago…
“The gunslinger was not a man to dwell on the past; only a shadowy conception of the future and of his own emotional make-up saved him from being a man without imagination, a dangerous dullard.“
Through his pursuit across the desert hunting the man in black, Roland had passed through a town named Tull hoping to get some information on the sorcerer, and also try and gather the details of the desert land and whatever that stretched beyond. Being an outsider, he was not well received by the townsfolk. After befriending Alice, Roland eventually starts to learn about the man in black’s “actions” in Tull, and how the whole town seems affected by it all. But answers won’t come easy for the gunslinger. What’s the deal with the number “Nineteen”? What really transpired when the man in black visited the town? Was all of this none other than one big “trap” laid by the trickster? Tull and its small number of residents have their secrets, and the gunslinger is about to find out in the most shocking and deadliest of ways possible…
The events that unfolded in Tull, and their subsequent consequences on everyone involved, including on the gunslinger himself, are… let’s just say “unfortunate”. Roland is desperate to move on though, and he bids his thanks and farewell to Brown (and Zoltan). The dusty land is endless and unforgiving, and Roland is not only running out of resources, but also out of time… quite literally. His sheer grit and determination are the only things keeping him on track as the supplies exhaust themselves. Is this really how it ends for Roland of Gilead, the last gunslinger? Seems like fate has other plans though, as he surprisingly stumbles across an abandoned way station, and a kid named John Chambers aka Jake from New York City. Fearing that this might be another one of the men in black’s “traps”, Roland is hesitant at first. But slowly and steadily, the duo begins to get along and trust each other. Jake can’t remember much from his past or how he got here in the first place. Looking to find a way out of all this, they both decide to embark on a quest across the lands in search of some answers… What is the black-gray bulk that is “The Dark Tower”? Why is it so integral and important when it comes to… everything? What are the secrets of Roland’s past, and why is he looking to seek the Tower? What part does the man in black have to play in all of this?
“The Tower. Somewhere ahead, it waited for him – the nexus of Time, the nexus of Size.“
What follows is a long and equally dangerous journey for the duo across the desert land, the mountains, and underground caves in pursuit of the man in black. There are obstacles and threats that await, and the bond between the two will only grow stronger throughout. The path is not easy, and they will encounter “the Oracle”, and the bloodthirsty “Slow Mutants” along the way. Can they brave all the odds and finally catch up to the man in black? Will Roland find the answers he has been long searching for?
Get ready to Join the quest for the Dark Tower…

What did I really like about it?

• First and foremost, the writing. It is SO good! I mean, when the author is none other than Stephen King himself, you don’t expect anything less.
• The characters, albeit not being too many, are pretty well written. Roland’s past is present in quite some detail throughout, and it certainly adds a layer not only to his character, but also to the plot in general.
• The settings, be it the desert, the town, the mountains, or the caves – everything is vivid, and really put forth is a great way.
• The plot/story is quite confusing to say the least, but what it does manage to do is drag you in, and leave you wanting for more. By the end, I was most certainly both intrigued and curious to know more about this world!
• The ending gets a “little bit” philosophical in some ways. It was something that I was totally not expecting whatsoever, but I liked it nonetheless.

What was not quite up to the mark?

• The plot. The less I say, the better! You need to read it for yourselves to find out! After the first 100 pages, this was my honest reaction – “What the heck is going on?!” Like honestly, it was not at all how I was expecting it to pan out. Definitely caught me by surprise, must be said. And even by the end, you are none the wiser as to what is actually happening?! As I’ve said just above, I’m not the biggest fan of how it all panned out, but it certainly left me wanting for more.
• The pacing can get a bit slow at times, and the sub plots/plot elements can get more than a little weirder at places. And although that didn’t drag me away from the story itself, it just felt a bit “eh?” on occasions.

Some quotes that hit

• ‘Go then. There are other worlds than these.’ [I’ll be honest – when you have the context of this, it most certainly hits hard…]
• ‘The greatest mystery universe offers is not life but size. Size encompasses life, and the Tower encompasses size.’ [This snippet is just a teaser of what’s to come!]

Note: There are mature themes present throughout; NOT suitable for younger audiences.

Final thoughts

Overall, ‘The Gunslinger’ was a wild ride by all means. Dark, adventurous, and a bit strange and weird at times, yet unique and captivating nonetheless. By the end of it, I was most certainly looking forward to delve deeper into the world, and join the quest for the Dark Tower! The writing is top notch, the characters are pretty well-written, and the plot is intriguing and equally engaging to say the least, albeit being not that easy to follow. The settings are vividly displayed, and the descriptions are nicely put forth too.
As someone who has watched the 2017 motion picture, and now having read the first installment, trust me when I say this – the book is totally and utterly different than the movie! Now I get all the backlash and criticism the film received upon release (and quite rightly so!).
Nonetheless, the book was definitely not an easy read, especially when you as a reader have loads of questions that need answering. As mentioned, the writing carries the book, and the plot is confusing in more ways than one. People say that ‘Gardens of the Moon’ [#1 of the ‘Malazan Book of the Fallen’] by Steven Erikson is a difficult, confusing, and a crazy read especially as a starting point of an epic fantasy series. I’ve read it last year itself, and I thoroughly enjoyed it to the fullest! ‘The Gunslinger’, on the other hand, was a much more “challenging” read than that for me in all honesty.
But ultimately, it did manage to achieve the goal Stephen King had mentioned in the foreword – hook the reader in the world, and make sure they join the journey… the quest for the Dark Tower. I’m more than looking forward to diving into the sequels, and as I’ve heard many people say, it just gets better from here on!

Last weekend, i spent some time at a festival in a park with a (newish) friend, let's call her shelby, her 2 kids and my daughter.
Her daughter wanted to say 'bye to mine and we went around to her side of the car, which was open since her mom had helped her get into the carseat; Shelby got into the driver's seat, so after our daughters bid each other farewell, I tried to shut the door. Turns out it was stuck because it had opened into a slopey piece of someone's front yard. I told her she might need to pull up a bit for the door to close, and she said (in a not nice tone of voice) ‘just lift it.’ I tried to, but when I shut it, I noticed a piece of the bottom of the door (imagine a raised piece if trim that runs along the bottom of the door) had started to detach. I told her, and she immediately jumped on me: "You broke my door?" She got out and said (again, extremely pissed and a bit unhinged) she didn't think it was safe to drive with the piece hanging off the car.
I started to panic, offered to call AAA, she dismissed it, and got out of the car and was fuming. I texted my friend (whose street we parked on) to see if she could send her husband out; he works on a van as a hobby, so I figured he would probably have some sound advice.
He came out and suggested she remove the piece that was hanging entirely; he proceeded to reach out and grab it to pull it off, and one of the tabs connecting it to the door indeed broke.
This is a newer car (2022, Hyundai SUV).
I got sucked into feeling like it was my fault that the door had broken; when I got home, I wrote her a text and apologized, saying I'd help her research where to fix it and help pay for the repair. I did some research Monday morning (looked to see if the part was at a local junkyard; of course not, given how new the car is).
(FYI, I ran the story by a few friends after it happened, and they were horrified she was blaming me and insisted I owed her nothing.)
When I texted her Monday to report I hadn't found the part at the local junkyard, she responded saying, "Oh babe you don't have to worry about my car. Leave it with me. No worries at all. It was an accident and I was just panicking but listen this is on me. Just buy me a drink tomorrow" (She was going out with a mutual friend of ours).
I let her know that I couldn't make it that evening y but would buy her a drink next time I saw her.
Then she appears again this weekend via text saying she'd gotten quotes, and it was going to cost $600 to fix and she couldn't afford it.
She even went as far as saying she would be open to me sending her money on a payment plan in monthly installments. what... the... actual... f. She also said she would be happy to go through insurance (which doesn't seem to make any sense since we all know the deductible will be at least $500). I’m also also wondering if she might’ve meant I should call my insurance company and see if they’ll cover it, but I have a suspicion that my insurance company would say I am not at fault.
Several ppl suggested blocking her but that's not really my style... she also has my address since I had invited her and her daughters over for a playdate (lesson learned).
Wise people of legaladvice subreddit, what’s your take? am I at fault legally and do I need to give her anything?
TLDR: I was trying to close a friend's car door, a part of it came loose, she's blaming me and wants money from me. My options are bascially to give her some money, and cut her out of my life entirely, or give her no money, and do the same. (I observed some questionable behavior in the days leading up to the event and this sealed the deal for me, I don't need this unstable person in my life AT ALL.)

Last weekend, i spent some time at a festival in a park with a (newish) friend, let's call her shelby, her 2 kids and my daughter.
Her daughter wanted to say 'bye to mine and we went around to her side of the car, which was open since her mom had helped her get into the carseat; Shelby got into the driver's seat, so after our daughters bid each other farewell, I tried to shut the door. Turns out it was stuck because it had opened into a slopey piece of someone's front yard. I told her she might need to pull up a bit for the door to close, and she said (in a not nice tone of voice, just lift it. I tried to, but when I shut it, I noticed a piece of the bottom of the door (imagine a bumper that runs along the bottom of the door) had started to detach. I told her, and she immediately jumped on me: "You broke my door?" She got out and said (again, extremely pissed and a bit unhinged) she didn't think it was safe to drive with the piece hanging off the car.
I started to panic, offered to call AAA, she dismissed it, and got out of the car and was quite pissed off. I texted my friend (whose street we parked on) to see if she could send her husband out; he works on a van as a hobby, so I figured he would probably have some sound advice.
He came out and suggested she remove the piece that was hanging entirely; he proceeded to reach out and grab it to pull it off, and one of the tabs connecting it to the door indeed broke.
This is a newer car (2022, Hyundai SUV).
I got sucked into feeling like it was my fault that the door had broken; when I got home, I wrote her a text and apologized, saying I'd help her research where to fix it and help pay for the repair. I did some research Monday morning (looked to see if the part was at a local junkyard; of course not, given how new the car is).
(FYI, I ran the story by a few friends after it happened, and they were horrified she was blaming me and insisted I owed her nothing.)
When I texted her Monday to report I hadn't found the part at the local junkyard, she responded saying, "Oh babe you don't have to worry about my car. Leave it with me. No worries at all. It was an accident and I was just panicking but listen this is on me. Just buy me a drink tomorrow" (She was going out with a mutual friend of ours).
I let her know that I couldn't make it that day but would buy her a drink next time I saw her.
Then she appears again this weekend via text saying she'd gotten quotes, and it was going to cost $600 to fix and she couldn't afford it.
She even went as far as saying she would be open to me sending her money on a payment plan in monthly installments. what... the... actual... f. She also said she would be happy to go through insurance (which doesn't seem to make any sense since we all know the deductible will be at least $500). I’m thinking she probably meant that. I’m thinking she probably meant that I should go to my insurance and try and get them to pay for it, implying that I am the one guilty of causing the door to break. I think the whole thing is ludicrous.
Several ppl suggested blocking her but that's not really my style. I may consider that if we didn't have a mutual close friend .. she also has my address since I had invited her and her daughters over for a playdate (lesson learned).
Wise people of legal advice Reddit, what would you do?
TLDR: I was trying to close a friend's car door, a part of it came loose, she's blaming me and wants money from me. My options are bascially to give her some money, and cut her out of my life entirely, or give her no money, and do the same. (I observed some questionable behavior in the days leading up to the event and this sealed the deal for me, I don't need this unstable person in my life AT ALL.)

Last weekend, i spent some time at a festival in a park with a (newish) friend, let's call her shelby, her 2 kids and my daughter.
Her daughter wanted to say 'bye to mine and we went around to her side of the car, which was open since her mom had helped her get into the carseat; Shelby got into the driver's seat, so after our daughters bid each other farewell, I tried to shut the door. Turns out it was stuck because it had opened into a slopey piece of someone's front yard. I told her she might need to pull up a bit for the door to close, and she said (in a not nice tone of voice, just lift it. I tried to, but when I shut it, I noticed a piece of the bottom of the door (imagine a bumper that runs along the bottom of the door) had started to detach. I told her, and she immediately jumped on me: "You broke my door?" She got out and said (again, extremely pissed and a bit unhinged) she didn't think it was safe to drive with the piece hanging off the car.
I started to panic, offered to call AAA, she dismissed it, and got out of the car and was quite pissed off. I texted my friend (whose street we parked on) to see if she could send her husband out; he works on a van as a hobby, so I figured he would probably have some sound advice.
He came out and suggested she remove the piece that was hanging entirely; he proceeded to reach out and grab it to pull it off, and one of the tabs connecting it to the door indeed broke.
This is a newer car (2022, Hyundai SUV).
I got sucked into feeling like it was my fault that the door had broken; when I got home, I wrote her a text and apologized, saying I'd help her research where to fix it and help pay for the repair. I did some research Monday morning (looked to see if the part was at a local junkyard; of course not, given how new the car is).
(FYI, I ran the story by a few friends after it happened, and they were horrified she was blaming me and insisted I owed her nothing.)
When I texted her Monday to report I hadn't found the part at the local junkyard, she responded saying, "Oh babe you don't have to worry about my car. Leave it with me. No worries at all. It was an accident and I was just panicking but listen this is on me. Just buy me a drink tomorrow" (She was going out with a mutual friend of ours).
I let her know that I couldn't make it that day but would buy her a drink next time I saw her.
Then she appears again this weekend via text saying she'd gotten quotes, and it was going to cost $600 to fix and she couldn't afford it.
She even went as far as saying she would be open to me sending her money on a payment plan in monthly installments. what... the... actual... f. She also said she would be happy to go through insurance (which doesn't seem to make any sense since we all know the deductible will be at least $500).
Several ppl suggested blocking her but that's not really my style. I may consider that if we didn't have a mutual close friend .. she also has my address since I had invited her and her daughters over for a playdate (lesson learned).
Wise people of Reddit, what would you do?
TLDR: I was trying to close a friend's car door, a part of it came loose, she's blaming me and wants money from me. My options are bascially to give her some money, and cut her out of my life entirely, or give her no money, and do the same. (I observed some questionable behavior in the days leading up to the event and this sealed the deal for me, I don't need this unstable person in my life AT ALL.)

The Daniel Craig Bond continuity is a hot mess. There have been worse Bond movies before, but the attempt at serializing and self-mythologizing what was largely an episodic series made it into the most inconsistent era out of the entire Bond canon.
And I'd say it began with Skyfall. Yes, Quantum of Solace sucks, but the idea of continuing where Casino Royale left off and having Bond on a vengeful path isn't a bad idea in itself. Book You Only Lives Twice and the movie Diamonds Are Forever briefly tapped into that, and License to Kill exists, and that is considered one of the best Bond films. Resolving who Bond is and putting an end to his memories and regret for Vesper is an interesting premise. It's just that the execution was terrible.
Skyfall is when the Craig films got screwy. Bond in Skyfall is boring and resembles nothing of his Casino Royale counterpart in his personality, completely lacking in humor and wits. Action set-pieces except for the opening and the sniper fight are unexciting. While they are gorgeous to look at, they all lack the bombastic energy shown by Campbell's films. And yes, that's the point. It's because he's out of his form. The intention is that this isn't a fun Bond movie, but a subversion of it. He is depressed, frailing, and alcoholic... but that's the problem. Why do that here? The two movies before were all about the prequels "Becoming Bond" and right in the next film he is too old and needs to be retired. Roger Moore was older than Craig in Skyfall when he was cast as James Bond.
It's about Bond's failures. He keeps failing every single goal for over two hours. He failed the opening mission and got shot. He failed the test. He failed to protect Sevrevine. Silva escapes. MI6 gets bombed. Bond's childhood house gets bombed. He failed to save M. Yet the movie ends with "James Bond is Back!" and returns to the 00 status... What? He is immediately ready to get back to work. If anything, it would make more sense if Bond retires from the 00 status. He lost people he cares about and acknowledged he is aging, failed everything. The story feels like it was written as a goodbye to the character--as a meta finale to the series as a whole--yet it ends as a glorious return to the series.
Then Bond spends the next two films turning rogue and retiring again before they conclude his run. Even though Spectre was meant to be a "farewell" movie, it honestly felt like a new beginning. The new villain organization is introduced, Blofeld is introduced, Bond succeeds at capturing him, and his adventure depicts James Bond as "his peak". He's humorous, charming, strong, and... Bondian. Yet the film suddenly ends on a different note than all the other Bonds by sending him off to live happily with Madeline. What is the reason for him to retire now? Why introduce the "ultimate villain" and then just retire him?
Spectre in particular is a dead horse, but it deserves another round of beating. I do not understand Sam Mandes's obsession with Bond's past and legacy, and it has gotten far worse with Spectre. Spectre fundamentally rubbed me in a way any other bad Bond flick has not. Die Another Day and Moonraker had 'so bad it's good' quality, but watching Spectre just depressed me. I was in utter disbelief as to how any producer in their right mind thought the "Brofeld" was a good idea.
They just retconned everything when they made Spectre and linked all of the films together. All of a sudden, Le Chiffre, Dominique Green, and Silva are all Spectre agents, did what they did because Blofled was Bond's jealous stepbrother with a daddy issue... If this was actually the plan all along, then there would have been subtle hints dropped in CR and QOS that foreshadowed the events of Skyfall and Spectre. There are none. They are just going along with the Hollywood flavor of the month. With QOS, it was Bourne. With Skyfall, it was The Dark Knight. With Spectre, it was Marvel: turning itself into a huge interconnected cinematic universe.
It's a twist that retcons the long-running series into a familial soap drama. It's doubly worse if it is done for "fan service". This quote "I am the author of all your pain" from Spectre is the perfect illustration of modern franchise filmmaking. Examples like the iconic hero and the villain suddenly having a familial connection with each other, or suddenly all the past installments written to be episodic, unrelated the hero went through are "connected" as one big scheme by this secret hidden family mastermind. Not that this can't be done well, but it is often a lame attempt at copying The Empire Strikes Back. It is almost a surefire way to alienate the fans and make your story fanficy. Hell, even fanfictions today don't pull shit like this. The moment Spectre copied the twin twist, it killed Austin Powers by becoming a parody of itself.
Craig wanted to retire with Spectre, but Broccoli persuaded him to do another movie, and they had to find a way to top the "Bond retires" ending. So we got No Time to Die, a movie that kills off James Bond. Although it is my second favorite Craig Bond movie, it is not good. Aside from how the second half stalls the exciting pacing and momentum, the attempts at flexing "we are trying meta and doing something new!" didn't hit. The impact of Bond just retiring and living a normal life didn't land because we already saw it... twice. MI6 doing shady shit didn't hit hard because we already saw worse with Silva.
The ending comes across as a cringy soap drama attempt. If Spectre was their attempt at what Marvel was doing, No Time to Die was EON's Logan because EON didn't want to do a normal Bond adventure without copying another Hollywood trend. "Oh, you killed Wolverine? Well, we are killing Bond! How about that?!" If anything, the movie is at best when it is just doing normal fun Bondian tropes (which is why the first half shines), but Bond can't just have a normal adventure without an attempt to be "meta" about it. He is 1) not 007, 2) a rookiee, 2) goes rogue, 3) frailing, 4) retired, and 5) dead.
So... here is how I would restructure the Bond films. The limitation is that I am not able to change the story too much. I will have to keep the serialized nature to the Craig era. I believe a lot of problems could be solved by the different ordering.
The order should have been:
Casino Royale - Quantum of Solace - (Standalone Bond film) - Spectre - Skyfall - No Time to Die
Casino Royale is perfect as it is. I'm confident that I will never see a better Bond movie. For Quantum of Solace, I'd link these two YouTube videos as to show how the movie could be improved.
Standalone Bond Movie:
One of the biggest wastes of the Craig era is that he didn't have his standalone in-his-prime Bond movie. He didn't get to have his own "Goldfinger" or "The Spy Who Loved Me" where Bond gets to do a normal job because his films came out at the time when "connect, personalize, and serialize every series!" was the mantra of the industry due to The Dark Knight and the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Craig Bond went from a reckless newbie to an old dog who needs to retire immediately without a normal middle Bond adventure to bridge. So much so that video games like Blood Stone and 007 Legends tried to fill that gap.
This is where Craig is at his peak. Bond just doing his normal episodic mission as 007, without tying himself to a larger big bad organization. There are many non-Flemming books to adapt. Apparently, Raymond Benson's books are very much like the Bond films. I remember Devil May Care being hotly debated as the next Craig Bond entry. John Gardner's Scorpius could easily be changed into the modern "War on Terror" setting.
This is also a place where you introduce Moneypenny and Q, and a bunch of cool gadgets and supercars for Bond to play with. Have Moneypenny as a Bond girl throughout the adventure and then she gets hurt, and that injury leads to her retiring a field agent to a desk job.
Spectre:
I inherently dislike the filmmakers attempting to serialize the Bond films, and we had a disastrous result, but if you want to do it, I believe Spectre and Skyfall should have switched their places. Just by this switch, the consequences that affect the overall story work way better. Because Spectre would have worked better as Bond in his prime, facing his ultimate arch-nemesis.
Skyfall being nominated for five Academy Awards made EON delusional about making an Oscar Bond movie. They thought what made it successful was the legacy elements. Spectre's horrid twist and No Time to Die's ending exist because the filmmakers wanted to capitalize on Skyfall's success of self-reflection and mythologization. This is why Blofeld turns out to be Bond's stepbrother and Bond dies. Without Skyfall, both Spectre and No Time to Die would have been fun, dumb superspy movies.
This post by u/jolipsist is a near-perfect rewrite of Spectre. No Brofeld, better romance, better third act, and better internal struggle within MI6. Bond is just a nuisance to Spectre. Blofled's plan is to reprogram Bond's head with the drill and rewrite his brain into killing M when he returns to England, which will prove how unreliable field agents are and allow C to take over British Intelligence.
When Q tells Bond that Spectre is Quantum in the middle of Spectre, it comes across as a shoehorned attempt to tie these two films despite the fact that it wasn't clearly planned. Instead, we get this weird retcon on how Quantum works. Quantum was one organization and Spectre was another. They had nothing to do with each other until the filmmakers decided to make them the same organization.
Shit on Quantum of Solace all you want, but Spectre as a criminal organization is just such an outdated concept in today's world (it was already dated in the 60s), while Quantum as a cabal of multinational business interests working for mutual gain is more believable. The former would screw up enough somewhere that major powers would take them down while the latter would easily thrive within global capitalism. I do like how Quantum adapts SPECTRE in a more modern, grittier sense in the form of Quantum. This is what I wanted from the Craig-era Bond films. Take the old elements and modernize them in a proper way.
So start the story with Bond trailing and investigating Quantum--a loose thread from QOS. This way, we have this constant progression from the previous films, rather than a "surprise". And instead of Quantum secretly being Spectre all along, it should have been Blofeld swallowing Quantum after it was crippled by Bond in QOS. In the meeting where Bond sneaks into where he first sees Blofeld, that's when Blofeld gains power within Quantum and renames it into Spectre. When Blofeld meets Bond, he mocks him with the fact that Bond indirectly helped him rise to power.
Skyfall:
If Skyfall was a response to the events in Spectre, then it would make more sense. The incident at MI6 in Spectre led to a public outcry and inquiry. C's actions have leaked the files about MI6's undercover agents, leading to the Istanbul chase.
Remember a scene in Skyfall where Bond uses his presumed death to retire and lives with some other girl on the bed? It would have made way more sense if that girl was Madeline. Maybe the movie can have her in a minor role by having her tell Bond not to go back to London. Build upon the chemistry established previously.
Already having Madeline established as his faithful lover means you can cut the creepy shower scene with Severine, which as time goes on will age as well as the barn rape scene from Goldfinger and the blackmail sex scene from Thunderball. Imagine a police officer tasked with helping sex slavery victims escape their captors, and while the victim is reliant on his help, he takes advantage of it by suddenly barging into her shower unprompted...
The classic Aston Martin DB5 reveal also makes more sense by placing Skyfall later in the chronology. In Casino Royale, Bond wins a DB5. It's a beautiful car and a nice homage to Goldfinger, and that's pretty much it. In the movie Skyfall, it is revealed he kept it somewhere secret, and the service didn't know about it. But then it is revealed it is a completely modified Bond car with all the identical gadgets and weapons from Goldfinger... And Bond is very well familiar with the DB5, knowing the weapons and functions inside out. But then M also knows about... the ejector seat in the car? So it is not even that Bond modified the car in secret. When Skyfall was released, there were speculations that Bond was a timelord because of it. Then Spectre tried to retcon this by having Q tell Bond to bring the DB5 back in one piece, implying he made it for Bond, even though Bond didn't meet Q until this film. What's going on here? If Q was introduced earlier into the chronology, it could have been implied that he modified the DB5 Bond won from Casino Royale.
I always found Skyfall's climax to be boring, so with Madeline and Moneypenny established in the previous film, maybe the third act can incorporate them. In the Scotland part, it is revealed Silva has captured Madeline and is holding her as a hostage, threatening Bond to bring M out. Bond uses his wits and distracts Silva, while Moneypenny goes in to save Madeline. This adds more stakes and tension to the climax. Maybe Bond chooses to save Madeline over M--choosing a retirement.
M's death in Skyfall would have been a better way to motivate Bond to retire with Madeline. He was already rugged and disillusioned with his worth as 007 by the start of the story, and his beliefs are confirmed with M dying. Then Bond's secret agent job inevitably put Madeline in danger, and she could die like M did. Also, by this point, Craig Bond has five films. We saw his peak. That's enough crazy adventures for his health. He is aged. He failed the test. Blofeld is in the cages. Spectre is no more. He got his new girlfriend Madeline. What else he can do for the country? This is the point where it does make sense to do a retirement movie.
Skyfall has an aura of finality that even No Time to Die didn't have. It serves as a perfect end to Craig’s era. It has all the meta elements and Bond's character arc, but it feels out of place in anything other than a final film. If you don't like No Time to Die, you can retire Craig completely here because it is the perfect final movie to end, alongside the tenure of Judi Dench's M.

Threads users can now exert more control over who can quote their posts.

This builds on a feature that already allows Threads users to limit who can reply to their posts (competing services like X and Bluesky offer similar reply controls). Threads outlined its plans for quote controls last month, and last night Adam Mosseri — who leads both Threads and Instagram for parent company Meta — announced that the feature is available to all users.
“I hope this will help keep Threads a more positive place and give people more control over their experience,” Mosseri wrote.
As of Saturday morning, the ability to limit quotes isn’t showing up when I log into Threads on my desktop web browser, but it is available in the Threads mobile app.
Quote and reply controls appear to be bundled together in a single dropdown menu, where users can open the conversation to “Anyone,” or limit it to “Profiles you follow” or “Mentioned only.” These controls should make it harder to “dunk” on others, where users quote someone else’s post in order to make them look dumb.

The full article is on Techcrunch: https://techcrunch.com/2024/05/04/farewell-dunks-threads-launches-quote-controls-for-all-users/

First off, let's get the formalities out of the way.

What is this?

This is a note to and about the online trans voice community (mostly restricted to this subreddit and a couple big Discord communities), and in it, I'll be laying out all of my frustrations with this sub and those Discord servers over the like, 1.5 years that I've spent somewhat involved with them. I have a lot to talk about.

Why are you making this?

Because I've seriously become tired of how draining these places often are. There's a reason my post history has such an unexpectedly wide gap; it's that I discovered how unhealthy being here actually is. It's so unhealthy that I might delete this account after I figure out a solution for keeping the Selene clip collection alive. This is also a great segue into the next question:

Who the hell do you think you are?

I am u/Cosmic_Marmalade, a sort-of known volunteer on here and on Discord. I've made the Selene archive and the L's Guide critique and have just generally dedicated a serious amount of time to helping out folks (and learning myself) since late 2022. It's not much compared to some other recognizable characters on here, but I believe I've been in these spaces for long enough that I can say something of tangible value. Anyway.
Once again, I want to remind you that this won't exactly be a perfectly-summarized bullet list. I'm gonna ramble and there's gonna be a lot of words, so expect exactly that.
I'm gonna be using they/them to refer to myself here just because I want to. I'm letting you know this because I've consistently been "a she", so to speak, before this post. Don't think too much about it.

1. Just a little bit of lore about me while we're here

I first got into trans voice when I was 14 (two years ago; I'm 16 at the moment, how shocking) through Lsomethingsomething's infamous guide to voice feminization. I didn't really get anywhere using it so I started looking around for other methods and stuff online, and eventually decided I'll become active in the online communities to hopefully get a little bit of that learning-by-(supervised)-teaching going. From there, I started doing the whole helping-people-and-linking-to-resources thing, talked to and consumed the material of people more educated than I am, and eventually started kind of knowing what I was doing to a certain degree. I wasn't arrogant by any means, but I was a little more confident in myself. I got better at explaining stuff and made that clip post that I'm still quite proud of.
One thing I never told anybody before is the reason I spent so much time still learning and still helping: I wasn't actually satisfied with my voice just yet. It's quite the systemic problem really; most people who figure out the secret sauce have no reason to remain here, especially when they get nothing (or even less) in return. The thing I like blaming for my lack of vocal prowess is the fact that I live in... imperfect conditions for a transgender person practicing their voice. I can't exactly have a VFE routine since those get quite loud, nor can I start habitualizing my voice effectively (since that would require both never leaving my room and only speaking at a restrictively low volume in there to avoid suspicion). Things like yelling and overfullness have also been quite troublesome for similar reasons. Is this really the only reason I haven't gotten anywhere after flying way past the expected time-for-satisfaction for voice? I don't know. Maybe? I just want you to hold your "Oh I bet they've got some inherent FLAW in their throat that makes it UTTERLY IMPOSSIBLE for them to EVER make a pleasant female-coded sound" horses for the time being. One can't draw valid conclusions from an experiment with so many non-standardized variables like this one, okay?
Anyway, yes, that's my deathly secret. Oh yeah, here's one more directed to Sumi the voice teacher: So, remember that time I made you like, completely reinvent a new term for "compression" because you thought the reason I strained during speech was because I was going off my own intuition regarding what the term means? Well, I wasn't actually doing that. I was actually already vocalizing in a horribly strained manner before and just happened to attempt your idea of compression (directly from the wiki) to that faulty template. Whoopsies!
Now that that's done, let's get to the offensive parts of this essay.

2. The deeply alienating uwu transbian culture

Here's a characteristic of these communities that's probably great if you're one specific flavor of person but utterly dreadful if you're anything else. I really wouldn't mind this as much if the thigh-high-wearing boymoders were just a small portion of the crowd, but it really feels like everybody around me is a gamer catgirl even though that's obviously not true. With all due respect, my dear 4chan-browsing nyaa smol beans, you really... claim the space, let's say. You're just a lot louder than everyone else and I feel like it makes those of us who aren't inclined to skirt-go-spinny-on-the-blahaj feel really isolated.
I also want to note that this isn't exactly just a problem with trans voice spaces in particular; most mainstream online trans spaces (especially those featuring younger people) also suffer from this severe pressure to act like the ideal cute-girl transfem you see on traa and egg_irl and such. It's to be expected, really, but it still upsets me that it's so hard to find people with a similar personality and/or self-expression to mine. If you feel as lonely in these communities as I do, I sincerely wish you the goddamn best in the world and want to let you know that I get it. I really do. I'm not about to tell you it's society or internalized transphobia or whatever, I'm just here to tell you that I truly understand how you feel.
There's also not enough trans men and generally masculine-presenting individuals 'round these parts, which again makes sense considering how unwelcoming big online spaces are to them and the seemingly lower demand for voice masculinization, but I still wish there was more of them.
So, to conclude my thoughts on this matter: It's alienation. I don't fit in with the "gib pats :3" folks and it just so happens that they are the dominant demographic in both these spaces and online trans spaces as a whole. Kind of unsolvable really but I might as well put it here in this totally-unnecessary farewell note. Try to stop me, I dare you.

3. Misinformation and the ungrateful bastards (tone shift much?)

Volunteering out of the goodness of your heart to help people unfortunately doesn't result in heartfelt "thank you"s and smiley face emojis. On some occasions, you get annoying entitled brats who think they have any semblance of a right to disrespect the ones providing them with this free-of-charge service. People just blazing with anger and throwing it at you as you try to explain to them that no, this 4chan sissification voice guide they found online IS awful and WILL be less effective at getting you the results you want. Now, obviously these people are severely mentally troubled for all sorts of reasons and the stress of voice training (which is its own topic) doesn't help, but there comes a point where this lack of discipline is just too much. You don't even KNOW how often I've seen people treat Selene (well-known teacher) with zero goddamn respect as if she's doing anything but helping them at the cost of her precious time. Something a lot of you (obviously might not be you specifically but also it MIGHT be you specifically) gotta understand is that you don't actually deserve our help and our time. I think I'll refrain from naming people here, but us volunteers are doing this and getting very little in return. Some people think we're part of a conspiracy to brainwash the masses and that we're all evil dumb idiots lying to get you to buy lessons from the teachers we've been employed by. That's not the case! We're just normal (well...) people wasting our priceless time on people who clearly aren't worthy of it!
Let me be clear here: This is what I (in bold) think. I don't want to see you harassing my fellow unpaid coworkers because I said some things you don't like. They absolutely have different philosophies than mine. I don't like you, but maybe they do, so show them the appreciation they deserve (and yes, they do deserve it cause they actually did something). If you just wanna scratch that harassment itch, I'm right here. Send me alllll the hate you've got.
The other thing this section shall be dedicated to is the pitiful state of information and methodology on here despite all of our best efforts. As an example, scroll through the front page on transvoice real quick and stop when you see a Voice Tools screenshot or video. Chances are that all it took was a few seconds to come across one of those. I tried it and I'm pretty sure it took me under half a minute on the crappy new big-man Reddit UI. Take a shot every time you see some poor soul obsessing over muscles and the larynx and the nebulous "resonance" (which never means the same thing no matter who you ask). It's all just a mess and that is made even worse by the existence of the snake oil proponents who resist the size/weight model on the grounds of "uhhh ummmm everybody learns differently" as they explain how you need to look at your throat in the mirror and trial-and-error your way into contracting the appropriate muscles. Ughhhhh. You know, I was around for that whole thing. I don't know if they still swear by this oropharyngeal-closure stuff in Scinguistics these days, but oh man people loved that gif of the lady terraforming her throat and uvula and would look you in the eyes and say "do something like this for OPC". Long-time residents of this subreddit remember that one user who would show up every once in a while to preach the gospel of Swallow-and-Hold 2 and have multiple heated debates with Cathy. God that lady was exhausting. You still sometimes get people saying Big Dog/Small Dog saved them or whatever, but hey, at least it's not the gosh-darn swallow exercise.
Honestly, I don't really care anymore about this neverending debate of which methods are better. All I'm gonna say is that Z (who explains stuff really vaguely now for some reason?), Selene, and Clover have the tools that are to me, the most sensible out there. I just don't respect those "mimicry doesn't work" randos, man, like how the heck did you learn the English language we're communicating in right now? How did you learn that horrible mock British accent you keep using for laughs? Through mimicry, that's how! You weren't thinking about your aryepiglottic sphincter and your thyroarytenoid muscles when you were screaming and crying as a small child because you had to go to school! Fortunately, I'm not interested in actually debating this with anybody, so feel free to completely ignore the cognitive dissonance bubbling up in your head right now if that's what brings you joy. I don't care (that much).

4. IS IT OVER FOR ME???? AM I ETERNALLY DOOMED TO BEING ASS AT VOCALISTICS????

This acts as a sort of follow-up to the previous section because we're still looking at the numerous troubles of volunteering. This time, it's the hopeless, depressed, extremely not-okay voice trainees who are unintentionally making things worse for everybody.
So, I often see people going like "voice training sucks and is super stressful" and such, and like, I understand what you're talking about, but also please, for the love of all that is golden, consider the fact that you're not just screaming into a vacuum when you say something like that. Maybe someone was already having a bad day with practice, and when they saw that, they got even more pissed off than they already were because what are these posts saying but "I should abandon all hope of ever being happy with myself; success is impossible and to give up is to be honest". It's just a really crappy vibe to spread and just makes everybody sadder. What's also just wonderful is when people expect you to be their unlicensed (and unpaid) therapist and also simultaneously blow up at you whenever you attempt to comfort them. It's a great time! I love it when stuff like that happens! I love it when people make things all about themselves and have no sympathy for their elders! I know I'm younger than every single one of you (except for you, Luna, I see you) but I'm really playing the role of the elder here when I have to help this mentally unstable child not explode. I didn't sign up for any of this shit when I decided I wanted to help people explore size and weight, man.
The fact that there's so many of these please-get-therapy-for-the-love-of-god children (they sometimes are literal minors but that's irrelevant) really ensured that I'll never work as a voice teacher ever. Can you imagine sitting with someone like that except you can't just leave the Discord channel???? AND THEN PEOPLE TREAT TEACHERS LIKE WEALTHY CAPITALIST ELITES! Shit makes no goddamn sense! You wouldn't last a second in the arena with a mentally ill college student!
However, the true horror appears when these people channel their trauma into rhetoric. All of a sudden, you get the only thing worse than comforting a sad stranger who hates you: debating a sad stranger who hates you. I welcome thee to the shittiest pits of trans voice discourse: The "should I just give up and die" war.
On one side, we're gonna gonna have team C (completely arbitrary letter choice by the way), which is the crowd that lives by the slogan "not everybody can succeed at voice training" and really wants to convince everybody of that. Then, we have what I like to call "the other andies", which are the resistive force battling the formidable team C in the marketplace of ideas and cat ear headphones. Team C and the Other Andies are a tale as old as time, one that is as eternal as the breeze of twilight. Let's look a little further into it.
Team C consists of people who are disillusioned with the messages they're given by popular voice teachers, naive students, and kids' shows: that you just gotta work hard enough and all your dreams will come true. They've arrived at a solid brick wall in their harrowing quest for a biologically female (or male) voice and they don't believe they have the zuzz it takes to get past this obstacle. Are they right? Hell if I know! It's really hard to properly get a picture of this demographic because I bet a lot of it is people who are simply in a horrible headspace and just need to try harder when they feel better, but I'm sure there's individuals in there with actual muscle problems and hearing/speech trouble and all sorts of other issues I can't shrug off in good faith. Furthermore, they kind of DO make a good argument when you take this little clip into consideration. Now I'm not one to jump to conclusions necessarily, but I think the contradiction between what Z says here what she tells to the public speaks to a wider problem among many of the Other Andies, which is that they often overpromise just to make you feel a little better about yourself (or to make you buy their stuff, I guess? Sometimes, maybe? I'm not a conspiracist).
Something special about the Other Andies is that they're not as much of a monolith as team C, which tends to say more-or-less the same stuff (you know the drill: some people can't do it, stop lying to us you scumbag pigs, etcetera). Some other andies say delusional shite like "99.99% of people succeed", while others carry the much more honest and respectable "you're probably gonna be okay". I like the latter subsection, the other other andies if you will. They're not riding the toxic positivity train, but they're also not shooting corrosive substances at your face, yknow? I still think this is a stupid fucking debate. You wanna train? Then do it. Can't do it? Then either you try harder or you make peace with what you've got. I'm not saying this from a position of privilege because my ass is MUCH closer to the vocal ability of a team C member.
This goes out to all my team C friends, possibly including the mysterious grand general of the movement if such an entity even exists. I'm... worried about you. It's really not healthy to spend so much of your life on a place you hate, talking about a topic you hate with people you hate, perceiving yourself as the only soldier standing between the small Voice City and the monstrous hurricane of false hope... Please let your trauma heal and move on from this place. I'm trying to do the same too, just work towards it. I understand and respect that you still find some purpose in helping others find their footing in this cold, dark world, but I think it's time you extend that courtesy to yourself. You're so much more than this and you deserve so much more happiness in this weird world. Allow yourself to start a new chapter with all of this headache- and heartache-inducing garbage behind.
You have it in you to make it out of this dumpster fire and finally live a more fulfilling existence. Is it gonna be hard? 100%, but we're gonna do it together, even if I don't even know who you are in the slightest. It's all about that little idea. That flame of ambition, to quote the Fell Omen. Keep the desire for a better life alive within you, and I wish you the motherfucking greatest quantity of luck.

6. The future of the Selene clip collection

The reason I didn't make this post earlier was because I was worried about what would happen to my dear resource collection if nobody was around to maintain it (since this account is almost certainly hitting the dectus at this point), but I've decided I'll delegate this task to a fellow volunteer. I haven't properly decided on how exactly this shall happen, but rest assured that your Selene clip supply may never run dry, my lovely friends that I absolutely did not insult the fuck out of for the past three thousand words.
That is all I have to say! May we never meet again. Was lovely, but I'm fucking TIRED, man.
[EDIT 10/05/2024: For the record, I am very very thankful for the nice responses here and a heart emoji goes out to you folks <3. I'm not really too informed about the whole language acquisition counterpoint thing that user brought up, but I respect them and what they're saying.
The Selene Clip Collection has been updated with a new announcement. One the GitHub organization becomes large enough, I'll finally be able to enter the florpus.

The Daniel Craig Bond continuity is a hot mess. There have been worse Bond movies before, but the attempt at serializing and self-mythologizing what was largely an episodic series made it into the most inconsistent era out of the entire Bond canon.
And I'd say it began with Skyfall. Yes, Quantum of Solace sucks, but the idea of continuing where Casino Royale left off and having Bond on a vengeful path isn't a bad idea in itself. Book You Only Lives Twice and the movie Diamonds Are Forever briefly tapped into that, and License to Kill exists, and that is considered one of the best Bond films. Resolving who Bond is and putting an end to his memories and regret for Vesper is an interesting premise. It's just that the execution was terrible.
Skyfall is when the Craig films got screwy. Bond in Skyfall is boring and resembles nothing of his Casino Royale counterpart in his personality, completely lacking in humor and wits. Action set-pieces except for the opening and the sniper fight are unexciting. While they are gorgeous to look at, they all lack the bombastic energy shown by Campbell's films. And yes, that's the point. It's because he's out of his form. The intention is that this isn't a fun Bond movie, but a subversion of it. He is depressed, frailing, and alcoholic... but that's the problem. Why do that here? The two movies before were all about the prequels "Becoming Bond" and right in the next film he is too old and needs to be retired. Roger Moore was older than Craig in Skyfall when he was cast as James Bond.
It's about Bond's failures. He keeps failing every single goal for over two hours. He failed the opening mission and got shot. He failed the test. He failed to protect Sevrevine. Silva escapes. MI6 gets bombed. Bond's childhood house gets bombed. He failed to save M. Yet the movie ends with "James Bond is Back!" and returns to the 00 status... What? He is immediately ready to get back to work. If anything, it would make more sense if Bond retires from the 00 status. He lost people he cares about and acknowledged he is aging, failed everything. The story feels like it was written as a goodbye to the character--as a meta finale to the series as a whole--yet it ends as a glorious return to the series.
Then Bond spends the next two films turning rogue and retiring again before they conclude his run. Even though Spectre was meant to be a "farewell" movie, it honestly felt like a new beginning. The new villain organization is introduced, Blofeld is introduced, Bond succeeds at capturing him, and his adventure depicts James Bond as "his peak". He's humorous, charming, strong, and... Bondian. Yet the film suddenly ends on a different note than all the other Bonds by sending him off to live happily with Madeline. What is the reason for him to retire now? Why introduce the "ultimate villain" and then just retire him?
Spectre in particular is a dead horse, but it deserves another round of beating. I do not understand Sam Mandes's obsession with Bond's past and legacy, and it has gotten far worse with Spectre. Spectre fundamentally rubbed me in a way any other bad Bond flick has not. Die Another Day and Moonraker had 'so bad it's good' quality, but watching Spectre just depressed me. I was in utter disbelief as to how any producer in their right mind thought the "Brofeld" was a good idea.
They just retconned everything when they made Spectre and linked all of the films together. All of a sudden, Le Chiffre, Dominique Green, and Silva are all Spectre agents, did what they did because Blofled was Bond's jealous stepbrother with a daddy issue... If this was actually the plan all along, then there would have been subtle hints dropped in CR and QOS that foreshadowed the events of Skyfall and Spectre. There are none. They are just going along with the Hollywood flavor of the month. With QOS, it was Bourne. With Skyfall, it was The Dark Knight. With Spectre, it was Marvel: turning itself into a huge interconnected cinematic universe.
It's a twist that retcons the long-running series into a familial soap drama. It's doubly worse if it is done for "fan service". This quote "I am the author of all your pain" from Spectre is the perfect illustration of modern franchise filmmaking. Examples like the iconic hero and the villain suddenly having a familial connection with each other, or suddenly all the past installments written to be episodic, unrelated the hero went through are "connected" as one big scheme by this secret hidden family mastermind. Not that this can't be done well, but it is often a lame attempt at copying The Empire Strikes Back. It is almost a surefire way to alienate the fans and make your story fanficy. Hell, even fanfictions today don't pull shit like this. The moment Spectre copied the twin twist, it killed Austin Powers by becoming a parody of itself.
Craig wanted to retire with Spectre, but Broccoli persuaded him to do another movie, and they had to find a way to top the "Bond retires" ending. So we got No Time to Die, a movie that kills off James Bond. Although it is my second favorite Craig Bond movie, it is not good. Aside from how the second half stalls the exciting pacing and momentum, the attempts at flexing "we are trying meta and doing something new!" didn't hit. The impact of Bond just retiring and living a normal life didn't land because we already saw it... twice. MI6 doing shady shit didn't hit hard because we already saw worse with Silva.
The ending comes across as a cringy soap drama attempt. If Spectre was their attempt at what Marvel was doing, No Time to Die was EON's Logan because EON didn't want to do a normal Bond adventure without copying another Hollywood trend. "Oh, you killed Wolverine? Well, we are killing Bond! How about that?!" If anything, the movie is at best when it is just doing normal fun Bondian tropes (which is why the first half shines), but Bond can't just have a normal adventure without an attempt to be "meta" about it. He is 1) not 007, 2) a rookiee, 2) goes rogue, 3) frailing, 4) retired, and 5) dead.
So... here is how I would restructure the Bond films. The limitation is that I am not able to change the story too much. I will have to keep the serialized nature to the Craig era. I believe a lot of problems could be solved by the different ordering.
The order should have been:
Casino Royale - Quantum of Solace - (Standalone Bond film) - Spectre - Skyfall - No Time to Die
Casino Royale is perfect as it is. I'm confident that I will never see a better Bond movie. For Quantum of Solace, I'd link these two YouTube videos as to show how the movie could be improved.
Standalone Bond Movie:
One of the biggest wastes of the Craig era is that he didn't have his standalone in-his-prime Bond movie. He didn't get to have his own "Goldfinger" or "The Spy Who Loved Me" where Bond gets to do a normal job because his films came out at the time when "connect, personalize, and serialize every series!" was the mantra of the industry due to The Dark Knight and the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Craig Bond went from a reckless newbie to an old dog who needs to retire immediately without a normal middle Bond adventure to bridge. So much so that video games like Blood Stone and 007 Legends tried to fill that gap.
This is where Craig is at his peak. Bond just doing his normal episodic mission as 007, without tying himself to a larger big bad organization. There are many non-Flemming books to adapt. Apparently, Raymond Benson's books are very much like the Bond films. I remember Devil May Care being hotly debated as the next Craig Bond entry. John Gardner's Scorpius could easily be changed into the modern "War on Terror" setting.
This is also a place where you introduce Moneypenny and Q, and a bunch of cool gadgets and supercars for Bond to play with. Have Moneypenny as a Bond girl throughout the adventure and then she gets hurt, and that injury leads to her retiring a field agent to a desk job.
Spectre:
I inherently dislike the filmmakers attempting to serialize the Bond films, and we had a disastrous result, but if you want to do it, I believe Spectre and Skyfall should have switched their places. Just by this switch, the consequences that affect the overall story work way better. Because Spectre would have worked better as Bond in his prime, facing his ultimate arch-nemesis.
Skyfall being nominated for five Academy Awards made EON delusional about making an Oscar Bond movie. They thought what made it successful was the legacy elements. Spectre's horrid twist and No Time to Die's ending exist because the filmmakers wanted to capitalize on Skyfall's success of self-reflection and mythologization. This is why Blofeld turns out to be Bond's stepbrother and Bond dies. Without Skyfall, both Spectre and No Time to Die would have been fun, dumb superspy movies.
This post by u/jolipsist is a near-perfect rewrite of Spectre. No Brofeld, better romance, better third act, and better internal struggle within MI6. Bond is just a nuisance to Spectre. Blofled's plan is to reprogram Bond's head with the drill and rewrite his brain into killing M when he returns to England, which will prove how unreliable field agents are and allow C to take over British Intelligence.
When Q tells Bond that Spectre is Quantum in the middle of Spectre, it comes across as a shoehorned attempt to tie these two films despite the fact that it wasn't clearly planned. Instead, we get this weird retcon on how Quantum works. Quantum was one organization and Spectre was another. They had nothing to do with each other until the filmmakers decided to make them the same organization.
Shit on Quantum of Solace all you want, but Spectre as a criminal organization is just such an outdated concept in today's world (it was already dated in the 60s), while Quantum as a cabal of multinational business interests working for mutual gain is more believable. The former would screw up enough somewhere that major powers would take them down while the latter would easily thrive within global capitalism. I do like how Quantum adapts SPECTRE in a more modern, grittier sense in the form of Quantum. This is what I wanted from the Craig-era Bond films. Take the old elements and modernize them in a proper way.
So start the story with Bond trailing and investigating Quantum--a loose thread from QOS. This way, we have this constant progression from the previous films, rather than a "surprise". And instead of Quantum secretly being Spectre all along, it should have been Blofeld swallowing Quantum after it was crippled by Bond in QOS. In the meeting where Bond sneaks into where he first sees Blofeld, that's when Blofeld gains power within Quantum and renames it into Spectre. When Blofeld meets Bond, he mocks him with the fact that Bond indirectly helped him rise to power.
Skyfall:
If Skyfall was a response to the events in Spectre, then it would make more sense. The incident at MI6 in Spectre led to a public outcry and inquiry. C's actions have leaked the files about MI6's undercover agents, leading to the Istanbul chase.
Remember a scene in Skyfall where Bond uses his presumed death to retire and lives with some other girl on the bed? It would have made way more sense if that girl was Madeline. Maybe the movie can have her in a minor role by having her tell Bond not to go back to London. Build upon the chemistry established previously.
Already having Madeline established as his faithful lover means you can cut the creepy shower scene with Severine, which as time goes on will age as well as the barn rape scene from Goldfinger and the blackmail sex scene from Thunderball. Imagine a police officer tasked with helping sex slavery victims escape their captors, and while the victim is reliant on his help, he takes advantage of it by suddenly barging into her shower unprompted...
The classic Aston Martin DB5 reveal also makes more sense by placing Skyfall later in the chronology. In Casino Royale, Bond wins a DB5. It's a beautiful car and a nice homage to Goldfinger, and that's pretty much it. In the movie Skyfall, it is revealed he kept it somewhere secret, and the service didn't know about it. But then it is revealed it is a completely modified Bond car with all the identical gadgets and weapons from Goldfinger... And Bond is very well familiar with the DB5, knowing the weapons and functions inside out. But then M also knows about... the ejector seat in the car? So it is not even that Bond modified the car in secret. When Skyfall was released, there were speculations that Bond was a timelord because of it. Then Spectre tried to retcon this by having Q tell Bond to bring the DB5 back in one piece, implying he made it for Bond, even though Bond didn't meet Q until this film. What's going on here? If Q was introduced earlier into the chronology, it could have been implied that he modified the DB5 Bond won from Casino Royale.
I always found Skyfall's climax to be boring, so with Madeline and Moneypenny established in the previous film, maybe the third act can incorporate them. In the Scotland part, it is revealed Silva has captured Madeline and is holding her as a hostage, threatening Bond to bring M out. Bond uses his wits and distracts Silva, while Moneypenny goes in to save Madeline. This adds more stakes and tension to the climax. Maybe Bond chooses to save Madeline over M--choosing a retirement.
M's death in Skyfall would have been a better way to motivate Bond to retire with Madeline. He was already rugged and disillusioned with his worth as 007 by the start of the story, and his beliefs are confirmed with M dying. Then Bond's secret agent job inevitably put Madeline in danger, and she could die like M did. Also, by this point, Craig Bond has five films. We saw his peak. That's enough crazy adventures for his health. He is aged. He failed the test. Blofeld is in the cages. Spectre is no more. He got his new girlfriend Madeline. What else he can do for the country? This is the point where it does make sense to do a retirement movie.
Skyfall has an aura of finality that even No Time to Die didn't have. It serves as a perfect end to Craig’s era. It has all the meta elements and Bond's character arc, but it feels out of place in anything other than a final film. If you don't like No Time to Die, you can retire Craig completely here because it is the perfect final movie to end, alongside the tenure of Judi Dench's M.