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Jo Kershaw

@mthrjo.bsky.social

5.5K followers 920 following 16K posts

Priest, mediaevalist, geek, Scot. All views personal. She/ her

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Jo Kershaw @mthrjo.bsky.social · Jan 1

Birds of 2025:
Chaffinch
Pigeon
Sparrow
Goldfinch
Robin
Dunnock
Jackdaw
Starling

Reposted by Jo Kershaw

Dave (@6502_ftw from Tweets) @cursed.monster · 3h

Roko’s Basilisk is actually an inkjet that functioned long enough to end the world, which is the true desire of all printers

Jo Kershaw @mthrjo.bsky.social · 2h

No objection but I think I need @oldenoughtosay.com’s input on that

Jo Kershaw @mthrjo.bsky.social · 2h

I am going to end up trying to write a book about woke readings of CS Lewis, aren’t I?

(Jack, o.p.n. Please).

Jo Kershaw @mthrjo.bsky.social · 3h

He had a blind spot about gender until late in life, but even at his most unreconstructed he’s more interesting than his progressive critics and conservative fans tend to make out

Jo Kershaw @mthrjo.bsky.social · 3h

I mean things are very bad but I am happy to point and say “that is the Enemy at work right there.”

Jo Kershaw @mthrjo.bsky.social · 3h

Genuinely revolting to see how Metaxas has slandered a saint of God.

Reposted by Jo Kershaw

☀️ Starshine @starshine.bsky.social · 5h

I have friends (of christ) everywhere

unraveled @unraveledpress.com · 10h

Chanting, "we are the body of Christ! The body of Christ will be free!"

This crowd has swelled considerably. Few hundred here now.

Jo Kershaw @mthrjo.bsky.social · 3h

Yeah, that is one of the better candidates

Jo Kershaw @mthrjo.bsky.social · 3h

Oh, Puddleglum is my hero.

Jo Kershaw @mthrjo.bsky.social · 3h

Jadis is very much the famous scene from Downfall, but better looking.

Jo Kershaw @mthrjo.bsky.social · 6h

Gosh, yes…

Jo Kershaw @mthrjo.bsky.social · 6h

Dedra hasn’t got the chops to pull that off. She’s a natural follower.

Jo Kershaw @mthrjo.bsky.social · 6h

Come to think of it, you could make a very interesting adaptation that really leaned into the Witch as fascistic.

(Might work even better for the Green Lady in Silver Chair. Make Underland Great Again).

Jo Kershaw @mthrjo.bsky.social · 6h

Of course, it’s not irrelevant that Lewis wrote LWWW in the aftermath of WWII, and sets it at its beginning (probably), so it’s not entirely surprising that the Witch’s reign of terror has some fascistic touches, but I hadn’t realised how much Ed sounds like someone going fash out of resentment.

Jo Kershaw @mthrjo.bsky.social · 6h

Ok, did not expect “The Lion The Witch and the Wardrobe” to feel quite so relevant to this moment.

Here’s Edmund, deciding to side with the leader who he’s been told disappears people.

He did want Turkish Delight and to be a prince (and later a king) and to pay Peter out for calling him a beast. As for what the Witch would do with the others, he didn't want her to be particularly nice to them - certainly not to put them on the same level as himself; but he managed to believe, or to pretend he believed, that she wouldn't do anything very bad to them, 'Because,' he said to himself, 'all these people who say nasty things about her are her enemies and probably half of it isn't true. She was jolly nice to me, anyway, much nicer than they are. I expect she is the rightful Queen really. Anyway, she'll be better than that awful Aslan!' At least, that was the excuse he made in his own mind for what he was doing. It wasn't a very good excuse, however, for deep down inside him he really knew that the White Witch was bad and cruel.

Jo Kershaw @mthrjo.bsky.social · 6h

Yes, but not just them.

Jo Kershaw @mthrjo.bsky.social · 6h

Yes!

Jo Kershaw @mthrjo.bsky.social · 6h

“he managed to believe, or to pretend he believed, that she wouldn't do anything very bad to them, 'Because,' he said to himself, 'all these people who say nasty things about her are her enemies and probably half of it isn't true. She was jolly nice to me, anyway, much nicer than they are.”

Oof.

Jo Kershaw @mthrjo.bsky.social · 6h

But also, it is explicitly magic Turkish Delight.

Jo Kershaw @mthrjo.bsky.social · 6h

I actually rather like it, but: INCREDIBLY sweet and sugar and sweets were very strictly rationed at the time. And presumably it was completely unobtainable at the time given shipping was… difficult.

(Unless he sold them out for a bar of Fry’s Turkish Delight, which I find rather less explicable).

Jo Kershaw @mthrjo.bsky.social · 6h

Lewis cheerfully throws a bunch of period cues into a blender for Narnia, particularly in LWWW, and one of the things that goes into the mix is that the Witch has secret police who take people away to be detained indefinitely (by being turned to stone, it’s still a fairy tale).

Jo Kershaw @mthrjo.bsky.social · 6h

Ok, did not expect “The Lion The Witch and the Wardrobe” to feel quite so relevant to this moment.

Here’s Edmund, deciding to side with the leader who he’s been told disappears people.

He did want Turkish Delight and to be a prince (and later a king) and to pay Peter out for calling him a beast. As for what the Witch would do with the others, he didn't want her to be particularly nice to them - certainly not to put them on the same level as himself; but he managed to believe, or to pretend he believed, that she wouldn't do anything very bad to them, 'Because,' he said to himself, 'all these people who say nasty things about her are her enemies and probably half of it isn't true. She was jolly nice to me, anyway, much nicer than they are. I expect she is the rightful Queen really. Anyway, she'll be better than that awful Aslan!' At least, that was the excuse he made in his own mind for what he was doing. It wasn't a very good excuse, however, for deep down inside him he really knew that the White Witch was bad and cruel.

Jo Kershaw @mthrjo.bsky.social · 7h

Back when I was on Twitter some American had a go at me for “pretending to be a Catholic priest.” (Not pretending to be a priest, which is just big standard anti-women’s ordination rhetoric). They apparently thought the collar meant I was masquerading as an RC priest.

Reposted by Jo Kershaw

R.L. Stollar @rlstollar.bsky.social · 7h

Erasmus demonstrates there is a rich tradition within Christian thought that defends children’s rights over and against the crushing weight of the current evangelical obsession with parental rights.

Desiderius Erasmus and The Child’s Right to Education

Erasmus demonstrates there is a rich tradition within Christian thought that defends children’s rights over and against the crushing weight of the current evangelical obsession with parental rights…

Jo Kershaw @mthrjo.bsky.social · 7h

This is a beautiful piece.

Fr. Gabriel T. Mosher, OP (Multiclassing Cleric) @eighthway.com · Aug 22

Allow me to share this article written by a member of our parish community:

www.americamagazine.org/faithinfocus...

From Spectacle to Sacrament: How Burning Man led me into the Catholic Church

For years, Burning Man felt like my spiritual homeland. But then something shifted. The illusion of unbridled freedom began to crack. A question broke through: Is this all there is?

www.americamagazine.org

Jo Kershaw @mthrjo.bsky.social · 7h

It’s usually a bad idea to start trying to spot the Antichrist and I would generally advise against it, but there are definitely more obvious candidates out there now right now than Greta Thunberg.