Bulletin 11.17.24

What you want, baby, I got it 
What you need, do you know I got it?

All I'm askin' is for a little respect when you get home 
(Just a little bit) hey, baby 
(Just a little bit) when you get home 
(Just a little bit) mister 
(Just a little bit)

I ain't gon' do you wrong while you're gone 
Ain't gon' do you wrong 'cause I don't wanna

I'm about to give you all of my money 
And all I'm askin' in return, honey 
Is to give me my propers when you get home

—  Otis Redding, “Respect”, recorded by Aretha Franklin on her 1967 album, I Never Loved a Man Like I Love You

“You is smart. You is kind. You is important.”

— “Abileen Clark” (Viola Davis) in the 2011 film, The Help

Well, he peeled the beastly stuff right off—just as I thought I’d (peeled) it myself the other three times, only they hadn’t hurt—and there it was (my dragon skin and scales) lying on the grass: only ever so much thicker, and darker, and more knobbly-looking than the others had been. And there was I as smooth and soft as a peeled switch and smaller than I had been. Then he caught hold of me—I didn’t like that much for I was very tender underneath now that I’d no skin on—and threw me into the water. It smarted like anything but only for a moment. After that it became perfectly delicious and as soon as I started swimming and splashing I found that all the pain had gone from my arm. And then I saw why. I’d turned into a boy again.

— C.S. Lewis, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (New York: Harper Collins, 1994), pp. 113–16

St. Paul’s Letter to the Galatians 3.26-29 

For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's descendants, heirs according to promise. 

(Prayer)