Matt

@gatesong.bsky.social

974 Followers 1020 Following

Priest in the Episcopal Diocese of the Great Lakes. Wife guy. Aging hipster. God, indie rock, Star ____, and (Seattle) soccer. he/him

But the other is a concept called xenia. I don't refer to it by that name in the film. In order to keep things simple, I refer to it by its other name, which is Zeus' law. And that's essentially the idea that when you meet a stranger, however humble that stranger might seem - you know, might - you might think that they're a beggar or whatever - they could be a god in disguise. And so you have to treat them the way you would want to be treated. So it's sort of what other cultures have referred to as the sort of golden rule - you know, treat others as you want to be treated - but with a theological underpinning.
Cropped screenshot of a text from OP. It reads, "Good news! I think I got most of the egg salad out of our daughter's ear" The text has a laugh react.
Photo looking out on a residential street through a window. It's very hazy and orange.
Screenshot of text: "After the leader comes to Jesus, a woman comes to him. On his way to touch the hand of the girl, Jesus is touched at the fringe of his cloak by a woman on the fringes of society (v. 20). She is hem-orrhaging, probably with a continuous menstrual flow, which according to Jewish law means that she is unclean and should not be touched (Lev. 15:19–30)." It is highlighted in yellow, except "hem-orrhaging," which is highlighted in pink.
Representation of quiz results in the form of a stylized constellation. Results are: I'm closest to Sarah Coakley (Systematic · Contemplative). My wider constellation: Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Rowan Williams, Michael Ramsey, William Temple. — "Which Anglican Theologian Are You?"
Photo of a square sheet cake in a cardboard cake box with a transparent top. The cake is frosted primarily in white, with a large Episcopal shield in the middle.
@gatesong's typical Bluesky profile picture, but with a purple ring around the visual area, on which white lettering reads, "Fasting from Social Media - Reach Me on Signal @ gatesong.51
Photo of red, pink, and purple construction paper hearts hanging on a front door. Each heart has a word or phrase written on it. These include: REPENT ASHES 2 ASHES GRACE MEMENTO MORI DUST 2 DUST
Photo of an open hand with a black plastic rectangular object resting on the palm. The object is smaller than the palm, and the words "crucial micron" are printed on it.
Photo of two slightly agéd hardcover books on the far left end of a bookshelf. The one on the right is not part of the joke; it's Cathedral of the Sea by Ildefonso Falcones. The relevant one is on the very end; it has a green cover, is written by a person named Shurtleff, and is called "How to Control Plant Diseases."
Cropped screenshot from biblegateway.com. Across the top is the text, "...his belly, and the dirt[c] came out. 23 Then Eh..." Footnote [c] is selected. A box obscures the remaining Scripture text. Inside the box is the text, "FOOTNOTE Compare Tg Vg: Meaning of Heb uncertain"
Photo of OP's hand holding the Church Pension Group 2026 Cartoon Calendar
Cropped screenshot showing one (read) email notification in a Gmail inbox. The sender is "Church Pension Group"; the subject is "Emotionally exhausted?"
Screenshot of Google News headline from abcnews.go.com. it reads: The Mamdani effect: Experts predict more millennial, Gen Z candidates will run for office
Selfie of OP, a bearded white man in his late 30s, standing outside on a partly cloudy day. He is wearing a brown Sub Pop Records beanie, a denim jacket with a few enamel pins and a patch, a gray v-neck sweater, and a black tab-collar clerical shirt.
Selfie from slightly below. OP, a white man in his late 30s with a shaved head and a short beard, looks toward the camera with a slight smile. He is wearing a black clerical shirt with a white tab collar. He is wearing an Ergobaby-brand baby carrier on his chest. The top 2/3 of the head of his 4-month-old daughter is coming out the top of the baby carrier. The two of them are sitting under a hanging lamp in a room with painted block walls (it's a church parish hall from the 1960s).
Screenshot of a book cover. A bald, heavily bearded man with a facial wound and wearing what looks like, I don't know, a Viking costume? grimaces amidst flying sparks in front of a red-and-orange background. It's very dramatic. The title is Foxe's Book of Martyrs: A History of the Lives, Sufferings and Deaths of the Early Christian and Protestant Martyrs. The author is John Foxe.
Mirror selfie of a smiling white man in his late 30s. He has a short, dark beard, and very short hair that's this in top (he's a few days behind on re-shaving his head). He's vested in a white cassock-alb tied with a rope cincture and wearing a green stole with gold fringe over both shoulders. A clerical tab collar is visible behind the neck of the cassock-alb. He is standing in a small room with red carpeting and dark wood-paneled walls. An assortment of unlit candles, including a Paschal candle, are clustered behind him.
Black-and-white photo of a dark-haired white man in his mid-20s with a short beard. He is standing in front of stage lights playing an electric bass guitar (a Fender P-bass, as it happens).
Film poster for Disney's The Little Mermaid (1989)
Screenshot of a Gmail message on mobile. Subject: Gmail is different. Here's what you need to know. From: Gmail Team 1/30/2006 to me Body: Auto-save, keyboard shortcuts, customized addresses and more. Sound cool? We think so too. Welcome to Gmail. We hope this email will help you learn about some of the features that make Gmail unique. To get started, you may want to: - Check out the Gmail Tour in our Getting Started section. - Import your contacts to Gmail from Yahoo! Mail, Outlook, Hotmail and others. - Visit our Help Center to learn about Gmail's features, like free POP access. Gmail also works great with other Google products like Desktop for offline searching, Picasa for sending your pictures, and Google Talk for making free calls and sending instant messages to your friends. As you're using Gmail, you might notice that there aren't any large, blinking, irrelevant ads. That's because we only show small text ads that are matched by computers and designed to be relevant to the messages you're viewing. Users have often told us that the more they use Gmail, the more they discover its added benefits. So go ahead and give Gmail a try. We'll keep working on making Gmail the best email service around. Thanks for joining us for the ride. We hope you'll enjoy Google's approach to email. Thanks, The Gmail Team P.S. You can sign in to your account any time by visiting http://mail.google.com
Screenshot of a mobile browser window. The URL is bible.lorte.software. The web site has the heading "Are these words in the Bible?" Below that, a text input box reads "...a blast pie coming to Taco Bell in November." Below THAT is the phrase "baja blast pie coming to taco bell in november." The words "blast," "coming to," and "bell in" appear in green. At the bottom, text reads, "5 out of 9 words (55.56%) are found in the Bible." The website has a background photo of what appears to be, idk, a field of wheat?
Screenshot of a text called conversation. 1:40 PM Message 1: Stealing bread is hard work Message 2: It's painstaking 1:41 PM Response: No
Cropped screenshot of an email sender and subject in a Gmail inbox. The sender is LinkedIn; the subject is "U.S. House of Representatives is hiring - See new openings."
A bat on a cement surface by an (exterior) stone wall
A bat on a tile floor at the base of a stairwell
Top-down view of a sealed Ace Hardware moving box labelled, in Sharpie, Knives Diapers
The "is this a pigeon meme?" The bottom text, which is the only text on the image, reads, "Is this syncretism?"
Photo of the cover of a church bulletin (order of service). In the top left corner is the seal of the Episcopal Diocese of East Tennessee. On the lower left is the text: The Ordination of Rebecca Abts Wright to the Transitional Diaconate Saturday, May 24, 2025, 11:00 AM Chapel of the Apostles School of Theology, University of the South, Sewanee
Screenshot of an Instagram post from UPROXX and Indie Mixtape featuring a photo of the singer Lorde. A caption on the photo reads, "I'm a woman except when I'm a man." - Lorde to Chappell Roan
All-text screenshot. Large top text: Review Assignment Submission Smaller bottom text: File submission successful
Four people in black clerical clothing with white tab collars sit together beneath a photo of the same four people sitting together, in street clothes, in a lecture.
Screenshot of text formatted as dramatic dialogue. It reads: Eternal One (to the Accuser): 7 Where have you been? The Accuser: Oh, roaming here and there, running about the earth and [begin italics] observing its inhabitants.[end italics]
Screenshot of a text message. A banner at the top indicates that the sender has been blocked. The message reads: Hello, excuse me, this is Elijah, Customer Service Manager at LOYALTYLION. We have a part-time job for you where you can earn over $100 per job, up to $150 per day, for just 30 minutes of work from home. Base pay is $1,000 for 4 days of work! High Earnings: from $50 to $5,000 per day. Flexible hours: as little as 30 minutes a day. Paid annual leave: In addition to maternity and paternity leave, regular employees are entitled to 5 to 15 days of paid annual leave! If you would like to participate, please send a text message to this number +[number scribbled out] (Note: you must be at least 25 years old).
Mirror selfie of a smiling white man with a shaved head and a trimmed beard vested for Eucharist as a deacon. He is wearing a white dalmatic (sleeved tunic) over a white cassock-alb. The end of a while single-shoulder stole can be just seen underneath the dalmatic.
Photo of a vintage blue John B. Taylor Country Fare plate with a pile of sweet potato fries and a turkey burger on an everything bagel.
Selfie of a bearded white man wearing with a raincoat with the hood up. He's wearing a bike helmet on top of the hood. He looks AWESOME.
The "Is this a pigeon?" meme. Over the confused character is the text "MY EMPLOYED SPOUSE." Under the butterfly, representing a misidentified object, is the text "BUYING LUNCH FOR ME, AN UNEMPLOYED SEMINARIAN." The bottom text reads, "IS THIS TITHING?"
The "You know, I'm something of a scientist myself" meme depicting Willem Defoe as Norman Osborne in Sam Raimi's 2002 Spider-Man film. The top text reads "St. Peter the Apostle." The bottom text, with the appearance of subtitles, reads "You know, I'm something of a PRESBYTER myself."
Screenshot of a Kindle book. It begins with the end of a sentence, after which the text is highlighted in yellow. It reads: ...impatience and lack of charity. [begin highlight] At some point, priests are almost always disappointed by some decision of the bishop or members of diocesan staff; the bishops are disheartened by at least some of their clergy, their attitudes and their antics; and the deacons may well end up disillusioned with everybody.
Photo of a very sketchy drawing of a bird of some kind wearing a basketball jersey and dunking a basketball. "Believe it!" is handwritten in the lower right.
Photo of a white toaster oven sitting in grass. The door is open and a flat tray is sitting a foot or two away. There are two charred pieces of toast visible.
Photo of a piece of paper taped to a red-painted pipe. A typed not is attached to the paper. It reads, in all-caps, "ARE YOU SURE THAT'S CONSISTENT WITH YOUR COMMITMENT TO FREE AND INDEPENDENT AGENCY?"
Ancient photo of on-stage painting at a Cloud Cult show. It is VERY blurry. In the foreground, the painter is seen in silhouette, back almost entirely turned. The band's drummer is visible to the right in the background.
Photo of a table in a library. On the table are a computer monitor propped up on 2 books (an older edition of The New Oxford Annotated Bible and a Complete Works of William Shakespeare); an empty laptop riser; a keyboard, mouse, and mousepad; and a stack of reference books.
5x5 grid of @gatesong's top 25 most-listened albums of 2024 according to Last.fm. In order (album - artist format): 1. Avoider - Ahem 2. Gami Gang - Origami Angel 3. Diamond Jubilee - Cindy Lee 4. Triple Seven - Wishy 5. Permanent Repeat - macseal 6. The Metaphysical Tech Support Hotline - Topiary Creatures 7. Paul Bunyan's Slingshot - Liquid Mike 8. Only God Was Above Us - Vampire Weekend 9. Cornell 5/8/77 (Live) - Grateful Dead 10. no name - Jack White 11. Modern Vampires of the City - Vampire Weekend 12. Dog Hours - Big Nothing 13. Hovvdy - Hovvdy 14. Plastic Death - Glass Beach 15. Operation Ivy (2007 Remaster) - Operation Ivy 16. Life Till Bones - oso oso 17. Box for Buddy, Box for Star - This is Lorelei 18. 4 Am. Study Session - Various Artists (Lofi Girl station) 19. Good Apollo I'm Burning Star IV Volume One: From Fear Through The Eyes Of Madness - Coheed and Cambria 20. 3 Am. Study Session - Various Artists (Lofi Girl station) 21. Feeling Not Found - Origami Angel 22. GLOW ON - Turnstile 23. 12 Am. Study Session - Various Artists (Lofi Girl station) 24. 2 Am. Study Session - Various Artists (Lofi Girl station) 25. Let's Start Degeneracy - Microwave
Photo of a copy of J. Robert Wright's book, Readings for the Daily Office from the Early Church, held in OP's hand. There's a small Christmas tree in the background. It's not relevant.
Selfie of OP wearing a cardigan over a black shirt with a white clerical tab collar.
Screenshot from the famous "We're just normal men" video clip. The caption clearly once read "We're just normal men," but the text "little guys" has been poorly placed on top of "normal men."
Screenshot of a push notification from Gmail from Etsy. It reads: [External] The Procrastinator's Gift Guide Last-minute presents from small shops!
Screenshot of the article “Who Owns Religion?: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Cultural Appropriation in Postglobal Buddhism” from Numen 67, no. 2–3 (2020), by Jørn Borup (it's quite good). Most of the text is highlighted. The text reads: a powerful symbol in the positive narratives of religious diversity. [begin highlight] One of the main tropes of more contemporary forms of Buddhism in the West has been its capacity to transcend ethnic constraints and cultural borders as a truly global phenomenon, potentially also suited for a liberal market in an open exchange society with generously “open hermeneutics” and an accessible universal grammar. What characterizes both modern and global Buddhism is thus typically a focus on de-ethnification, de-culturalization, and de-territorialization, claiming universality as a central paradigm fit for a modern, global world."
Cropped selfie of OP's right ear showing a purple stone plug.
Close-up photo of OP's hand holding a pair of white stone 00g plugs.
Close-up photo of OP's hand holding a pair of red stone 00g plugs (jewelry for stretched ears) (ok fine "gauges") (they're not called that though).
@gatesong's Spotify Wrapped summary. Top Artists: 1. Origami Angel 2. Vampire Weekend 3. Grateful Dead 4. ahem 5. MJ Lenderman Top Songs: 1. Self-Destruct (Origami Angel) 2. Fruit Wine (Origami Angel) 3. Love On The Outside (Wishy) 4. Better (ahem) 5. Your Door (Macseal) Minutes Listened: 27,128
Black-and-white line image of the "impossible trident" optical illusion.
An extremely engorged possum lies in a box of pastries. The caption reads, "Do what you must, I have already won."
Black-and-white photo of me in a park-like area, sitting on the back of a bench with my feet on the seat and leaning forward, smiling. It looks to be late fall.
Screenshot of a Reddit post in r/Anglicanism from user u/graceandmarty. Title: prayers from a monastery Body text: Hello everyone – I am Br. Abraham from St. Gregory’s Abbey (a Benedictine monastery in the Episcopal Church located near Three Rivers, Michigan USA). I just want to remind people that the monks gather seven times a day to pray for you and the entire world. We start at 4:00am, so if you are up at night worrying, please know that we are there with you. If you are worn out and can’t pray, please know that we are doing it for you. We love all of you.
A diagram reminiscent of diagrams made to represent the Trinity. At the center is a circle labelled "Dragon's Den." Three spokes labelled "is" branch off from it, each leading to one of three circles labelled "rage room," "wrestling ring," and "Asian market." Connecting each of the three outer circles are lines labelled "is not," forming a triangle.