Politics with Jonathan

Saturday, 11:33 AM EST. Here is where things currently stand with my inquiry into monastic pacifism: https://share.google/aimode/Ag97t7kgLZ1wfQDMr After this morning's premonition , I am reasonably up to speed on the Operation Roaring Lion/Epic Fury situation so far, including the response of key US Senators on both sides of the debate. An Emergency UN Security Council meeting has been scheduled for 4 PM EST today. I will do my best to maintain my horarium, at least for now. End 11:53 AM. Edited 4:37 PM.

I woke around 2:12 AM with a strong premonition about Iran and have been following the news from The Times of Israel and JNS while conducting my own Gemini AI analysis of relevant vectors. Here is my full Gemini thread: https://share.google/aimode/omYHAv0l6Yhg00NBQ It's now 4:19 AM on Saturday morning and it is unclear to me how this sudden but not unexpected development will impact my Lenten horarium moving forward. As an initial firewall, I am resolving to first tackle this problem from the perspective of Monastic Pacifism. I am also resolving not to check JNS and TOI again until 10 AM EST later this morning. Then I am blocking out 10 AM to Noon for work on Politics with Jonathan . At that point, after an initial survey of the headlines, I will need to assess whether an Emergency UN Security Council Meeting has been called, and what key US Senators are saying about the situation. I will also want to see how the Vatican is responding. End 4:53 AM.

This has been a slightly more chaotic February roll-out of Politics with Jonathan than I had hoped to see, but maybe the Holy Spirit will help bring some order to bear on my end-of-the-month process note. Perhaps,  whenever I write a process note moving forward, I should see if I can make sure to briefly address my status with respect to five issues, as follows: Monastic Pacifism : My next step is to compose a new entry on this blog that links to the small amount of my previous writing on this topic. Then I want to take a Gemini AI deep dive into Thomas Merton's approach to the question of monastic political pacifism and quietism. Engaged Citizenship : My next step is a careful response to Mortimer Adler's How to Read a Book as a foundation text in this area. Current Events : I am still doing my best to fast from current events for Lent (which is to say until 5 April 2026), but I need to consciously budget about one night a week to reflect on how this fast is going and what I...

It's 8:51 PM EST on Thursday. This morning's reading in the Book of Matthew for the second day of Lent led to some important avenues for further development of my Christian Zionist political theology. Then later in the morning, instead of studying the Quran, I spent about an hour and a half thinking with YouTube about current events and Islam on a political level, with particular attention to Iran, admittedly from a pro-Israel American perspective. I ended up listening to the first 15 minutes of a 1-hour discussion between Haviv Rettig Gur and Melissa Chen about the China-Iran relationship. During my late afternoon office hours, I clarified that my "Watch of the Polis" will run from 7:30 to 8:30 PM each evening. That's when I will do my primary thinking in political theology. By the time I reached 7:30 PM tonight, however, I still had an important hour of Centaur Ignatian Examen blog roll-out ahead of me. Since I still have the energy, I am now taking a few min...

It's 7:00 PM EST on Saturday evening. We are almost at Quinquagesima, and I am fine-tuning my Lent 2026 political reading and writing program accordingly. I've unsubscribed from all of my Axios newsletters except "World Alerts," which I will see when I manage my email daily between 3:15 PM and 5:30 PM. That's just about the only obvious world news that should cross my desk during this retreat. But since I know this degree of filtering will be very hard to maintain, especially given the quite pressing state of UN Security Council affairs on multiple fronts, I am giving myself a safety valve. Every evening from 7:00 - 8:00 PM, I will do some deep reading and thinking about politics, after my evening meditation from 6:30 to 7:00 pm. If I find something coming up in my evening meditation that feels like an essential geopolitical responsibility I need to attend to, I will allow myself to skip the deep reading, get back on the computer, and assess the current state of a...

Thank you, Adonai. Blessings, World. I am on retreat from current events and US-Israeli patriotism until Eastertide except when I sneak a peek at my news feeds for updates and pray for effective world political leadership from those entrusted by God and the people with noble terms of public service. Of course, if there is a situation that truly demands it, I will break my current events silence despite my Lenten commitment to restraint. On the other hand, I fully hope to publish some thoughts between now and Eastertide on the subject of world federation. In addition to my other Lenten reading, Hashem is calling me to contemplate Mortimer Adler's 1944 volume How to Think About War and Peace . I also have on hand St. Thomas and the World State  - the 1949 Aquinas Lecture by Robert Hutchins. Maybe I will agree with the formidable Adler-Aquinas-Hutchins trio, maybe I won't. The deeper I dig into this, the more likely I am to encounter the best arguments against world federation - i...