Welcome back to our weekly behind-the-scenes glimpse at what’s getting our team talking. Let us know what you think at info@reasonstobecheerful.world. Building better The New York City area is known for being a wildly expensive place to live. But there are pockets of affordability — one of which is the commuter town of New Rochelle, as the Wall Street Journal reports in a story shared by RTBC Executive Editor Will Doig. Thanks to “developer-friendly politics” that streamline the process, more than 4,500 new housing units have been built there over the last decade, and thousands more are on the way. Will says:   New Rochelle is all in on YIMBYism, and it’s one of the few places in the New York City area where rents are going down. Flower power Kyle Lybarger, a social media influencer in Alabama, raised over $100,000 selling t-shirts that featured the leafy prairie clover, a little-known endangered plant. According to a New York Times story shared by Contributing Editor Geetanjali Krishna, he used the money to purchase 24 acres of the land where the plant grows in the wild. But his biggest impact is on social media, where he’s inspiring his followers (nearly half a million on TikTok!) to grow native plants that support pollinators and other insects. Geetanjali says:   Who would have ever thought that a nerdy program on native plants that many dismiss as “weeds” could go so viral? I especially love how he talks about the power of the individual, and of small steps, at a time when so many of us are simply paralyzed by the scale of the environmental crisis: “One person, one yard, one-tenth of an acre can make a bigger difference than you think,” he says. What else we’re reading Audio of Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson arguments from Marriage Story used to scare off wolves in the US — shared by Editorial Director Rebecca Worby from the Guardian After a Six-Year Struggle, Tenants in Boston’s Mattapan Neighborhood Win Permanent Affordability — shared by Will Doig from Shelterforce Kulture City maps safe spaces for neurodivergent New Yorkers — shared by Rebecca Worby from WNYC In other news… Next week, RTBC is taking our annual summer publishing break. But keep an eye on our social media (find us on Facebook, Bluesky and Instagram), where we’ll be unearthing plenty of fun stuff from our archives all week. The post What We’re Reading: How a New York Suburb Is Bringing Down Rents appeared first on Reasons to be Cheerful.

Last month, a horrible abuse story broke in my state, Alabama. It involved children, a bunker, and sex trafficking. I can’t tell you any more than that because I couldn’t bring myself to click on the reports. I fear that if I look head-on at such suffering inflicted on helpless children, the weight of that evil would crush me. The contemplation of great evil can wreck a person’s faith. Last week, Kemi Badenoch, the leader of the Conservative Party in Britain, gave a wide-ranging interview in which she talked about losing her Christian faith after reading the horrific story of Josef Fritzl, an Austrian man who imprisoned his daughter as a sex slave for 24 years. Badenoch said, I couldn’t stop reading this story. And I read her account, how she prayed every day to be rescued. And I thought, I was praying for all sorts of stupid things and I was getting my prayers answered. I was praying to have good grades, my hair should grow longer, and I would pray for the bus to come on time so I wouldn’t miss something. It’s like, why were those prayers answered, and not this woman’s prayers? And it was like someone blew out a candle. Revealing Question Badenoch is asking a version of the question “How could a good God allow suffering?” Somehow, this question comes into focus most sharply when children are involved. Children are weak and defenseless. Jesus loved children and welcomed them. How could a compassionate God fail to protect them and deliver them from evil? The question ‘How could a good God allow suffering?’ comes into focus most sharply when children are involved. The Scriptures ask versions of this question again and again: “O LORD, how long shall the wicked, how long shall the wicked exult?” (Ps. 94:3). The Bible anticipates the discordance we feel between an all-powerful God and unjust suffering. But the fact that we ask this question at all is evidence of what theologians call common grace. Although sin and death pervasively taint everything in our world, this world isn’t as bad as it could be. It isn’t acceptable or legal for fathers to rape their daughters. It isn’t acceptable or legal for women to sell children to sex traffickers. Although sinful men and women have flawed consciences, we know that children should be—must be—protected from cruelty. C. S. Lewis writes of himself before his conversion, My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. Had we been the product merely of chance plus time, we might have felt an evolutionary instinct to protect our own offspring, but we wouldn’t feel a moral revulsion when others mistreat theirs. Human beings judge each other because we’re made in the image of a just God. Promised Justice Ironically, many people who reject the Christian faith because of the problem of evil also decry the belief that God would send anyone to hell. They cry out for justice, but only in moderation, please. When it comes to justice, God doesn’t go in for half measures. He never turns a blind eye to sin. We know this because he allowed his own Son to suffer and die rather than let our sin go unpunished. And God will not turn a blind eye to people who hurt children. One of Jesus’s most startling warning condemns those who harm the young: “Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me, but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea” (Matt. 18:5–6). When it comes to justice, God doesn’t go in for half measures. And God will not turn a blind eye to people who hurt children. God hasn’t told us all the reasons he allows unjust suffering, but he has promised he’ll ultimately judge the wicked. He’ll right the wrongs. Isaiah prophesies about the Savior to come, saying, “With righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth; and he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked” (Isa. 11:4). Why is this judgment necessary? Because only once the threat of the wicked is removed can little children be safe. Just a few verses later, we read, The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat. . . . The nursing child shall play over the hole of the cobra, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder’s den. They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea. (vv. 6, 8–9) Isaiah is describing a world without predators—human or animal. This is the kingdom that Jesus will bring when he returns in glory. Fulfillment of Hope Some might say the Christian hope for ultimate justice is wish fulfillment. We want there to be justice, so we believe there will be. In Lewis’s novel The Siver Chair, an evil witch rules an underground kingdom. She has cast a spell on its inhabitants to make them believe there’s no Narnia above. She tells them that the memories they have of a better world are their own vain imaginings. Puddleglum, a Narnian, breaks the spell when he challenges the witch: Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things—trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones. Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one. And that’s a funny thing, when you come to think of it. We’re just babies making up a game, if you’re right. But four babies playing a game can make a play world which licks your real world hollow. We can’t prove that our hope is grounded, but we can ask ourselves why we find evil so repulsive, if indeed evil is bound to be forever unhindered. We can ask why people who have only known a broken world long for a world that’s whole. We can’t prove that our hope is grounded, but we can ask ourselves why we find evil so repulsive. When evil men and women hold children captive in a bunker, they tell them there’s no such thing as freedom. They try to snuff out the candle of hope, because a person with no hope is compliant. But when those children are delivered after 4, or 12, or 24 years, they learn there’s sun and grass and love and justice, something they always hoped was true. When we hear a story of evil so heavy it threatens to crush us, we must close our ears to the whispered lie, “This is all there is.” We must become the voice of hope that rages against cruelty, cries out for justice, and looks for a promised deliverance.

The first time I got on an airplane,  I was in awe looking out the window at the clouds below me. Now I close the window so there’s no glare on my laptop screen. The wonder has faded. The same drift can happen in our faith. When a person has walked with God for a while, there can be a tendency to grow stale. New Christians are excited; every truth they discover is fresh. It’s like exploring a sprawling mansion, opening one door after another to discover new gifts in each room. But as time goes on, we can settle in and grow dry. We’ve heard the sermons, studied the books, joined the team, and learned the answers. What once moved us now feels mundane. The truth we know no longer stirs us. There’s a disconnect between our heads and our hearts. It doesn’t have to be this way. What first captured your heart about God was only the beginning. There’s always more about him to know, trust, and enjoy. God Is Infinite That’s why the Bible gives us prayers that ask God to open our eyes (Ps. 119:18; Eph. 1:18). The problem isn’t that we’ve never seen truth about God before; it’s that there’s always more to behold. Whether you’ve only been a Christian for a minute or the sand in your hourglass is running thin, you’ve never exhausted what can be known, trusted, and enjoyed of our endless God. What first captured your heart about God was only the beginning. There’s always more about him to know, trust, and enjoy. God is infinite, and each of his attributes is infinite in nature. He’s not just loving but abounding in faithful love (Ex. 34:6). Not only gracious but rich in grace (Eph. 1:7). His power? Immeasurably great (v. 19). His wisdom? Unsearchable (Isa. 40:28). He’s not just holy, but as we joyfully sing, he’s holy, holy, holy (6:3). God isn’t a generous pour that fills the cup to the brim; he’s an endless waterfall, overflowing and never dry. There’s more than enough of him for us to enjoy for eternity. More than enough for the struggles you face. More than enough to bring peace to your stress, joy to your apathy, and grace to your guilt. More than enough for the new seasons of life you haven’t figured out yet, for the changes you couldn’t foresee. He says to you: Come and see. I want to show you who I am. Always More to Know and Enjoy Take a simple truth every Christian child knows: “Jesus loves me.” It’s easy to say you know this and move on. But even that single sentence holds infinite possibility. This is why Paul can pray that the believers “may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge” (Eph. 3:18–19). You may think, I already know Jesus loves me. But Paul says that whatever we know of Christ’s love, we’ve only scratched the surface. We may know it, but we know it like a 5-year-old knows math. We can count to 10 but have no idea what calculus means. We may have measured out the dimensions of Jesus’s love with a schoolboy’s ruler, but his love expands beyond the reaches of the farthest galaxies. It surpasses knowledge. What if you think you’ve trekked to the mountain’s peak, but you’ve just begun? What if you know of God’s love, power, grace, comfort, and wisdom could come alive to you in new ways? You’ve received, but there’s always more. You can be “filled with the fullness of God” (3:19). How to Know God More Deeply If there’s more to know of God, how do we move further up and in? How do we move beyond faith that’s grown stale? 1. Pray. Paul doesn’t just teach these truths. He prays for them. So don’t settle for where you are. If you want to see, you must ask God to open your eyes. Sometimes I’m up early, before the sun comes out. I can see my backyard—the grass, trees, and garden. But when the sun rises, I see it all in a new way. It’s been illuminated by the light, and I see depth, dimension, and color I couldn’t before. Earnestly ask God to do the same as you read and study his Word. We can’t see without his help. 2. Meditate on God’s Word. Psalm 1 tells us that the blessed man “meditates day and night” on God’s law. To meditate is to slowly think about something. Like cooking barbecue, you’ll get more flavor in your spiritual life by going “low and slow” than you will by trying to rush and microwave your faith. Consider reading smaller portions of the Bible. Chew each word like you would a piece of brisket. Savor, think about, and pray through each reality God shows you. 3. Read the Bible with the church. In Ephesians, Paul prays that the believers would “have strength to comprehend [God’s love] with all the saints.” We do this together with the church. C. S. Lewis said one of the benefits of Christian friendship is that we see more of God together. He wrote, “Every soul, seeing Him in her own way, doubtless communicates that unique vision to all the rest.” I enjoy asking questions like these of friends from church: What Scripture passage has God used in your life recently? What’s one thing God has shown you about himself? Asking such questions and hearing friends answer feeds our souls with fresh insight and appreciation. As Lewis says, “The more we thus share the Heavenly Bread between us, the more we shall all have.” 4. Read solid theology books. Paul doesn’t just hope the church will mysteriously come to know God’s love more deeply. He prays they’ll have “strength to comprehend.” He wants them to push further into the depths of God’s love by engaging their minds. Paul wants the Ephesians to take action, to study, and to stretch the limits of their comprehension. God isn’t a generous pour that fills the cup to the brim; he’s an endless waterfall, overflowing and never dry. There’s more than enough of him for us to enjoy for eternity. One way to do this is by reading theological books that will help you deepen your understanding of God. Pick up J. I. Packer’s Knowing God or a book from Crossway’s Short Studies in Systematic Theology series. Last year, I read John Piper’s tome Providence. It took what I already knew about the doctrine and added layer upon layer of context and color. A year later, I’m still drawing on its strength. Think of a married couple that begins as star-crossed lovers but loses passion over time until the two are simply roommates or childcare partners. In a similar way, our faith can lose the passion it once had. But we don’t have to stay in that dry place. God invites you to come, see, and be filled with passion again. He wants you to know and enjoy all he’s done and all he is. He wants you to know that he’s more. Infinitely more.

In this lecture, Don Carson teaches that Jesus Christ must remain the central focus in interpretations of the book of Revelation. Carson critiques various scholarly approaches that often marginalize Christ and urges that all aspects of Revelation are inseparable from Jesus’s death and resurrection. Carson underscores that Revelation presents a grand vision of Christ’s mediatorial kingship and priesthood, culminating in the new heaven and new earth. He teaches the following: Revelation should be read with Jesus at its center, as both the agent and substance of God’s revelation. Revelation highlights Jesus’s fulfillment of Old Testament themes. Revelation 1:12–16 draws from Daniel’s vision of the “Ancient of Days.” Descriptions of Jesus’s authority in Revelation are rooted in the initial vision of his glory. Jesus’s death and resurrection empower him to open the seals, unfolding God’s purposes. Jesus’s authority brings both judgment and salvation—signified by trumpet judgments and the final judgment. In the new creation, God will have eternal presence with his people.

Who knew that simply enforcing the law could deter crime? Apparently, everyone but Democrats.Democrats are furious over President Trump’s decision to federalize law enforcement in Washington, D.C., and deploy the National Guard to restore order. Too bad. From California shoplifting to illegal immigration to crime nationwide, sometimes the obvious answer is the right one: Enforcement works.Democrats didn’t oppose enforcement out of ignorance. They opposed it because they knew it would work.In 2014, Democrats convinced Californians that their problems were the result of a broken justice system — one that incarcerated too many people and created “unconstitutional prison overcrowding.”They sold Proposition 47 as the fix. The measure downgraded “certain low-level offenses, such as drug possession and thefts of property under $950, from potential felonies to misdemeanors.”Californians bought it, passing Proposition 47 with 60% support. They paid for it dearly over the next decade.Those “low-level offenses” became high-level problems. Shoplifting surged. Fewer drug prosecutions meant less mandatory recovery treatment, leaving addicts on the street, fueling homelessness.By 2024, Californians had finally had enough. Proposition 36 was written to undo Proposition 47. Despite Democrat opposition, Proposition 36 passed with 71% support — and overwhelmingly in all 58 counties.Democrat Gov. Gavin Newsom first refused to include enforcement in his budget. It was only partially — and grudgingly — funded by Democrats who had opposed the measure.Early returns: Enforcement worksEven without full funding, Prop. 36 has worked wonders.Yolo County District Attorney Jeff Reisig said in a recent interview:We’re seeing a change, and we’re hearing about a change. First, law enforcement across California has been excited about having these new tools to go after the repeat thieves. And we’re hearing directly from the law enforcement officers that they feel emboldened again, empowered. They’re responding to calls that maybe they wouldn’t used to respond to, because now there’s the real potential for accountability. We’re also hearing from the retailers themselves, the big-box stores, the mom-and-pop shops. They’re seeing a difference. They’re seeing a difference in day-to-day theft that used to be out of control prior to Prop 36. Because, you remember, prior to Prop. 36, somebody could come in and steal every day, ten times a day, every day of the week, and, as long as it was under $950, it was a ticket.Since implementation, Prop. 36 has led to more than 3,000 felony arrests. Eighty percent of those had prior felony convictions, and 25% had convictions for violent felonies.Same story at the borderRemarkably, the enforcement that worked in California for shoplifting has worked with illegal immigration too.Customs and Border Protection reported July’s nationwide encounters were the lowest ever: 24,630 — 90% below the monthly average under the Biden administration. Border Patrol apprehensions hit an all-time low of 6,177. The month averaged just 148 apprehensions per day, setting single-day record lows of 88 on the southwest border and 116 nationwide.Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s April 29 report for Trump’s first 100 days showed 66,463 illegal aliens arrested and 65,682 removed — including 2,288 gang members, 1,329 accused or convicted sex offenders, and 498 accused or convicted murderers.Nationwide crime statistics for the first half of 2025 showed similar results. Eleven of 13 major offenses dropped, with only domestic violence up and drug offenses unchanged.RELATED: Leftist violence surges — and media still blames the right Photo by BENJAMIN HANSON/Getty ImagesHomicides fell 17%, while aggravated assaults declined 10%, gun assaults dropped 21%, sexual assaults were down 10%, robbery was down 20%, and carjackings slid 24%. Residential burglaries dropped 19%, larcenies fell 12%, and shoplifting declined 12%.For those on the left who say that nationwide crime was not Biden’s fault, the American people disagreed. According to RealClearPolitics’ average of national polling, Biden’s last approval rating on crime was 38% — below his 39% overall approval rating.Democrats can’t play dumbDemocrats have repeatedly blamed amorphous “systems” for crime. For Prop. 47, it was “too much incarceration.” For the Biden administration’s border crisis, it was America’s “broken immigration system.” Biden even claimed he needed “new emergency authority to shut down the border when it becomes overwhelmed” — something he could have done from day one.On the national level, they downplayed rising crime — even as Americans saw it firsthand and the FBI later revised its statistics upward.Enforcement works. Everyone knows it, including Democrats — and especially the most liberal among them. That’s why they pushed for less of it: Prop. 47, open borders, “defund the police,” and “abolish ICE.” They only began to walk back those positions when the public rejected their manifest failures.Democrats didn’t oppose enforcement out of ignorance. They opposed it because they knew it would work.

A mosaic depicting a pair of flip-flops was discovered at Villa Romana del Casale in Piazza Armerina in Sicily, adding their modest charm to the iconic Roman mosaics found there previously, including the famous “Bikini Girls” mosaic featuring sportswomen working out wearing bandeau tops and bikini briefs and the action-packed Great Hunt depicting the capture and shipping of exotic animals. The sandal mosaics were found in the Southern Baths of the villa. The panel is adjacent to a multi-colored pattern of squares and a mosaic inscription of white text against a red background. Mosaic bands decorating the top of a bathing pool were also found. In non-mosaic discoveries, three large columns with their capitals were found. While the sandals and inscription may seem simple compared to the complex masterpieces found elsewhere in the villa, in fact they were parts of a much more elaborate whole and made by a 4th century artist with a high level of skill. Some of the news articles about this find imply the sandals were an unexpected surprise, that sandals that look so much like modern flip-flops have not been seen before in Roman artwork from this period, that the discovery transforms our understanding of fashion footwear in Roman Sicily. None of that is true. Sandals were a common motif in bath mosaics, because Romans loved a theme show and people wore thong sandals in the baths just like they wear them in the locker room showers today. The public bathhouse in Timgad, Algeria, had two pairs of sandals under the inscription “Bene lava” (meaning “wash well”). Pairs of sandals are often found in mosaics together with strigils and hanging oil vessels, all part of the Roman workout experience as athletes would oil their dirty bodies and scrape off the sludge with strigils before bathing. A mosaic in the Sabratha Museum in Libya features a pair of sandals, two strigils and oil vessel under the inscription “Salvom Lavisse” (“It is healthy to have bathed”). The new mosaic finds at the Villa Romana del Casale were made in the fourth annual international Summer School of ARCHLabs (Archaeological Heritage in Late Antique and Byzantine Sicily, a field school in archeology that draws in more than 40 students and archaeologists from 11 countries participate in hands-on learning about excavation methods, digital documentation and the examination and study of the finds. The mosaics will now be cleaned and consolidated to make them ready for permanent exhibition. Meanwhile, ARCHLabs researchers will be analyzing the recovered materials and add their scan data to a comprehensive 3D model of the villa.

A truck is seen in front of a stack of shipping containers at Fremantle Ports in Perth, Western Australia, on March 16, 2024. Susan Mortimer/The Epoch TimesAn Australian trucking business that has been…

Jeffrey Epstein’s elite pedophile network — a dark web of presidents, prime ministers, billionaires, and royals entangled in abuse, blackmail, and national security risks — ranks among the most…

A man is detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Los Angeles on Oct. 14, 2015. John Moore/Getty ImagesA bill making its way through the California state Legislature would make it easier…