iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Sarah McC Stephens @anarchonurzox.com · 09/10/2026

When it happened to my aunt around the same age she just decided that she was going to be a strawberry blond now (and stayed that way for the next 30 years). That's dedication!

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Sarah McC Stephens @anarchonurzox.com · 09/10/2026

I started slowly turning at 27 (early graying runs in my family) and haven't really done anything about it nor do I plan to. When it first started I considered dying it all the crazy colors I wanted but wasn't allowed in middle school (🤪) but at this point I'm just enjoying the natural process.

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Sarah McC Stephens @anarchonurzox.com · 06/10/2026

*stares at 47 open terminal tabs and backs away slowly*

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Sarah McC Stephens @anarchonurzox.com · 29/09/2026

I've started putting cardamom and cinnamon in my smoothies and boy does that feel fancy! ✨

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Sarah McC Stephens @anarchonurzox.com · 28/09/2026

tassomai means "knowledge organizer" in Ancient Greek? Well that's a new one for us all 😂

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Sarah McC Stephens @anarchonurzox.com · 22/09/2026

"I'm going to have nightmares about giant crabs in the trees tonight" -- one of my players, shortly after the party was ambushed by giant flesh-seeking tree crabs really what more can a DM ask for?

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Reposted by Sarah McC Stephens

Charles Loder @charlesloder.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

A new project I'm excited to announce! 🎉 Leningrad Codex TEI leningradcodex.page A digital version of L, encoding the columnar layout of the biblical text using TEI. But I need contributors! (see below) Though the text of the mss has received much attention…

leningradcodex.page

Leningrad Codex TEI — the oldest complete Hebrew Bible, folio by folio

Read the Leningrad Codex online: an open, TEI-encoded edition of the oldest complete manuscript of the Hebrew Bible, browsable folio by folio with facsimile images.

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Sarah McC Stephens @anarchonurzox.com · 19/09/2026

yeah as someone who never recommended the Sequences, how do I even answer lol

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Sarah McC Stephens @anarchonurzox.com · 17/09/2026

hmm my sister has opinions about the sea peoples and bronze age collapse, this is rather new let no one say the Odyssey movie has done nothing for classical reception

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Sarah McC Stephens @anarchonurzox.com · 12/09/2026

well if the ai apocalypse eats my job I'm gonna start manufacturing sinks. why are these things so expensive?!

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Sarah McC Stephens @anarchonurzox.com · 10/09/2026

I ran into HEMA people at the park today. Maybe I'll finally get back to fencing. It's been a long time since covid ended all that....

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Sarah McC Stephens @anarchonurzox.com · 09/09/2026

Well, I suppose that does shed a bit of a different light on matters!

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Sarah McC Stephens @anarchonurzox.com · 09/09/2026

(not to denigrate Word & Sacrament of course, but it can feel like faith w/o works sometimes). But that minimalism seems to be our default, and I don't really know how you start growing any kind of alternative within that paradigm.

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Sarah McC Stephens @anarchonurzox.com · 09/09/2026

things poorly and other things don't get done at all! While on the other side the vast majority of people just come to church on Sunday, hear a sermon, and go home. The structure isn't good for anyone. I don't think the point of the church is to be a weekly-sermon dispensary

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Sarah McC Stephens @anarchonurzox.com · 09/09/2026

Or the same folks are up on stage doing music every week. What do we do with 1 Cor 14:26? And it turns out that same "one guy" (or a very small group) is also doing counseling and home/hospital visits and finance and organizing volunteers and wow, no wonder he's always burnt out and does some

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Sarah McC Stephens @anarchonurzox.com · 09/09/2026

3) This is some of my own ecclesiology speaking so it may be a bit screwy: By design or happenstance, a lot of our church involvement is inherently passive. If the sermon is the main "event" of the week and it's just one guy talking most of the time, what's the role of everybody else here?

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Sarah McC Stephens @anarchonurzox.com · 09/09/2026

2b) I think it's also possible to have diversity w/o division. Diff cultures, diff (non-essential) doctrines, etc. lead to diff practices and very diff looking congregations; I wish we had more diversity+charity *w/in* congregations too but recognize some contentious issues oft bring separation.

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Sarah McC Stephens @anarchonurzox.com · 09/09/2026

2) > Schisms everywhere. 2a) Is structure and a lot of organizational maturity actually going to fix this though? Unless you are Catholic / Orthodox and have some kind of enforcement mechanism -cough- state religion -cough- I don't think you avoid somebody going off doing their own thing.

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Sarah McC Stephens @anarchonurzox.com · 09/09/2026

of email, but I think it's important to keep in mind that pastors/elders are under-shepherds. (spin-off comment: a lot of pastors/elders are good at theology and bad at organizational management which is what most of our churches have them doing. So you get e.g. bad volunteer coordination.)

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Sarah McC Stephens @anarchonurzox.com · 09/09/2026

job, and the details might change over time based on the demands of the business, but you can still have lanes and a clear decision-making process, a CEO/Founder who makes ultimate decisions. In the church the buck stops with the Holy Spirit/Word. That makes things harder due to an apparent dislike

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Sarah McC Stephens @anarchonurzox.com · 09/09/2026

1) > everybody can do everything, we are small, capable, and nobody is in charge This is a terrible startup. Good startups, sustainable startups, have roles and leadership from the beginning. Someone is responsible for Finance, HR, etc. It's probably not their whole

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Sarah McC Stephens @anarchonurzox.com · 09/09/2026

I have more thoughts on this. Not so much disagreement as just riffing. :) I started writing a blog post in response but they're rather fragmented so alas shortform it is.

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Sarah McC Stephens @anarchonurzox.com · 04/09/2026

I always think I should make aliases for these things and then I don't.

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Sarah McC Stephens @anarchonurzox.com · 31/08/2026

I tend to think the Holy Spirit calls different people and groups to prioritize different things (even in the same congregation!), and having a lot of "it's this not that, let's all pull in the same direction" like a *business* SHOULD have can sometimes stifle that diversity of work and calling.

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Sarah McC Stephens @anarchonurzox.com · 31/08/2026

"who is our core customer and what is our product?" - making new disciples! - teaching the word to believers! - living together as a church body! - raising the next generation in the fear of the lord! - being a light / resource in our community! there are lots of possible answers people have -

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Sarah McC Stephens @anarchonurzox.com · 31/08/2026

Going back to the paradigm question - I think a lot of the churn / frustration (of congregations in general) can be because people don't have a very good (or unified) idea of what the church *is* and *is doing* in the world, so of course everyone ends up pulling in different directions.

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Sarah McC Stephens @anarchonurzox.com · 31/08/2026

We're still pretty new here (~2.5 years) so I keep learning interesting things about the history. But it's hard to see people try to jump in and do things and kinda get stomped on by all the layers of approval and review. (Although I think that culture is changing some. We'll see.)

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Sarah McC Stephens @anarchonurzox.com · 31/08/2026

Some of our congregation miss the good-old-days but don't seem interested in making change happen, some seem jaded because there was a church split after that popular pastor left. There's a lot of the attitude that "making things happen is someone else's job."

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Sarah McC Stephens @anarchonurzox.com · 31/08/2026

That makes sense. We're in a bit of the opposite situation where our congregation used to be much bigger, the super-popular head pastor moved away, and eight years later there are a lot of big heavy structures still in place (at least according to the bylaws).

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Sarah McC Stephens @anarchonurzox.com · 31/08/2026

Interesting. I'm not sure how I feel about thinking of the church as a business category. My kneejerk reaction is that it's the wrong picture, but I also see your point. I have a personality that thrives in the startup world. Going to think about how that might be influencing my ecclesiology. 🤔

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Reposted by Sarah McC Stephens

Rick Brannan @rickbrannan.com · 31/08/2026

Spent a little time sprucing up my "Sources of Early Christianity: Ask the Texts" thingie. It's basically RAG against the current @appianwaypress.com catalog. huggingface.co/spaces/RickB...

huggingface.co

Sources of Early Christianity: Ask the Texts - a Hugging Face Space by RickBrannan

RAG system with Early Christian & Second Temple corpus

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Sarah McC Stephens @anarchonurzox.com · 25/08/2026

the Jira board was made for man, not man for the Jira board

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Sarah McC Stephens @anarchonurzox.com · 22/08/2026

ah the plot of A Borrowed Man I see

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Sarah McC Stephens @anarchonurzox.com · 22/08/2026

the first millennial president is gonna fill the oval office with mid century modern and millennial coffee shop aesthetics. and succulents.

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Sarah McC Stephens @anarchonurzox.com · 20/08/2026

MEOWMEOWMEOWing at the cat and randomly poking her belly in the middle of her nap so she knows what it's like when SHE does it at 4am. (She tolerates these attentions with amused disdain and a yawn, i.e. better than I do hers.)

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Sarah McC Stephens @anarchonurzox.com · 16/08/2026

It would be an awesome miniseries. Actually, I think each book of the space trilogy could be its own miniseries. That's a good way to manage the different characters and aesthetics.

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Sarah McC Stephens @anarchonurzox.com · 14/08/2026

I really liked Project Hail Mary. It's nice to watch a movie that isn't afraid of asking big scary questions but also doesn't take itself super seriously while doing so.

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Sarah McC Stephens @anarchonurzox.com · 08/08/2026

Keep the nicer one for yourself, give one to the tiny barbarians? This way you won't be sad when they read it seventeen times and it falls to pieces!

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Sarah McC Stephens @anarchonurzox.com · 04/08/2026

I dated one for about four months and then dumped him for not being on my level. (the true story is sadder than this but this is not a false description and it's funnier)

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Reposted by Sarah McC Stephens

New-Cleckit Dominie @ncdominie.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

This is just to say I have OCRed the text thet was in tne arch:ve and whicb yov were prabaldy seamhing for "breahtast" Fargme ms fheg mem debo:w5 sb ?mccf mmb 5c oc1b

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Sarah McC Stephens @anarchonurzox.com · 26/07/2026

Also we mostly do extremely boring basic healthy meal prep at home, so often potlucks are a fun opportunity to try new recipes that aren't just meat+veggies. E.g. sometimes I'll make cookies or a cake or something where we shouldn't eat the WHOLE THING by ourselves, but I don't feel bad sharing.

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Sarah McC Stephens @anarchonurzox.com · 26/07/2026

something pasta-with-protein that doesn't steal the show but is hearty enough it can be a main if it needs to. I'll mix it up. e.g. cold chicken-tomato pasta salad in the summer, various pasta casseroles in the winter. ND but I come from GA & have basically always done this.

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Sarah McC Stephens @anarchonurzox.com · 25/07/2026

Οὐδεὶς ἐξαρκεῖ πλοῦτος ταῖς γυναικείαις ἐπιθυμίαις ὑπηρετούμενος, οὐδ’ ἂν ἐκ ποταμῶν ἐπιῤῥέῃ. - Basil of Caesarea, Homily on the Rich v. loose translation: "not even a river of wealth is enough to satisfy a woman" reading the patristics is so entertaining sometimes 🙃

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Sarah McC Stephens @anarchonurzox.com · 22/07/2026

I just think it's funny a professor of classics and translator of ancient greek is a controversial celebrity now. She's kinda that Indiana Jones archetype.

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Sarah McC Stephens @anarchonurzox.com · 16/07/2026

working remote has always created a bit of social distance with coworkers, but Slack is starting to feel more and more like I'm talking to a bunch of claudes with human profile pics :(

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