Today is Memorial Day here in the US. It is the day/weekend on which we remember the sacrifices made by our armed forces and we honor those who died for our freedoms.
It is not a day or a weekend for cutesy Instagrammable recipes to sell products and exploit a lifestyle one rejected, very emphatically, very publicly.
Last night was the National Memorial Day Concert, held on the steps of the U.S. Capitol broadcast on PBS (a noncommercial nonprofit public broadcaster). It's our version of the Festival of Remembrance - an evening of music, storytelling, honoring those who served, and remembering those who made the ultimate sacrifice. It is nonpolitical (no campaigning, no hats, no politicians who speak).
If you're interested, give it a watch.
Do note, the concert includes footage of the September 11th attacks. If you've never seen it before, it can be disturbing so consider this an advisory.
âThe only sin Jesus ever had was ours. The only righteousness we can ever have is His.â âA. W. Tozer
âThis is the heart of the Gospel ânot self-improvement, not moral polish, not religious performance. Substitution. Jesus did not come to help us save ourselves. He came because we could not.
He took what was ours âour sin, our guilt, our shame, our judgment âand in exchange, He gives us what is His âHis righteousness, His obedience, His standing before the Father. This is not a metaphor. This is not poetic language.
Scripture says it plainly:
âGod made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.â (2 Corinthians 5:21)
This truth crushes pride and heals despair. It crushes pride because we cannot boast âour righteousness is borrowed.
It heals despair because we no longer carry the impossible burden of trying to earn what has already been given.
Legacy builders do not stand before God saying, âLook what Iâve done.â They stand saying, âLook what Christ has done.â
If our righteousness depended on us, we would lose it daily. But because it rests in Christ, it is secure, unchanging, and eternal.
This is why the cross is not the example of Christianity âit is the exchange at the center of it.
And this is why grace does not produce passivity âit produces gratitude, obedience, and worship.
We do not obey to become righteous. We obey because we already are âin Him.â
Text from: âChristian Spiritual Warfare from a Biblical Perspectiveâ (FB)
âThere is a small detail in the empty tomb most people miss that I love going back to over and over.
In John 20, the scene unfolds quietly.
No grand announcement. No dramatic spectacle.
Just an open tomb, early in the morning, and a few careful observations.
John records what he saw.
The linen cloths were lying there.
And then, almost in passing, he adds something easy to overlook,
The face cloth, once wrapped around Jesusâ head, was folded and placed separately.
Itâs the kind of detail we might read past.
Small. Unnecessary, it seems.
And yet, John chose to include it.
Why?
Jewish burial practices treated death with finality.
Bodies were wrapped tightly in linen, layered with spices, sealed in a tomb.
It was not something undone.
And if this had been a grave robbery, the scene would not look like this.
No thief takes time to unwrap a body.
No one carefully folds cloth in the middle of stealing.
There is no sign of disorder here.
No panic. No haste. No disruption.
Only quiet arrangement.
The cloths are there.
The face covering is set apart.
Everything is⌠composed.
This is not what we expect from an empty grave.
But it is exactly what we should expect from Jesus as John has shown Him.
Throughout the Gospel,
He is never overtaken.
He is never forced.
He lays down His life willingly.
And He has authority to take it up again.
Even here, especially here, that authority remains.
The resurrection is not an escape from death.
It is not a rushed departure.
It is deliberate.
The folded cloth does not shout.
It does not demand attention.
But it quietly speaks,
This was finished.
Not abandoned.
Not interrupted.
Finished.
What began at the cross with âIt is finishedâ did not end in chaos.
It carried through the tomb, with the same calm, the same control, the same intention.
The empty tomb is not the aftermath of confusion.
It is the evidence of completion.
And in that stillness, in that order, we see it clearly,
This was not chaos followed by correction.
It was completion followed by calm authority.â
This is a wonderful point, made by âUndaunted Discipleâ (FB). Everything Jesus said was carefully planned between Jesus and His Father. Every word, every action was deliberate, a collaboration between the Son and the Father. Prayed over, discussed, agreed together.
I also noticed the small detail of the face cloth neatly placed separately. I can picture Jesus rising from the rock on which He had lain. Triumphant, everything completed, moving onto the next part of the plan, because all of it was meticulously planned. A rescue mission for Humanity, carried out with precision.
Friends, I could go on, but read this post for yourself, and see what The Holy Spirit reveals to you, as you read it. Have a wonderful, blessed weekend, in Christ, the one who conquered sin and rose triumphantly from the grave. Amen and Hallelujah! đđď¸đ
They've lost the plot. She's spiralling badly': How Meghan and HarryâŚâ
The first Monday in May is the most dazzling night in the fashion calendar, when the most wealthy, famous and influential people gather for the Met Gala in New York.
The event on Monday will be chaired by Vogue boss Anna Wintour â who has been in charge of it for more than 30 years â alongside tennis player Venus Williams, actress Nicole Kidman and singer Beyonce.
Billionaire Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and his wife Lauren Sanchez Bezos are the sponsors.
Not attending? The Duke and Duchess of Sussexâ yet again.
Even though Meghan has plenty of fashion ambitions and pretensions â and, as we shall see, fashion is one of the revenue streams which she is hoping will help fund their lifestyle â the pair have once more failed to secure an invitation.
The Montecito duo were also, unsurprisingly, absent from all events during King Charlesâs state visit to the US this week.
As if to further underline their persona-non-grata status, even Prince Harryâs boyhood friend Guy Pelly was at a White House garden party with his wife this week â yes, the same teenage tearaway who was by Harryâs side when he notoriously dressed up as a Nazi.
President Trump only reinforced the Sussexesâ unpopularity when he remarked to my colleague Robert Hardman that Harry had done âtoo many thingsâ to come back to the fold of his family, adding: âThat wife of his. Boy, what sheâs done to that guy.â
And yet â and it feels as inevitable as a tolling bell â the Sussexes still found a way to insert themselves into the media discourse this week.
A cover story in People magazine, long their favoured media outlet, came out on Wednesday, reflecting on their quasi-royal tour of Australia where they met sick children at a hospital and survivors of the Bondi Beach terror attack while also racking up nakedly commercial speaking engagements. According to the magazine, the trip is being hailed as the blueprint for the coupleâs new working model.
The article was seen by many as a full-throated defence of their right to defy the Sandringham Summit by being half in and half out of the monarchy.
Anna Wintour is said to have turned against Meghan in 2019 when she collaborated with then British Vogue editor Edward Enninful on a âForces for Changeâ issue of the magazine
A source suggests Meghan has failed to make potentially useful friends in Lauren Sanchez and Jeff Bezos, a source says. âShe snubbed Lauren before the [Bezos] wedding,â they added
âMaking their own rules,â ran the admiring headline. But to what end?
For itâs all too apparent that the Sussexes no longer have the help of the powerful and influential protectors who could unlock a life of commercial plenty.
Speaking to sources in California, the story told is one of wall-to-wall fall-outs and alienation.
Put simply, it means in the circles that matter, Meghan and Harry no longer have any bridges left to burn.
One source says: âThey have truly lost the plot. I hear sheâs spiralling badly because she knows nothing is working. The whole thing about her [As Ever] stuff selling out isnât true any more. I donât think either of them are happy.â
The source tells me they believe the coupleâs problems are worse than many suspect because of Meghan and Harryâs unfortunate habit of falling out with the very people who could help them make a go of things financially.
One of the prime figures in this list is Anna Wintour, who attended a charity gala with Charles and Camilla in New York on Wednesday.
The source says Dame Anna turned against Meghan in 2019 when she collaborated with then British Vogue editor Edward Enninful on a âForces for Changeâ issue of the magazine.
There existed a long-time rivalry between Dame Anna at US Vogue, and Enninful at British Vogue, and Meghan picked her side â unwisely, as it turns out. Enninful is no longer the editor of British Vogue. Wintour has stepped aside from day-to-day editing US Vogue but remains Global Editorial Director and Chief Content Officer at Conde Nast, and seems more powerful than ever.
âMeghan pledged her allegiance to Enninful which p***ed off Anna,â says the source, adding: âAnna hates her. Meghan doesnât want to pay, and never returns things.
âAlso, Anna loves the Royal Family. She is a Dame. Anna would have hated how they [the Sussexes] handled their exit from The Firm.â
Worryingly for Meghan, the famously icy Wintour apparently never forgives or forgets. So even though Meghanâs friendship with Enninful is also at an end â for reasons which are still unclear â there seems no way for Meghan to return to Annaâs good graces.
Meghanâs attempts to insert herself into the high fashion narrative by attending fashion shows has notably not resulted in any commercial endorsements, writes Alison Boshoff
This is most unfortunate as thereâs nobody more influential in fashion than Wintour.
Meghanâs attempts to insert herself into the high fashion narrative, by attending the Balenciaga show in Paris last year for instance, has notably not resulted in any commercial endorsements. Cringingly, Balenciaga designer Pierpaolo Piccioli let slip afterwards the embarrassing truth when he said the Duchess rang up and asked if she could come to his show.
For a self-confessed fashionista like Meghan, becoming an ambassador for Chanel, Dior or another major fashion house would be a dream come true â and a wonderful stream of revenue.
But Wintour is the kingmaker in this realm and without her patronage it remains out of reach.
The best Meghan could do was a cover of the less prestigious Harperâs Bazaar magazine in November 2025, which turned out to be a curiously fumbled chance â she barely plugged her As Ever jams and instead spoke about pursuing a career which felt âauthenticâ to her and her pursuit of âfunâ over perfection.
It could, of course, have been very different for Meghan, because even Anna Wintour is not above flattery.
Consider how she has been carefully cultivated by Lauren Sanchez Bezos.
Married to one of the worldâs richest men, Sanchez Bezos was happy to bend the knee to Anna, and accepted Wintourâs suggestion that she should be dressed for the Met Gala last year by Oscar de la Renta.
A source suggests Meghan has failed to make a potentially useful friend here, too.
âShe snubbed Lauren before the [Bezos] wedding. Meghan was invited to things by Lauren and didnât want to go. She didnât want to be seen with her because she thought she was trashy.â
Other powerful figures offended by Meghan are the Kardashians, who are also close to Lauren. The familyâs matriarch Kris Jenner had her 70th birthday party at the Bezos house in LA in November last year. The party happened to fall on the eve of Remembrance Sunday, and was attended by Meghan and Harry, as the Royal Family gathered at the Albert Hall for the annual Festival of Remembrance.
During the Remembrance Sunday events, as the Royal Family gathered at the Albert Hall for the annual Festival of Remembrance, Harry and Meghan were on their 'non-royal' tour of Australia
As if to underline Harry and Meghan's persona-non-grata status, even Harryâs boyhood friend Guy Pelly was at a White House garden party with his wife this week, writes Alison Boshoff
Surprise was expressed by some that the Sussexes would party on such a solemn landmark. A row then blew up over pictures of them posted on social media by Jenner but later removed, apparently after a request by the Sussexes. The Sussexes denied they had asked for them to come down; Jennerâs daughter Kim Kardashian said the opposite was true.
As a result, says a source, the Kardashians have also had enough of Harry and Meghan: âThe Kardashians are over them.â
If you are trying to make a lifestyle business fly on social media, it would be useful to be friends with the most followed people on the planet. But Kris Jenner hasnât liked a single post on Meghanâs Instagram pages since last year.
And so, without the mutually beneficial relationships celebrities rely on, the Sussexes have been left to find other ways to maintain their profile, as they did this week.
On Thursday, as the US royal love-in continued for Charles and Camilla, an anodyne interview with Meghan (about her taste in clothes and âloveâ for Australia and the Australians) was published in Australian Womenâs Weekly.
She also reshared a message on her Instagram account captioned âTaurus, Leo, Scorpio & Aquarius ending the hardest seven years of their lives on April 25thâ.
The post has been interpreted by many as a dig at the Royal Family, as seven years ago, in 2019, Meghan was settling into life as a working royal alongside Prince Harry. Megxit came the following year. Six years on, the couple are no closer to finding the long-term answer to their economic survival.
Meghanâs new big idea is making money by funnelling buyers towards the designers of her tour clothes via the website OneOff. For every sale, it nets her a slice of ten per cent of the value of the clothes she has worn.
Some believe the couple are now planning a similar tour in Africa.
More of this is likely in July, when Harry is due to attend a launch event for the 2027 Invictus Games in Birmingham.
Meghan with Netflix boss Ted Sarandos' wife Nicole Avant at at TV series launch last month... pictures of the event were removed a day after being published, even though Netflix had okayed them all. The theory is Meghan didnât like the way she appeared to be âclingingâ to Nicole, a source says
Just last week, Meghan was flogging her US Motherâs Day offerings on her âAs Everâ social channels, which include a small box of chocolate caramels, ferociously priced at $58 for ten tiny squares
It all feels murky because the coupleâs activities are still being carried out with an implicit and explicit âRoyalâ imprimatur.
In Ukraine on April 24, Harry was asked if he recognised the phrase ânot a working royalâ and he replied: âNo. I will always be part of the Royal Family and I am here working, doing the very thing I was born to do and I enjoy doing it.â
A âsource close to Harryâ tells People magazine this is perfectly fine. âThis idea heâs going against the wishes of the [late] Queen by being half in, half out is nonsense. None of this is being done in the name of the institution.â
He is then royal, and working, so a working royal⌠but at the same time he is not representing the Royal Family in that work, so nobody is allowed to object.
There is a sense he is tap dancing along a narrow semantic beam, living a âlife of serviceâ and making a buck at the same time.
Just last week, Meghan was flogging her US Motherâs Day offerings on her âAs Everâ social channels, which include a small box of chocolate caramels, ferociously priced at $58 for ten tiny squares. Her Motherâs Day candles cost a similarly premium $64.
Her plugging clearly flew a little too close to the line of monetising their royal status, as a reference to âPrince Archie of Sussexâ and âPrincess Lilibet of Sussexâ disappeared from promotional materials relating her Motherâs Day candles within a few hours.
People magazine was told, more than a year after its launch, that the As Ever business âis still in test-and-learn mode. [Meghan] wakes up thinking about new ideas and works on it all the timeâ.
For all the talk of âtest modeâ, though, the path appears to be set â âworking royalâ engagements plus commercial ventures which will lean on their status.
One associate says: âThey donât have a choice at this point. They really need the money.â
The coupleâs expenses are huge: that Montecito mansion, taxes and upkeep, security and travel, with some estimates reckoning they need to clear $5âmillion a year just to keep going.
Meghan is thought to have turned down deals to be the face of a capsule range at middle-middle fashion brands (Iâm told American label J. Crew was interested). One wonders whether she can keep up this resistance to âlesserâ brands with bills to pay. Itâs hard to see her current collaboration with OneOff amounting to much.
Of course, the most spectacular professional immolation for the Sussexes has come in the sphere of TV and film production, where Netflix has gone from being âall inâ six years ago, to âdoneâ now.
The deep-pocketed streamer walked away from a deal to back Meghanâs As Ever business earlier this year. Boss Ted Sarandos was even said to have joked that he didnât want to talk to Meghan without a lawyer present.
To be fair to Sarandos, he tried to help Meghan and Harry save face when he invited them to an event to launch the second season of the prestige drama Beef in April.
Yet again, though, it all went wrong. Pictures of the couple were removed by Getty Images 24 hours after being published, even though Netflix had okayed them all.
The theory is Meghan didnât like the way she appeared to be âclingingâ to Sarandosâs wife, Nicole Avant. My source is blunt about what is going on: âNicole [Avant] hates her. So does Bela [Bajaria, a key Netflix executive] and Ted.â
As to why, itâs said Netflix came to understand the Sussex team were âbriefing against one of their executivesâ, although itâs not clear if that was on anyoneâs orders.
A source says: âUnless someone is of use to them with money or unwavering attention then [the Sussexes] always fall out with them. They are worse at dealing with people than they are with business. And thatâs saying a lot.â
Me projecting and thinking I know. And this is just a me thing...
Her... Wanting in this moment to take the pins out, knowing that for the shallowest of reasons, and for PR and other responses that this was a mistake for the institution. I am guessing that she decided right on the spot to no longer grow her hair out. (Nooooooooo) đ
But the length of hair was never going to matter.
She was huge. She was always going to set trends. Her hair was the least of it. And we adored her, perceived future warts and all.
I do not love this pic, not going to lie. She deserved better, tried harder, and had so much shoved on her from several directions in her royal years.
I also would have loved to have seen if she wished and created longer hair styles as times changed and evolved, but also her changes as a woman maturing. She had seemed to be fully embracing herself and body image towards the end. Healthy and strong. This is just my opinion based on the physical. After all these years I still have not been able to cope fully with the rest of it. I am speaking of her internally. I mean this. I remember her with so much love.
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