Alex Jackson

[Alex Jackson @al3xjackson]

@staticfront1 @trad_west_ Jesus already won. Get on board and live forever 💪

[Millie Marconi @MillieMarconnni]

A Japanese immunologist spent 20 years proving that the chemicals trees release into the air walk into your bloodstream, hunt down your stress hormones, and arm your immune system in ways no therapist or pharmaceutical has ever matched, and most of the data has been sitting in Japanese medical journals for two decades waiting to be translated.

His name is Qing Li.

He is a clinical professor at Nippon Medical School in Tokyo and the president of the Japanese Society of Forest Medicine. The Japanese government has been funding his research since 2004, and the body of work he has produced is the reason forest bathing is now an officially prescribed clinical therapy in Japan and Korea.

The story actually starts in 1982, when the Japanese Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries coined the term shinrin-yoku to describe the practice of slow, mindful walking in a forest. They did it for a practical reason.

Japan was urbanizing fast, stress-related illness was climbing, and the country had thousands of square kilometers of forest sitting unused. The idea was to give people a reason to walk into the trees... They had no idea what was actually happening to the human body during those walks until Qing Li ran the first proper experiment in 2005.

He took twelve healthy adult men on a three-day, two-night trip to a forest park. They walked for a few hours each day. Nothing strenuous. No prescribed routes or breathing exercises. They simply walked slowly through the trees, breathing the air, looking at the forest.

Li drew blood and urine samples before the trip, on the second day, on the third day, on day seven after returning home, and again on day thirty.

The numbers that came back from the lab were not what anyone expected.

The activity of a specific type of immune cell called the natural killer cell, which is the cell your body uses to hunt down cancer cells and virus-infected cells before they can spread, had jumped by roughly 50 percent during the forest trip. The actual number of natural killer cells circulating in the bloodstream had increased significantly.

Three different anti-cancer proteins that those cells produce, called perforin, granzymes, and granulysin, had all risen sharply. And the effect did not disappear when the men went home. The immune boost was still measurable on day seven and was still partially present on day thirty.

Two hours a day in a forest had upgraded the immune system for a full month.

Li ran the same experiment with women a year later and found nearly identical results. Then he ran it with a control group who took a three-day trip through an urban area with the same amount of walking, the same hotel quality, and the same diet.

The urban group showed no measurable change in natural killer cell activity at all. The forest was doing the work, not the vacation.

The mechanism turned out to be a class of airborne molecules called phytoncides. Trees produce these compounds to defend themselves against insects, bacteria, and fungi. Pine, cedar, oak, and cypress trees release them in particularly large amounts, especially in warmer weather and after rainfall.

When you walk through a forest, you are inhaling those molecules into your lungs and absorbing them through your skin, and once inside your body they appear to directly stimulate the production and activity of the very immune cells Li was measuring in his lab.

Roughly 50 percent of the health benefit of a forest walk, according to Li's data, comes from the chemistry of the air itself. The other half comes from what the forest is doing to your nervous system.

This is where it stops being only about the immune system and starts being about stress.

A separate Japanese research team measured cortisol, the body's main stress hormone, in 84 participants across 35 different forest sites. They drew samples before and after a 30-minute walk in each forest and compared them to control walks in matched urban environments. The cortisol levels of the people who walked in the forest were lower than the cortisol levels of the people who walked in the city by a significant margin. Their heart rates were lower. Their blood pressure was lower.

The activity of their parasympathetic nervous system, which is the part responsible for rest and recovery, had gone up. The activity of their sympathetic nervous system, which is the part that drives fight or flight, had gone down.

Then a researcher at the University of Michigan named MaryCarol Hunter ran the cleanest version of this experiment ever done. She recruited participants from a city and told them to take a nature pill three times a week for eight weeks.

They were free to choose the time, the place, and the duration of the nature experience, as long as it was outside, in daylight, and free of phones, conversations, and aerobic exercise. They sent her saliva samples before and after each session so she could measure cortisol changes accurately and rule out the normal daily drop in stress hormones that happens to everyone.

The result was that participants experienced a 21.3 percent drop in cortisol per hour spent in nature, with the biggest payoff happening between minutes 20 and 30 of the walk.

After that, the cortisol kept dropping, but more slowly. The threshold dose for measurable stress relief was just 20 minutes outside in something that looked and felt like nature.

What none of this means is that nature is a substitute for therapy or for medication when someone genuinely needs them. Therapy treats different things than a walk does, and Li himself has been careful in interviews to call forest bathing a complementary intervention rather than a replacement for clinical care.

But what the research has settled is that the human body has a physiological response to being among trees that operates on the same biological systems modern medicine is trying to reach with drugs and clinical protocols, and that response is fast, measurable, and free.

The strangest part of Li's work is the implication he keeps repeating in interviews. The average person now spends more than 90 percent of their life indoors. Their cortisol stays elevated. Their natural killer cells stay sluggish.

Their parasympathetic nervous system rarely gets a chance to take over. The system that was tuned by millions of years of life under a canopy of trees is being asked to run permanently inside a box made of drywall and screens.

Your body has not forgotten what it is supposed to do in a forest. It is waiting for you to walk into one.

[Alex Jackson @al3xjackson]

@StefanBurnsGeo Luke 21:25

[Alex Jackson @al3xjackson]

@iamrjknight Truth in the inward parts

[Alex Jackson @al3xjackson]

@russellcrowe Compelling portrayal of a slob journo in State of Play. Largely unheralded flick but one of yr best

[FTND @FightTheNewDrug]

Lamar Odom is one of the most prominent professional athletes to go public with his decision to stop watching porn. We applaud Lamar for being unapologetically real about this issue, and we are so grateful for his support in our efforts to educate individuals on the harms of pornography.

Catch our full interview with Lamar Odom here: https://t.co/TFrmsdweoh

[Denny Burk @DennyBurk]

I was just revisiting an old book by R. C. Sproul that I read when I was in college, and I came across this line in the first chapter (see attached images). Little did I know 31 years ago how controversial this line would prove to be, and still is.

It's one thing to proclaim that Jesus was crucified on a Roman cross and raised up three days later. It's another thing entirely to explain to people what those events mean for sinners, how sinners get connected to this grace, and that the Bible calls the whole thing "gospel."

Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Protestants, and every other Christian denomination affirm that Jesus was crucified and raised for sinners. But we begin to part ways dramatically when we explain what this means and how individual sinners can receive the grace of Christ.

I still believe now what this book helped me to understand 31 years ago. The Bible teaches that we can't make ourselves right with God (Eph. 2:8-9). We can't justify ourselves through good works (Gal. 2:16). We can't even meet God halfway with our good works because we don't have it in us to get off the dime (Rom. 3:12).

The good news is this:

"Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us-- for it is written, 'Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree '-- in order that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith" (Gal. 3:13-14).

If you are trying to earn God's favor by being a good person, you can give that up. You'll never make it that way. Jesus has already done all the work to secure your forgiveness from sins and eternal life. All you have to do is to repent and believe. Turn from your sin, and trust in Christ and you will be saved.

Salvation is by faith alone (Sola Fide), through grace alone (Sola Gratia), based on the work of Christ alone (Solus Christus), for the glory of God alone (Soli Deo Gloria).

[Alex Jackson @al3xjackson]

@FightofFaith Because God Himself provided the lamb

[WWUTT? @WWUTTcom]

In all seriousness, Chuck Norris claimed the source of strength was faith in Jesus Christ.

If he was truly a Christian, then he will truly Rest In Peace. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and though you die, yet shall you live (John 11:25).

[Dudes Posting Their W’s @DudespostingWs]

One of the best motivational videos on the internet.

[Andrew McCarthy @AJamesMcCarthy]

Pleased to share my 2025 recap! I'm so proud of everything that went down this year, it was the most chaotic year of my life but by far the most rewarding. Thank you for all your support in 2025, none of this would have been possible without you.

What was your favorite shot?

[Calvin | Fight of Faith @FightofFaith]

Hurting this Christmas?
Weary, Wounded, Wandering. Let’s pray.

Jesus the Light of world, arrived in darkness to bring Salvation to the lost.
Emmanuel. God with us. God with YOU.

Hope is here. Love has come.
YOU ARE NOT ALONE. Jesus is with you.

Open your heart and your Bible, read Luke 2.
Pray “Lord, I need you. Help me in my time darkness”

[GahNotThisAgain @GahNotThisAgain]

Good news story:

My sister and her family driving up from Melbourne - arrived Sunday. On the way they saw a motorist in distress on the side of the motorway near Hexham. They stopped to help - he’d been trying to change his flat tyre but it was 42+ C. He was slumped in his car all doors open. My brother in law flagged down motorists- fortunately a nurse stopped they both rendered first aid until the ambulance arrived. He was semi conscious. My BIL left his business card in the mans car in case anyone needed to contact him. My BIL even changed the tyre! Tonight the man called - wanted to say thank you and offer my BIL money as a thank you - my BIL refused saying that wasn’t why he stopped and if you can’t help someone in trouble for free then you’re a poor excuse for a human.

The man Rob, said the doctors in the ER said they didn’t stop to help he would’ve had a stroke - he was minutes away due to heat stroke. He spent a few hours in the ER and his family came and got him.

If you see something that doesn’t look right stop and help - you may just save a life 🙏🌺🙏

[YouVersion Bible App @YouVersion]

Romans 5:8

[PNW Ronda @ProLifeisProGod]

The day before my ex-husband died in a shootout with police, after robbing a bank, he called me to tell me he loved me, and he asked me to look after his mother if anything happened to him.

He didn't tell me about the bank robbery, but I'd left him years prior because he'd become dangerous. He threatened to kill and rob drug mules at the border, and to rob banks for years.

At the time of his death, I was remarried to a former LEO.

My second husband and I tried to help him for years, and failed.

Despite my lack of belief that he would actually rob a bank, I gave my word that I would look after her if she were ever alone.

Throughout our marriage, my first husband kept me away from his mother, Joan, because she was 'crazy'. I spent maybe 10 hours with her over the course of our 16 year marriage. When she talked about Jesus, we left.

At the time of the robbery, almost her entire family was dead, except for a cousin. Joans daughter died a year prior. Her husband was dying in an assisted living home, across town, but inaccessible to her. Now, her son was dead.

She was in assisted living, powerless to visit her husband.

She was a lifelong, Holy Spirit filled Christian.

After the trauma of the bank robbery it took me six months to pull myself together and visit her. I did it only because I promised my ex-husband that I would.

I deeply regret waiting so long.

When I arrived at the home, and saw her, my heart broke again. She was a husk of the woman I'd occasionally visited during my marriage to her son.

Her face was puffy, her eyes red from endless crying. It took her a moment to recognize me and my fear of her hating me for abandoning her son vanished as she grabbed me and held on.

My second husband and I visited once a week for two years. We took her shopping, and for lunch. She'd been a pilot, so we took her to the mall to ride on the slingshot ride, and we took her to visit her dying husband.

When she needed memory care we visited her at the lockdown home.

We were her only visitors for a year at the memory care home.

A month before she died, they prematurely moved her to hospice. Her cousin was her guardian; I had no legal rights as her former daughter in law.

I found out she was in hospice on my weekly visit. They'd moved her to a staging room, where there was no intercom. Then, they forgot to feed her or give her water or medicine.

They literally had to find her, at my demand.

I canceled work for a month, to stay with her. If I left, they didn't feed her, or give her water or morphine.

So I slept in the bed with her. I was an atheist and hated the God I didn't believe in, but I laid there giving her water on a sponge and read the Bible to her 12 hours a day.

I'd fallen in love with her.

It was all for her, but I soon found myself weeping while reading to her. She smiled at me, and just kept asking me to read God's word.

Her cousin came the last week of Joan's life. Cheryl sat quietly in the corner, reading her Bible to herself. Cheryl wanted me to leave. In her eyes I was a heathen. She refused to read the Bible to Joan.

The home wanted me to leave, saying that Joan was 'only hanging on because she felt loved, and I needed to leave so she could let go and die.'

Two days before she passed, in a coma, they finally kicked me out. Covid hit and they only allowed one visitor. Cheryl had legal rights, so I was barred.

Years later I can see the goodness of God in all that suffering. He had me reading the Bible, loving a woman who could give me nothing.

He taught me patience, perseverance, and He showed me His word.

I will love Joan forever. I can't wait to see her in heaven. She was a blessing in so many ways.

This is her on the swing at the mall (she had to sit in my lap for safety reasons), and in my lap at my home.

I think about her every day and feel the extraordinary love of Jesus, every time.

I love you Joan, sweet child of God. Dance. Let heaven rejoice at the blessing you surely brought to heaven.

[The Biblical Man @Biblicalman]

Everyone says the Bible is “outdated.” “A fairytale.” “Irrelevant.”

No, the problem isn’t the Bible.

The problem is that it flat-out refuses to kiss your delusions.

It doesn’t care about your self-esteem.

It doesn’t pat you on the head and say, “live your truth.”

It calls men liars, exposes hypocrites, cuts throats, burns illusions.

It drags your soul into the light and dares you to call its Author a liar.

No generation hated the Bible because it was too old.

They hate it because it never bends, especially when every other voice in their life will.

It calls sin, sin. Not a “mistake.” Not “inauthentic living.” Not “trauma.”

No modern excuses. No psychological loopholes.

People don’t reject Scripture because it’s primitive.

They do it because it’s nuclear, blowing up every fashionable lie the world tells about men, women, marriage, sex, God, eternity.

And their egos can’t survive the blast.

You don’t have to like the Bible.

But you will answer to it.

Read it and rage.

Or read it and repent.

Your call. The Book’s not changing.

[Donnie Discerned @DonnieDarkened]

What I’ve come to realize, and it took me years to get here, is that it’s psychologically safer to believe the world’s darkness comes from a few shadowy masterminds than to face the reality that evil runs through every human heart, including my own.

For a long time, I couldn’t see that.

I was one of the biggest conspiracy theorists out there. Go back to 2022 on my
Page and you’ll see it, Illuminati, global elites, secret societies, Jewish conspiracies, the Matrix, all of it.

I was convinced that if people could just “wake up” to who was really pulling the strings, they’d finally be free.

But the truth is, people take the red pill instead of the good news.

They want to believe there’s a group of elites orchestrating everything, because that means they’re the good guys fighting back. It gives purpose, a sense of control, even heroism.

It’s way harder to accept that the chaos of the world comes not from some top-down scheme, but from the wickedness of mankind, from pride, envy, lust, hatred, and rebellion that lives inside all of us.

The gospel tells me something far more uncomfortable and far more freeing: that God is allowing all of man’s wickedness to run its course, but He’s also using it, even the darkness, to accomplish His purpose.

And for those who truly walk the narrow path and cling to Him, everything will be made right in the end.

But the world doesn’t want that. The world wants to rise up, to build its own kingdom, to be the savior of its own story.

They want the kingdom of earth, not the Kingdom of God. And that’s why they reach for the red pill, like I did, because it feels brave, but it’s really just a clever form of pride.

[Talk Church @churchtalkative]

5 Signs You’re CHOSEN but Headed to HELL!!!🧐 | Mark Anthony Mitchell Sr

[LilRascal @rascal113646]

@JustineBateman Charlie explained the inexplicable