The Mercy of Time

Sometimes the hardest person to forgive is the version of ourselves who simply did not know yet.

We wish wisdom would arrive before our decisions. Time, however, prefers to deliver it afterwards.

——

Most people want to go back in time for the same reason.
Not to relive the good moments.
But to whisper a little wisdom into the ear of the person they used to be.

A quiet warning.
A gentle correction.
A sentence that might have changed the direction of something important.

But time does not move that way.
It moves forward - patiently, sometimes stubbornly - revealing its lessons after the fact…

——

The watchmaker’s shop was narrow enough that two people passing each other had to negotiate politely.

Glass cases held watches that looked as though they had lived several lifetimes already - leather straps softened by years of wrists, brass edges worn smooth by ordinary days. One watch carried a hairline crack across its glass, the sort of quiet damage that only appears when the light catches it just right.

Behind the counter hung more clocks than seemed necessary. None of them agreed.

One ticked confidently. Another hesitated before every second. A third appeared to have given up entirely, but remained hanging out of what could only be interpreted as loyalty.

The watchmaker stood behind the counter with the calm patience of someone who had spent decades negotiating with time. A man placed a wristwatch in front of him.

“I should have brought this earlier,” he said apologetically.
The watchmaker lifted the watch and turned it beneath a small magnifying lens.

“That’s what everyone says.”

A brief pause. Then a small smile. “People assume time behaves better if we notice things sooner.”

The man chuckled. “Well... doesn’t it?”

The watchmaker shrugged.
“Sometimes. But most problems only reveal themselves after time has had a chance to expose them.”

He opened the back of the watch and studied the delicate gears inside. “Machines are honest that way.”

——

There is something quietly unsettling about places dedicated to time. Every ticking sound feels like a reminder that life continues whether we feel ready or not.

The man leaned against the counter. “I think I’ve spent the last few years wishing I could go back and fix things earlier.”

The watchmaker nodded slowly. “Ah,” he said. “The fantasy of earlier wisdom.” He adjusted a gear no larger than a grain of rice.
“Human beings have always had the same complaint,” he added. “We wish our wisdom would arrive slightly before our decisions.”

He paused for a moment. “Unfortunately, time prefers the opposite arrangement.”

The man laughed - partly because it was funny, partly because it was painfully true.

There is a particular regret that visits people somewhere in the middle of life. It arrives quietly. Not with drama, but with recognition.

The quiet suspicion that some of the most important decisions in life may have been made before we truly understood ourselves.

Before we knew what mattered.
Before we understood the weight of time.

We look back and wish the wiser version of ourselves had been present earlier - in conversations, in choices, in moments that now seem painfully obvious. But wisdom does not travel backwards.
Time does not work that way. Again, it moves forward, revealing things slowly, sometimes stubbornly, but almost always faithfully.

Scripture hints at this strange patience:

“For everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven.”

- Ecclesiastes 3:1

Not every understanding belongs at the beginning. Some truths need years to mature.

——

The watchmaker worked quietly for a while before speaking again.
“You know,” he said, “People bring me watches all the time and apologise.”
“For what?”
“For not taking care of them sooner.”
He closed the watch and set it gently on the counter.
“But most of the time the watch is fine.”
The man frowned.
“Then what went wrong?”
The watchmaker smiled.
“Nothing went wrong. The owner simply didn’t understand how it worked yet.”
He turned the watch slightly in the light.
“Most things in life are like that,” he added.
“The mechanism is rarely broken. We just haven’t learned the rhythm yet.”

——

There is a particular humility that arrives with time.
The realisation that our younger selves were navigating without the wisdom we now carry. We judge them as if they should have known what only experience could reveal.
But they were learning.
Even faith unfolds this way.
Understanding rarely arrives all at once.

“For now we see as in a mirror dimly...” - 1 Corinthians 13:12
Dimly.

Which means confusion was never failure.
It was simply part of learning how to see.

——

The watchmaker finished adjusting the mechanism and handed the watch back. “Try it now.”

The second hand moved again - steady, patient, unconcerned with past delays. The man watched it quietly. “I suppose I spent too long being angry at my younger self.”

The watchmaker chuckled softly. “Most people do.” He wiped his hands on a cloth. “Growing older is mostly the long process of realising we were all doing our best with incomplete instructions.”

A moment passed.
Then he added, almost to himself: “Time has a strange mercy.”

The man looked up.
“What do you mean?”

The watchmaker gestured toward the clocks surrounding them.
“It teaches us what we need to know - just not always when we wanted to know it.”

——

Sometimes wisdom arrives like sunrise.

Quietly.
Gradually.
Without announcement.

And suddenly what once looked like failure begins to resemble apprenticeship.

Life, it turns out, is less like an exam and more like a workshop - a place where fragile mechanisms are opened, adjusted, and slowly understood.

We learn while handling delicate things.
We improve after mistakes.
We grow by living through what we once misunderstood.
Some lessons arrive late.
But perhaps late is the only way we were ever going to understand them.

——

Coin Drop

Growth is not the absence of mistakes.
It is the slow mercy of understanding them later.

The Second Drop

• Which version of our younger self are we still judging unfairly? • What lessons in our life only became clear after time passed? • •If wisdom arrived today, could yesterday finally be forgiven?

——

Prayer

Lord, teach us the patience of time.

Help us show mercy to the versions of ourselves who are still learning.

Where regret lingers, replace it with understanding.

And remind us gently that wisdom was never meant to arrive all at once.

Amen.

——

Time does not hurry understanding. It allows us to grow into it.

And perhaps that is the quiet kindness hidden inside time itself:

Forgive ourselves for not knowing earlier what only time could teach us.

I know Father’s Day has come and gone, but this…remember this?

Is the Eucharist just a communion wafer?

When I called the Eucharist a communion wafer the other week, Angelina unhesitatingly reminded me that the Eucharist is alive, not an edible inanimate object.

Amen, I stand rebuked!

Bad marx for China’s CCP? But there is good news, too

From a press release issued on July 7 by the US House Select Committee on China-

“Pastor Ezra Jin has been released by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and has reunited with his family in the United States. Jin was arrested by the CCP in October 2025 for leading Zion Church, a house church in China. (An underground/unregistered Protestant church that refuses to comingle mandated state communist ideology with its Christian doctrine.)

“By God’s grace, Pastor Ezra Jin has been reunited with his family after being imprisoned for more than 250 days for the simple act of sharing his faith in Christ. Thank you to President Trump for calling for this during his meeting with Xi Jinping.”

Humanity has sunk to a new low

Seems like the prediction market player Polymarket offered wagers during the horrific and tragic 2025 Eaton and Palisades fires in California.

According to a story recently published on the High Country News website, the Gen Z-founded company formulated nearly 20 fire-related questions for people to wager on. “Using Polymarket, the world’s largest prediction market platform, they made bets on the fires — how they would grow, how long they would last and how much they would destroy.”

We talked about Polymarket in the last Field Notes. Is there no shame in depravity? I suppose not, if you’re drowning and wondering where the water is.

The HCN article also mentioned that this type of situation could open the door to acts of arson and the procurement of insider information.

I wrote a story several years ago about fire prediction in West Texas.

“It’s been one of the keys in our ability to inform the decision makers as to what the fire danger is in any given area in the state,” an official with the Texas Forest Service Predictive Services Department told me at the time.

They’re good at what they do.

I met up with a TFS Predictive Services West Texas Resource Specialist one morning, and we drove around rugged and striking terrain for a day collecting live fuel samples from mesquite, Pinon Pine and juniper trees.

He provided much insight and would be the type of guy these twisted minds would want to meet. This fire predictor was a standup dude. But not all may be like him.

“A lot of people don’t know about us,” he said. “There are people in the fire world who don’t have a clue as to what Predictive Services does.”

Probably best to keep it that way.

As you were…

God bless!

A story about the truths we never speak, the wounds we never name, and the God who reads between our silences.

Some things break us when spoken. Others break us because we never did.

I — The Scriptorium of Forgotten Voices

The old monastery sat on a cliff like it was bracing itself against centuries of weather and confession. Inside, the scriptorium glowed gold with candlelight, pages curled at the edges like old men trying to hear better.

Brother Aurelius dipped his quill and blew gently across the ink. He worked slowly - reverently - as if each letter could bruise.

Before him stood shelves of parchment, each tagged with a plain wax seal.

Not prayers.
Not letters.
Not confessions.

Unsent truths.

The things people meant to say but never managed. Apologies swallowed.
Love buried.
Courage postponed. Boundaries never drawn. Forgiveness withheld. “I’m sorry’s” trapped behind pride. “I miss you’s" trapped beneath fear.

Brother Aurelius copied every one of them.

A young novice, Tomas, watched him with a frown.

“Why copy words no one sent?”

Aurelius did not look up.

“Because truth unspoken is still truth.”

Tomas shifted, still confused.

“But what’s the point if no one ever hears it?”

Aurelius blew the ink dry.

“God hears what human mouths avoid.” “He heals what we are too afraid to name.”

In the quiet, the shelves hummed - not with sound, but with weight. There is nothing heavier than a truth that stayed behind.

II — The Mediator Who Read Between Words

Across centuries and neon lights, the modern world hummed with its own noise. In a glass office smelling faintly of stale coffee and panic, Jordan Chen - conflict mediator, professional fire extinguisher - sat across from a couple who had mastered the art of looking fine while dying inside. The man spoke first.
“I don’t feel appreciated in this partnership.”
Jordan did not write it down.

He looked at the woman instead.

She sighed.

“He never says what he needs. I’m not psychic.”

Jordan tapped his pen.

“Okay,” he said.
“Let’s try something different.”

He pointed at each of them.

“Say your sentence again. But this time... say the version you’re afraid to admit.”

They stiffened.

Silence hovered.

Finally, the man inhaled.

“I’m afraid... you don’t need me anymore.”

The woman swallowed.

“And I’m afraid... you’ll leave before I can fix what I broke.”

Silence again - but this time, holy.

Jordan leaned back with a small smile.

“See?” he said softly.
“People speak paragraphs. But what breaks them is always hidden in the footnotes.”

Then he added, deadpan:
“And for the record, nobody’s psychic. Except my grandmother.”
They laughed - the kind of laugh that spills out once truth has already cracked something open.

III — Ink & Electricity

In the monastery, Aurelius opened a new parchment, trembling with tenderness:

“I forgive you... but I don’t know how to tell you without breaking the part of me still hurting.”

He whispered over it:

“For the Lord does not see as man sees;
man looks at appearances, but the Lord looks at the heart.” - 1 Samuel 16:7

He copied the words carefully, as if handling a wound.

Meanwhile, in the city, Jordan met a new client - a young man who hadn’t spoken to his father in seven years. He sat rigid, hands clenched.
“I don’t know what to say.”
Jordan gently closed his notebook.
“Then tell me what you’d say... if nothing could go wrong.”
The man stared down.
“I’d say... I’m angry you didn’t show up.”
Pause.
“I’d say... I wanted you there anyway.”
Pause.
“I’d say... I miss you.”
Jordan nodded.
“Now say the version you’re terrified of.”
The man’s voice cracked.
“...I still love you.”

IV — Two Worlds, One Whisper

In the scriptorium, Aurelius murmured:
“Some truths save us only when spoken aloud.”

In the city, Jordan said almost the same words:
“Some truths save us the moment we stop running from them.”

Two men.
Two centuries. One revelation.

V — When the Archivist Gave a Parchment Back

One winter morning, a woman arrived at the monastery gate.
Her hair was silvering, her grief fresh but quiet - the kind that no longer screams, only sits. She handed Aurelius a name.
“My sister,” she said. “We never reconciled. She passed away last winter.”
Aurelius searched the shelves and retrieved a parchment sealed in faded red wax.
He offered it to her without a word.
She opened it with shaking hands.

“I’m sorry I didn’t know how to love you better.” “I thought distance would protect me.”
“But I missed you every day.”

The woman pressed the page to her chest and wept. “She wrote this?”
Aurelius nodded.
“She wrote it. She couldn’t send it. But she meant it.” The woman’s voice broke.

“Why didn’t she tell me?”
Aurelius placed a hand over hers.

“Because some hearts break at the sound of their own truth. And some truths require God to say them in our place.”

VI — The Modern Echo

That evening, Jordan received a voice message from the young man.

Shaky. Soft.

“I said it. All of it.” “He cried.”
“...I cried too.” “Thank you.”

Jordan’s smile was small but real.
“Truth heals faster when finally allowed outside.”

VII — The Sacred Reveal

In the monastery, Aurelius lit his evening candle and prayed:
“Lord, receive the words we never found the courage to say.”
And in the stillness came a familiar verse:
“The Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.”- Romans 8:26 Aurelius whispered,

“Amen.”

Coin Drop

Some truths break us when spoken.
But the ones we hide break us far longer.

The Second Drop

• What truth inside us has been waiting for permission to breathe?
• Who needs to hear the words we have rehearsed but never spoken?
• What unsaid thing might God be gently asking us to bring into the light?

Prayer

Lord, give us the courage to speak what is true,
the humility to receive what is real,
and the compassion to forgive what was never said.

Amen.

What have we been carrying in silence that God is trying to set free?

Some clocks stop because parts fail.
Some clocks stop because a life needs to learn how to listen.

I — The Shop Where Time Slows Down (Whether You Like It or Not)

The bell over the door did not just ring - it exhaled.

Inside, the clockmaker’s shop smelled like warm brass, lemon oil, and the quiet dignity of objects with patience. Everywhere, clocks ticked in different tempos: confident tocks, hesitant ticks, and one wall clock that sounded like it had asthma.

Behind the counter stood a man whose eyes had seen more time than his hands had fixed.
He examined a stubborn carriage clock while his young apprentice hovered nearby like caffeine with legs.

“It stops every Thursday at three thirteen. Exactly.” The clockmaker did not look up.
“Some things stop on purpose.”
“On purpose?”

He tapped gently on the brass casing.
“Not everything broken wants to be repaired. Some things just want to be understood.”
The apprentice squinted.
“Translation?”
The clockmaker sighed - the sigh of a man who had translated patience into many languages. “If force solved anything, marriage counsellors would be extinct.”
The apprentice blinked.
“So... we don’t force it?”
“We listen. We observe. We coax.”
The apprentice stared at the tiny gear on the table.
“My patience has a battery life of thirty-four seconds.”
The clockmaker adjusted his loupe.
“Then consider this your spiritual endurance training.”

II — A Woman Whose Time Stopped Without Permission

The bell rang again.

A woman stepped in - hair damp, scarf still holding the rain.

She placed an old pocket watch on the counter, wrapped in tissue like something sacred.

“It belonged to my brother.”
“The ship went down. They returned the watch. It stopped at the moment they last heard from him.”

Her voice trembled through grief she did not authorise.

The clockmaker took the watch like a priest handling relics. He opened the back plate and studied the mainspring.

“Time isn’t cruel.”
“It refuses to move only when moving would lie.”

The apprentice whispered,
“You mean... the watch stopped to tell the truth?”
“Sometimes stillness is the only honest language we have.”
The woman’s eyes shone with something halfway between ache and relief. He placed a verse in the air like a steady hand:
“My times are in Your hands.” - Psalm 31:15
He did not preach it. He simply set it there, quiet as a hinge.

III — Where Humor Walks Into a Hospital

On the other side of the city, time behaved badly.

Lila sat in a hospital corridor where clocks were less about minutes and more about anxiety management. Coffee tasted like regret. The chair fought every attempt to be comfortable.

She stared at the wall clock.

Tick. Tick.

“Why does time move slower when it matters?”
The janitor passed with a mop and zero rush in his bones.

“Time isn’t slow. You’re impatient.”

She blinked.
“Who are you?”
“Custodian of floors, collector of unspoken breakdowns.” She tried to laugh. It came out like a wheeze.

“The lab said results would be ready at nine.” The janitor shrugged.
“God is never late. Labs often are.”
Lila rubbed her forehead.

“I’m not rushing God. I’m just -” “-strategically encouraging Him?” She groaned.
He was not wrong.

IV — God’s Timing + Human Panic = A Lesson

Her phone buzzed.

“Results delayed. Sorry.”

She could feel frustration rising like heat.

“Time owes me answers,” she muttered.

The janitor leaned on his mop.

“Time doesn’t owe you rent.”
“You treat minutes like tenants who pay late.”

She released a defeated laugh.
“Fine. I’m horrible at waiting.”
He pointed his mop like a sermon disguised as cleaning supplies. “Waiting isn’t punishment. It’s preparation.”
Lila raised an eyebrow.
“Aren’t you supposed to be... mopping?”
He shrugged.
“I multitask. Clean floors, clean souls.”

V — Back in the Clock Shop, Where Time Behaved

The clockmaker finished adjusting the mainspring.
He wound the key slowly - gently - as if apologising to the metal.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

The watch sprang back to life.
The woman offered the breath she had been holding for months. He handed it back.
“It keeps time again.”
She whispered, “You fixed it.”
He shook his head.
“No. I removed what was preventing it from moving.”

VI — Lila Learns How to Breathe

Hours later, a doctor approached with results.

“Everything looks manageable.”

Her knees nearly gave way under the weight of relief.

Later, she stepped outside under the early evening light.
A verse surfaced in her mind - not spoken, not forced, just there.

“Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for Him.” — Psalm 37:7 She realised: waiting had not broken her - it had rearranged her. She whispered toward the sky:
“I didn’t run out of time... I ran out of panic.”

VII — The Final Lesson

Weeks later, Lila wandered into a tiny clock shop she had never noticed. “Here for a repair?” the clockmaker asked.

“No.” She smiled.
“I just wanted to say... I think time finally started moving again.”

He nodded gently.
“Good. Then the repair was successful.”

Lila was confused. “You fixed... me?”

The clockmaker smiled at the apprentice.
“We don’t fix people. We remove what keeps them from moving.”

Coin Drop

Waiting is not wasted. It is workshop time - where God repairs what force never could.

The Second Drop

Where have we mistaken waiting for punishment instead of preparation for what God might be repairing in the silence between our prayers?
What would change if waiting became an act of trust instead of fear?

Prayer

Lord of patient moments,
teach us the craft of waiting.
When our hands tremble for answers, steady them.
When our hearts hurry, bring them back to rhythm.
Make our pauses holy workplaces where hope is mended, not abandoned.

Amen.

If time suddenly stopped in your life, would it be a failure... or a rescue?

There is a mug on my kitchen shelf - the one I have been meaning to throw away for two years now.

The handle cracked, was glued back, and the seam is still visible if you know where to look. I have had actual conversations about this mug. With myself. At length.

Throw it away.

It still works.

But it is cracked.

Everything good has cracks.

That is not a reason; that is a fortune cookie.

The mug has survived every decluttering exercise, every well-intentioned purge, and at least three solemn declarations that this would be the year I became the sort of person who throws broken things away.

Every few months, I hold it over the bin, ready to be sensible. Every few months, it ends up back on the shelf.
The mug keeps winning.
I tell myself the mug stays because it is practical.

The truth is, I recognise something of myself in it.
I keep it because it holds my morning coffee better than any other mug I own. Warmer, somehow. More faithful. At some point in my forties, I became very good at presenting a life that looked right.
The right answers.
The right composure at work.
The right face at church.

She has got it together.

I was managing things - ageing parents, career, relationships, finances - and I wore that management like trophy armour.
That was the quiet prize I was chasing.
Nobody tells you that armour gets heavier as the years go on.

Or that you start forgetting it is on.

What I did not admit, even to myself, was how exhausted I was behind it. How certain relationships had calcified into obligation. How I had stopped letting people see me struggle because I had decided, somewhere along the way, that struggling was something to be ashamed of.

I do not know exactly when the shift started.

Maybe it was a health scare.

Maybe it was watching my mother age and realising that no amount of managing could hold certain things still.

(My mother, by the way, once told me with complete sincerity that I worry too much. This, from the woman who still asks whether I have eaten whenever I leave the house, despite the fact that I am well into my fifties. Some things never change. I love that about her.)

Maybe it was one of those nights in a hotel room after a long work trip.
The kind where you have spent all day taking care of everyone else’s needs and suddenly find yourself alone with your own. The television was off.
The city lights blinked through the curtains.
My suitcase sat half-packed in the corner.
Or maybe it was simply a conversation with God at three in the morning, crying without knowing exactly why.
It was not eloquent.
It went something like this:
Me: I’m so tired.
Also, me: I don’t even know what I’m asking for.
God: ...
Me: Are You there?
And then, in the way silence sometimes speaks:
I am not holding this together.
I never was.
That prayer - if you can call it that -broke something open in me.

“Be still, and know that I am God.” - Psalm 46:10

I had read those words a hundred times. That night, they were not words anymore. They were permission.
Permission to stop performing. Permission to stop pretending. Permission to put down the armour.

Coin Drop

What are we holding together right now -and who are we actually holding it together for?

There is a Japanese practice called kintsugi - repairing broken pottery with gold.
The cracks are not hidden.
They are highlighted.
The philosophy is simple and quietly revolutionary: the broken places are part of the object’s story. They make it more beautiful, not less. They prove it has lived. I think many of us - women, particularly, women of a certain generation, especially — were never taught this.

We were taught to patch and hide and move on.
To present a smooth surface.
But Scripture said it long before the Japanese potters did:
“We hold this treasure in earthen vessels, so that the surpassing power may be of God and not from us.” - 2 Corinthians 4:7 Earthen vessels.
Clay pots.
Not porcelain.
Not crystal.
Not flawless.
Clay.
Something sturdy enough to be used. Vulnerable enough to crack. Humble enough to hold treasure.

The cracks are not a flaw in the design.
They are proof of the design.
Something holy lives in the broken places precisely because that is where the light gets through.
There is a verse I used to read and nod politely at.
Now I know it in my body.
“My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.” - 2 Corinthians 12:9
The seasons where I had nothing left to offer - no performance, no plan, no version of myself I could be proud of - were the seasons where something real grew. Quieter than confidence.
But deeper.
More useful.
Perfected in the weakness, not despite it.
I am in my mid-fifties now, standing in what I would call the most interesting chapter of my life.
Not the easiest.
But the most honest.
I have an elderly mother who still worries whether I have eaten, even while I worry about whether she has taken her medication.
I spend more nights than I would like in airports and hotel rooms, helping other people chase excitement while quietly learning my own limits.
There is a particular kind of loneliness that comes with watching everyone else arrive somewhere while you are always preparing for the next departure.
My body occasionally reminds me that it was not designed to run on determination alone.
Sometimes loudly.
Sometimes in public.
And I have faith that has been tested enough times that I cannot pretend it is decorative anymore.
It is structural.
It holds things up.
And I am, by any measure, imperfect.
I speak before I think.
I overthink when I should let go.
I hold grudges too long and apologise too quickly, which frankly cancels nothing out.

I have made decisions I regret, walked roads I would not recommend, and once spent forty-five minutes in an argument with myself in a carpark about whether I had been too harsh in an email - only to go back and re-read it and realise I had not been harsh enough.

Funny thing about grace.
It tends to arrive precisely where perfection gives up.
Here is what I know now that I did not know at thirty-five:
“God proves His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” - Romans 5:8
While we were still.
Not after we fixed ourselves.
Not when we had it all together.
Not when we finally became the person we thought we should be.
While.
Right in the middle of the mess, in the unfinished, unresolved, still-working-on-it middle - that is where love meets us.

The mug?
I am keeping it.
The crack is still there.
So am I.
And by the grace of God, neither of us needs to be unbroken to be useful.

Prayer

Dear Lord,

For every person who found their way to these words today, meet them here. Not where they wish they were. Not where they think they should be. Right here, in the middle of whatever they are carrying.

For the ones who are tired of performing.
For the ones whose armour has grown heavy.
For the ones who have been holding everything together for so long that they have forgotten what it feels like to rest. Remind them that You are not standing at the finish line waiting.
You are already here.
In the mess.

In the weakness. In the uncertainty. In the 3 am.
In every crack.

In every mended place.
Break what needs breaking, gently.
Heal what is broken, beautifully.
And in every new morning - especially the hard ones - let the truth land afresh: Your love was never conditional on their wholeness.
They are loved.
They are seen.
They are held.
And they do not have to earn what You have already freely given.
Amen.

CIA: Apparently, the spy agency has $40 million in gold bars sitting in petty cash. Taxpayer dollars to bribe a head of state, or an unscrupulous company officer, who sees a payday? Or both?

I guess the corrupt intelligence employee got a “rush” out of stealing from the federal government. Does the agency even know who works there?

UFC: A mixed-martial arts fight card (UFC Freedom 250) spectacle is being held on the White House lawn. Wow. And will that be followed by the chariot race and slaying of the gladiator?

Can the office of the president be dragged down any lower? Leave the fighting in the Middle East. Actually, leave the fighting at home. I offer that the emperor throws up a thumbs down on this one.

NIL: And now high school student-athletes are suing for the right to collect off of their name, image and likeness. Though several states have already stamped a seal of approval on some type of NIL legislation that favors the student athlete.

Scenario 2027: The student athlete goes on to college to garner more NIL money facilitated by a collective bargaining agreement, then transfers schools five times to leverage the best draft situation. And for recreation, he or she (or the transgender version of who they aren’t supposed to be) bet that NIL money on the games they play in.

SBC: The Southern Baptists met in Orlando, Florida, this week for their annual meeting. Hmmm. Ok. Historically, it seemed the SBC was inclined to polarize rather than unite. Heck, there were divisions within its own ranks. Still are.

Now, it seems they’re disguising political agendas as doctrine.

IMHO, if you’re compelled toward Evangelical Christianity, check out the Pentecostal variety.

As you were, God Bless.

A story about truth that doesn’t shame, and mercy that doesn’t rush.
We spend half our lives avoiding our reflection - not the glass kind, but the truth-kind. Two timelines. One mirror. One question:
What happens when we stop editing ourselves ... and stay?

THEN - the mirror-maker’s fire

Sun, Nov 9, 2025 at 9:31 AM

They brought the bronze plate at dusk -the hour when light stops flattering and starts telling the truth.
Inside the workshop, heat shimmered against the walls. The mirror-maker worked in slow circles, polishing not for shine, but for revelation. His apprentice finally blurted,

“Master... do mirrors ever lie?”

Without pausing, the old craftsman replied,

“No. Humans do that part.”

The apprentice frowned.
“Shouldn’t we help people see what makes them feel strong?”

The master finally lifted his face - lined, but not worn. “Strength without truth is only costume.”

The door creaked open.
A soldier stepped in - mud on his boots, fear behind his eyes.

“Polish it,” he said, placing a coin pouch on the table. “I face battle at dawn.”

The master held the mirror toward him.

It reflected not glory. Not bravery.

It reflected exhaustion - the kind you can hide from men, but not from a mirror. The soldier swallowed hard.
“I need to look ready.”
The mirror-maker shook his head.

“You don’t need to look ready.” “You need to be willing.”

The soldier whispered,

“What if I’m not enough?”

A verse rose in the craftsman’s heart:

“The Lord is near to the brokenhearted.” - Psalm 34:18

The mirror stayed steady.

“Truth is not here to embarrass you,” he said. “It is here to accompany you.”

For the first time that night,
the soldier breathed without armour.

NOW - thirty floors above the city

Mara edited people for a living.

On her screen: a glossy portrait of a public figure. Every pore softened.
Every line erased.
Every flaw... deleted.

She caught her own reflection in the black glass of the monitor - under fluorescent lights, she looked tired, real, un-airbrushed. She whispered to the screen,
“Am I fixing them... or erasing them?”
Silence.

Just the hum of the office aircon, and the ache of a life curated into unfamiliarity. Her cursor hovered over a freckle on the photographed face.

Delete? Or dare?

A memory surfaced - her mother brushing her hair when she was little: “Beauty without honesty is just advertising.”
Mara inhaled slowly.
Then prayed - not with eloquence, but with exhaustion:

“Create in me a clean heart, O God; renew a steadfast spirit within me.” - Psalm 51:10

Click.
She left the freckle where it was.

And for the first time in months,
she felt like she stayed in the picture too.

THE MEETING POINT — when truth finally stops waiting

Different centuries. Different worlds.

Same ache:

the fear of being seen without disguises.

The soldier asked,

“What if I fail?”

Mara asked,

“What if I’m not enough?”

And the mirror - across time - replied without words:

“You are not loved because you are flawless. You are loved because you are real.”

Truth does not attack. Truth does not humiliate.

“For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face.” - 1 Corinthians 13:12

THE COST OF REFLECTION

The soldier lifted the mirror again.

He did not see perfection. He saw peace.

He whispered,
“I can face the field... because I first faced myself.”

Mara closed her laptop.
Turned off the office lights.
And walked into her own life unfiltered.

“I don’t need to edit myself into worthiness.”

Two souls. Two eras. Both finally stopped avoiding the truth.

And the mirror?
It remained whole. Because truth is not fragile. Only ego is.

Coin Drop

Truth doesn’t demand perfection. Only presence.

The Second Drop

Where are we still polishing instead of showing up?
What part of us have we been editing out so others would approve? What would happen if we stayed present, instead of performing?

Prayer

Lord,
teach us to stand in front of the truth without fear.

Give us courage to stop hiding,
mercy to stay gentle with ourselves,
and grace to let authenticity feel like worship.

When we finally face ourselves, let us find You already there.

Amen.

When truth looks back at you - will you stay?

Ok, we have a lot of ground to cover in a very short space.

Prediction markets. For those unfamiliar, what are they? Prediction markets enable one to trade shares on specific outcomes. For example, on the “regulated” prediction market platforms Kalshi, or Polymarket, one can bet, oh, excuse me, trade, on the outcome of Trump vs. Iran. Ok, the Iran War. Kinda perverse. It can only get more egregious. The likelihood of a terrorist attack in Detroit? How much fentanyl did Mexican drug cartels attempt to smuggle into the US during the fourth quarter of the fiscal year? The over and under? Remember the drug cartels? They’re still here.

And remember that Jack in the Box commercial, circa 1980? The commercial stuck with me. A commentary on American culture dysfunction. It seems tailor made for the Trump era.

We so live in a shoppers culture. A culture of collecting, accumulating. Buying, storing and hoarding. How many storage units are rented in the US? I’m spacing out on these figures: Approximately one in 10 U.S. households currently rent a self-storage unit. The self-storage industry in the U.S. generates more than $39 billion in revenue each year. The total rentable self-storage space in America exceeds 2 billion square feet.

Technology stress. Artificial intelligene (Exactly). AI is designed to eat itself. When I was growing up, technology was Pong, a vertical Japanese pachinko machine and Paul Simon singing about a Nikon camera. Once upon a time, I only had to wave a laminated driver’s license to enter an NFL postseason event. Now, I’m subject to an AI facial recogntion system fortifed by billions of online scraped images — courtesy of web crawlers — from around the world. SMH.

Christian McCaffrey is a dude. But his maternal grandfather was a head scratcher. Read this…https://www.sfgate.com/49ers/article/christian-mccaffrey-grandfather-21290797.php

I was just researching stats on a wrestling website when a pop-up ad appeared, offering a quizz-test to determine if you could be gay. Wha’?

Finally, I have to say it. Control is a humongous, astronomical and unmanageable stressor.

As you were…God bless.

A story for anyone standing at a crossroads, holding a key they do not understand.

Some people are given maps.
Some are given keys.
Most of us spend half our lives wondering if we are lost - or just refusing to walk upon the door God wants to open.

The Story

I did not realise how lost I was until God stopped giving me new paths and left me staring at a door instead.

From the outside, everything looked functional:

a job I could do half-asleep,
a relationship running on polite autopilot,
a faith that prayed religiously but expected cautiously.

I kept telling myself:

“I’m in a transition season.”
“Clarity will come.”
“God will open the right door when it’s time.”

But the truth was simple enough to sting:
I was not waiting for God’s will.
I was waiting for His will to match my comfort.

Scripture whispered:

“Stand at the crossroads, and look; ask for the ancient paths...”

- Jeremiah 6:16

I had done the “standing” part. The “asking” part... not so much.

Which, of course, is when the map appeared.

The bookshop smelled like forgotten secrets and humid umbrellas. I refuged there with my sometimes cohort, the inudstrious Matteo.

I was not looking for God.
I was looking for distraction - preferably one with dust and zero expectations.

Behind a stack of hymnals and a box of mismatched keys, I found it:

a rolled-up parchment tied with a thread that had fought hard and lost.

Unfurled, the map displayed winding paths, tiny symbols - a well, a chapel, a lone tree -and one tiny door at the end of three curved roads.

At the bottom:

Aldric - Cartographer of Pilgrims

and, beneath it:

“Do not trust the straightest road. Trust the truest one.”

The shopkeeper glanced over.
“That odd thing? Even the church did not want it. Too honest.”

Naturally, I bought it immediately - because nothing says emotional stability like purchasing ancient cartography to avoid self-reflection.

A thought appeared. I glimpsed one of the keys. It slid - gently, fatefully - and stopped exactly over the tiny drawn door on the map.

We both froze. Matteo blinked.

“...Well. That’s unsettling.”

“That’s fine,” I said.
“That matches the vibe of my entire week.”

Matteo was late for an appointment. I stared at the map and the key like they were about to file a complaint against me. Proverbs whispered:

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart... and He will make straight your paths.” - Proverbs 3:5–6

Straight?
I did not want straight. I wanted painless.

Two days later, I saw Matteo again.
He was repairing an iron gate that mocked him with uncooperation.
“Still dealing with stubborn things?” I asked.
“Always,” he said. “You included.”
Fair.
I told him everything - the discomfort and the sense that God was escalating from signs to cinematic symbolism. He listened, then said:
“Do you know the difference between a locked door and a closed one?”
“Easy. They both refuse to open and ruin your plans.”
He shook his head.

“A locked door is protecting something.
A closed one is waiting for the right hand.”

“And how am I supposed to know which is which?”

“You ask.”

Not me. Not him. God.

Then he added:

“I have set before you an open door, which no one can shut.”

- Revelation 3:8

Matteo tucked his tools away.
“Everyone loves the idea of open doors,” he said.

“No one loves when God refuses to open the ones that would “ruin” them.”

It was embarrassing how quickly that sentence found its target.

He nodded at the key around my neck.

“Maybe you’re not lost. Maybe you’re standing in front of the right door pretending it’s a wall.”

Matteo really needed to stop reading my soul like an instruction manual.

The door did not appear with angels or glow effects. It showed up as:

a job offer that scared me, a conversation I had avoided for years, a quiet tug back to church.

Three doors. Three knocks. One truth:

Only one frightened me in a holy way.

With Aldric’s map open and a mismatched key in hand, I finally whispered:

“Okay, Lord.
If this is the door You’ve set before me... I will turn the key.”

No thunder. No cinematic shattering.

Just an internal exhale - like something in me unclenched after years of bracing.

The next morning, I said yes.

Not gracefully -
But sincerely.
(Which, I have learned, still counts.)

And hear me out…

Maybe we are not lost.
Maybe we are just standing in front of the right door with the wrong kind of fear.

Ok, this is my prayer, my plea.

Lord,
We bring You the maps drawn with fear and pride.

Teach us to recognise the doors that are not ours, and give us the conviction to stop knocking.

Show us the door that is ours,
and give us courage to turn the key.

Amen.

First, all sincere apologies to Jack Black and Howie Mandel…

The Bible will shoot you straight…

Once upon a time, in the Book of 1 Samuel, no less, a battle occurred at a pass known as Mikmash (also spelled Michmash). A detachment of Philistines - enemies of the Israelites - was encamped on one side of Mikmash (in present-day Israel). Jonathan, the son of Israel’s first king, Saul, decided to confront the Philistines.

“Saul was staying on the outskirts of Gibeah under a pomegranate tree in Migron. With him were about six hundred men…No one was aware that Jonathan had left.”

Jonathan and his armor-bearer headed out to Mikmash and would soon have to climb a cliff to reach the Philistine outpost.

"Jonathan said to his young armor-bearer, ‘Come, let’s go over to the outpost of those uncircumcised men. Perhaps the Lord will act in our behalf. Nothing can hinder the Lord from saving, whether by many or by few.’”

Jonathan informed his armor-bearer that if the enemy shouts, they will come down to teach the duo, then Jonathan and the armor-bearer will stay put. However, if the Philistines try to goad them into climbing the cliff, then that will be their cue to proceed “because that will be our sign that the Lord has given them into our hands.”

"So both of them showed themselves to the Philistine outpost. ‘Look!’ said the Philistines. ‘The Hebrews are crawling out of the holes they were hiding in.’ The men of the outpost shouted to Jonathan and his armor-bearer, ‘Come up to us and we’ll teach you a lesson.’”

Jonathan climbed up with his armor-bearer right behind him. The Philistines fell before Jonathan, and his armor-bearer followed, dispatching many Philistines. In that first attack, Jonathan and his armor-bearer killed 20 men in an area of about half an acre.

The Philistine army descended into a frenzied madness as the ground shook, believing they were under siege. God had moved.

The turmoil in the Philistine camp amplified. “So Saul said to the priest, ‘Withdraw your hand.’”

Saul and his men convened and headed into battle. They found the Philistines in complete chaos, “striking each other with their swords.”

It was a total rout of the Philistines by the Israelites.

So, why did I spend time telling that story? Because during World War I, British forces faced the Turks at the same location. Reportedly, a brigade major reading his Bible, while contemplating the situation against the Ottoman forces, remembered a Mikmash referenced somewhere in Scripture. He subsequently found the verses, learning there was a secret path around the town (I’m not sure where that information is implied in Samuel). He explained the Biblical discovery to his brigadier general, and upon investigation, they found the path still existed. The British forces used this lightly guarded path to outmaneuver the Ottomans and capture the town.

It begs additional research, but is an epic story…

In a Catholic church, one is supposed to genuflect toward the tabernacle, not the cross…

Apocalyptic Basketball in Kentucky. It’s grade school, y’all!!!

But let’s end on a spiritual note. Flatfoot 56’s version of “Amazing Grace.”

I’m still thinking about Niners running back Christian McCaffrey’s first comment in an on-field interview immediately after the 49ers’ playoff victory over the Philadelphia Eagles in January. “God is good.” He said it with concise purpose, and then his body language appealed for the next question, as if that response was all that was needed. Thumbs up…

A priest in the wilderness. I recently enjoyed “Man of God” on Prime Video (trailer above). The 2021 English-language Greek film depicts a portion of the life of Saint Nektarios of Egina, a Greek Orthodox priest. From what I’ve gathered, the movie is very true to Father Nektarios’ life. It's a heartbreaking account, yet it serves as an inspirational model of what our Christian walk should look like. Nektarios was seemingly the closest example of Christ in human form. “Saint Nektarios lived like an angel in the flesh,” stated a bio of the revered saint on OrthodoxPhotos.com. Mickey Rourke also stars…

A very short, but must-read (one page)! “Big Red Nation” by Brett Biebel. Death row meets Nebraska football and misguided fandom…

And lastly, more words that stuck in my mind. While leaving a local library, I encountered a young woman and her child on the narrow walk to the parking lot. The mother was quick to instruct her daughter. “Child! Step aside, and let the human pass!”

As you were.

When faith learns to keep its rhythm -even in the heat.

Some fires don’t come to destroy you.
They come to prove the song inside you can survive the heat.

The battle has not changed - just the weapons. The noise, the panic, the courage - still the same rhythm under different skies. This story moves between two worlds -one of dust and steel, the other of screens and deadlines - both asking the same question: Can grace keep its form when the flames rise?

I. The Field
The air trembled - smoke, steel, shouting.

“Commander, we’re losing ground!” “Hold,” she said.
“Hold? We’re surrounded!”

Her hand shook once before she locked it back into discipline.
Inside, a memory flickered - a brother lost in a war that had not deserved him. I promised never to waste courage again.

She raised her sword, its edge trembling like her heartbeat. “Then we fight the fear, not the flame.”

“When you pass through the fire, you shall not be burned.” - Isaiah 43:2

The soldiers obeyed - not her order, but her composure. Something in her calm rewrote the air.

II. The Room
Centuries later - different armour, same war. Laptops hissed. Tempers clanged, clashed, and infuriated.

“Numbers are down.” “Whose fault?” Fingers snapping accusations.
“This campaign is a disaster.”

She felt the same tremor in her hand - the ghost of that ancient promise. “Everyone, breathe,” she said.

Someone scoffed. “You think breathing fixes data?” “No,” she replied, voice low, steady. “But panic ruins it.”

Silence hesitated, then bowed.
The projector’s glow haloed her like smoke reborn as light.

A junior whispered, “How do you do that?”
“Same way you stand in fire,” she said. “You remember Who’s watching.”

“And who would that be?” continued the whisper.

“Be strong and courageous; do not be afraid.” - Joshua 1 : 9

III. The Mirror Across centuries, the same gesture -
one hand rising: once to rally soldiers, once to calm executives. Both times, ash on her sleeve.
Both times, heartbeat steady.

Maybe time never moved forward at all. Maybe faith just kept changing costumes.

When the field quieted,
when the meeting adjourned, she sat alone, fingers trembling.

On her palm - a faint scar, half-healed,
burned there long before keyboards replaced swords.

She smiled through the ache.
Some fires never stop burning;
they just move inward until they light you from within.

Maybe God never quenches the fire, she thought. Maybe faith is meant to crackle.

Coin Drop

Elegance isn’t the absence of fear -
it’s fear disciplined into rhythm.
Poise is courage that learned choreography.

The Second Drop

-What promise keeps our calm from collapsing?
-Where has courage been asking for our rhythm?
-Could our tremor be proof that the fire still believes in us?

Prayer

Lord of smoke and spreadsheets,
forge in us the rhythm of endurance.
Let the scar remind us You have walked every furnace first.

Teach our trembling to keep tempo with trust.
And when the next fire comes - as it always will -
let our grace not hide the heat,
but sing through it.

Amen.

Perhaps elegance was never about stillness. Perhaps it was the sound of faith learning to breathe in two worlds at once.

Author’s Note

For everyone learning to lead through the heat - may your fire find its rhythm, and your rhythm find God’s timing.

Some years do not announce themselves. They edit you quietly.

They do not arrive as storms or breakthroughs.
They arrive as long corridors - poor lighting, excellent acoustics - where every thought echoes back clearly, whether invited or not.

These are the years that feel like carrying a full tray without spilling.
Deadlines on one side, responsibility on the other.
Where you learn, slowly and without ceremony, that speed impresses - but accuracy sustains.

Work, in such seasons, looks less like climbing and more like calibration.
Adjust. Re-check. Decide.
Again.

Until a quieter question begins to surface, unannounced:

Is this progress - or just motion?

Personal life tends to become an editor during these stretches. Crossing out habits that once felt necessary.
Trimming excess explanation.
Leaving longer margins where reactions used to live.

Faith, too, shifts its posture.
It does not arrive with banners.
It shows up as fine print.
As restraint.
As the ability to wait without narrating the wait.

Maps are rarely given here. Bearings are.

There are moments that feel like you’re lagging.
Like missing a turn.
Later, they reveal themselves as reroutes - not delays, but corrections.

What remains after such seasons is rarely dramatic: • better questions • fewer urgencies • calmer decisions

No fireworks. But things work.

Perhaps this is what some seasons are for - not expansion, but alignment. Not accumulation, but choice.
Not more noise, but clearer lines.

A question worth holding, gently - and not alone:
What if this season is not asking for more, but for fewer things, chosen on purpose?

This is a good place to pause.

During last month’s Monday Night Football matchup between the 49ers and Colts on ESPN, a glossy Church of Scientology commercial aired twice. I’m absolutely serious. Moments later, I received a text notification that ESPN would be televising the End Times at the conclusion of the Winter Olympics. I glimpsed the notification with confusion, but then caught Howie Mandel pitching a service on TV, along with a movie trailer featuring Jack Black, and I was no longer confused…

The “art” in artificial. Music is damaged. Correction, popular music is damaged. Music is sideways, heading south. When Nashville, LA and tech conspire to popular-culturize a tune, it loses its soul, identity and all desirable characteristics. Agreed? The numero uno Christian artist on iTunes as I write this is an AI named “Solomon Ray.” The artificial artist’s album is at the top of the iTunes/Apple Music Christian music chart. Has Wikipedia already created a Ray page? That confusion has turned to certainty…

An interesting discussion between Pastor Greg Laurie and Alice Cooper: How a huge rock of cocaine that Cooper was making payments on, helped lead him to Christ (in the extended podcast interview). For a broader perspective on Cooper, view the video below and then watch the Greg Laurie interview above. Alice has come a long way!…

Father Jon at St. Francis of Assisi Parish in my home city said put three people in a room, and you’ll get five opinions…

A lady walking her dog at Cherokee Park said her canine, who had his nose in everything, smelled odors in 3D…

As you were.

For the years God chose not to explain.

On Christmas day, the priest said something so ordinary it almost slipped past me:

Everything is in reverence to God.

Not just the altar. Not just the prayers. Everything.

And instead of thinking about the manger or the cross, my mind wandered somewhere quieter - to the years in between. What was Jesus like as a child?

Scripture does not indulge our curiosity.
It gives us a birth, a flight into Egypt, a moment in the Temple - and then silence. Long, uncelebrated silence.

Which feels deliberate.

The Gospel tells us only this:
He “grew in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man.”

Growth implies time. It implies process.
It implies becoming.

I imagine a boy who scraped His knees and learned restraint the slow way.
A boy who watched Joseph shape wood, discovering that straight lines take patience. A boy who listened to Mary pray aloud, absorbing reverence before understanding it.

No halo.
No thunder. No urgency.

Just life - ordinary, repetitive, faithful.

He learned obedience before authority. Silence before speech.
Hiddenness before revelation.

And I find myself wondering -

Did God speak to Him every day?
Did the Father tell Him what lay ahead?

Scripture does not say.

What it does say is that He grew.

Perhaps Jesus did not live His childhood under the shadow of what awaited Him.
Perhaps He lived it learning who He belonged to, before learning what obedience would cost.

Which makes the moment in the Temple feel less dramatic - and far more intimate. When He stayed behind and said,
“Did you not know that I must be in My Father’s house?”
He was not announcing destiny. He was naming relationship.
Not I know what will happen to Me - but I know who My Father is.

And Mary, who understood mystery better than explanation, did not demand answers. She held the moment instead.

Because love does not rush revelation.
If everything is in reverence to God, then so were the unnoticed years.

The meals are eaten without ceremony. The days that felt like nothing special. Prayers spoken without eloquence.

Reverence, it turns out, is not performance. It is posture.

It is how we live when no one is watching.
It is how we listen when we are not the centre.
It is how we remain faithful when nothing feels momentous.

Perhaps that is why Christmas does not shout.
Why God came small.
Why the Saviour learned to walk before He learned to preach.

Because reverence begins not in power, but in presence. And suddenly the question shifts.

Not, What was Jesus like as a child? but something closer - more unsettling:

What if our ordinary days are enough?

What if God is not waiting for our grand moments, but meeting us in the small ones?

What if the years we keep calling “in between” are actually where the work is happening?

If the Son of God spent most of His life in quiet obedience, then perhaps nothing lived with love is wasted.

Perhaps everything really is in reverence to God - the folding of laundry,
the showing up tired,
the choosing patience when no one applauds.

And maybe the holiest thing we can do is not to add more meaning to our lives, but to notice the meaning already there.

Coin Drop

Reverence is not reserved for sacred spaces. It is practiced in ordinary ones.

The Second Drop

-Where might God be forming us quietly right now?

-What part of our life have we dismissed as “just ordinary”?
-If reverence is posture, not performance - what would change today?

Prayer

God of the hidden years,
teach us to trust the slow work of becoming.
Help us honour the days that do not sparkle,
and believe that nothing lived with love is wasted.

Meet us in the ordinary, and teach us to recognise You there. Amen.

Reflection

Perhaps the mystery is not that God became human - but that He stayed human long enough to show us this:

That ordinary life, lived with attention, lived with love,
is already holy.

And that everything - even the years no one notices - is held in reverence.

Perhaps God comes closest not in the moments we mark - but in the ones we live without noticing.

The four facets of Advent have “arrived,” and conclude today. Advent spans four weeks, allowing us to reflect on the entry of Christ into this world and what His birth meant for humanity.

The first week of Advent belongs to hope. Not hope that you’ll get a fat tax return amount direct-deposited into your checking account in 2026, that you’ll find yourself rolling a Tesla Model Y next year (Yeah, I’m pickin’ on Tesla again.), or receiving a particular Christmas gift. No, I’m talking about the hope of God arriving in the midst of something consequential, your eternal life, and the hope in His son, Jesus. Need I say more?

Peace is the theme of the second week of Advent. And yes, the world’s peace inventory seems to have been appropriated from its corrupt employees. A call for more peace would be advisable. Actually, it is always advisable.

But we’re talking about the peace that Jesus spoke of and demonstrated…Acts 10:36 and John 14:27…not inner peace (an act of rebellion) or the “COEXIST” peace.

Below is a devotional by G. Connor Salter from Bible Study Tools-

“The Bible talks in various places about a spiritual war going on between goodness and evil (or ‘powers and principalities’ [Ephesians 6:12]). The combination of Satan fighting against goodness and humans fighting against God has made the earth a battleground in an ongoing fight…humanity lost peace with God when sin entered the world. From the moment that Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden, all of humanity became sinners (2 John 1:8). This put us in conflict with God…This lack of peace presented a dilemma that the Messiah came to solve.”

Week three is joy, the joy of the Messiah’s arrival and the promise of eternal salvation. God had brought true joy to earth. That joy is manifested in our lives to this day. (Of course, if you choose to let it.)

From Alli Patterson of Crossroads Church (Ohio)-

“God didn’t just announce his birth—he said the joy was going to spread further. It wouldn’t just cause a passing smile and “oh, good for them” moment. This baby was going to bring joy to ALL people. All means all—He came for all different cultures, career paths, levels of intelligence, economic status, levels of depression or anxiety, and any type of sin.”

And lastly, love. The love that God has brought and brings. A sacrificial love. Love that is Christ-centered, not self-centered.

From the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia-

“Love bears the infirmities of the weak, does not please itself, but seeks the welfare of others.”

Peace be with you and Merry Christmas!

With the College Football Playoffs kicking off this weekend, it’s essential to note that many of these teams fortified and bolstered their rosters from the football mercenaries portal. Anything to reduce time, effort and energy in developing, creating or even researching something, right? This portal of theirs fits in perfectly with an AI culture.

That “new-age” football mentality can be traced back to a sports story digest I read back in the day, 1999 to be exact. The article reported that former NFL speedster Tim Dwight, who had just completed his rookie season with the Atlanta Falcons, culminating with a 94-yard kickoff return to the house in Super Bowl XXXIII, had supposedly reenrolled at the University of Iowa so he could run track for the Hawkeyes. The story headline asked, “But what about the classes?”

Athletes have been using universities to further their own athletic quests and desires at the expense of these institutions of higher learning for quite some time. Though, in 2025, it’s debatable whether the “higher learning” part is accurate.

The NCAA college football transfer portal, which opens for business again Jan. 2, is a facilitator and guilty-as-sin accomplice in this whole mess called college athletics.

The most egregious instance of this undermining disservice to sports-focused young adults is the case of quarterback TJ Finley.

Finley is seeking a seventh year of eligibility, hoping to play in 2026 for whoever gives him an opportunity. The Ponchatoula High School (Louisiana) product, technically, began his college career before COVID.

The Finley timeline:

LSU: Jan. 2020- Dec. 2020. He was benched midway through the season and replaced by Max Johnson, another player requesting a seventh year of eligibility.

Auburn: 2021-2022. Played in three games for the injured Bo Nix in 2021.

Texas State: 2023. Threw 24 TD passes against eight picks.

Western Kentucky: 2024. Not much to speak of.

Tulane: 2025. Finley didn’t take a game rep with the Green Wave, but he was arrested; reportedly, it was related to a stolen truck he had purchased through an online scam.

Georgia State: 2025. Seven games, six touchdowns, seven interceptions.

And next season’s “lucky” winner is?

When the waiting feels endless, remember - the garden is still growing beneath the quiet.

This is not about gardening. It is about what patience remembers, what mercy restores, and how grace - by any name - never really forgets. You do not need to be religious to understand it, just human enough to have waited for something to grow.

The garden had been forgotten for years.
Not abandoned - just quietly left behind by busier hands. Its soil had become like memory itself - dry, compacted, still holding the ghost of rain. The vines lay tangled, like thoughts unspoken for too long.

Then one morning, someone returned -not with blueprints or bravado, but with a small spade, a bucket of water, and time. They did not start by planting. They started by listening.

“Nothing grows here anymore,” a neighbour said, peering over the fence. “Maybe it just forgot how,” the gardener smiled.

The soil resisted at first - proud, wounded, sun-burned by neglect. Each seed seemed to vanish as soon as it touched the ground. Still, the gardener stayed. No rush. No scoreboard. Only rhythm - turn, water, wait.

Days blurred into a kind of holy monotony.
The sound of water became prayer. The waiting became worship.

Slowly, the ground softened - not from the watering, but from the mercy of persistence. Roots that looked dead began reaching again. Colour returned, shy at first, like forgiveness learning how to breathe.

Some days, the gardener spoke aloud, not to be heard, but to be honest:

“I know what it’s like to be overlooked.” “I know what it’s like to wait for rain.”

And maybe that was what the garden had needed all along - not fixing, but understanding.

Outside the fence, the world kept refreshing - headlines blooming faster than truth, people chasing the next beginning before the last one could end. But inside, time behaved differently.
Grace was at work beneath the surface,
doing what only patience can do.

“Let us not grow weary in doing good, for in due season we shall reap, if we do not give up.” - Galatians 6:9 Growth, it turns out, isn’t an achievement.

It’s an act of faith.

Sagacity whispered through every bent stem: Not everything broken needs saving; some things just need time. Prudence guided the hands: Do less, but mean it. Equanimity kept the breath steady: Do not measure - trust.
And Compassion bloomed last, quiet and luminous: Water what is withered, even if it is only hope.

One morning, a single flower opened - small, unassuming, almost late. The gardener brushed the soil from its petals, as if afraid to wake it.

“Welcome back,” they whispered. It wasn’t glory; it was grace —

the kind you only notice when you’ve stayed long enough to see what waiting can do.

Coin Drop:

Not all miracles arrive with a trumpet sound. Some come softly - in roots rediscovering their courage to reach.

“The kingdom of God is like a seed... though it is the smallest of all seeds, yet when it grows, it becomes a tree.” -Matthew 13:31-32

The Second Drop:

• Where in your life is something waiting to be remembered, not repaired?

• What have we mistaken for barrenness that might just be rest?

• Could our patience be the rain someone else is praying for?

• When did faith last feel like dirt under our nails instead of words on our tongue?

Prayer

Lord of the slow and the steady,
teach us the rhythm of the garden -
to tend what we can,
to wait where we must,
to trust what You are still growing in secret.

Let our compassion be gentle, our prudence kind,
our wisdom humble,
our calm, unbreakable.

And when we grow weary of waiting,
remind us: nothing living truly forgets how to bloom.

“Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for Him.” - Psalm 37:7

Amen.

Perhaps grace is not the bloom itself, but the hand that keeps tending - even when no one’s watching,
even when winter won’t end.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is story 3 in a trilogy.

I met Wisdom this week. She did not speak much - but somehow, I left the conversation hearing God.

The world felt swollen with noise.
Every conversation, a contest, every silence suspect. Even truth seemed to need a marketing plan. Some days, I could not tell whether people were speaking from conviction or just afraid of being unheard.

That was the week Wisdom found me.

She came quietly - not with sermons or silver light, but like a thought you almost ignored. She looked nothing like I imagined. There was weariness in her eyes, but also laughter - the kind that comes from seeing everything and judging nothing.

“You’re exhausted,” she said, resting her hands around a chipped cup of tea.

I nodded. “Noise,” I said simply.

She smiled. “It’s always been there. The difference is - you’ve stopped listening to the silence beneath it.”

True wisdom, I learned, does not need a microphone. It sits inside the pause between reactions. It sees the tremor before the tears, the hunger behind ambition. It moves quietly through the cracks, where pride has made too much sound to see.

That day, her words felt less like advice and more like recognition - like God leaning over and whispering,

“You already know this. You’ve just forgotten.”

Later, I walked home through the city’s noise. A man was shouting into his phone, angry at someone who was not there to hear him. Cars honked. Screens blinked.
Somewhere, a busker sang half a song no one was listening to.

And there - amid it all - I felt the Spirit slip through, light as a sigh. It was not a command or comfort. It was presence - simple, steady, alive. Confidence, it said, is not volume. It is quiet conviction. The unflappable do not need to announce their peace. They carry it like gravity.

That line stayed with me long after the crowd moved.

The next morning, I sat by my window and watched the first light hit the walls. The city was still half-asleep - the only honest hour left.

“Equanimity,” Wisdom whispered. “Strength without spectacle.”

I smiled into the silence. “That sounds divine.”

“It is,” she said.

“It’s what happens when courage stops needing applause.”

For a moment, the room felt full - not of thought, but of calm. I realised I did not want to win the noise anymore. I just wanted to understand it - then walk right through it, unshaken.

Maybe that is what God meant by peace that surpasses understanding. It is not ignorance. It is immunity.

Love came later that week - uninvited but unmistakable. Not romance, not fireworks - just warmth.

A conversation that lingered.
A hand that stayed.
A moment that did not need to be photographed to matter.

I have come to think that is how the divine loves us - without spectacle, without demand. Just a steady presence in an impatient world.

To be enamoured, Wisdom said, is to see with awe what others overlook - to choose wonder again and again until gratitude becomes instinct. And in that moment, I believed her.

By week’s end, I stopped waiting for revelation. The Spirit did not thunder. It breathed - through stillness, through strangers, through me.

Wisdom never said goodbye. She just smiled, as though knowing she was not leaving - just settling deeper. Because the truth is, she had never been out there at all. She had only been waiting for quiet.

I looked around one last time - the same world, the same rush - and realised something had changed. Not the noise.
Me.

I could finally hear beneath it.

Coin Drop:
Wisdom doesn’t arrive to impress; it remains to transform. God does not need to raise His voice when your soul has learned to lower its own.

Food for thought:
-What kind of noise have we been mistaking for importance?
-Where might the Spirit be speaking softly through what we have ignored? -When did quiet last feel holy to us?

Prayer
Spirit of Stillness,
breathe through our restlessness.
Strip away our need to be heard, and teach us to be present instead.
Let our calm become courage, our silence become faith, and our words - when they finally come - sound like Yours.
Amen.

Maybe wisdom isn’t found in what we master, but in how gently we begin to listen again.

Goodbye penny. Your 232-year run has concluded.

On Nov. 12, the final pennies were produced; the last five fittingly stamped with an omega mark.

Penny, many thanks for flooding the console of my vehicle over several decades. Thank you for the time I devoted an entire day to collecting and exchanging nearly $1,000 in your likeness for my former sister-in-law. And for the 1939 penny I once had - in near mint condition, I might add - that I spent an inordinate amount of time gazing at. But now, a penny saved is a penny lost. So Penny, please, clear out your desk, say your final goodbyes as the United States Treasury prepares to escort you out of the mint.

My Bible was printed in China. I know, a contradiction. Apparently, almost all Bibles are printed there. Ironically, China possesses the printing technology to produce Bibles on an economic scale, in other words, mass-produced, under $30, Words of God. Too bad the workers in the printing plant can’t read English.

So China earns money from the Bible. Hmmm. Say it ain’t so. I guess the Central Committee said fuhgeddaboud Mao’s Little Red Book, supposedly the second most published book in history, we’re all in on the most published tome in history.* More money, please.

And I will leave you with a song that has kinda ministered to me over the years, “Seek,” by Kevin Max. Though you probably won’t be able to make out the lyrics in the video, IMHO, they’re worth checking out. Sadly, Max has renounced Biblical Christianity for a universal Christ - God willing, I will soon be writing a piece about fallen artists and athletes. One of Max’s lines in the song perhaps points to his eventual embrace of a non-Biblical faith, or maybe it’s his pushback against legalism (that’s how I interpreted it before he departed from his Biblical faith).

“Oh now cause you blow away every myth, They taught me in sunday school”

We can pray.

“Knock and the door will be opened,” Kevin…

*The Little Red Book isn’t published anymore.