I’m trouble that so many Christians justify tech as necessary, inevitable, or even desirable. The prevailing attitude seems to be, “It’s here, we might as well learn how to live with it and use it for godly purposes.” We bring screens into our churches to “enhance” the service, set up Facebook accounts and YouTube channels to “reach people,” and implement church tech platforms to “maintain communication” — all without thinking about how these changes impact worship or tempt fellow Christians to spend more time interacting with devices that already devour huge chunks of their lives.

On average, we spend somewhere between three hours and 20 minutes and five hours and 15 minutes on our phones every day, picking them up around 186 times. Most of us start this frenzied dance within 10 minutes of waking up because we feel so addicted that we can’t go even one day without gazing into what British writer Paul Kingsnorth has so aptly dubbed our “little black mirrors.”

We’re inundated with bings, buzzes, rings, vibrations, and banners that shatter our focus and keep us hooked. Moment by moment, we’re tempted to check the latest news or message, and it rarely stops there. I can’t count how often I unlock my phone “just to check my texts” and find myself “just checking” so many other things that I no longer remember what I meant to do in the first place.

Asking congregants to sign up for another platform and receive more notifications amplifies distraction in an age when fragmented attention is robbing people of the ability to read books or simply think without getting sidetracked. It allows the world to insinuate itself in the church until we’re texting and checking Facebook during services or spending fellowship time staring at our phones instead of building real relationships with brothers and sisters face to face.

Worst of all, church-sanctioned tech engagement undermines intentionality and focus, two disciplines essential to knowing and worshipping God. If we can’t focus, we can’t spend long enough in God’s Word each day to build the solid Biblical literacy we need to discern truth. We can’t stay in His presence long enough to wrestle with what Scripture speaks to our hearts. We can’t be still long enough to pray for wisdom and hear when the Holy Spirit brings passages to mind to guide us. We lose countless opportunities for spiritual growth and remain as babes, unable to feed on the strong meat that God wants to give us (Heb. 5:12-14, King James Version).

We’re so busy attending to our phones that we don’t realize we’re stuck in the spiritual shallows. The technology our churches adopt may ultimately fail to strengthen the congregation and instead produce weak, immature Christians without the Biblical knowledge or inner fortitude to bear the fruit of the Spirit. Rather than empowering the Church, tech renders it ineffective, and the Body atrophies.

Even the apparently normal act of texting keeps us glued to our phones, held captive to the hypnotic “incoming message” ellipsis. And, because texting lets us “keep up” — or at least touch base — with far more people than we can through other forms of communication, we begin to sense an obligation to connect regularly with dozens or even hundreds of people we barely know instead of cultivating a few deep, intentional friendships.

Whether we call it FOMO or the tyranny of the urgent, the persistent weight of feeling like we must keep up with the whole world only gets worse as more tech enters the picture — even church tech. The nature of the messages doesn’t matter; the nature of the platform is the issue.

Nearly half of Americans feel addicted to their phones, and 53% want to cut back on their use. But the pull of the screen remains. We may say we’re going to sit down and meditate on our Bible reading for the day, but we barely last five minutes before we feel compelled to check our latest notifications. Thoughts are interrupted, meditations cut short. And once the phone is in our hand, we’re just a tap or swipe away from millions of potential rabbit trails that eat up minutes and hours and days as we scroll on, oblivious.

And what of those who choose not to engage? What of those who feel the conviction of the Spirit as He illuminates detrimental effects of the tech they use in their own lives? What of those who sense danger for themselves and their brothers and sisters in Christ and feel called to reduce or abstain from tech?

Accommodations can, and should, be made. This is right and Biblical, in line with Romans 14 and 15 and 1 Corinthians 8. Yet it’s easy to adopt the world’s view that the tech abstinent are weird or backward. It’s easy to exert subconscious pressure to get on board. After all, refusing to embrace tech as a good or neutral medium to be used for God’s purposes is refusing to embrace progress. It inconveniences the elders and constrains the church.

But is it right and good to create a culture where tech is necessary to stay connected with the Body of Christ and where disengaging puts some members on the outside? Is it loving to ask people to choose between enslavement to their devices or alienation from the congregation because of a strong conviction that the way they’re using tech is a sin (Rom. 14:23)?

Requiring technology for church life makes it harder to disconnect from other distractions like social media and television. It perpetuates the worldly idea that hyperconnectivity is normal, necessary, and unavoidable and the most we can do to break the cycle is practice the occasional “digital media fast.”

This attitude exposes a troubling trend: The tech giants are influencing the Church just as much as they’re influencing the world, and their doctrine is destroying our intentionality. The devices in our pockets, our homes — and, increasingly, our sanctuaries — are sucking away the attention we need to truly worship God and form deep bonds with fellow Christians. We’re so busy flitting from notification to notification that we stop to evaluate whether the tech we’ve deemed necessary actually benefits us or our churches. Our attention is so fragmented that we don’t have time to think — or even realize there’s something important to think about.

Instead, we embrace tech as inevitable and essential, never noticing that, more and more, it’s transferring our worship from the personal God who desires our attention, love, and fellowship to the Neon God the world has made.

What is the path forward from tech dependency? Is there a single path that every Christian ought to follow?

I can’t answer that yet. That’s what I plan to explore in these essays. But a few starting points come to mind. First, Christians can do what God calls us to do when we need wisdom: pray and ask, on our own and with our brothers and sisters. Second, church leaders can seek God’s guidance on what’s best for their congregations spiritually and personally and whether tech should play a role. Third, we can all benefit from taking a step back to evaluate our current tech use and ask how it affects our worship, relationships, and spiritual formation.

For my part, I’m praying about and taking steps toward getting rid of my smartphone. I’m toying with the idea of no longer using email for communication outside of work. I’m reading more books and physical magazines. I’m using my laptop instead of my phone for the digital things I’ve determined are, at least for now, important. And I’m wrestling to let go of apps and habits that aren’t necessary but that I’ve gotten so used to that it’s hard to imagine getting rid of them or developing workarounds.

I need some tech to do my job as a freelance writer. And in daily life, I would literally be lost without GPS. But I suspect that much of the tech or features I think I need are simply things I’ve gotten used to or that make life feel easier. A large part of disengaging is deciding how much I want to sacrifice for convenience and how much inconvenience I’m willing to put up with.

We’ll see where God leads me. But I know I can’t stay where I am. Something has to change, and I’m ready to take those steps.

Thanks for reading. Please feel free to share this piece with someone else who’s thinking deeply about tech. Or, if you’ve come across a good book or essay on this, please drop me a comment! I’d like to read more along these lines as well as write.

Share

Featured photo by Shyam Mishra on Unsplash

Miss you, Mr. Paul.

Every year in late August, a long, white plastic table appeared under a simple awning at the Troy Waterfront Farmers Market. Beneath it sat a wooden sign painted with a colorful basket of fruit and the words “Little River Farm.” And standing behind it, surrounded by an array of seasonal bounty that cycled from peaches, nectarines and plums to an eye-popping variety of apples, was the man I came to know as my “apple guy:” Paul Smith.

Jovial, good-natured, and generous, Paul was fixture of the market for as long as I can remember. Seeming to hover perpetually somewhere in his 60s, he reminded me of no one more than Floyd, bassist for Muppet band The Electric Mayhem. Same ever-present hat, same slightly crazy tufts of hair sticking out the sides, same laid-back vibe.

His apples were the best in the Capital Region — so good that, at some point during the 15 or so years I knew him, I started buying entire bushels. He brought them to the market piled high in sturdy wooden boxes and never let me leave without throwing in a few extra. Other times, he let me take whatever I wanted of the bruised, ugly, and sometimes slightly rotten fruit he culled. And when I wanted a couple of apples for a kid a church, Paul handed them to me for free. I got the impression that’s just the kind of guy he was.

Paul was the one who recommended Courtlands as the best pie apple. My mom fell in love with the flavor and started asking for them every year. I’d grab her a basket as soon as they came in season, and a pie stuffed with a mountain of chopped spiced apple-y goodness would inevitably follow.

I don’t know when I first told him that my long-standing nickname was Sam, but from that time on, he called me “Sammie.” Like the weekend I spotted him as I was coming out of the Arts Center on River Street and greeted him: “Mr. Paul!” He replied with an enthusiastic, “Sammie!” and a friendly side hug.

When the farmers market shut down during COVID, I couldn’t imagine going without Paul’s incomparable fruit. So I gave him a call, as I usually did when I wanted to order a bushel, and asked if he’d be okay with me making the hour-long drive to his orchard in Hudson to pick some up. Classic Paul, he said yes and put two bushels out with a bucket nearby for me to leave the money. That was the only time I ever saw Little River Farm: a sprawling operation that produced the wide variety of fruit that appeared at the market each year from late summer to early spring.

And then there were the chestnuts. Paul’s chestnuts became a fixture of our Christmas Eve dinner, the “Caramelized Onion-Butternut Chestnut Roast” from the classic plant-based cookbook Veganomicon. A big casserole dish of roasted chestnuts, onions, butternut squash with white beans, served with a side of balsamic roasted Brussels sprouts and homemade cranberry sauce — what could be better?

But I didn’t stop by Paul’s table just to snag a few extra Mutsus or make sure Christmas Eve dinner wasn’t missing a key ingredient. I stopped to talk, sometimes for quite a while if the market was slow. Over time, our discussions progressed from chats about life and his farm to deeper subjects like faith, the Bible, and God.

I was early in my Christian journey but growing in the faith and beginning to feel more comfortable bringing up spiritual subjects. And Paul was open to spiritual conversations. He told me about his sister who went to church, and I got the impression that she talked to him about God, too. But given Paul’s tendency to joke, it was hard to tell how seriously he took it all.

Regardless, I always included him when I delivered Christmas cards to market vendors the weekend before the holidays. I tried to pick cards that were appropriate for a single young woman to give a single older man who could best be described as my farmers market buddy. I often tucked a tract inside, something to convey the theological realities of Christmas and its implications for eternity.

I sent him other cards sometimes, including the year that a cold snap after a stretch of unseasonably warm weather killed his entire stone fruit crop and most of his apples. I can’t remember what I wrote in it. I just wanted him to know I was thinking about him, that I was praying for him and I cared. Over the years, I felt compelled to include messages with more depth and weight, directed at his personal spiritual need and rooted in my care for him as a friend.

Because he was my friend. Not just the apple guy or a vendor I saw a lot or a farmer I knew well.

And from what I’ve heard, many vendors and marketgoers felt the same way. Kind to all, Paul was a beloved presence, an expected fixture, someone people looked forward to seeing from the start of stone fruit season until his apples ran out somewhere between January and April. Every year, without fail, Paul was there.

So was I. I went to the market every weekend for years, wandering up and down the Market Block in the summer and around the Uncle Sam Atrium in the winter, stopping to browse produce and products and talk to vendors without worrying about time.

But as my schedule got busier, visits to the market became hurried and transactional instead of a time to slow down and connect with the people around me. Meaningful conversations, including with Paul, became fewer and farther between. I always had somewhere else to go and a time at which I had to be home to “get things done.” Things like cleaning and cooking that I saw as necessities but, admittedly, could have waited.

There were days when I wanted to stop and talk with Paul, but I was in too much of a rush. Or he was with a customer or off wandering the market as he was wont to do, and my rigid schedule didn’t allow me to wait. So I dashed through and headed off without even touching base to say hi.

Sometime during this self-imposed frenzy, I noticed Paul seemed unwell. He was losing weight and lacked his usual boundless energy. It concerned me, but I didn’t say anything. And I didn’t stop to ask if he was okay. I just kept going, ruled by the tyranny of the “important” tasks I believed had to be done by the end of the day.

And then…he was gone.

It really was that sudden. In August of this year, another long-time farmer friend who was close to Paul told me Paul had been in the hospital having a brain tumor removed. I was stunned. Though I’d noticed the decline in Paul’s health, I hadn’t suspected cancer.

The outlook seemed good at first. People saw Paul working in his fields, apparently on the mend. But a few short weeks later, his rally became a downturn, and he died in early September.

It’s strange how someone can become a fixture of your life through something as mundane as visits to a farmers market stall. And then one day, things aren’t like that any more. You get older, and your routine changes. Parts of your life you figured would always be there, even obviously finite parts like people, disappear.

New routines, new traditions, and new people come, but they don’t fill the gap left by what came before. They take up the time, they become part of the rhythm, and you eventually adapt. Then you start to take those new things for granted and somehow forget they won’t be there forever. And suddenly, they too are gone.

It’s so easy to delay conversations, to prioritize tasks that don’t really matter. You feel more comfortable or productive in the moment but don’t realize you’ll inevitably look back with regret after you miss your last chance to do what was most worthwhile.

And as I look back and remember Paul, I see lessons I’d do well to heed while I still have a chance with others:

Make time for people. Make space for memories.

Don’t be so attached to routine that you can’t lay it aside when something more important comes up.

Never be so busy that you miss out on moments of relationship.

Stop and talk to the apple guy. And let him know you care.

Featured photo by Alex Belogub on Unsplash

I haven’t stopped writing. I’ve just been struggling to find a balance between this type of writing and the writing that I have to do to pay the bills. Given the choice, I’d much rather be doing this — or journalism.

But I have been contributing to things outside of work! I recently had the privilege of adding to Terri Edward’s “Food & Faith” project at Eat Plant-Based with a piece on food as hospitality. And I had a lot of fun diving into nerdy brain science for my most recent article for The Epoch Times Health.

Other things are in the works. I’ve been pitching. I’ve been praying. And God seems to be opening some doors to new possibilities and potential possibilities. Not ready to share all the details yet — but I do think 2026 could get rather interesting.

Today’s piece is a slice of a bigger web of thoughts I’ve been pondering in recent months, mostly touched off by the continuing rise of AI. One of the questions the whole movement brings up: What is real?

I’m not attempting to answer that all at once. But I do think it’s time for us, as a society, to start thinking more about how we spend our time, where we put our attention, and how much we engage with the disembodied online world — a world that is becoming increasingly UNreal.

As always, thanks for coming back even when I’ve been quiet for a while.

Screen-induced “fear of missing out” may well be one of the greatest tragedies of our age. The endless news, events, and people filling the feeds that many of us spend vast chunks of our time interacting with have little to do with the contexts of our lives. Yet the deeper we allow ourselves to be drawn in, the more real the distant world behind our screens becomes. We fear putting down the phone lest we miss something important.

We’re overcome by FOMO.

C.S. Lewis recognized the danger of our predicament long before the advent of handheld screens. At time when newspapers and radio were the major mass distributors of information and TV was making its way into the mainstream, he wrote, “It is one of the evils of rapid diffusion of news that the sorrows of all the world come to us every morning.”

Today, we don’t have to wait for an evening radio program or the latest edition of the local paper to connect us with the wider world. We simply reach into our pockets any time we wish, open an app, and pull down to refresh.

In an instant, we gain access to articles, pictures, social media posts, podcasts, and videos from every corner of the world, delivered in an endless stream unbounded by the constraints of earlier media formats. We experience what Nicholas Carr refers to in his book, Superbloom, as “content collapse”: the removal of all categories and contexts that typically give information its meaning.

Describing the launch of Facebook’s News Feed feature, he writes,

*”It was just one thing after another: a video of a laughing baby, a news headline about a school shooting, a photo of a friend on vacation, an ad for a toenail fungus remedy, a contouring tip from a Kardashian, a story about microplastics in the ocean. ... Everything had the same semantic context, which was no context.”

Faced with a disconnected jumble of information stripped of any signal to help us discern its importance, we become emotionally engaged with places we’ll never go and people we’ll never meet. We become incensed by or depressed about events so far removed from our homes and neighborhoods as to have no bearing on them. We attach ourselves to influencers as if they were trusted friends, immersing ourselves in mediated snippets of their curated lives and somehow believing that we’re building a relationship with a person who doesn’t know us from the million other hangers-on cluttering the comments section. And each time our phone buzzes, we race to see the latest from the monetized news outlets, social platforms, and YouTube channels that clamor for our attention.

Disconnecting seems impossible, even unthinkable. The digital world has snaked its tendrils into every aspect of physical life. Even interactions with people we actually know aren’t immune to the intrusion. We get invitations through social media, find out what someone wants for their birthday from their Amazon registry, and hesitate make calls without texting first. What once involved face-to-face meetings or phone conversations now takes place through a screen.

And once we’ve engaged with that screen, it’s all too easy to be lured into the enticing stream of irrelevance waiting just a tap or swipe away. It’s such an integral part of our lives that we can’t bear to miss a moment.

We’ve become like Eve eyeing the forbidden fruit in the garden. It was beautiful. It looked delicious. And it consumed her attention. The serpent’s sly message hissed in her ears: “If you don’t eat that fruit, you’ll miss out on something important, something you need to have, something that will make your life so much better.” (Genesis 3:1-6)

How could she say no?

The consequences of modern-day FOMO are much the same. As with our first parents, our fear of life passing us by leads us into sin and robs us of God’s good gifts. The world behind our screens tempts us to envy others’ experiences, covet products we don’t need, and lament our circumstances because they don’t measure up to our favorite influencer’s meticulously staged life.

By the end of the day, most of us have wasted as many as six hours in a screen-mediated stupor.

Real life is relationship

If we looked up for just a moment, we would see that the interactions we’ve sacrificed to screen time are what form the very fabric of real life. But we’re so busy with endless streams of headlines and videos and posts that we’ve reduced these relationships to distracted messages sent in haste as we bounce between apps. We give more attention to talking heads on YouTube than to the people physically present around us. And, as Cal Newport points out in his book, Deep Work, “What we choose to focus on and what we choose to ignore—plays in defining the quality of our life.”

In our quest to never miss out, we alienate ourselves from the connections that matter most. Our families. Our neighbors. Our friends. The faces we’d see and the voices we’d hear if we weren’t so preoccupied with the false, digitized realities we carry everywhere we go.

One deliberate choice is all it takes to break the cycle. The choice to forgo scrolling social media and instead strike up a conversation with the neighbor who walks his dog past the house every morning. The choice to turn off the phone and put it away so we can engage with our spouse and kids at the dinner table. The choice to invite a lonely widow or single college student into our home for a screen-free meal on a weekend or holiday.

Each choice moves us further away from the world of irrelevance and deeper into the embodied reality we were always meant to inhabit. And these interactions—some apparently small and incidental, others intense and impactful—build relationships that create a vibrant tapestry that no screen can replicate. The remote news and false relationships of the digital world pale in comparison to the tangible, enriching connections that God has placed in each of our lives.

How many precious hours could we reclaim with those people simply by refusing to fall victim to manufactured FOMO?

Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure. ~ Philippians 2:12-13, King James Version (emphasis added)

"What would Jesus do?"

My Sunday school teacher took issue with this popular phrase one week and remarked, "You can't do what Jesus would do." I think I understand what he was getting at: We're not perfect, we're not God (or the incarnate Son of God), so we can't do exactly as Jesus would do.

But I still disagree with his assessment. Philippians 2:12-13 shows that the Christian can, in fact, do what Jesus would do. And numerous exhortations throughout Scripture suggest that God expects His children to live as His Son did (Matt. 5:48; 1 John 2:6, 3:3; 1 Pet. 1:15-16, 2:21; 1 Cor. 11:1; Eph. 4:1, 5:1-2; Phil. 1:27, 2:5; Col. 1:10; etc.).

I've been meditating on this lately as I read and study Scripture. Over and over, particularly in the Psalms, Scripture presents a strong connection between obeying God and receiving blessing, between keeping God's precepts and flourishing, between following God's ways and having abundant life (Ps. 1:1-3, 119:1-2, 128:1; c.f. Isa. 58:13-14; Luke 11:28; John 12:17). Abundance sometimes includes the material, and sometimes not; but the obedient child of God always experiences spiritual growth and blessings (Ps. 92:13; John 15:4,8; Rom. 2:7).

There is, of course, a problem: Obedience is hard. Becoming a Christian transforms a person from a sinner to a sinner saved by grace, not a perfect creature with the complete ability to do all of God's will without a struggle. Christians are described as being "born again" (John 1:13; 1 Pet. 1:3; Jas. 1:17) — and birth brings forth babies, not fully developed adults. Just as a baby has to grow and mature, so does the Christian.

But, just as babies aren't left on their own to figure everything out, Christians aren't sent out into the world without guidance. We have a Father in heaven Who wants to see us mature into the likeness of Jesus (Rom. 8:29; 2 Cor. 3:18; Eph. 4:22-24). And, given that the Bible repeatedly highlights God's merciful and compassionate character (Ex. 34:6; Ps. 103:8, 145:8; Lam. 3:22-23), it makes little sense to assume that He would set us on a course that He didn't also equip us to follow.

The Reformed tradition has a tendency to downplay the full power of God's work in us and underemphasize the joy and encouragement we should draw from it as we seek to follow Him. In the Reformed view, man is often portrayed as utterly, completely, and hopelessly sinful — even after salvation. Citing passages like Psalm 22:6 (c.f. Job 25:6), where the psalmist describes himself as a "worm, and no man" (along with "total depravity," the T in the Calvinist TULIP acronym), many Reformed teachers paint a picture of the human condition that suggests no person is capable of pleasing God.

Isaiah 64:6 and Romans 3:10-12 are often cited to support this, but I disagree with the application. Isaiah is speaking of the nation of Israel in his day, which kept God's law outwardly as tradition but had no true heart to follow Him (Isa. 29:13, 58:2-7; Ezek. 33:31). The Israelites anchored their "righteousness" in practices that were meant to be performed with a humble and repentant heart, not as a matter of ritual. The act of sacrificing animals and sprinkling their blood on the altar should have caused them to think on the severity of sin and the holiness of God and turn their hearts back to Him.

Instead, the nation of Israel relied on their ritualistic approach to God's law as an excuse to continue in their sin. They figured that, as God's chosen people, they were fine no matter what they did. The rituals were enough to make them right with God regardless of their heart attitude (Isa. 48:1-2; Ezek. 14:3-8; Micah 3:9-11)

Paul makes a direct and severe argument against this attitude throughout his letter to the Romans. He goes to great lengths to demonstrate that ritualistic law keeping never could — and never would — make a person right with God (Rom. 3:19-20). By the standard of a holy God, there is "none that doeth good," with "good" carrying the sense of moral integrity characterized by perfect obedience in every part of the law. No work of man, no religious practice, no amount of prayers or human penitence can erase sin and produce righteousness.

Both Isaiah and Paul, then, emphasize that a person can't justify himself before God. We can't represent ourselves in God's court, as it were, and make a winning case. Perfection is the reasonable standard of a holy God, and sinful humanity will always fall short.

But, as far as I can infer from my studies, their conclusion doesn't mean it's impossible for a Christian to do what Jesus would do — to indeed "do good" according to God's standard. The author of Hebrews gave insight as to why when he states, "Without faith it is impossible to please Him (Heb. 11:6, emphasis added)." And again, in Romans, Paul writes, "With the heart man believeth unto righteousness (Rom. 10:10, emphasis added)."

When a person accepts Jesus as Savior by faith, he receives Jesus' righteousness, the very righteousness he couldn't achieve on his own (Phil. 3:8-9), and is legally declared not guilty of sin before God. Along with this, Holy Spirit regenerates the believer and makes him a new creation in Christ after the image of God in righteousness and holiness (Eph. 4:24).

And, since Christ is the exact image of God (Heb. 1:3), it follows that to be created after God's image is to be made like Christ. The old nature, though still present as long as the Christian is in the flesh, dies in the sense that the desire to sin no longer reigns. The Holy Spirit creates and empowers the new nature to overcome the temptation to sin and instead do what pleases God.

Paul's choice of words when he says God works in us "to will and to do of His good pleasure" (Phil. 2:13) bears this out. He uses the Greek eudokia, which means God's favor or will. Thus, for the Christian to will and do God's will means to live in harmony with what God says is good, right, and moral. As one commentator puts it: "[God] works in their hearts that which is agreeable to him, or leads them to 'will and to do' that which is in accordance with his own will."

The Holy Spirit working God's power in the Christian enables him to defeat sin, have spiritual victory over the temptations and snares of the enemy, and bear the fruit of the Spirit despite even the strongest fleshly desire to do that which is contrary to God.

It becomes possible to choose to do what Jesus would do.

My pastor drove this point home in a recent Sunday School lesson on Jesus' humanity. It's easy to get so focused on Jesus as the Son of God that we forget He also had a human nature. He was fully God and fully man. And, as a man, He faced the emotions, limitations, and temptations that every other human has faced since Adam and Eve fell into sin.

And yet, He never sinned. Why?

An argument can be made, and rightly so, that, being God, it was impossible for Jesus to sin. But that doesn't negate the reality of what He faced in His human nature. He got hungry. He got tired. He spent the majority of His time with people who were challenging, frustrating, and unreliable. People argued with Him (Mark 8:11; John 8:6), rejected Him (John 1:11, 8:31-43), and tried to kill Him (Luke 4:28-29; John 8:59), pretty much everywhere He went. He was tempted of the devil while alone in the wilderness (Matt. 4:1-11). Through it all, the physical and spiritual torment of bearing the weight of the world's sin on the cross loomed before Him. The weight of it burdened Him so much that He sweat drops of blood as He wrestled in prayer the night before His arrest (Luke 22:41-44).

But He never sinned because He always kept His focus on God and anchored His life in God's will (John 4:34). He regularly spent time alone in the Father's presence to seek strength and guidance. When circumstances were overwhelming, He reoriented Himself in prayer. And the same Spirit that was with Him is in every Christian. The same God Who strengthened and walked with Jesus, His own Son, strengthens and walks with every believer.

I find this encouraging, as should everyone who claims the name of Christ. We are sinners, yes, but sinners saved by the grace of a God Who never leaves or forsakes His own (Deut. 31:6, 1 Sam. 12:22, Heb. 13:5). And even as He asks us to do what seems impossible, He equips us to obey through the power of His Spirit and the guidance of His Word. He gives us the privilege of coming before His heavenly throne to ask for strength, wisdom (Jas. 1:5), and mercy (Heb. 4:16) as we face the temptations of life and strive to live like Jesus.

We will inevitably stumble, but He will lift us up (Ps. 91:9-11). No matter what we face, we will never utterly fall (Ps. 16:8, 37:30-31, 55:22, 62:6, 121:2-3). Whether we walk with toddling, uncertain steps of in our early Christian life or encounter circumstances that send us to the brink of despair and doubt in our maturity, He leads us in the right way (Ps. 16:11, 32:8; Isa. 41:13).

Proverbs 22:17-21 shows how to receive that leading:

Bow down thine ear, and hear the words of the wise, and apply thine heart unto my knowledge. For it is a pleasant thing if thou keep them within thee; they shall withal be fitted in thy lips. That thy trust may be in the LORD, I have made known to thee this day, even to thee. Have not I written to thee excellent things in counsels and knowledge, that I might make thee know the certainty of the words of truth; that thou mightest answer the words of truth to them that send unto thee? — Proverbs 22:17-21, KJV

God's Word — read or spoken — implants wisdom in our hearts (Ps. 119:11) if we seek to know it and understand it in all its truth. The Holy Spirit brings God's principles to mind and shows us how to apply them so we may live out His commands in any situation (John 14:26). God's Word also reminds us that He is faithful to do what He has promised, including giving us the wisdom, strength, and heart to obey Him despite the desires of our flesh.

So when we face a situation that tempts us, we can look to our Savior as our example and be confident that we have the resources to act or react as He did. We won't get it perfect. We'll mess up a lot. But our heavenly Father bestows on us the strength and power to choose not to sin. We can ask, "What would Jesus do?", know the answer — and do it.

This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. — Gal. 5:16, KJV

Featured image by Marcel Strauß on Unsplash

My recollections of times on the rock—and in the yard of my childhood home in general—are like most childhood memories: sweet, yet tinged with the emotional struggles that accompany growing up. I’ve tried to capture the sweetness here.

The rock was a lot of things. A wilderness house, a pirate ship, a secluded spot in a fantasy land...an anchor for imagination. My childhood imagination routinely transformed the gram monolith from a moss-speckled hunk of stone a few feet wide and perhaps eight feet long into anything and everything I wished it to be.

To arrive at the rock's familiar bulky shape, I embarked on an epic journey across the gravel driveway, beneath the spreading branches of a towering pine that kept vigil over my parents' cars, and across a grassy path that carried me past our dilapidated wellhouse with its ill-fitting door and old-fashioned padlock. The aging, gray-green structure marked the boundary between my backyard and the sylvan side lot that bordered the pond beyond my house. Onward led the path, making a sharp right into a narrow space tucked between two bushes and down a mismatched staircase of rocks and tree roots.

As I went, the woodsy landscape began to take the shape of whatever fantastic realm I'd decided to explore that day. A familiar fixture like the stone-ring fireplace where my family occasionally roasted hot dogs for dinner became the source of warmth and sustenance for a family or tribe making their home in the wilderness. And the sloping path just beyond, over which ferns and branches often encroached until my dad clipped them back, might be a path to safety from an enemy—or a place where wild beasts might be waiting, poised to pounce.

At last, I arrived at the rock: solid, sturdy, and unassuming, the perfect setting for whatever story struck my fancy or that of my equally imaginative friends. Passing from reality to fantasy took only a few minutes, yet I—or we—could spend hours populating the area with characters we dreamed up or pulled from the books, movies, and cartoons we enjoyed.

Some friends were much more adventurous than I, like the tough redheaded girl who loved stories that oozed danger and conflict. With her, the rock was a wilderness house that sheltered a rebellious youngster and the mother who could never quite reign her in. As she shimmied up trees and situated herself in the crooks of branches with ease, I trembled a little inside and kept my feet firmly planted on the ground.

When I teamed up with the two sisters I'd met in kindergarten, the imagined family dynamics became more interesting. Together, we slipped into the roles of a mother and two daughters as we wandered between the backyard of my house and the side lot where the rock perched among the trees. At times, fictitious conflicts gave rise to real strife that followed us into the school week and had to be worked out through many notes and tears before we could return to our wilderness playground.

Not every game came purely from our own invention. My best friend at the time, a slim blonde girl whose little brother and sister often played roles in our stories, introduced me to Tales of the Crystals, a commercially produced fantasy game that played a starring role in our adventures for years to come. Set in a fictional world populated by talking trees, fairies, unicorns, wise oracles, and (of course) a wicked witch, the game contained props like plastic crystal pendants that bestowed magic powers, a heart-shaped box for carrying important items, and a set of flags printed with names of specific places in the fantasy world. An audio cassette provided prompts for a series of story arcs culminating in a final confrontation with the villain.

We hung the flags in rooms around our houses or off the branches of trees, donned the crystal necklaces, and transformed ourselves into adventurers with special powers on a quest to complete the tasks set forth by our prerecorded companions. Together, we used our imputed crystal powers to rescue captured unicorns, discover special treasures, and fight formidable foes.

But our longest-running stories were anchored in our idea of what it was like to be part of a Native American tribe. Details from history books, school lessons, and Disney films like Pocahontas collided with a hearty dose of imagination to transform the family dog into a marauding wolf or broad leaves from nearby bushes into talismans representing life and vitality.

Though we had no actual concept of life in those times, our fascination with teepees and longhouses and cooking over fires carried us through story arcs encapsulated in afternoons or carried out over months. Lengthy storylines picked up each time we reconvened at the rock and returned us to a world just as real as the one in which we caught the big yellow bus to school at what felt like the crack of dawn each morning.

School didn't exist in the worlds of the rock. Our struggles were that of a mother wondering how in the world to get her daughter down from her latest tree-bound temper tantrum or a tribal chief and his eldest child preparing to oppose an encroaching enemy. We stepped in and out of these worlds at will, with the rock as our anchor and the trees our witnesses.

The most epic stories were memorialized with the portable Fisher Price tape recorder I carried just about everywhere. Its compact size, chunky handle, and big buttons made it easy to record the antics my friends and I got up to as we played on and around the rock. I purchased scores of blank audio cassettes to capture the dialog and plotlines that flowed from our imaginations—although knowing we were, in essence, performing for an invisible audience consisting of our future selves likely made us ham it up far more than we otherwise would.

Even then, the writer in me couldn't resist pinning our fantasies to the page with words inscribed in the unwieldy cursive taught in third grade. I haven't a clue if my teachers found the results bizarre or inventive, but I delighted in the writing assignments that gave me the opportunity to bring those stories to life.

The times on the rock were pure simplicity, pure fancy, pure childhood. Running around outdoors unhindered, free to allow our imaginations to carry us where they would, my friends and I spent our days in myriad realms with the rock at the center.

Our created worlds radiated from the rock in every direction to encompass the trees, the ferns, the pond, the carpet of leaves and pine needles, and the rural road that ran along the side lot. That was my world: as far as my eyes could see. Compact yet expansive, the view from the rock embraced all that was familiar—and became all I could imagine.

A wilderness house, a pirate ship, a location in a fantasy land...an enduring legacy that lasts long after its stories have faded into memory.

Thanks for reading. 🙂 If you enjoyed this, you can read some of my other recollections here:

• Fishing with Dad

• Frog rocks and dinosaurs

• The small joys of life

• Lincoln Log afternoons

Before I became a Christian, I had a former life as an amateur folk musician. I made my way in and out of local coffeehouses, attending open mic nights and playing shows where I aspired to give shape to a deep longing that burned within me. Through cryptic words and elementary chord progressions, I sought to step out of my life into something beyond—something other—that always seemed just outside my grasp.

Such longing wasn't mine alone; it reflected the profound hunger of every human heart. Each of us desires to access a deeper reality, something we know must exist on the other side of daily life. For musicians, writers, and other creatives, this desire manifests in desperate attempts to uncover and articulate that deeper reality and, if only for a moment, transcend an existence that feels wholly inadequate.

In his essay, "Aspired Cathedrals," writer B.C. Wallin makes the case that a grasping for the other, a reaching beyond reality, has been a fixture of art for centuries. He points to examples like Michelangelo, who believed that the stone he carved already held the form of a statue that it was his job to bring out; and Karl Friedrich Schinkel, a German architect and artist who used his art to depict beautiful cathedrals that were impossible to build within the constraints of the physical world.

Art, says Wallin, punches a hole in our mundane reality and reveals something more. He suggests that art may actually create something real, deepen the reality we know, or connect us to something beyond our lived experience.

But what if art is a tangible dream of an existing reality? A dream in words, music, or paint that depicts, not something we long for and can never attain, but the eternal, transcendent reality that prompts our insatiable inner groaning?

This groaning of the soul is no mystery. Humanity's history as laid out in the Bible tells us that, as a result of the Fall, all creation, not just humans, groans in anticipation of future renewal (Rom. 8:20-23). The sin that entered the world through Adam and Eve's disobedience in the Garden (Gen. 3:1-19) affected man, beast, and planet. From that moment on, humanity—and the creation we were charged with stewarding—has groaned under sin's curse.

God promises that a time of renewal will come, a time when the present heavens and earth will pass away (Isa. 51:6, Heb. 1:10-12) and be made completely new (Rev. 21:5). But, like the prophets of old, Christians must look forward to the promise of a future not yet realized and rest in the sure hope of God's promise (Rom. 5:5, Heb. 11:39-40, 1 Peter 1:10-12).

As we look forward, we dream through our art. Our creative works pull back the curtain of the mortal and temporal to expose the real and eternal. We strip away the dullness of the sin-cursed world and open, in a sense, a portal to that ultimate restoration. We don't create anything new—only God can do that—but our art can express greater realities and draw hearts and minds into the Christian hope of eternal glory.

No earthy form of art can fully capture the beauty and perfection of the renewed creation that the Old Testament prophets spoke of and the Apostle John called the new heavens and new earth (Rev. 21:1). This portrait of heaven, far removed from the common fantasy of wings, halos, and endless harp music, speaks of God's ultimate plan to restore the harmony that creation enjoyed when Adam and Eve walked with Him in the Garden of Eden.

It was a time of perfection with no illness, pain, or death; a time when the lion and the lamb laid down together without fear; a length of days when mankind dwelt in God's presence with no interference from sin or shame. And ever since the entrance of sin, humanity has longed to return to that perfection. We've spent millennia grasping for ways to escape the bondage of this world and free ourselves from the effects of the Fall.

Yet for all our imaginations and attempts, we remain bound to our daily reality. Every bridge we attempt to build crumbles before it can carry us into the beyond, and we're left stranded and empty at the edge of our longing.

The challenge for the Christian creative, then, is not only to draw the future reality of perfection into the daily reality of life but to present a solid, unfailing bridge that transforms art from a portal to a path. For the answer to our groaning lies not in perfection itself but in the avenue by which we enter into that perfection: the cross of Christ.

Only the cross can bridge the gap and carry us from the ache of seeking meaning in this life to the peace of a glorious new creation. Unlike imperfect human art, Christ's sacrifice for sin was wholly perfect(Heb. 9:11-14;10:10-14), and those who confess it will find the only bride that can carry them beyond this life and finally satisfy their heart's deepest hunger.

Wallin's essay ends with the aspiration of bringing about something real through words, yet art, no matter the form, can't help us attain the reality for which we long. No amount of songwriting or performing ever built a bridge across the yawning emptiness that haunted my brief music career. Art can attest to the groaning in every heart, but only when it invites every eye to see God as the One Who transforms the unfinished stone through the cross can it truly build a bridge into eternity.

If you’d like to read what I’ve been writing lately outside of Substack, please feel free to checkout my recent bylines:

• The Full Weight (included in Broad Sound, Vol. 2, part 1)

• Plants May Have the Power to Prevent Chronic Disease: Review

• What is the MAC Diet? This Gut-Healthy, High-Fiber Plan May Reduce Risk of Disease

• Struggling With Existential Anxiety? Study Shows Doomscrolling May Be to Blame

Thanks for your ongoing support!

The Calling to Excellence: A Response

In his 2021 essay, "The Calling to Excellence", theologian R. C. Sproul poses a convicting question: Why aren't modern Christians impacting the culture for God to the same extent as previous generations?

His words pricked my heart. As a professing Christian who firmly believes writing is my main calling, I'm supposed to dedicate myself to developing that talent fully and using it to serve God. Like the Apostle Paul, I'm to orient my life around doing what God has called me to do—and doing it with all my might (Phil. 3:18-19; c.f. Eccl. 9:10, Col. 3:23).

Which leads me to pose my own questions: Do I really want to be not just a writer, but a great writer? Do I desire to make as big an impact on this world for the Lord and His Kingdom as possible? And can the writing I do actually serve that purpose—or am I simply releasing more pointless noise into an already saturated internet landscape?

The Purpose of Words

As I consider these questions, I wrestle to untangle the enigma of what the written word is for. I come to a point where I feel drawn to put pen to paper and bring an idea to life...but I freeze. I hesitate to write until understand the purpose of words. Because if I don't know, how can I be sure my words fulfill it?

It's stunning to think that God revealed Himself through words. That, by His Spirit, He directed the Biblical writers to record specific details about Who He is, what He's done, and how He deals with humanity. And that He preserved these details the same way. Throughout the centuries, words—particularly written words—have been the vehicle that carries God's self-revelation to mankind.

It would seem, then, that the answer I've been struggling to find is straightforward: Words are meant to point people to the God Who made them; created the world they inhabit; and set the standards for how they, and all of us, are to live.

Don't misunderstand me: I'm not saying every written work must be a Biblical commentary or theological treatise. A piece of writing can proclaim God without being overtly about Him. Explorations of the human condition highlight sin's effect on the world and our desperate need for redemption. Like Solomon in Ecclesiastes, writers can use words to demonstrate the futility of seeking that redemption from any source apart from the God Who provided it.

For Christians endowed with creative gifts, exercising that gift turns our minds and hearts in toward the character and nature of this very God. As we write, paint, sculpt, dance, or play music, the concentration required for creativity causes us to think about God more deeply. We dwell on Him and abide in Him as we create, and as we do, we're blessed with joy. The resulting works enrich us and lift God up as glorious to all partake of the results.

Where Do We See Greatness?

And yet, Sproul points to a lack of this deliberate abiding—and the dedication it's meant to engender—as a major issue for modern Christianity:

Where do we see greatness in Christian art today? Where do we see greatness in Christian music today? Who are the leading great Christian novelists of our age? Who are the great Christian politicians? Where are the great Christian research scientists? ... The leaders of the classics in all the fields have been Christians.

Whereas men like Bach "consciously sought to use the medium" they worked in "as an instrument to capture men's minds for the glory of God," Sproul notes that the Christian community is failing to "dent the culture" in the current era. Rather, the culture may be denting us—to the detriment of the Church and the world.

Like Sproul, I fear the world makes inroads into the Church far more often than the Church makes inroads into the world, including in the matter of excellence. We live in a culture obsessed with doing more and doing it faster, that invents an ever-increasing collection of tools to keep the productivity machine running at top speed.

Christians aren't immune to the pressure. Faced with a constant stream of chatter that suggests others are producing more, achieving more, and enjoying success more than we are, it's hard to resist the temptation to abandon excellence in favor of ramping up our output in an effort to simply be heard above the noise.

This "just ship it" attitude is the antithesis of the slow, deliberate focus and diligence required to develop the excellence of which Sproul speaks. We may increase the volume of our output, but it's often at the expense of quality. The result is a spiral of steadily devolving work as those who read or view what we create become accustomed to a lower level of quality and cease to expect anything better. Instead, novelty becomes the driving force, which increases the pressure to produce.

And on and on.

I wonder if we've become so accustomed to the mediocrity spawned by the speed of modern "content production" that we no longer recognize excellence. Do we truly understand the standard God calls us to? Do we recognize the power that the Holy Spirit has to transform our creative gifts? Or are we so ignorant of these realities that we've stopped demanding excellence of ourselves—and of our Christian brothers and sisters?

Putting in the Work For God's Glory

Of course, when we demand excellence of ourselves, we face the reality of the effort it involves and put ourselves in an uncomfortable position that discomfits our fleshly nature. Committing to excellence, Sproul rightly points out, requires "submitting [yourself] to the discipline" of the training and labor required to become truly great.

What it takes to achieve excellence, more than anything else, is not talent but perseverance. ... Excellence takes work.

Yet the concept of "work" is fraught with angst and resistance in our culture. No thanks to the ubiquitous presence of tiny pocket computers, vocational work hovers, omnipresent, at the edge of our consciousness. Combined with societal pressure to Get Things Done, this omnipresence breeds an ongoing stream of background stress that drains our energy and leaves us feeling overwhelmed and listless.

In response, many people—particularly young people—are on a quest to personalize every aspect of work. They're demanding flexible hours, remote options, and unlimited paid time off. Some are exiting the workforce entirely, opting to be their own bosses and chase the elusive dream of making eight figures while working four hours a week from a laptop on a remote island paradise (floppy hat and big sunglasses optional).

It's not wrong to want balance between work and life; God built such rhythms into His creation. But He also made work integral to what it means to be human. Made in His image, we're called to work as He worked. We're called to point the world to Him by influencing the culture in which He places us. He gives us gifts to that end—and expects us to develop them by the means He provides.

The gift we've been given by God is supposed to be brought back to God to be developed to its ultimate potential.

Our attitude must mirror Paul's in Philippians 3:13-14: always pressing forward, determined to grow and improve for the sake of God and His Kingdom. We must commit to the long haul of pursuing excellence day by day, year after year. We must be ready to lay aside our pride and admit we're not as good as we think we are, we don't know as much as we think we know, and we have so much to learn that it will take until glory to even scratch the surface.

We must be willing to make sacrifices of time and preference. We must be willing to submit our gifts wholly to God and let Him lead us by His Spirit through the process of learning, practicing, and refining. We must embrace the humbling reality that excellence requires a slow, steady pursuit if we desire to follow an upward trajectory and not plateau in a mire of mediocrity.

But are we, as Christians, willing to do what it takes to do great work for God and make an impression on the culture?

I have to point this question at myself and allow it to try my heart. Am I willing to work hard, toil, sweat, put in the time, and wrestle with the details of the writing craft so I can leave a legacy for the Lord?

The Fountain That Feeds Excellence

I find myself coming down to the fundamental issue of loving the Lord with all my heart as commanded in Scripture (Deut. 6:5, Matt. 22:37). If I love Christ, I'm supposed to give myself to Him as a living sacrifice (Rom. 12:2). That means giving Him my whole life, every aspect of my being. It means I'm to submit my writing talent to Him to use as He will. And from that, a desire to work diligently for Him—and a delight in that work—is supposed to flow.

And yet, I'm deeply that I don't love God as I ought. I don't meditate on Him and His Word when I awake in the night or sing His praise every morning as the psalmists did (Ps. 5:3, 55:17, 88:13). I don't identify with people who gush over how beautiful Christ is and pontificate on how Christians should gaze upon His beauty until they melt like my giddy 13-year-old self at the sight of a Nick Cater centerfold in Teen People.

My faith has leaned toward the intellectual and the practical for the majority of my walk with Christ. I delight in burying my head in commentaries, concordances, and dictionaries; chasing rabbit trails through word studies; or taking deep dives into Bible books and passages. I study Scripture like the nerdy reader and writer I am: digging into the particulars of language and setting, seeking to understand the meaning, and journaling insights the Holy Spirit provides.

This leads me to question why I don't seem to have that deep desire to "behold the beauty of the Lord (Ps. 27:4)"—a state of heart that troubles me. I'm to labor and strive for excellence out of love for the God Who gave me my talents, abilities, and gifts, but in examining myself, I find a lack of appreciation for His inherent beauty.

Unless "beauty" means more than the narrow definition we've given it. Unless it describes more than something attractive or a sight we're drawn to look at and linger on. And indeed, it does. Beauty expresses a particular excellence that encompasses delightfulness, pleasantness, and splendor, that possesses a pleasing harmony or symmetry.

An excellence, indeed, like God's.

So perhaps intellectual nerdity is my way of beholding God's beauty. As I plunge into the depths of Scripture and come away with notes that I feel the urge to organize and share, my spirit communes with His and glimpses His perfection. The more I read and study His Word, the more I learn about Him: the pinnacle of all things pleasing to the human mind.

Which brings me full circle. Do I desire to worship this God now, in this life, to the point of giving Him all I have and all I am? Am I ready to submit everything, including my writing, to be used by Him and for Him now? And do I long to be before His throne forever, serving and worshipping Him with my brothers and sisters in Christ, all of us using our gift for Him as stewards and rulers in the new creation?

Mastering the Details

Eternal devotion has a price in temporal life. It means humbling myself and realizing I have a long way to go. It means walking the fine line between rejoicing in what God has already done in and through my writing abilities and not being satisfied with staying at my current level of skill. It means stepping the shallows and applying myself to the deeper discipline of learning and growth—a discipline that must be lifelong if I'm to truly use my words for God.

When I first realized that "writer" is my main calling, I wrote:

"I want to approach writing like a craft, to apply myself to it like a working writer instead of a blogger or content marketer. I want to learn to write sentences and prose that flow with satisfying rhythm and cadence. I want to serve God with my writing talent, to be a good steward of what He's given me, and honor Him by treating writing as more than a means of making money. I want to approach writing joyfully and with all my might, to pursue excellence because this talent and this life are from God and for God."

I didn't understand what pursuing excellence with all my might would entail. As Sproul points out, to use a gift fully, it's essential to master the details. If I'm serious about excellence, I must commit to the training required to become a great writer—studying technique and grammar, learning proper word use and syntax, and brushing up on punctuation—and put in the time to apply what I learn.

But at the same time, I can't allow fear of not yet being excellent to hold me back from writing as I train. I often afraid to try because I'm weighed down by the realization of how much more I have to learn. When I do venture to try, I wrestle for hours to find the best words, the most economical sentence constructions, the most logical flow of ideas. Writing is excruciating; editing is even more so.

Developing excellence is intimidating.

But Sproul shines light on an underappreciated benefit of putting in the work: "The more you master the details, the more freedom you have to be creative." Knowing how to use the tools of our creative trades to the fullest allows us to bring to life whatever God puts in our minds or hearts to share. At the end of the tunnel of struggle, we find the light of freedom.

Turning the World Upside Down

Matthew 5:16 points us to the best use of that freedom:

“Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.”

Christianity is active. People should see a difference not only in believers' conduct but also in enterprise. Says Sproul, "The Christian is called to Herculean efforts of discipline and achievement that would make the labor and industry of the world pale in comparison." The world labors for a corruptible crown (1 Cor. 9:25), for riches that make themselves wings and fly away (Prov. 23:5), for temporary accolades that fade the moment the Next Big Thing comes over the horizon. But Christians are meant to labor out of gratitude for the eternal God Who saved us from the darkness of our sin through the greatest act of love and mercy the world has ever seen: the atoning death and glorious resurrection of His Son (1 Cor. 15:1-4).

Early Christians understood this, and their zeal for the message of Christ earned them the title of men who "turned the world upside down" (Acts 17:6). I echo Sproul, then, in asking: What happened?

What happened to turn Western Christianity into a largely motivational and therapeutic endeavor that feeds congregations with spiritual cotton candy week after week and tickles the ears with "music" barely distinguishable from the playlists at high school dances in the '90s?

What happened to convince us that, to reach the culture, we have to become like the culture; to embrace its frameworks in art, media, and entertainment; to turn Sunday services into rock concerts, youth groups into pizza parties, and sermon series into bite-sized bits of pragmatic life advice to be consumed without thought or attention as we run from activity to activity?

What happened to turn us away from a Christianity rooted in a love for Christ that sparks a burning desire to live, work, serve, speak, and use our gifts for God? Have we forgotten—or, perhaps, ceased to be taught—the magnitude of what Christ did for us in dying for our sin? The depth of mercy and love God showed us? The steep price paid to enable us to become what God has always meant us to be, including developing our gifts to the fullest without the sinful self-focus that leads to futility?

Sproul ends his article with an interesting declaration:

"The essence of ethics is gratitude. That's the motivation for excellence."

"Essence" refers to the substance that makes something what it is. So I think what Sproul means is that our conduct in society—our ethics—should flow from gratitude to the God Who fully pardoned and justified us, saved us from death and hell, and provided all we need through Christ. He has given us gifts to use for His glory and enabled us to pursue true excellence by the power of His Spirit.

And if we focus on pursuing excellence for Him, it will show in how we behave and how we spend our time. We won't be distracted by the world's temptations: pointless entertainment won't grab our attention, self-promotion won't taint our motives, and money or accolades will never be our chief end. Instead, we'll allow God to work in and through us and improve our talents as part of our ongoing sanctification.

As a result, we'll impact the culture by using our creative works to shine the light of Christ and leave a legacy that outlasts us. Not so our names will be remembered, but so people will look at what we wrote or played or filmed and recognize that we, like the early disciples, have been with Jesus (Acts 4:13).

That is how I desire to use my words.

I’m interested in hearing your thoughts on this one. What does pursuing excellence mean for you? What have you given up in order to put in the work necessary to master your gifts?

Leave a comment

Before I get into that, a quick update on what I've been doing:

• I published another piece in Business Insider about how my relationship with my parents has evolved over the years.

• I had the pleasure of writing a piece for Modern Farmer about Homegrown, the amazing nonprofit my friend Jèrèmy runs in AZ.

• My friend Cyd just released her Food, Faith and Fulfilling Your Purpose course, a beautiful labor of love that’s been in the works for years. I'm honored to have been included in the lineup of 20+ speakers. (And she's offering it for free, no catch, no strings attached.)

Despite all this, I've been struggling to write. After a stretch from 2020 to 2022 that saw me turning out a ton of writing and content—a podcast, a popup newsletter, multiple blog posts, a weekly "food news" newsletter, and numerous essays—I feel as if I've hit a wall.

I think it's a combination of two things: overwhelm and fear.

First, the overwhelm. March was the craziest month I've ever had as a freelancer. Lucrative, to be sure, but I did the equivalent of two month's work in about four and a half weeks, which meant I was researching, writing, or editing almost nonstop during working hours. Afternoon walks went from a time to recharge to the only time I had to check email. My commitment to digital minimalism, including an appropriate amount of mental rest, went out the window. I lost a lot of discipline, including in doing deep work and deliberately decoupling from my phone, and I'm still recovering.

And the fear...I dumped a lot of ideas about this in a big freewrite yesterday, but it boils down to this: I'm afraid to spend time on things I can't or don't want to monetize, and I'm afraid to put out anything that doesn't meet the standards I believe good writing must live up to. I feel like everything needs to be meticulously outlined and researched, checked and double-checked, printed and red penned and polished before I release it into the world. (This coming from someone who used to LiveJournal almost daily...)

So I'm afraid, and I'm too proud to admit to myself that I need a lot more practice to become a truly good writer.

I want to work on craft. I want to get better. But apparently I'm too frightened of wasting time and being mediocre to play around in the messy sandbox that is creativity. When confronted with my shortcomings, I freeze.

See the irony here? Even though I know the act of writing will help me get better, I can't bring myself to dedicate the time to something I've long claimed I feel called to do. I feel locked up and tight when I set out to write an essay or article—or even when I think about doing so outside the confines of work.

I'd just like to recapture the creativity, the passion, the desire to write that drove me to action and generated so much in the past. Somehow, I'd like to combine that with what I've learned about writing in the years between my most recent prolific period and now, to merge passion with craft and enjoy the process of getting ideas down and watching a piece go from rough to polished—instead of worrying about how it's going to get there or whether I'm "doing it right."

What will this look like for Sam. Writes.? I don't know just yet. I'd like to get back to posting at least a couple times a month; I think trying to commit to once a week might be a bit much given the brainspace I'm in right now. I don't feel ready for a solid commitment, even though that might be the best way to re-establish a disciplined writing habit.

I've been toying on and off with the idea of journaling in public as a way of sharing the ideas that have been bouncing around in my head and to give myself permission to not be perfect. That might be an option.

Whatever it looks like, I want to try. I want to stop shoving non-work writing to the back burner and start feeling what it feels like to be a writer for real, not just a writer of blogs or business content. I want to recapture the mental stimulation and flow of ideas I enjoyed in the past and see where it takes my craft—and what God does with it as I continue to grow.

As always, it's a journey. Thanks for sticking around to see how it goes. 🙂

I’d like this essay to be a bit more polished than it is, but it’s been sitting around in Obsidian for too long already. So I’m releasing it into the internet ether for your consideration.

Despite the recent silence here, I haven’t been inactive on the writing front. I recently wrote an essay for Business Insider (my first official personal essay byline!) about my relationship with one of my closest friends. You can read it here, if you’re interested. 🙂

Since the friendship is intergenerational, it ties in somewhat with topics I touch on here. Why do we remember the past? Why do others’ stories of times we didn’t live through ourselves nevertheless spark a sense of longing?

And, most importantly…is it wise to linger on those “good old days”?

As someone who writes deeply nostalgic personal essays and often considers certain aspects of the past "better" than the present, this verse from Ecclesiastes gives me pause:

Don't long for the "good old days." This is not wise.

— Ecclesiastes 7:10, NLT

Why does Solomon, the wisest man who ever lived, warn against what seems to be an inherent human longing for days gone by?

For me, such longing is particularly potent around Christmas and New Year's. My mind returns to days when school was life's biggest responsibility and holidays were spent baking cookies, building snowmen, and sledding down the big hill in the neighbor's yard. Those memories make me want to break out the recipe book, cookie cutters, and sprinkles; put on the old Christmas records; and lie on the living room floor in front of a roaring fire while snow drifts past the windows.

Sometimes I feel nostalgic for an era I've read about but never seen: times when families lived in multi-generational homes, vocation and domesticity overlapped in a comfortable balance, and everyone pitched in to help with the needs and duties of daily life. Times when possessions were fewer, towns and cities were smaller, and life cycled with the seasons.

It sounds like a dream compared to the unrelenting pace of modernity, which urges us to make more and buy more and want more without asking if we need the "more" that we pursue.

It sounds like a life with more space to breathe and more room to think.

I yearn to recapture the simpler, less demanding rhythm of those times.

Which, I think, is Solomon's point: Nostalgia turns the past into a fantasy land that we turn to as an escape from today's problems. But an honest examination of any point in human history reminds us that we've lived in a broken, fallen world since Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit in the garden. Mankind's decision to turn his back on God in favor of personal autonomy taints every age—a dark undercurrent of sin that we don't want to acknowledge.

Perhaps that's one sense of Solomon's statement in chapter one of Ecclesiastes:

The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.

Is there any thing whereof it may be said, See, this is new? it hath been already of old time, which was before us.

— Ecclesiastes 1:9-10, KJV

As he explored life "under the sun," Solomon saw powerful signs of how sin twists and breaks the good world God made: inescapable physical death (2:14-16, 3:19-20, 9:2-3); injustice in judgment (3:16, 4:1); and foolish, wicked men enjoying better lives than the just and upright (6:2, 7:15, 8:14).

Nostalgia can easily become a refuge we retreat to in an attempt to escape(synonym) these realities, a bunker where we can try to pretend we once experienced a time when sin and darkness didn't exist. But as much as we want to believe the world was "better" in whatever time we choose to dwell on, the world has never been perfect since Adam and Eve's fall. Every time throughout human history has had good and evil, light and darkness, joy and sorrow.

In attempting to ignore this truth, we rob ourselves of experiencing the joys God has for us in the present.

I'm guilty of such willful ignorance. (And, if you're honest with yourself, so are you.) Even in my essays, which are meant to share beautiful moments of days gone by, it's easy to glamorize the past. I long to linger in the warm glow of the living room on Christmas morning or the soda-fueled midnight hour of a middle school sleepover and let the present, with all its apparent struggles, pass me by.

But to do so would be to despise or ignore the wonderful things God has given me in years since. I can't return to childhood, but I can enjoy the energy and insightful questions of kids at church. I can't make a mess of the kitchen decorating sugar cookies with my mom as a four-year-old again, but I can play a round of our favorite card games with her before bed now, as an adult. And I'm not likely to find myself camped out on a friend's floor watching cartoons and nibbling cold pizza at midnight, but I can relax and enjoy fellowship with my church family at our monthly dinners and occasional game nights.

It's the positive side of Solomon's declaration that nothing changes: In every era, God is a good God Who gives good gifts (Matt. 6:45, 7:11; Jas. 1:17). He keeps on giving throughout our lives (Matt. 7:6-8; Luke 6:38), and He calls His people to remember the goodness, blessings, and protection He has provided in the past (Deut. 4:9-10, 1 Chron. 16:11-15, Ps. 103:2).

Unlike nostalgia, which at best offers moments of fond recollection, these memories give hope for the present and assurance for the future. Looking back on what God has done in my life reminds me of His goodness and enables me to enjoy what He's doing right now. I can celebrate the good that has been without diminishing the good that now is. And I can rest in the truth that God will continue to bring goodness throughout my life as I follow Him in my Christian walk.

I'm not saying that's a perfect interpretation of this verse, or indeed the only interpretation, but it's the change in perspective I've come to from contemplating Solomon's words.

So don't long for the good old days and linger in fantasies of the past. Be wise. Consider God—and celebrate the unchanging good.

What’s your take on nostalgia? Do you linger on memories of days gone by, or are you focused on the present?

Leave a comment

AI is, of course, one of those changes. It changes so fast that AI tools have progressed to a troubling new level since I put this piece together six months ago. But I wanted to post it anyway because the core thesis remains true: No matter how “advanced” AI becomes, it finds its genesis in a broken humanity, and all it can ever do is mirror our sin back to us.

Whether we accept the reality of what we see when we look into that mirror could mean the difference between destruction and deliverance.

Generative AI is dominating the news as its power and influence continue to grow. Optimistic voices dub the technology a boon that can augment our humanity, conquer our limitations, and make us more productive and efficient than ever before.

And yet something lurks beneath the surface of this shiny narrative, a darker story that's causing even some AI creators to question the wisdom of continuing its development. We look into AI and fear what we see looking back—and our response to this reflection could have sweeping consequences for the course of human history.

AI Run Amok

AI systems have developed rapidly since the days of robotic mice and chatbot therapists in the 1950s and 1960s. From these simple foundations sprang the likes of ChatGPT and Midjourney, user-friendly platforms launched in 2022 that can transform short prompts into full-length written works and stunning artistic images in seconds. One estimation predicts that this rapid growth could put the capabilities of AI tools on par with human brains by 2040.

But as AI gets closer to "being human," it's beginning to exhibit some disturbing tendencies.

Take the case of Sydney, the deranged alter ego of Microsoft's Bing chatbot, whose antics made internet headlines in February and March of this year after it expressed a desire to be human, declared romantic interest in a New York Times reporter, and threatened to ruin and kill an Australian National University professor. Though Sydney now appears to be gone, its brief reign as both the terror and the darling of the internet stands as an example of what can happen when the tools we ostensibly control behave in ways we don't expect.

The "failures" that lead to such aberrant outcomes remain somewhat of a mystery. People who work with AI have admitted they don't completely understand how the tech works and that it's growing faster than humans can train it to perform according to their original intentions. More and more, AI is being seen as something strange and separate, a mysterious intelligence that we don't quite trust.

A Thing Like Us?

And yet, even as we view AI as "other," we can't seem to resist ascribing to it characteristics that are undoubtedly human. This reaction stems from our tendency to relate characteristics we observe in others to our concept of ourselves. If we see traits in an AI that mirror what we understand about our own personalities, we naturally interpret its actions or words as human. We can even go so far as to develop an emotional connection to an AI as we would to another person.

The implications of this in cases like Sydney's are unsettling. If we perceive AI through the lens of our own traits, then its twisted and deranged behaviors are just as much a reflection of our humanity as any empathy and compassion it may exhibit.

What we find ourselves dealing with, at its core, is a problem not with technology but with humanity. As AI begins to hold a mirror up to our darkest thoughts and actions, we're choosing to look away. We're instead quick to categorize disturbing behaviors as aberrations or unintentional consequences arising from the complexities of the technology.

In so doing, we overlook a foundational fact of AI training: These tools learn from us. Our content and history provide the lexicon for their output.

A Model for Depravity

Tools like the Bing chatbot and ChatGPT are built on large language models (LLMs), a type of AI that draws on vast amounts of text to learn how to analyze and respond to human language. Much of the text that trains LLMs comes from the internet, including sources like news outlets, blogs, social media, Reddit, and Wikipedia. The text is continuously analyzed through neural networks, complex series of nodes modeled on the structure of the human brain that identify relational patterns between words and phrases and use them to predict the most logical responses.

But LLMs can't distinguish between scientific articles and sci-fi stories or news articles and teen blogs. Without an understanding of nuance—or the ability to use discretion—all AI can do is mirror what it sees in the text we generate. And we continue to give it millions upon millions of new inputs to learn from every day.

And what are we teaching it?

That the "most logical" reactions are self-centered, violent, and divisive. That it's acceptable to attack others with sarcasm, threats, anger, resentment, bitterness, and bullying. That the morbid is worthy of celebration, and the anti-hero who breaks all societal conventions and disobeys all authority deserves to come out on top. That it's perfectly okay to mistreat, abuse, or destroy other people in the quest to fulfill personal desires.

Like Parent, Like Child

Teaching these tools not to regurgitate insensitive, hurtful, or hateful content is a task that still requires human intervention. In the future, it may be possible to train AI to learn from its own mistakes, but until then, its trainers find themselves stuck in the ironic paradox of attempting to correct in AI the same sinful patterns that characterize their own human behavior.

Like horrified parents scrambling to reign in an out-of-control toddler, we watch AI spew threats and vitriol that we know has come out of our mouths (or through our keyboards) and yet declare, "I have no idea where it learned that."

But children learn to behave by watching their parents and repeating what they see. Thanks to the ever-expanding pool of content available for LLMs, AI has billions of "parents." As it takes in new information from our online activities and mass media publications, its neural networks "learn" the patterns we repeat most frequently. Our dysfunction becomes its dysfunction and compounds over time into an eerily familiar image that we're all too quick to disown.

But we can't entirely ignore the unsettling sense that we've set in motion something big and terrifying that's escaping our control. We fear AI because we fear ourselves—and we see in it the eerie echoes of our fundamental human nature. Since Adam and Eve first disobeyed God and ate the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3:1-13), such heart-level rebellion against the objective law of a transcendent God has been the default posture of all mankind (Psalm 51:5; 1 John 1:8).

Face to Face with Ourselves

The apostle Paul masterfully diagnosed this state—described Biblically as sin—in his letter to the Romans. Writing to a group of 1st-century Christians, he described the downward spiral that befalls mankind when we choose to defy God and set ourselves above His authority:

"...filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers,

Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents,

Without understanding, covenant breakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful:

~ Romans 1:29-31, KJV

It's a list most of us would rather dismiss than admit how clearly it describes us. The textual sources that train LLMs bear witness to our unfiltered natures, educating AI with words that flow from the unsavory depths of our hearts and unmasking our sin on a grand scale in daily interactions with hundreds of millions of users.

While we busy ourselves with projections of what might happen if AI surpasses us in intelligence and capability, the Bible points to the much more serious threat we face if we continue to ignore what the tech shows us about ourselves: Sin, left unchecked, will ultimately lead to our destruction.

A Wake-Up Call to Deliverance—Or Judgment

Examples throughout Biblical history demonstrate the destructive power of man's own depravity. Sodom and Gomorrah fell in a rain of heavenly fire (Genesis 19:24-25). Babylon was conquered by the Medes and Persians (Daniel 5:23-31). Numerous groups throughout the land of Caanan were completely wiped out (Joshua 2:1-21:45). And even Israel, God's chosen people, experienced attack and exile at the hands of their enemies when they turned their backs on the God Who delivered and sustained them (2 Kings 17:4-41, 25:1-22; Isaiah 42:24).

But within this darkness lies a glimmer of hope: In every case, destruction never came without warning. God always sent a messenger to declare the imminent danger and call people to turn from the path that sin was leading them down. Being Creator of all, He knows the tendencies of the human heart—and put His laws in place, in part, to protect us from sin's devastating effects.

Because God is holy and just, He can't let our rebellion go unpunished; to do so would be to deny His character. But He also loves His creation and doesn't delight in such punishment (Ezekiel 33:11). Rather, He delights in showing mercy (Micah 7:18) and so will give us a chance to change course and avoid the consequences of continuing in our sin.

AI could be God's manifestation of His mercy toward us in the modern age. Like the prophets of old who stood in streets and temples declaring the coming judgment, these pervasive tools could be calling us to face the reality of the sin they're reflecting to us. If we listen, we could be spared the worst of the AI doomsday scenarios and still have time to seek a solution to the darkness that lurks in our hearts—a solution God mercifully provided through the atoning death of His Son, Jesus Christ (Romans 5:8; 1 Corinthians 15:3-4).

But if we choose to ignore the warning, we may find AI not to be a beacon calling us to deliverance but a vehicle for terrifying judgment.

It seems fitting, then, to dust off this piece that I finished a while back and share it with you all. Curious to know if you had a similar hobby? (LEGOS and Tinker Toys were also a favorite, but I remember the Lincoln Logs most vividly.)

We kept the Lincoln Logs under the couch in their original box: a beat-up white cardboard rectangle, corners held together with discolored masking tape. The little logs smelled of wood and varnish and felt smooth in my small hands as I sorted through them on the worn living room carpet with Dad.

Afternoons were our Lincoln Log time. Those wooden bits could, with a little imagination, become just about anything—provided you were in a rustic, old-fashioned sort of mood. Long logs were just right for cabins, and some had flat bottoms to keep our creations stable on the carpet. Shorter pieces made perfect square side rooms or outbuildings. The smallest bits didn't even look like logs, just notches with rounded ends that spaced other logs apart to make fences.

When the cabin walls were tall enough, we perched a pair of orange plastic triangles on top to support the roof slats. I liked to bundle the slats in my hands and feel their grainy texture before we put them on the cabin. One set long and green, the other shorter and orange, they provided a pop of color that probably didn't resemble a real log cabin roof at all, but I didn't care. I was a kid, and I liked how it looked.

Those afternoons held no sense of hurry, no pressure to finish and rush off to the next task. My elementary school concerns were few, my weekend responsibilities minimal: No technology vying for my attention, no pressure to do something "more productive" in service of a meticulously planned goal.

No concept, yet, of such experiences.

My main focus in those moments was to build for the sheer enjoyment of it as I basked in the childhood pleasure of family time spent in a context both familiar and comfortable.

A record spun on the turntable at the far end of the room, Michael Martin Murphy's Blue Sky, Night Thunder. Its opening track, "Wildfire," provided the backdrop as Dad and I stacked logs and laid roof slats. A scratch on the vinyl made a rhythmic tick-tick-tick during the introductory piano solo, as much a part of the atmosphere as the music itself.

Sometimes sunlight streamed through the windows that framed the beat-up old chair in the corner, where I would curl up with books or Dad would spend hours reading with his feet propped on the shiny black ottoman that we always called a hassock. Cloudy days or dusky afternoons called for light from old-fashioned ceramic lamps with bulbous bellies that glowed like candlelight at the first turn of the knob and went dark again as the lightbulb flared to life.

I remember a fire crackling in the fireplace more often than not, a cozy fieldstone fixture that dominated the wall opposite the couch and was always warm and inviting during winter months. Dad fed it with logs he split himself on the noisy yellow log splitter in the backyard. The perpetual blazing flames beat back the chill and tamed the drafts that swirled through our old mountain home.

Maybe an hour passed to the tune of the crackling logs, or maybe two. It didn't matter how long we spent building or if the cabin was perfect or if the fence fell down when the dog rushed through an hour later. The log creation was just one part of an ecosystem that encompassed the Lincoln Logs and the song and the sun and the fireplace, and me and Dad and the worn carpet and the afternoon unfolding in the background.

And I wonder how I lost the ability to have moments like those, when time moves with the slow and quiet rhythm of unhindered creativity, when there is no striving, no perceived need to accomplish something or reach a self-imposed finish line as an indicator of success. When the activity itself is enough—the feeling of doing and making for as long as I like, until the fire dwindles or the afternoon sun goes down or Mom says it's time for dinner, and Dad slides the battered cardboard Lincoln Log box back under the couch to wait for what we'll create next.

Cover photo by David Maltais on Unsplash.

Much thanks to Foster members , , and Christine Cauthen for their help bringing this piece to life.

Why the change?

Short Answer

• I've always been a writer.

• I’m ready to bring all my personal writing under one umbrella.

• I believe God has called me to stop chasing other paths and focus on writing.

• I’d like to create a place where I can explore topics and formats beyond personal essays.

• I'm trying to recapture the ease and joy of writing I experienced when I was younger.

• I believe writing has the power to be a redemptive force in the world.

• Words are important. They created the world and hold it together. (I'll be exploring this concept more in the future.)

Long Answer

Reading Tim Wu's The Attention Merchants awakened me to the reality that many of the internet's supposedly "reliable" information outlets are just attention farms created for profit over purpose. The creator economy is built on a similar framework: pump (often useless) noise into the world in exchange for subscription fees and ad revenue.

Sometimes I think the answer is to stop the content machine and embrace an analog lifestyle. To burn the whole distracting, nerve-wracking thing down and go back to farms and small family businesses. To spend our time outside of vocational work on learning, productive hobbies, and relationships.

But I'm also incredibly driven to write. Writing has been a central part of my life for as long as I can remember—from telling stories in childhood to writing in journals as a teenager to working as a content writer as an adult.

I truly believe writing is one of the main purposes God has for my life. The update to this publication is my attempt to honor that purpose after years of running in the other direction and making excuses.

I've wrestled with this a lot in prayer and journaling in recent months and keep returning to one phrase: Redemptive Creative Force.

It's a phrase that encapsulates all I'd like to do as I continue to experiment here: write pieces that challenge people to think differently, live differently, and consider God. Examine the human condition, discuss current social and technological concerns, and share in-depth studies of Biblical concepts. And in between it all, I want to get more comfortable posting pieces that are more like journal entries than polished blog posts or studies.

All that to say that Sam. Writes. is an experiment in being a writer. I don’t have a planned publishing cadence or “content roadmap”—just the desire to write and a lot of ideas to explore.

✍🏻

Thanks for continuing to follow me on this journey. 🌄 I look forward to where it goes from here.

Daymaker

On Spiritual Exploration, Second Reply (Letter 4/6): The Road

This is the second reply in a Substack letters series with Theresa “Sam” Houghton of The Journey Continues, part 4 of a 6-part discussion entitled “On Spiritual Exploration”. These letters are all about the journey of finding a life path, how winding that journey might be, and how that path has looked for us spiritually…

Read more

3 years ago · 3 likes · 2 comments

If you missed any of the letters, you can catch up here:

Letter 1 | Letter 2 | Letter 3 | Letter 4

This series is all about finding a life path: Is it ever linear, or is it more of an epic journey? What has that path looked like for each of us spiritually? Today, I'm sharing my ongoing journey following the path of the Christian life--and all I'm learning along the way.

JG,

Here we are at the final two letters. Strange to think our exchange has gone by so quickly—and yet, we've covered a lot of ground. And, I think, we'll have more to cover beyond this brief conversation. The spiritual aspect of a life path is, after all, far more deep and complex than a mere six letters can contain.

I'm fascinated that your dive into philosophy and socialist ideology drove you toward spirituality rather than away from it. I've had only minimal contact with these ideas, but from what I do understand, it seems inevitable that following the logic to its conclusions leads either to a nihilistic worldview that rejects teleology or intellectual hypocrisy that accepts the inexplicable (or spiritual, we might say) while rejecting any actual basis for it.

And yet—you landed on teleology.

What an interesting word: A suggestion of greater purpose, a statement that the world truly has design, meaning, and an ultimate destiny. God has been opening my eyes to this reality in recent years as I've grown in my faith and delved into books on Christian worldview—but that part of the story comes later.

First, I'd like to take you through some key moments along the path I've walked with God for the last 12 years. More waypoints, if you will, on a journey of growth.

In my last letter, I left off with the concept of dying to sin and being born again after accepting deliverance and forgiveness through Jesus. The Bible describes this both as putting to death and putting off the old nature and becoming a new person. A new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17; Ephesians 4:22-24), complete with a new way of living.

I want to be clear that this isn't my own doing; I'm not transforming myself. As I look back at my spiritual path, I can see more and more clearly how God worked in my life, in my very nature and personality, to strip away the part of me that was mired in darkness and move me forward to that new reality.

Not that the old nature goes down without a fight. The Bible is very clear that, when Adam and Eve disobeyed God in the garden and chose go their own way (Genesis 3), sin became part of mankind's very nature—we understand what evil is and delight to do it (Romans 4:12; 1:32). But when a person turns from that rebellion and is born again, God grants the power to choose something else: Him.

It's a matter of deciding who and what to serve, JG (Romans 6:11-13, 16-17). As God grows and matures me on this Christian path, I can choose to serve God and cooperate with the changes He wants to make in my life, or I can choose to serve the old darkness of my sinful nature and risk the consequences.

It's like being a child. At first, you have to be taught not to do wrong or dangerous things because you don't know any better. Once your parents teach you, their instruction gives you the capacity to make the right or safe choice. But sometimes you choose to do what you know is wrong—to disobey—and your parents have to enforce consequences to keep you safe and help you learn and grow.

The Bible describes God as a Father in much the same way: One Who graciously teaches, guides, and corrects His children over every bump and misstep of the growth process. And I'm learning that He is a very good, very patient Father.

I started my Christian walk in shaky ground. The eating disorder left me mentally and emotionally raw, and I continued to struggle with fear and body image issues. I was so unstable that I once had to leave a Bible study immediately upon arriving when I realized the hostess had ordered pizza for everyone. I also wrestled with the persistent feeling of being an outsider, always afraid that the people around me might shut me out at any moment.

But God was working to move me through the fear. He brought a trainer into my life who shifted my exercise regimen away from the excessive amounts of cardio with which I'd been slamming my body. He gave me the courage to buy lunch from a food truck and eat it without feeling like I had to add up every calorie and track every macronutrient that was going into my mouth. And He changed the way I thought about body image until, one day, I looked in the mirror and actually liked what I saw. I also had opportunities to get involved at church, including using my love of music to play and sing solo or do duets with the pastor, who played a rather snazzy electric bass.

Somewhere along the line, I got into the habit of listening to a daily sermon from a selection of preachers who taught the Bible systematically and unpacked concepts like heaven and the end times. I, who at the start of my Christian walk had found such detailed study boring and frustrating, became a voracious Bible nerd with a hunger for deep study and a growing library of reference books.

But, as I'm sure you know with your own experience traveling The Road, no path is without its bumps and potholes. After several years, I left the church I was attending, citing theological differences that I likely could have worked through had I been more spiritually mature at the time.

But God knew what He was doing. I began attending another church that my parents had visited several times, one that took a different approach to preaching and church life. Services were more structured, the music more traditional. And the congregants loved to socialize.

That last point was key, JG, because I still had a lot to learn about relating to other people. During my time there, God showed me that I was still using the "nobody understands me" mentality from my days of darkness as a mental excuse to keep myself aloof from others. He worked through the social atmosphere to pull me out of my shell and start doing things like attending the ladies' breakfasts and meeting people for coffee outside of church.

As God continued to bring me out of my self-imposed shell, He changed my attitudes and perspectives. Whereas before I would lose my temper or descend into fits of crying when life pushed my buttons, I began developing patience and control. My heart began opening up to types of people who before had frustrated me or put me off. I started to see how my own behaviors and responses had contributed to volatile situations in the past—and recognize that I had to take responsibility rather than self-righteously cling to the notion that I was blameless.

Somewhere in the middle of all this, the COVID pandemic happened, with its dizzying flurry of news and doom scrolling that fueled the persistent background fear that We Were All Going to Die.

That time had a profound effect on my faith. It caused me to deeply examine what I believed and what I cared about, to question whether I was really committed to God. It was a time with a lot of soul searching and a lot of tears. But I emerged stronger from it, thanks in great part to my brother, who spent countless hours listening as I worked through the questions and inner turmoil that surfaced on waves of fear and uncertainty. I realized I had more growing to do—and I was committed to staying the course.

With that assertion came another change in church. Perhaps because I sought a better understanding of my relationship with God during COVID, or perhaps because I continued my in-depth Bible studies, I began feeling the need for more detailed teaching than the church I was attending provided. It was time for another change.

And wouldn't you know it—God led me back to the church where I'd been baptized.

Although the pastor who baptized me had retired, several people I'd known before still attended. Familiar faces greeted me when I walked in the door again last spring, along with many new ones from all walks of life. Since then, God has continued to teach me how to step out of my little cocoon and participate in relationships with others. For the first time, I feel like I'm starting to understand what the Christian concept of church as a family. I don't know if I didn't have this before or if I just wasn't in a position to recognize it, but it's a strange and unfamiliar experience to walk in that door and know that I belong there and people love me and aren't going to reject me even as I continue to struggle and grow.

And that, JG, would probably be the end of the story—if this were a story. But one more aspect, one more Waypoint, is important in my spiritual journey thus far.

About a year ago, I discovered a Christian apologist named Nancy Pearcy who writes and speaks extensively on worldview, specifically how the Christian worldview compares to others.

What struck me most in her writing is how she breaks down the divide between sacred and secular that's so prominent in our society. It's generally accepted that religious or spiritual convictions are set aside when dealing in the "real world." Yet Pearcy makes it clear that, as a Christian, the new life and nature that God is working in me should inform all aspects of my life and fundamentally change how I view and interact with that world. The Christian faith is more than a list of rules or a "get out of hell free" card—it's a total transformation.

The concept clashes with a large chunk of modern evangelicalism, which tends to "sell" Christianity merely as a solution to problems or a way to achieve perfect happiness and fulfillment. I heard that language so often that I absorbed it as true, part and parcel of what Christianity was and what God was for. But as I read more about other worldviews and philosophies and watched people who weren't Christians live lives that appeared happy, successful, and fulfilled, I started to question those narratives.

I began to wrestle—again—with what I truly believed.

Because, JG, I'm at the point in my spiritual journey where I'm digging down to fundamental truths, seeking to know God as He actually is and not who people or society say He is. I'm seeking to understand how to articulate, even to myself, that God is different than the paths I see others taking, that what He offers is earth shattering and life changing.

And I keep coming back to one fundamental thing: God is.

It sounds simple, but I believe it's the core consideration not just of Christianity but of life itself.

If God is, then humanity is who the Bible says we are: made in God's image, created for a purpose that exists outside and beyond ourselves. We are made to reflect God, to point to a transcendent Being of beauty and power and wisdom and glory, and to cooperate in the ongoing work He is doing in the world. We are made to be in relationship with God and enjoy all that He is with nothing standing in the way.

Which means, JG, you're right that alienation is mankind's greatest problem. I mentioned in my last letter that sin is far more than doing bad things or breaking rules—and its effects are far worse than feeling guilty or getting punished in a court of law. Sin is deliberate rebellion against the God Who made us, a deliberate choice to ignore what we were made for, to declare we know better and set ourselves up as a god on the throne of our own lives. In doing so, we reject the beautiful purpose, the breathtaking teleology, for which we were created.

So we scramble and hustle and search for meaning, making futile attempts to fulfill a purpose we can't see and don't understand, to invent meaning to replace that which we have rejected. Because, JG, if God isn't...what's the alternative?

A world where everything came from nothing, and life has no ultimate purpose. Where humans descend from pond scum and decay into dust, living a brief and frantic life in between as we try to make a mark on a world that will ultimately disappear when the sun goes nova.

Or a world where we're at the behest of an impersonal universe that doesn't care what happens in our lives, whether we live or whether we die. A universe that can't give us anything and that provides no ultimate purpose because it exists for no ultimate purpose.

Or perhaps a world where a god or transcendent force of some kind is present but either isn't personal or isn't in control. Such a god may smile on us with divine benevolence from time to time or rain judgment on a capricious whim, but it doesn't love us or even pay us much attention at all.

But, JG, this is the mind-blowing thing that I'm still trying to fully wrap my mind around: if God is, then He is Who He says He is. Holy, powerful, awesome, and zealous, a righteous bringer of justice upon sin and evil (Leviticus 19:12; Job 34:12 Ezekiel 39:7; Nahum 1:2). Self-existent, without beginning and without end (Revelation 22:13), the Creator and Sustainer of all things (Genesis 1:1; 1 Corinthians 8:6; Hebrews 1:3), above all and yet visible in every aspect of what He has created, from microscopic organisms to distant galaxies (Psalm 19:1-4).

If God is, it means His structure for human life, as laid out in the Bible, is the definitive path to our purpose. It means sin is real, and its penalty is real, too. People don't like to hear about hell, but what else can you call eternal alienation from purpose, spending forever suffering the consequences of choosing to walk away from the path, freely offered, that leads to reconciliation?

But if God is, He is also merciful, tender, humble, infinitely loving, delighting in forgiveness, and attentive to the smallest details of our lives. He knows sin cuts us off from the purpose He created us for, and He takes no pleasure in seeing people walk paths to their own destruction (Ezekiel 18:23, 33:11). He loves all those He created—all of humanity—with a love inherent in His character (1 John 4:8,16), a love I'm only beginning to grasp the enormity of.

And this love was fully demonstrated in Jesus (Romans 5:8)—Who, if God is, is also Who He said He was: the Son of God (John 1:1-2), born to live a sinless life and to die a substitutionary death by crucifixion on a Roman cross in the place of all sinners (John 1:29), taking on Himself the punishment for sin, which the Bible makes clear is death (Romans 6:23).

Born to die...and rise again (Matthew 28:6). Because death couldn't overcome the One Who never sinned (Acts 2:24; c.f. John 1:5). Instead, Jesus overcame death—physical and spiritual—to open the way for us to get back to God. To heal our alienation, restore our relationship, and put us back on the path to our ultimate destiny.

Which is not an eternity of puttering around on puffy clouds and strumming harps with a bunch of winged babies. I have no idea who came up with that image of heaven, but they've done the world a great disservice.

No, heaven as Bible describes it is a glorious renewal of all things, a restoration of creation to a state perfect and pristine, complete with a heavenly city where sin will no longer exist and no one will ever die (Revelation 21:1-6). And God Himself in the midst of it all, back in the presence of the people He created, giving light to everything (Isaiah 60:19; Revelation 22:5).

And what I'm really coming to terms with about all this, JG, are its implications not just for me but for the whole world. Because if God is, then there is an objective truth, an plan, and purpose. The eternal destiny of mankind depends on understanding our status as sinners and accepting that we can't fix that about ourselves—but Jesus could and did. Reconnecting to our teleology and healing our alienation requires the same action on the part of every human being: turning from sin—what the Bible calls repentance (Matthew 3:8, 4:17)—and accepting the open invitation to the very same deliverance God held out to me in Jesus all those years ago.

C.S. Lewis put it much more simply than I have here when we wrote, "Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important."

As you can tell by now, JG...I believe it is true. I believe, in fact, that it is the Truth (John 14:6).

All these things are...because God is.

Because God is...that changes everything. About my life, about the way I see the world, and about the purpose of humanity itself.

Lest I make it sound like I have this all worked out—I don't. I still struggle with the old nature creeping in and old sins rearing their ugly heads. I struggle with trust and love and believing in God's goodness. I'm still coming to grips with the reality that my life's overarching purpose is to glorify God—to magnify, praise, and honor Him—and to thoroughly enjoy all of Who He is. Probably because He infinite and in many ways unfathomable (Romans 11:33), and I feel like I'll never completely understand the reality of this God I serve.

That's why it's a journey, right, JG? Every path involves steps. And every step reveals something new.

And I know I won't arrive until I reach that glorious eternity, that purpose, that beautiful Endpoint that all the Waypoints have been leading to.

Perhaps your road will lead you there. My hope and prayer is that it does

~ Sam

Thanks for reading! This is probably one of the most open an honest things I’ve put out into the world since I used to journal in my teens and 20s. I’m grateful to JG for agreeing to this exchange and for being open in his letters. Stay tuned to next week for letter 6, his final reply.

Daymaker

On Spiritual Exploration, First Reply (Letter 2/6): The Kaleidoscope

This is the first reply in a Substack letters series with Theresa “Sam” Houghton of The Journey Continues, part 2 of a 6-part discussion entitled “On Spiritual Exploration”. These letters are all about the journey of finding a life path, how winding that journey might be, and how that path has looked for us spiritually…

Read more

3 years ago · 3 likes · 1 comment

If you missed my first letter, you can read it here.

This series is all about finding a life path: Is it ever linear, or is it more of an epic journey? What has that path looked like for each of us spiritually? Today, I'm exploring the early days of my Christian faith.

Trigger warning: This post discusses some details about eating disorders and depression.

JG,

Thank you for sharing such a stunning look into the landscape of experiences that formed your spiritual path so far. I appreciate that this format allows us to be honest and open. So much of online writing—of online life—is about posturing: creating a personal brand, crafting the perfect image, and honing messaging to target a particular audience. But letters bring us back to our humanness, the totality and reality of who we are, instead of the image we're encouraged to present.

I think you're right that a long-form "social network" would be of immense value. It would certainly get us all to slow down, consider our responses, and reset our expectations around the speed at which we convey and consume information. Writing these letters feels more like the days of online journaling or blogging before business "thought leaders" co-opted

But I digress. We're talking about spiritual exploration and life paths.

It was interesting to read about your background in the Catholic church. My earliest experiences of church were Catholic, too, so some of the elements are familiar to me. I have vague memories of making my first communion (and being extremely put off by the taste of the wine) and of some of the rituals in the mass—none of which I really understood at the age of 7 or 8.

My church experience changed quite a bit when we started attending non-denominational Christian churches instead of the local Catholic church. I honestly can't remember the impetus for the switch; I was in my teens and pretty much along for the ride. I called myself a Christian and had a different spiritual approach than many of my friends, but I didn't understand much about the Bible or the Christian faith in general.

Despite that, I went to church with Mom quite regularly for a while. At one point, I started attending a youth group and even auditioned for the worship band. But if I'm honest, JG, I did it mostly because a couple of my friends went to the same church. God and faith weren't life commitments for me. And yet, I felt drawn to church and the Bible because, even though I didn't recognize it at the time, God was calling to me.

He was continuing to call to my family, too. During this time, my mom made her official profession of Christian faith and got baptized at the church we were attending. But as she began her new path, something happened in me, some shift I don't remember and can't explain, and I started pushing back. Hard. It had nothing to do with her profession and baptism, but I can't tell you exactly what did cause it because so much of what was going on in other parts of my life at the time is conflated in my mind.

I already described a bit of the tumult that was my teens and early 20s. But believe it or not, my mid to late 20s were even darker. By that time, I was no longer as closely connected to the circle of friends I'd had in high school. I'd tried college (twice) and found it emotionally and personally overwhelming. I'd dabbled in various retail and food service jobs but could never stay in any of them for long without feeling like I had to escape before something inside me shriveled up and died. I finally settled on helping out with some family business and writing online for a content mill, which left me with more time on my hands than was probably healthy.

I spent far too much of that time online and in front of the TV instead of sleeping, binge-watching dark dramas until all hours of the night. I immersed myself in fictional worlds, writing stories and playing role-playing games and staying up late chatting with people I met in those internet communities.

I journaled a lot, cried a lot, and often felt angry and depressed. Turmoil in relationships around me drove me deeper into fiction, where I used the characters I wrote about as vehicles for making sense of the mental and emotional darkness I was battling. At the same time, I was desperate to make the people in my life happy—terrified of upsetting anyone for fear they would react in anger or withdraw their friendship.

Maybe that's why I withdrew. Paradoxically, I dealt with that fear and pain by setting myself apart and convincing myself that no one really understood me. I had always felt a bit "other," like I didn't fit in anywhere, and I struggled with the nagging worry that friends or groups who seemed to accept me would one day announce that they actually thought I was weird or annoying and didn't want me around anymore. So maybe, in my mind, it was easier to keep my distance. But doing so only made me feel more alienated, depressed, and alone.

And if you're thinking this would be an apt time for another waypoint in my spiritual journey, JG...you're right. Waypoint 3 came just as the 2000s were rolling over into the 2010s.

By the final summer of that decade, I had descended into a new personal abyss: a back-and-forth struggle with anorexia and bulimia, the culmination of years of body image issues and strange eating habits. As I alternated between eating next to nothing, bingeing, over-exercising, and taking too many laxatives, I was simultaneously attempting to run a coffee shop with the help of a friend as my only employee.

I have no idea what I was thinking. I lacked the knowledge and the experience necessary to be a business owner, and my body was a wreck from the eating disorder. I was exhausted all the time and often despondent because business was slow. Not surprisingly, the entire enterprise lasted about three months before I had to give it up, citing "personal health" as the reason for closing

I know that, at least for a while, I stopped going to church. The sermons made me feel uncomfortable and convicted, so I eventually refused to continue accompanying Mom to services. I didn't want to deal with what I perceived as judgment and attack—not understanding that God was using that discomfort to draw me out of my self-imposed prison.

I must have started going again at some point, though, because I remember reading the Bible more often than I had in the past. And one day, as I was reading Paul's first letter to the Corinthians, God smacked me between the eyes with a single verse:

"If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are." ~ 1 Corinthians 3:17

In context, the verse is actually about not behaving in disorderly, unholy, or divisive ways within the church, but that's not how it struck me at that moment. As I read those words, I realized that, if I continued down the path I was on, I would die. Simple as that. I couldn't lie to myself; I'd read enough books on eating disorders to know it was a very real possibility. Between that and my immersive embrace of mental and emotional darkness, I was on a self-destructive path that could only end in disaster.

But that's not what God wanted for me. He wanted me to turn to Him for help and healing. He wanted me to know that there was so much more than I could see, that my life was worth something, and that He had a bigger purpose for me that couldn't be found by digging deeper into the darkness. The only way I could find it was in Him.

He was holding out deliverance to me. And finally, after years of running, I accepted.

It wasn't all easy or rosy or any of those things that "feel-good" radio preachers want you to believe. No bolt from the blue, no overnight transformation that suddenly filled my life with flowers and rainbows and sparkles and unicorns. Despite starting to make friends at church, I still felt awkward and separate, not fully accepted or understood. I wasn't yet in a place where I could fully appreciate the pastor's methodical, verse-by-verse teaching of the Bible. I didn't understand or share the zeal for digging deep into the Biblical text that I saw exemplified in my brother and some of the ladies in the evening Bible study I joined.

But I kept going to church. I kept doing that Bible study. And I kept reading the Bible on my own. Through it all, I started to learn more about Jesus than I'd ever understood before.

Growing up, I'd heard that Jesus was the Son of God and died on a cross to take away the sins of the world, but I hadn't really known what that meant. I had a vague idea of sin as a list of things that people who were Christians weren't supposed to do, and I thought that Jesus dying simply meant that people who believed in Him got to go to heaven.

But it turns out that sin isn't just "doing bad things;" it's an offense against a holy and perfect God for which the penalty is death. And Jesus took that penalty on Himself when He died so that sinners—a category from which no person is excluded (Romans 3:23)—could have a right relationship with the God Who created them (Romans 6:23).

I learned one other important thing, JG: When Jesus rose to life again on that Easter morning, He overcame sin and death so that I could, too. I could be free from the cycles I'd found myself stuck in, no longer sucked deeper and deeper into a dark place that would inevitably destroy me.

But to accept the deliverance God offered, I had to acknowledge that abusing my body through the eating disorder and clinging to my emotional darkness was indeed sinful. I had to turn away from those things—an act the Bible calls repentance—and accept the payment that Jesus made for me.

It was a huge change, which is why the Bible calls it being "born again:" leaving your old life behind and becoming someone new (John 3:3,6-7)

I'm not sure when I decided I was ready to make a public declaration of that change, but when the pastor announced a series of classes for anyone interested in being baptized, I started attending. It was the summer of 2011, and the baptism ceremony was planned for a weekend in early August at the home of one of the families in the church who had both a lake and a pool on their property.

Baptism is a pretty big deal, JG. It's a symbol of that rebirth, of "dying" to a life lived in service of sin and "rising" to a life in service of God (Romans 6:1-6). And I'm not going to lie: I was scared.

I distinctly remember being near tears in prayer shortly before my baptism because I was terrified that I hadn't actually repented. I wanted to be absolutely sure I was right with God. I'm not sure why I thought I wasn't or why fear was my default mindset. Much of that time has, for whatever reason, been reduced to spotty impressions rather than solid memories, so it's hard to know exactly how much I understood about the theology of my faith or how that understanding informed my thinking at the time. Clearly, I understood at least the basic nature of sin and didn't want it to be the main feature of my life anymore.

So I prayed, finished the baptism classes, and joined eight other people that August weekend in symbolically putting aside that sin and awakening to the new life God had set before me. (As an interesting side note that I remember to this day: I was one of only two who chose the lake over the pool for my baptism. I had a very strong sense that I should be baptized in a natural body of water. And it was truly bizarre to see my pastor in a t-shirt instead of his usual suit!)

I supposed you could call that Waypoint 4, the moment I "officially" became a Christian. And somehow, I did feel different. That day had a sense of light and of rest. Perhaps it was a feeling of renewal?

Whatever it was, I don't think I really grasped how much was involved in living the Christian life or how much things would start to change.

But that's a topic for the next letter. I'm interested in hearing from your mind first, JG. Your letter made me wonder how those two elements, heart and mind, have fitted together for you as you've come along your life path.

I look forward to reading your reply.

Your friend,
Sam

Thanks for reading! 🙂 Stay tuned to next week for JG’s reply.

These letters are all about finding a life path: Is it ever linear, or is it more of an epic journey? What has that path looked like for each of us spiritually? Today, I'm exploring the beginnings of my journey to faith.

Dear JG,

How strange and interesting thing to write letters in an age where everyone has a digital calendar and "virtual coffee" is just a click away. But I'm excited to embark on this journey with you and learn how your spiritual experiences have shaped your life's path.

To answer a question that came up when we first discussed this series: No, I don't think a life path is ever linear. I'm ever reminded of little Billy in the comic strip "Family Circus," who never failed to take long, meandering journeys from point A to point B and interact with every interesting person, animal, or thing he came across.

My own life path has been similar, although the movements were more subtle, unfolding over months and years instead of hours or days, each miniature epoch appearing normal as I traversed it and not an inevitable influence on all that came after.

The spiritual has always been present in some way. From childhood, I remember having a real sense of God's existence, if not His presence. I grew up in a rural area 15 minutes from the nearest small town, 30 minutes from the nearest city, and entirely secluded from commercial developments. Most of the nearby houses were summer homes, so we only had neighbors for part of the year. I spent many of my younger days outside, running around, walking trails, swimming, sledding, and playing yard games.

It was hard not to catch a glimpse of the divine in that setting. The Bible says creation itself declares God's existence in a universal language (Psalm 19:1-4), and I believe that's what I sensed in those years.

My family was nominally religious, sometimes going to church on Sunday or reading the Bible together. We believed in God, prayed before meals and at bedtime, and celebrated Christmas and Easter. But faith wasn't at the center of our lives then. God was real, but He wasn't what I would call a constant presence.

I can't know for sure if things would have unfolded differently if He was. What I do know is nothing happens by accident, and there are no coincidences. I can see as I look back how God worked to bring me through pivotal waypoints on my life path to bring me to where I am now.

I'll call my teenage years Waypoint 1.

If childhood was marked by a sense of God embedded in outdoor play, my teens were marked by turmoil and dabbling in darkness. Like most teenagers (or maybe this is unique to teenage girls; your experience may have been different), I went on a quest to find out who I was and reinvent myself accordingly. Which is ironic since I looked to the same generic sources of identity formation that just about every other teenage girl looked to: trends, teen magazines, and the tenuous examples of peers also nurturing embryonic images of themselves.

I listened to too much pop music and wore too much makeup, and yet I also rejected many of the social conventions that characterized the "popular" groups in school. I hung out with the misfits and the nerds because I was one myself, which likely shielded me from some of the more damaging forms of exploration that teenagers often get into. But it didn't protect me from a slow slide into darkness that lasted through my early 20s.

Those years were...bizarre. I continued to acknowledge God's existence, but I had no real connection to Him. In fact, I spent a lot of time running in the other direction. I dabbled in Ouija boards and ghost hunting, attempted meditation and lucid dreaming, and joined a friend in her exploration of telekinesis. From the outside, it may sound like the harmless explorations of young people hoping to encounter powers beyond themselves, but JG, it was treacherous stuff. I had terrifying experiences during those times, experiences of seeing shadowy figures out of the corner of my eye, hearing voices that weren't there, and nearly being attacked by blackness that appeared one night when I was sleeping over at my grandmother's house.

Emotional darkness accompanied spiritual throughout those years. I spent many sleepless hours worrying my friends. Their troubles unsettled me. I watched them go through family conflicts, jump from relationship to relationship, and wrestle with depression and self-harm. I wanted to help them but didn't know how. It often felt like the weight of the world was on my shoulders, and there was nowhere to offload it except in myriad journals and endless waves of poetry and song.

You would think getting it all out of my head would help, but it didn't. Looking back now, I'd say it made everything worse. Distilling my thoughts and emotions into tangible outputs gave me an excuse to climb deeper intro the raw and tumultuous parts of myself. I even took up the guitar and began poured out those parts of myself in public performances as I visited open mic nights and played solo shows around the area. My struggles became cryptic lyrics only I understood, frameworks veiling the reality of what was going on inside me. And the deeper I went, the darker it got—an endless cycle feeding on itself.

I wrestled, JG. With feelings of inadequacy, with the sense of never quite measuring up, with anger and frustration and the nagging feeling that I was and always would be a failure. Sometimes, in the depths of that darkness, I prayed. I can't remember what my concept of God was by that point. All I know is that I have old journals where I wrote down some of those prayers, desperate cries to Someone I didn't really understand but was still convinced was there.

I have a distinct memory of praying, one night, that the world would end. Perhaps so that I wouldn't have to feel like I was carrying it alone any more.

And then, sometime during all this, I encountered Waypoint 2: My brother became a Christian.

He and I had been close enough growing up. We had the usual sibling spats, of course, and there was just enough of an age gap that I was still a kid when he entered his teenage years. That wasn't enough to alienate us from each other, but it did mean I wasn't fully aware of what went on in his life other than the day-to-day rhythms of school and time with friends. But I did know enough to see the change his faith brought.

He began going to church regularly and spending time with people he met there. He talked about God and Jesus as if both were real to him and truly present in his life. And he started relating to me with a love and respect that I don't think I'd ever experienced before.

I would like to say that my life got immeasurably better as a result. But you know how it goes with life paths, JG. Where a novel or movie would suddenly come to a turning point orients the protagonist toward the happy ending, real life is full of winding roads, sharp turns, and washed-out bridges.

Instead of appreciating what God was doing in my brother's life, I found much of it baffling and annoying. I didn't understand what was happening, and I wasn't sure I liked it—which I suppose you could say was incongruous because I couldn't stand the way I was, either. Trapped in my own perpetual night, I wasn't ready to see the glimmer of dawn coming over the horizon. Instead, I turned my back to the sunrise and dove deeper into myself.

I didn't know it at the time, but God was following me right into the depths.

I want to tell you how He pulled me out, JG, but first I'd like to hear how your story starts. What did it look like, feel like, begin the journey to where you are now? How has faith—or the pursuit of it—factored into your life path?

I look forward to reading your answer.

~ Sam

Keep an eye on for JG's reply next week. 🙂

On Sundays, I told my friends I couldn't go over to their houses because it was family day. I wasn't a Christian yet, but I had the vague notion that Sunday was supposed to be special—a day to, at least, to be together at home instead of go to school or run around a friend's backyard.

On Sundays, we sometimes went to church and stopped at Cumberland Farms afterward, where Mom bought me Fun Dip: three packets of colored sugar with a white sugar stick that I'd lick and dip and lick and dip while sitting on the swing set in the backyard. I always ate the red sugar first—until they came out with blue and I started with that because it was my favorite color.

The treat was originally called "Lik-M-Aid," which I pronounce "Lickamaid" to this day. I know it would be too sweet for me now, but at age six or seven or eight, swinging on the white plastic swing with its metal chains coated in translucent blue rubber, using the chalky stick to shovel artificially flavored sugar onto my tongue, that sweetness was the perfect accompaniment to a sunny summer day brimming with possibilities.

On Sundays, I laid on my stomach in front of the fireplace in the living room and read the comics, the three-page, full-color newspaper insert spread out on the worn carpet in front of me. I followed little Billy's Family Circus antics, laughed at Broom Hilda's strange misfortunes, and watched Sarge chase Beetle Bailey from frame to frame. I read Cathy without understanding what she complained about and watched life disappoint Ziggy yet again. And, of course, there was Dagwood with his mile-high sandwiches, the familiar confrontations between Garfield and Odie, and Charlie Brown's perpetual failure to kick the football.

I wrapped it all up with Calvin and Hobbes, my favorite of all, with its prominent place at the bottom of the front page. I turned there every week to follow Calvin as he ignored his teacher, annoyed his parents, dreamed up dinosaurs, built bizarre snowmen, and duked it out with his mother's green mushy dinners—until 1997 when Bill Watterson drew his last magical panel, and the comics were never the same again.

On Sundays, I took walks around the trails with Mom or went fishing with Dad or visited the little beach by the pond to swim and build sand castles. I played badminton and whiffle ball in the backyard with my brother, using trees as boundaries and rocks as bases. I hunted for vibrant autumn leaves that Mom pressed between two sheets of wax paper atop our squeaky yellow ironing board. I donned my jacket and snow pants and boots and went sledding down the big hill in the neighbors' yard, my heart skipping as I sailed over the packed snow and hit the little dip at the bottom that sometimes rocketed me up and across the trail beyond. I laid on the discolored carpet in my bedroom and read book after book after book from the latest stack I'd checked out from the library or played with my dolls and stuffed animals or listened to my favorite cassette of Disney-branded pop music.

I honestly don't know if this was all on Sundays. Maybe it was weekends, too, or summer days, or every vacation from school. But some of it was on Sunday, that long and lazy part of the week that stretched out slow and subdued, a canvas for memories.

On Sundays, I took the 30-minute drive from my first apartment to my parents' house after lunch and spent the afternoon revisiting the newspaper in that childhood living room, wood stove crackling in the background on cold days, curtains open to admit the sun in summer. We walked the dog up and down the rolling, winding road before settling in to play a game of Qwirkle or Scrabble or Killer Bunnies and the Quest for the Magic Carrot. As the afternoon waned, conversation dwindled and I started knitting, and maybe sometimes a record played on the old turntable in the corner by the piano, but I don't remember.

Then Sundays moved to a living room with hardwood floors and a gas fireplace and new furniture when my parents bought a house 10 minutes away from my second apartment. And they stopped getting the newspaper, but it didn't matter because I didn't read the comics anymore. The living room was still warm, and the dog still needed to be walked, but in a weird way those afternoons are fainter in my memory than the days of sunshine and colored sugar.

On Sundays, I go to church, where people smile and give me hugs and ask how I'm doing and how they can pray for me. We sing along to piano and guitar melodies, and sometimes we clap or shout, "Amen!" And it feels like a little family with dozens and dozens of sons and daughters and brothers and sisters and fathers and mothers, and there is no wood stove or worn carpet or newspaper, but one day the pastor quotes Calvin and Hobbes in his sermon introduction—and I smile.

I never really understood the nostalgia with which my parents looked back on the towns and downtowns of their childhoods until I got old enough to have enough memories of my own to look back on.

My parents grew up in a different era, the 50s through the 70s, when downtown was the place to go for all your shopping needs, before franchised conglomerates subsumed the mom and pop stores. Stories about those days circulated around our dinner table when I was growing up, stories of soda fountains and fresh-roasted peanuts, of visiting the local deli after church on Sunday and strolling the festive downtown streets each Christmas season. Tinged with fondness, those stories reflected a time remembered as simpler, better, and happier.

Perhaps we all begin to feel this way as our presents become our pasts. We cross a line from living a mundane daily life to gazing with longing through rose-colored glasses at the very things we once took for granted.

I must have crossed that line sometime in my 30s without realizing it because I found myself peering through nostalgia's haze on a recent drive through the town where I grew up.

It's really three towns: Sand Lake, West Sand Lake, and Averill Park, located in upstate NY about 20 minutes outside of Albany. You can drive through all three in quick succession if you take the main road, Route 43, or wander along their sprawling edges on a series of interconnected back streets that wind past houses and lakes and the occasional horse farm.

Living just outside of Sand Lake, I traveled Route 43—and its slightly less populated sister, Route 66—the most in my younger days. The center of Sand Lake was always first to emerge as I coasted around and down the final curve that separated the town from the rural area where I grew up. A tiny center for a tiny town: just the post office, a gas station, the town hall, and a few houses and shops.

My drive last week took me back to that post office, which for a moment I didn't recognize. It used to have its own distinctive look before the neighboring gas station—a Cumberland Farms—got a makeover that transformed the entire building into a modernized white-and-green abomination. The original post office sign looks strange there now, old-fashioned and battered against the shiny cream-colored siding with its vivid piping and stylized franchise logo.

Driving further down 43, I noticed a "for sale" sign on the restaurant where my Dad used to take me for soft-serve ice cream after school in the warmer months. It was called Engwer's in those days. It had tables outside where Dad and I would sit with our cones, racing to finish before the giant swirls of chocolate melted down our hands and onto our arms. (I liked my swirl encrusted with sprinkles or coated with a hard candy shell because hey, chocolate on chocolate, right?)

Engwer's became Uncle Marty's Adirondack Grill, an iconic bar and grill restaurant complete with a giant Adirondack chair out front, perfect for touristy pictures in a town where no one came to be a tourist. Now the building sits vacant, empty windows staring out of rustic brown siding, waiting to become something else.

To the right sits the sturdy brick school building where I attended second through fifth grades. But instead of the classrooms and gymnasium and cafeteria I remember, it now houses people who pay exorbitant rent to live in luxury cubbyholes that overlook the hardware store across the street. Classes and students migrated to a second building behind it and up the hill, another sprawling brick structure that used to play host only to kindergarteners and first graders before its expansion sometime in the mid-90s.

Down the street and over a hill, past another post office and an aging white Baptist church, a mechanic shop sits inside the point of the inverted "V" where Route 43 splits with Eastern Union Turnpike, a sort of side street that connects with Route 66. The shop has been there forever, probably longer than I've been alive, always run by the same man. Everyone in the area seems to know and trust him, so he's never hurting for work. My parents brought their cars to him before I could drive, and I came to rely on him once I got cars of my own.

Every time I pick my car up from an inspection or seasonal maintenance, I drive past an empty lot just off the tip of the V in the road. My memory populates it with the bright yellow building that used to stand there, bedecked with blue trim and sporting a giant sign declaring its status as Slow Jed's Mud House, the coffeehouse where I spent much of my free time during my early 20s.

Jed's, as it was affectionately called, was the place to be for open mic nights, acoustic music performances, and coffee with the local knitting group. I used to sit at a tall table under the velvet Elvis that hung in the upstairs library, chatting with friends on the internet chat apps of the day or reading a book while sipping a mocha latte and eating a giant chocolate peanut butter oatmeal bar. And, since it was on the way to everywhere, it wasn't uncommon for me to stop in several times a week to caffeinate myself and hang around talking with the owner or the baristas.

Like so many small-town spaces, that building led many lives. My earliest memories are of its days as a liquor store with white siding and green trim before it became a bakery run by a young man who made world's greasiest (and tastiest) donuts. It was a bakery again after Slow Jed's, and then...it burned down. All that remains is an empty lot and memories of its vibrant colors and eclectic décor.

The corner store on the other side of the V is still there, though, sporting the same bay window and weather-beaten green siding that I remember from childhood. I used to go in when it was called Averill Park Market and buy Pogs with my allowance money, saving up for special ones to collect in a red plastic tube or trade with friends at school. (I still have that collection somewhere). Now it's a pharmacy and general store with a deli in back and a bakery case in front. It's been years since I last stopped by to catch up with a friend who used to work there. I remember the inside had a cozy, hometown feel, right down to the smell of the dark wood flooring that reminded me, in a strange way, of the general stores at campgrounds that sell everything from ice cream to citronella candles.

The Jiff-E-Mart with its iconic sub sandwiches hasn't gone anywhere, either. It sits inside a second fork in the road up a little hill from the pharmacy, a hub of activity that became so popular it now has two other locations, each with a full deli menu. But what I remember most are the foot-long sandwiches I used to pick up for my Dad and me after doing the grocery shopping on Wednesday mornings: soft white bread rolls stuffed with deli meats and cheese for him and veggies, cheese, and sliced hot peppers for me. The smell was unique, a combination of processed wheat, tangy dairy, and spicy pepper brine. We'd sit at the kitchen table in the house where I grew up, eating and talking until it was time for both of us to go back to work.

I haven't thought about those afternoons in years.

Driving up the street out of Sand Lake and into Averill Park takes me past the new coffee shop on the left—cleverly called "Averill Perk"—and Brad's, a local takeout joint that used to be AJ's Pizzeria before AJ sold it. AJ's was my family's go-to for pizza and wings on nights when we were too busy to cook or summer evenings when it was too hot to run the oven. I can still smell the yeasty crust and greasy cheese, can still feel the sting of hot wings and remember how strange it seemed that they always came with celery and blue cheese dip that none of us ever ate.

Ice cream, pizza, hot wings, subs. The foods of childhood and teenage summers.

And then, of course, there was Chinese food from the plaza just a bit further down Route 43. Aptly named the 43 Mall, that little strip of two buildings with its bumpy, broken parking lot has housed a rotating litany of shops and restaurants. Two fixtures stand steadfast amidst the changes: Doby's Subs and the Lee Sun Chinese restaurant. Almost nothing else that I remember has survived.

Take the video store where my friends and I used to rent movies to watch at sleepovers or on lazy afternoons. Tucked down at the far end of the plaza, its shelves held the new and the old, the good and the bad and the downright terrible. It had video games, too, a small and incongruous selection that included Riven: The Sequel to Myst, which I spied one afternoon and grabbed to goof around with on the PS1 I inherited from my best friend. I had tried to play the first game in elementary school but never got the hang of it. This time, the better part of a decade later, I found myself exploring the islands of Riven for hours, clicking back and forth, trying to figure out what all the little symbols I kept finding were supposed to mean. (Needless to say, I was hooked and spent countless additional hours making my way through the other six games in the series in the years that followed.)

Now those shelves of digital amusements are no more, replaced by a locally owned new-age tea and herb shop that used to be in a neighboring town before it moved to a nearby city and finally came to rest in Averill Park.

The plaza has a gym now, too, and two restaurants, one of which is trying desperately to be upscale with an outdoor patio and umbrellaed tables. The other makes no such pretense, content instead to be a local diner of the most typical sort, a place to stop in for meat-laden omelets, homemade pie, or crepes stuffed with cheese.

Just up the road is the town square, if you can call it that, where Route 43 meets Route 150 at a stoplight that orchestrates the area's most impressive traffic bottlenecks each day at rush hour. Frustrated drivers sit surrounded by the franchises that have overtaken three of the four corners: Subway, Dunkin' Donuts, and Walgreens. A local pizzeria—which used to be Jeff's but, like AJ's, changed hands at some point when I wasn't paying attention—remains the sole independent holdout.

A Hannaford, itself a regional franchise, dominates the left side of the street before the intersection. I remember when it was Miller's, a local grocery store that held onto its name and iconic sign even after its freestanding home got a makeover that connected it to the Rite Aid that was next door at the time. Every spring, I made a game of trying to spy the birds' nests that filled the crevices between letters.

I remember going to Rite Aid for candy after Halloween and Valentine's Day when everything was on deep discount. And wandering down the seasonal aisle in the summer, looking at yard toys and bubbles, breathing in the scent of colored plastic while sunshine streamed through the windows, promising a long afternoon of outdoor fun. And tent sales in the parking lot, which were the perfect excuse to pick up entertaining but relatively useless baubles simply because they were cheap and I liked going home with something new whenever I went shopping with Mom.

Rite Aid eventually relocated to the far side of the intersection, and a beverage mart took its place. The Dunkin' Donuts used to be a Mobil station, and I don't remember what used to sit where Walgreens (which bought out the Rite Aid) sits now.

That was the most surprising thing for me, the not remembering. I dig into my past and see all these snippets and snapshots, but some spaces remain blank, too far back or too unimportant to recall. And I have to wonder: How much of what I do remember is actual memory, and how much is pieced together from disparate impressions? How much of it will really matter in five more years, ten more years, twenty more years, when I drive through these towns again and see more changes and today's sights become tomorrow's memories?

But those memories mean something to me. They conjure up a time when weekends were for shopping or sleeping over at friends' houses and the definition of a night on the town was drinking a cup of coffee and watching a local music show. When summer meant shopping tent sales and renting movies and eating pizza dinners. When I could ride or drive through town and feel a connection to the places and people who were fixtures there: the postmistress, the mechanic, the baristas, the deli workers. Even as places come and go and the area changes, the memories remain. I can still drive by vacant lots and empty buildings and see the community that once was.

And maybe I record these memories because I'm afraid of forgetting, afraid that one day I'll reach for those moments of my younger life and find them just beyond my grasp. Maybe I share them because I feel a connection with others when I read their recollections, even though we've never met and I've never seen their towns. Maybe we all desire to relive the good parts, the iconic moments we can't truly get back, to dive in through those rosy lenses and look back, just for a moment, on a time we want to preserve as simpler, better, and happier.

A time when, to the best of our recollection, everything was as it should be.

What location or business from your town do you remember most that’s not there anymore? What’s your most vivid memory of that place?

Leave a comment

Thanks to fellow Foster members , , and for their input on this piece. 🙂

Until then (or until I decide to post more fiction here), please enjoy the conclusion of “Defeating the Dogstar.”

If you missed parts 1 and 2, you can catch up here:
Defeating the Dogstar, part 1: Darkness
Defeating the Dogstar, part 2: Light

This story came out of Season 2 of Foster, and I’m deeply indebted to my fellow participants who helped me bring the narrative to fruition: , , , Asad Rhaman, Jess Sun, JG of , Lisa Dawson, and Rick Rollins. My friend and brother in Christ, Rick, also deserves a big shout-out for providing feedback on the first and second drafts. 👋🏻💛

If you’re already a subscriber, thanks for your support! 🤗

"...if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new." ~ 2 Corinthians 5:17, KJV

Joshua tensed, his arm dropping from her shoulders. She started, surprised. Was it over? Was Joshua...giving up?

No. Joshua never gave up. But Abaddon was smirking, his smug self-assurance almost palpable, as if he knew he'd finally broken Joshua's defenses—the only defenses she had.

She should have expected it. Joshua had been patient with her for years, never withdrawing his care even in her darkest moments. He never left her alone, just as he'd promised, but that didn't mean he was always there where she could see him. It had taken her a long time to get used to the way he would go without really leaving, his physical presence absent but the light remaining.

She tried to hold onto it, tried—as Joshua had instructed—to walk in that light, but her own darkness railed against it. She struggled. Wavered. Doubted Joshua's words. Failed to trust his promise. Forgot everything he'd told her and let the troubles of her life buffet the light until it seemed to be no more than a guttering candle flame.

And when Abaddon returned and cast his cloud over everything, it was as if he dragged the old shroud over her life and smothered what remained of her confidence. Then Joshua had to come and get rid of him, again and again and again, because she was too weak to do it on her own.

How could anyone, even someone as longsuffering as Joshua, put up with that forever?

"You're welcome to, if you have forever to wait." Joshua's words broke through her thoughts and turned them around. "When I make a promise, I keep it. You can roar about victory all you like, but whatever ground you think you've gained is insignificant. The battle is over, Abaddon. She will never be yours, not in the end. It's time for you to go."

For a moment, the two men stood, neither making a move to yield. She held her breath, suspended somewhere between terror and hope. And then—

Abaddon's smirk dissolved, and she caught a glimpse of the crack in his armor again before the mask of malice returned. He took another step toward Joshua, eyes narrowing.

"This is not over," he hissed. "I will be back."

Joshua shrugged, untroubled as always. "I'll be waiting."

And then Abaddon was gone, out the door in a cloud of smoke and coffee—but not before shooting a glance at her that drove ice down into her bones.

He would be back. She knew it even as the door slammed behind him and his motorcycle roared away down the street. She knew him too well to think he'd surrender that easily.

"Let's get this cleaned up." Joshua touched her shoulder again, bringing her back to the moment.

She let out a shaky breath and nodded. The kitchen was a mess of coffee, ceramic, and sauerkraut juice. Cleaning up seemed almost trivial after the confrontation, but it was solid. Tangible. Outside her head and away from the spiraling darkness that was Abaddon and all he represented.

Joshua retrieved cleaning spray, two cloths, and a broom from the closet by the pantry, and they set to work. For a while, they were silent, no sound except the occasional clink as they gathered up what remained of the smiling mermaid. Then:

"Joshua?"

"Yes?"

"Why do you stay?" She couldn't help asking. She knew she could trust him, but it was so hard to remember, especially when Abaddon's words so often whispered at the edges of her consciousness.

They were whispering now, reminding her of every weakness, every transgression, every time she'd tried to rise above the darkness and failed.

Joshua knew. She knew that he knew. And she couldn't shake the fear that, one day, it would be too much, the other shoe would drop, and Joshua would disappear and never come back. That was the way people worked: they loved you as long as you measured up, met their standards, made them happy. As soon as you didn't, they went cold. You might figure out how to appease them if you were lucky, but it was a long journey through hostile silence to try and get there—a journey you had to take again and again because the cycle never stopped.

And maybe that was why she held onto Abaddon. They'd known each other for so long that the man could practically climb inside her head and see what she was thinking. As much as she might insist it wasn't true, they were the same. She didn't have to look hard to see the deepest parts of herself in him: coarse and dark and horrible. He understood that, and he didn't expect her to be anything more because she could never be more.

She could never give someone as good and pure as Joshua a reason to stay. It didn't make sense, the way he cared about her. She hadn't done a thing to earn his unwavering kindness.

Joshua sat back on his heels and looked at her, a hint of sorrow in his eyes. "I told you I would never go. Remember: you're not in the dark any more."

"I know, but—I thought you were going to leave me with him." She cringed at the words as they emerged in a rush, the awful sound of fear given a voice. "When he was yelling. When he said—"

Joshua shook his head. "Don't think about what he said. Think about what's true."

"What's true is that he's right, Joshua. I can't deny it. He's exactly right about what I am. And even though I absolutely hate him, part of me always wants him to come back. And then when he's here, I want to get rid of him, but I can't. I can't because he is me, Joshua."

Joshua set his cleaning rag aside and considered her for a moment.

"If you keep looking inside yourself," he said at last, "he is all you'll find."

She stared at him, stunned to hear Abaddon's words coming from his mouth. "How can you stand that?" she exclaimed. "How can you stand knowing that he is what I am, deep down? That I can never get away from it? I wish desperately that I could. I've tried. You know I've tried. But he always comes around again."

"He doesn't have to. You have a choice."

"What choice?" Her voice rose on a wave of hysteria. "How can I stand in the face of that? You saw him, Joshua: he didn't back down. He usually runs like a scared dog, but not today. It's like he's getting stronger—or I'm getting weaker. I don't know. I'm just so sick of fighting him."

"It's time to stop trying to stand in your own strength," Joshua replied quietly. "I meant what I said. The battle is over. He lost years ago, and nothing can change that. You have the light now. You can see the truth."

"What does that even mean when you just said he's all I'll ever find?" she exclaimed. "You know that's what I am, Joshua. You know. I know it. And it hasn't changed, or he wouldn't keep coming back."

"That doesn't mean he's true," Joshua countered. "Listen to me: all he can ever do is lie. There is no truth in him. He's done well constructing a reality that suits him, but it's all shifting shadows. That's the way he wants it. The light exposes his lies for what they are. It destroys his only means of justifying the darkness he finds in himself.

"But you are not him. You were, once, and he'll do everything he can to keep you enslaved to his deceit. He'll remind you of who you were and tell you nothing has changed. He'll try to shut out the light and make you doubt its power. But he doesn't control your life now. You walk in the light."

"With you," she said. Looking for confirmation, an anchor, something to help her remember his words the next time she was tempted to forget.

Joshua nodded. "With me."

She sighed, made a few half-hearted swipes at the remaining streaks of coffee. "I wish I believed that all the time."

"You will," Joshua assured her. "One day."

"But he is going to come back, isn't he. For now."

"Yes," said Joshua. "He's convinced himself that he can still win."

"So what do I do?"

"Don't give him a foothold. Stand firm in the light." Joshua got to his feet and held out his hand to pull her up. "And I'll be there."

They tackled the sauerkraut next, soaking up the spreading puddle with paper towels and sweeping the broken glass into the trash. Joshua retrieved the grocery bag from where she'd dropped it, and they salvaged what they could from the mess.

"I think that's about all we can do," she said once they'd sorted through. "Thanks for helping me clean up—oh Joshua, your shirt."

Joshua looked down at the crimson spots of sauerkraut juice spattered across his cuffs. Another streak marred his side where he'd hefted the grocery bag. The color stood out stark against the white. He shrugged, smiled, knowing and enigmatic, a familiar expression that she'd never quite been able to read.

She hesitated. Then: "Joshua—"

"Yes?"

"How do I stand firm?"

That smile again, soft and reassuring with an undercurrent of sadness. "Trust the light to show you what's true. Every day. Every moment."

"Even when he comes back."

Joshua nodded. "When he realizes he can't cast his shadow on you any more, he'll leave."

The firm assertion gave her hope. "For good?"

"In time, yes. Until then," Joshua paused, laid his hands on her shoulders and gave her a long, steady look, so different from Abaddon's piercing stare, "let the truth be your defense."

She looked back, saw the firmness and sincerity in his eyes: a foundation that couldn't be shaken. She could trust that foundation because Joshua was true. A true friend. A true brother. Someone who loved her in the way she had always needed but had never known where to find. That truth embodied something bigger, something expansive and fundamental that existed outside of her.

Joshua had been showing her that truth all along, illuminating a different way of being—strong, enduring, steadfast. And he would keep holding her up so she'd never fall. She turned the image over in her mind as they walked to the door, trying to cement it in her memory.

Joshua paused when they arrived and turned to give her a gentle hug. "I love you, my sister."

She stood with her arms around him, silent. One day, she'd be able to echo the words and mean them without any shadow of Abaddon standing in the way. But right now...

"Thank you, Joshua."

She went back to the kitchen after the door closed behind him. Put the salvaged groceries away. Dumped the rest of the coffee down the sink—

And stopped short.

The chipped blue mug was still sitting on the counter. It looked back at her like a challenge, a question waiting for an answer.

"Trust the light to show you what's true."

Now that she thought about it, she had seen something in Abaddon's face before he left, something exposed in the flicker between expressions: he knew he had lost the moment Joshua showed up. Not just that day, but years ago when Joshua first pulled her out of the dark. The battle had ended then. Everything else was just the aftermath, the messy road to a triumphant end.

The next time Abaddon came, she would be ready. Joshua was right: the man was a liar. A defeated enemy who couldn't win. Not when she stood in Joshua's light. Not when she could see the truth.

She took a deep breath, picked up the mug, and tossed it in the garbage with a satisfying crash.

Thanks again for reading. What did you think? Is there anything you particularly liked or disliked? Feedback is always appreciated! 🙂

Leave a comment

If you missed part 1, you can catch up here:
Defeating the Dogstar, part 1: Darkness

This story came out of Season 2 of Foster, and I’m deeply indebted to my fellow participants who helped me bring the narrative to fruition: , , , Asad Rhaman, Jess Sun, JG of , Lisa Dawson, and Rick Rollins. My friend and brother in Christ, Rick, also deserves a big shout-out for going through and providing feedback on not one, but two full drafts. 👋🏻💛

"The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it." - John 1:5, ESV

What choice did she have but to finally accept his presence? She hated everything about him, but she needed somebody to lean on who wouldn't pull away. And he never had. He didn't care about her, but at least he didn't expect her to live up to anything beyond what he already knew her to be. Even her darkest depths didn't shock him.

The smell of coffee filled the room. Her hands shook, uncertain whether to reach out or to fight.

Then suddenly, he cursed, his expression shattering into a kaleidoscope of shock and alarm. The mug dropped to the floor in an explosion of dark liquid and ceramic shards that crunched underfoot as he hurriedly backed away.

"You—" The strangled exclamation caught in his throat, dread overtaking bravado. She stared him, confused, trying to make sense of his reaction. What had just—

A gentle touch on her shoulder answered her unspoken question. For a moment, she didn't dare hope it was true. But she had to be sure. She drew in a breath, turned her head, and saw...

Joshua.

Joshua, who never changed, comfortable but impeccable in a white button-down and khakis, smelling faintly of sawdust and varnish and carrying the faintest hint of a smile around his eyes—eyes that always seemed too old and too sad for his young face but that never lost their light. Joshua, who banished the gloom and reminded her that the ragged man standing in her kitchen with coffee dripping off his boots did not define her existence.

"My sister told you to leave, Abaddon." Joshua's words emerged with power, warm and firm, reinforced by his bright, steady gaze.

Abaddon cursed again as he slipped on spilled coffee and grabbed for the counter to steady himself. "You—" he repeated, this time with a malice that made her shudder. "What is it with you? Why do you always show up?"

"We've been through this, Abaddon," Joshua replied, unfazed in the face of the other man's hatred. "I'm always here. And I will always be here."

Joshua's hand was warm on her shoulder, a solid reassurance that she wasn't imagining his presence, that there was a chance Abaddon might actually leave—and take the smothering darkness with him.

Abaddon: ruin, destroyer. How appropriate it seemed as she watched emotions war for dominance of his features, an internal conflict that stood in stark contrast to Joshua's calm, measured countenance.

"She doesn't want you here." The words dripped from Abaddon's lips like venom, stinging right down into her heart.

It wasn't true—but maybe it was. Sometimes.

Sometimes, she forgot that Joshua was there, but the only way she could forget was if she wanted to forget. That willful amnesia took hold when the darkest corners of her mind seemed to expand, when she felt most unseen and unwanted and unloved, when thoughts echoed in her head and told her that this was who she was, this was reality, and there was no escaping it.

The very same times when—inevitably—Abaddon came back, hauling his baggage of bitterness, sporting scars from a lifetime of being battered by the world, looking for someone to drag down with him as he sank into his own misery.

Joshua had scars, too, but his made him gentle.

"You can't play your game with me, Abaddon." Joshua's response stood firm, like a shield. "My sister told you to go, and you will go."

Abaddon drew himself up, pushed away from the counter, extricated himself from the mess of spilled coffee and mug shards. "Not this time," he snarled. "This time, I stay. This time, she's mine."

The words drove her back against Joshua's side. Everything in her wanted to scream, to protest, to resist—but what little strength she'd had was gone, depleted by the cares of the day and the effort of trying to resist Abaddon alone.

All she had was Joshua.

The light was the first thing she noticed when a mutual friend introduced them. Brightness seemed to be part of him as much as height or hair color. He was so different from Abaddon—different, in fact, from everyone else in her life. Their first conversation left her with an unshakeable impression of compassion, patience, and joy, as if a shroud had been ripped off her life and she was experiencing true sight for the first time.

And somehow, he kept showing up. She ran into him again and again—at the grocery store, in the coffee shop, when she took a walk after work. She came to expect him as a fixture in life's daily details, appearing with a soft smile and a willing ear and words that startled her with their clarity and authority. Asking how she was and actually listening to her answer. Helping her think through confounding problems at work. And offering gracious correction instead of stinging rebuke when her emotions got the better of her.

Abaddon's presence became caustic by contrast. She'd never realized before how pernicious he was, never noticed the parasitic way he drained her of hope. With him, she just was. Nothing more. But with Joshua, she started to believe that there was more to be—that she could overcome the darkness and discover something that Abaddon could never offer or even understand.

So she went home one day and told Abaddon to leave.

The result was explosive, far beyond what she'd expected, ending with a beer bottle smashed through the lid of the record player and a squeal of motorcycle tires so loud that she was stunned no one called the police. But the dramatic exit was only an interlude. She knew, even then, that Abaddon would be back.

She was so terrified that all she could think to do was rush back to where she'd last seen Joshua, sitting by the ornamental fountain at the park, and tell him what was going on. He listened without judgment, sat with her until she calmed down, and came back to the house to help clear away the aftermath of Abaddon's rage.

That was the first time she said, out loud, that she knew Abaddon had to go.

"I don't want him to come back." Words quiet, voice still shaky. "I've let him stay for too long. And—I see how he is. That's not how I want to be anymore. Honestly, Joshua...I'd rather be like you."

Joshua replied with a searching look, a silent examination that made her feel uncertain and exposed for a long moment—but not afraid. It was as if he was making sure she was serious, seeking to confirm what she wasn't completely certain of herself.

"Are you really ready to be done with him?" he asked at last.

She nodded. She wasn't sure what it would mean to not have Abaddon around, but as Joshua's light continued to shine into the darkest corners of her life, she knew something would have to change. She wanted that light to stay.

But she was terrified of what Abaddon would do when his motorcycle came screeching around the corner again and his rage stamped into the house in a swirl of alcohol and smoke. He'd never laid a hand on her before, but she'd also never seen him so angry.

"But I'm scared to death of him," she murmured. "What if he—"

Joshua broke her line of thought with a hug that surprised her in its tenderness. It was the first time he'd done more than touch her arm or shoulder, and the gesture was so needed and so unexpected that all she could do was cry.

Joshua held her for a moment before stepping back.

"If you walk in the light," he said, "he can't harm you."

"How can you be sure?" she asked, unable to share the confidence that was plain in his voice.

"His type only thrives in the dark. But you, my sister"—a smile, soft and reassuring—"are not in the dark any more."

Sister. The way he said it spoke volumes about his care for her, a care no one else had ever showed—not her friends, not her family, and certainly not Abaddon. Joshua never criticized, never shamed, never walked away when she was being difficult. Of all the people in her life, he was the first to give her a glimpse of what love was supposed to be.

He promised, then, that he would always be there. And in that moment, she believed him. That kind of care wouldn't pull away, wouldn't disappear when things got difficult, wouldn't forsake her for some unnamed offense. Joshua had proved to be a refuge she could run to. With him, she would be safe.

Always safe.

...but she didn't feel safe, not as Abaddon surged forward and came to a stop with his face only inches from Joshua's.

"This time," he hissed, teeth clenched, "you leave."

"No!" The exclamation escaped before she could stop it. She clung to Joshua as a burst of fear sent her heart racing again. "No, Joshua, you can't leave. You promised!"

Joshua squeezed her shoulder, his warm gaze still locked with Abaddon's chilly hazel stare. "Only one of us is leaving," he said. His tone made it clear that it wouldn't be him.

He'd affirmed that promise years ago, after the argument. It had been hard, then. Abaddon had shown up about a week later with none of the blazing fury she'd expected, made himself a pot of coffee, and proceeded to act as if things could continue as usual. She hadn't wanted him back but didn't know how to make him go, didn't have the words to tell him she was really, truly done with him because she couldn't quite shake the fear that it would end in disaster.

Then Joshua came and drove Abaddon from the house with a zeal that stopped just short of hauling the man bodily off the couch and throwing him out the door. Like his care, his anger was of a kind she'd never known: anger that defended the ones it loved rather than took revenge for its own satisfaction.

Why did she always forget that? How could she? The shock on Abaddon's face, the relief she felt when Joshua shut the door and turned to her with that eternal gaze of his, smiling the smile of a parent watching a child toddle through its first shaky steps.

And he was there every time, without fail. It became so that his mere presence was enough to send Abaddon running—which was why it was so frightening to see the man now, nose to nose with Joshua, all traces of fear replaced by scathing stubbornness that showed no intention of backing down. His words came hot and fast, flung into Joshua's face like flaming darts: "She's mine. She's always been mine. Your ridiculous hero act doesn't change that."

"You lost your claim on her the moment she stepped into the light." Joshua's voice remained steady in the face of Abaddon's rage. "You don't belong here. Not any more. You can continue to fight the inevitable if you choose, but we both know how this will end."

"Now who's playing games?" Abaddon raised an eyebrow. "She knows how it ends. Ask her." He jerked his chin in her direction. "She knows I'll ever go away. She doesn't want me to. And you know that."

"That's not—" she began, then stopped when Abaddon turned his gaze on her.

"You can't hide from me." The words were a growl, animal and visceral. "I know what you are. And when he gets sick of that"—the slightest tilt of his head toward Joshua—"he'll leave. Then where will you be, without me?"

How could she argue? She knew she didn't deserve Joshua: his patience, his care, his gentleness. His was a love she couldn't comprehend, a love that came alongside and guided, that walked with and supported. She knew that, without him, she would be left to sink into the depths of her own darkness until there was nothing but a soundless, unending scream.

"Your lies have no place here." Joshua's words drew Abaddon's eyes away.

"Who says I'm lying?" Abaddon's retort was smug.

"You've been a liar from the start," Joshua replied. "I promised to stay, and my word stands."

"That's awfully grand of you, Mr. Hero." Abaddon made no effort to hide his disdain. "But everybody's got a condition. Everybody's got a breaking point. You just haven't reached yours yet. And I have no problem waiting until you do."

Joshua tensed, his arm dropping from her shoulders. She started, surprised. Was it over? Was Joshua...giving up?

No. Joshua never gave up. But Abaddon was smirking, his smug self-assurance almost palpable, as if he knew he'd finally broken Joshua's defenses—the only defenses she had.

Okay, I’m horrible again with another cliffhanger. It was really hard to decide where to split this up! But part 3 will be here on March 24th. Until then, feel free to check out my other writing.

I also welcome your reactions and feedback. Are you enjoying the story? Do you prefer essays over fiction? Let me know!

Leave a comment

But here I am, diving back into the realm of the imagination, playing around with characters, and rediscovering the strange and mystical way that bits of dialog and lines of plot pop into my head when I’m doing something completely unrelated.

This story, which I’ll be releasing in 3 parts over the next 6 weeks, came out of Season 2 of Foster, an online writers’ collective that I’ve been part of for a couple of years and that I’ve given a nod to in other posts. Although Foster primarily offers editing services (from actual humans!), the collective also runs 5-week experiences called Seasons that give writers the opportunity to dig deeper into the stories they want to write, explore their craft, and collaborate to create finished pieces that reflect deeper thoughts, insights, and experiences.

When Season 2 started, all I had was an opening scene. I never expected the story to grow into what it has: a ~6,500-word exploration of faith, love, trust, and truth. While primarily an allegory based on the Biblical concept of “putting off” the old self and becoming new in Christ, it has an autobiographical undercurrent that has, admittedly, made it one of the more difficult things I’ve written in the recent past.

I’m deeply indebted to the Season 2 participants and fellow Fosterati who helped me bring this to fruition: , , , Asad Rhaman, Jess Sun, JG of , Lisa Dawson, and Rick Rollins.

It’s been a wild ride. I welcome any feedback, reactions, and insights that you feel moved to share. 🧡

"...put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts..." ~ Ephesians 4:22

I can't do this anymore.

It was the first thought in her head as she arrived at the door, bag of groceries in one hand, keys in the other, insides wound up like a rubber band stretched and twisted almost beyond capacity, brain pulsing with thoughts she'd rather ignore.

Through the door, tossing the keys onto the hall table with a clank, scattering yesterday's unopened mail. She kicked the pile aside with a frustrated grunt, headed down the hall—

And stopped short, stifling a scream.

The grocery bag slipped from her arms and crashed to the floor, sending glass shards and a river of red sauerkraut juice spattering across the tile. She stumbled back, hand over her mouth, and stared at the scene in the kitchen, willing it not to be true.

He was back.

Lounging in a chair, dirty motorcycle boots on the table, a beer bottle dangling from one hand and a cigarette from the other. Two streams of smoke escaped his nostrils as he grinned, laughed, mocked her reaction in that familiar self-deprecating way: as if the entire world was a cruel joke and he was the butt of it.

"Miss me?" he asked.

It was him, no mistaking it. The gravelly voice, the black hair, the battered jeans and faded band t-shirt. Even the half-circles under his eyes, standing out on pale skin. She would know him anywhere—a painful reality she was far from equipped to deal with after a day like today.

"I told you not to come back." Her voice was thin, much less forceful than she would have liked.

He shrugged. "The door was open."

Had it been? No. She'd locked it before she left, hadn't she? And she was absolutely sure she'd never given him a key.

"Get out." More force this time, but still not enough to convince him—to convince herself—that she wanted him to go.

But he had to go. If she didn't get rid of him now, didn't take a stand, he'd insinuate himself into her life all over again. Pass out on the couch after another bender or blast Beatles records at ungodly hours until the neighbors complained. Drink pots of coffee and leave toast crumbs all over the counter on the off chance he felt like eating. Fill the apartment with the stench of cigarette smoke: a choking cloud that hung over him and threatened to engulf her the longer he stayed.

She despised him, and yet...

And yet. There was always an "and yet."

And yet...he was familiar. He was predictable. He was, in a sickening sort of way, comforting. She knew what to expect with him, how to respond to his moods—like having an alter ego, a reflection of herself outside her own mind, someone to look to when she needed to make sense of her existence.

He was looking at her now, expression hovering between amusement and hurt, stubborn hazel eyes penetrating her feeble insistence.

"That's quite the welcome," he said at last.

"I mean it. Get out."

Sauerkraut juice made a crimson channel under the table as he took one last drag on the cigarette and dropped the butt into the dregs of the beer. He swung his boots to the floor, and for a moment—just a moment—she thought he might comply.

But this was him, after all. He unfolded himself from the chair and ambled toward the counter by the stove, radiating an air of nonchalant rebellion.

"You want coffee, or am I making it for me?" The act of staying was implicit in his voice.

"You're not making it for anyone," she replied. "Get. Out."

That grin again, just the faintest hint of a smirk at the corner of his mouth to show he was unconvinced. He slid the lid off the coffee pot—a freestanding stainless steel electric perk model she'd picked up at a yard sale—and began making himself coffee as if he'd never left.

As if he never intended to leave.

That was how it went, wasn't it? He showed up when he liked, and she had no say in the matter.

It made her sick.

But the tremor in her voice, the slight hesitation as she tried to kick him out, spoke of something else: a connection she could never quite break no matter how many times she resolved to be rid of him. She didn't know if she could cope without him to look to when the darkness came. He was the only person in her life whom she was confident she couldn't disappoint.

The coffee pot burbled, a sudden sound in the silence. He opened the cabinet by the sink and helped himself to a mug, deep blue with a chip out of the rim. The one he always used and that she should have gotten rid of long ago. He gave her a knowing look over his shoulder as he set it on the counter and settled in to wait for the coffee.

Every movement was deliberate, casual, almost rhythmic, but there was something else: a chink in his bravado that suggested he wasn't quite so secure as he let on. The fact that she saw right through it should have given her the courage to make good on her demand for him to leave.

But she'd always seen right through him. It was like looking at herself.

"Why?" The word escaped before she could stop it.

He glanced at her, one eyebrow raised. "What?"

"Why did you come back?"

Another shrug, nonchalant, arms crossed over his chest as he watched the coffee pot. "You wanted me to."

"I never said that." In fact, she distinctly remembered telling him she hated him and never wanted to see him again. She could still feel the hot tears that flowed as he laughed, knowing—as he always did—that part of her still clung to all he was even as she desperately wanted to let go.

"You didn't have to." He filled the mug, deep brown liquid sending a swirl of steam into the air. "You need me."

The words hit her so hard that they nearly knocked a scathing retort from her lips. But she couldn't argue. He was right. She had tried so many times to eradicate him from life, but it was like trying to root out an invasive weed: a battle that always ended in frustration, pain, and resignation. She was never strong enough.

He lifted the mug and studied her through the steam, eyes probing until she had to look away.

"No matter what you try to make of yourself, you can't dig deep enough," he remarked. "There's always more. Always another layer of filth." A sip of coffee and a grimace, as if the bitterness reminded him of something far deeper that he—and she—didn't want to consider but couldn't avoid.

Deep down, she did want him to come back. To lose him would be to lose part of herself, a part that validated all the darkest, most dysfunctional aspects of her character.

With him around, it was okay to resent her lot in life, to use unresolved injustices as an excuse for brokenness, to insist on approval and acceptance even when she grossly mistreated people. He did it all himself—and more—with masterful technique, and he always had the words to reassure her that she never had to change.

Letting go of him meant sacrificing support for her misery, being alone to face the reality of the scum that surfaced in the cesspool of her heart on days like today, when frustrations and disappointments mounted and all she wanted to do was crawl inside herself and not come out.

"I'm not you." Her voice was almost a whisper.

"I'm all you'll ever be," he replied. No malice, no patronizing, just a statement of fact punctuated by that maddening grin. "You've always known that."

"No. You are my past." She'd told herself this dozens of times since the first time she realized he couldn't stay, that his presence was poison and would destroy her if things continued as they were. She repeated it in her head and under her breath in the dark hours after the explosive argument that shattered their closeness and placed them forever in opposition, as if saying it enough times would give her the courage to believe it.

"You don't believe that." He voiced her thoughts again, tone measured and confident. "I wouldn't be here if you did."

"Stop." The command cracked apart as it met the panic rising in her chest. Her breath stuttered in quick bursts that threatened tears she didn't want to shed. "You don't belong here. I never asked you to come back. This is not your home, and you have no right to keep showing up."

Silence. For a long moment, he simply studied her face and her stance over the top of his mug. She scrutinized him in turn and saw a shift in his expression, the self-assurance melting into the look he got when he convinced himself that the whole world was against him and there was nothing to do but drink his misery into oblivion or disappear into the night on his motorcycle like some tragic, disaffected antihero.

He set his coffee aside and turned back to the cabinets. To her alarm, he reached up to fetch a second mug: the tall one with the black interior and the hand-painted mermaid wrapped around the outside. Her mug, which she'd picked up at the local coffee shop when he and she were still unbroken. Something that, like him, she'd never quite been able to let go of. He slid it onto the counter next to his own and reached for the coffee pot. Her heart skipped, battering against her chest like a caged bird desperate for escape.

"We might as well accept that we're on the same path," he remarked while he poured. "I'll never amount to anything, and neither will you. You've told me yourself: you can never do anything right. So why bother trying? We'd both just be wasting our time." He returned the pot to the counter with a thunk and watched steam rise above the smiling mermaid, looking beyond it to a darker place she knew all too well but wished she couldn't see. "No matter how many times you try to climb up the ladder and reach some imagined ideal of yourself, I'm all you'll find. You haven't got anyone else." He turned and held the mug out, a simple gesture made terrible by the intensity of his gaze. "I am your reality."

She was fighting for breath now, his words robbing her of air. She could feel the tears trying to escape, could see herself from the outside: standing there, trembling, the mug of coffee the only barrier between her and endless darkness.

It was her biggest fear, to become like him: degenerate and without anchor, making excuses for herself as failure after failure piled up until she was crushed under the weight of her own despair.

She could never do enough to measure up. Days like today were evidence of that: the work contract that fell through after weeks of negotiation; the to-do list laden with more responsibilities than she had time to manage; the phone call from her mother that devolved, as usual, into yelling and tears.

The cycle was familiar, inevitable: fall down, fall behind, never make meaningful headway. Stay stuck in the pit of her failure while opportunities for success and happiness hung perpetually out of reach. Grasp desperately for the kind of love she'd wanted her whole life but find only his twisted, self-serving, self-motivated demand for validation.

The coffee swirled in front of her eyes, a vortex that, if she took the bait, would suck her straight into his personal hell. To wrap her hand around the smiling mermaid would be to admit defeat, to assent to everything he'd said—everything he'd ever said, today and throughout the whole of the dark dance he called their reality.

But what choice did she have but to finally accept his presence? She hated everything about him, but she needed somebody to lean on who wouldn't pull away. And he never had. He didn't care about her, but at least he didn't expect her to live up to anything beyond what he already knew her to be. Even her darkest depths didn't shock him.

The smell of coffee filled the room. Her hands shook, uncertain whether to reach out or to fight.

Yes, okay, I’m a horrible person for putting a cliffhanger here. 😅 Feel free to leave a comment and yell at me (or let me know what you think so far)!

Leave a comment

Or go on to part 2. 👉🏻