This is the first of a series of posts about the questions on the October 19 referendum in Alberta. While the public debate has centered exclusively on the separation question, I believe the original nine questions are even more dangerous.

About the separation question: I was a canvasser for the Forever Canadian petition. People were literally lining up to sign. Both from my personal experience, and from everything I have read and heard about it, I am certain that the remain vote will win handily, provided remain voters turn out in sufficient numbers.

The original question that Mitch Sylvestre proposed read as follows:

Do you agree that the Province of Alberta should cease to be part of Canada to become an independent state?

I am not a constitutional expert, but I doubt Canada's Constitution allows for the possibility of seceding. First Nations people certainly agree, as Canada's treaties with First Nations are recognized and affirmed in the Constitution itself, and Alberta independence would certainly go against them. So the question should be dead in the water. It has become a matter for the courts.

Where does the UCP government stand on this? They have done what they could to make it easier for the separatists to get their day in the sun. They lowered the number of signatures required for the application to be approved, they have appealed the court rulings against the question, and there is no doubt that some members of the UCP caucus are separatists. But the success of the Forever Canadian petition ultimately forced the government's hand, and they added a tenth question to the already crowded October 19 referendum:

Should Alberta remain a province of Canada, or should the Government of Alberta commence the legal process required under the Canadian Constitution to hold a binding provincial referendum on whether or not Alberta should separate from Canada?

I won't dwell on the detail that there is in fact no such “legal process required under the Canadian Constitution”, because, again, the Constitution does not contemplate secession. Given the question, many people's immediate reaction was: why such a convoluted way of asking whether Alberta should remain in Canada, or leave?

If you think this is convoluted, try reading the question on Quebec's 1980 referendum:

The Government of Quebec has made public its proposal to negotiate a new agreement with the rest of Canada, based on the equality of nations; this agreement would enable Quebec to acquire the exclusive power to make its laws, levy its taxes and establish relations abroad – in other words, sovereignty – and at the same time to maintain with Canada an economic association including a common currency; any change in political status resulting from these negotiations will only be implemented with popular approval through another referendum; on these terms, do you give the Government of Quebec the mandate to negotiate the proposed agreement between Quebec and Canada?

Say what now? This was even more convoluted, and for the same reason: If the Constitution does not allow for unilateral separation, as Mitch Sylvestre and his friends would have it, then separation can only come about as a result of negotiation with the rest of Canada. Although the UCP's question doesn't talk about negotiation, that is probably the “legal process” they talk about. In either case, the negotiated agreement would then have to be put to the people in a second referendum. Sylvestre, like Parizeau before him, would prefer a unilateral declaration of independence, but Canada's answer would be, as we used to say when we were kids, “Oh yeah? You and what army?”

Another criticism of the Alberta question was that it wasn't a yes/no question. But that's not a problem. It is still a binary question. Like the Brexit question of 2016, the options are remain or leave.

So the UCP government's tenth question is valid. And, to repeat what I wrote earlier, I am certain that the remain vote will win handily, provided remain voters turn out in sufficient numbers.

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So why am I writing these posts? I believe that the UCP's real agenda lies in the other nine questions. Hardly anybody is paying attention to these, but if the UCP succeeded in getting sufficient support for them, they would justify completing a process that started years ago, and push Alberta in a very destructive and irreversible direction. In this series, I want to take a detailed look at the other nine referendum questions. But first, in the next post, I want to discuss what the UCP's long game is.

#fiction #theatre #bureaucracy #austerity

Warning: Contains spoilers

A statement commonly misattributed to Joseph Stalin holds that the death of one man is a tragedy, but the death of millions is only a statistic. Its perseverance attests to its fundamental truth. Not only do our minds glance off human misery on a massive scale, but our media culture routinely elevates individual tragedies over mass suffering in the service of ‘human interest’. Catastrophes require avatars to be relatable, and individual victims such as Alan Kurdi, Renée Good or Anne Frank will come to stand in for all those who shared their fate.

And where real life does not readily yield relatable faces for a tragedy, art may create them. I, Daniel Blake stands in this tradition, of social realism which centres the misery inflicted on the working class. The movie, and now stage show, is the j’accuse of veteran filmmaker Ken Loach, and a testament to the thousands of Britons who were socially murdered as a result of austerity. Silent victims whose deaths resulted from the impersonal technocratic machinery of the state and the invisible hand of the market. The movie premiered in 2016 when the UK had been in the vice of austerity for eight years. Now, over ten years later, Daniel Blake has come to the stage to tell his story once again.

Like the movie before it, I, Daniel Blake moves inexorably and mercilessly towards its grim conclusion. One does not, after all, mention a stroke in Act I for everyone to live happily after by the end. It is the journey, not the destination, which is salient and I, Daniel Blake takes the audience on a dismal tour of all the dehumanising cruelties of the British workfare state, illuminating what happens when a government decides to deal with the messiness of human existence by smothering its beautiful and irreducible variety with the cold impersonality of standardised forms, checklists and scripts.

We are introduced to the titular Daniel Blake just as he is signed off for work after having suffered a stroke. A fundamental misunderstanding about the nature of Britain’s infamous ‘work capability assessments’ – with Daniel labouring under the misapprehension he is to speak about his condition rather than fill out a predefined survey – means that the state deems him fit to work. Social security payments thus become contingent on a pointless search for a job, plunging Daniel into a bureaucratic nightmare of Kafkaesque proportions. There are real parallels here to The Trial, with Daniel prevented from appealing the outcome of his assessment until it is formally communicated to him by the mysterious, unreachable authority of the official assessor. With his appeal stuck in the purgatory of the interminable machinery of the Department for Work and Pensions, Daniel must participate in a charade of applying for jobs he is unfit to perform to avoid his social security payments being sanctioned.

While pursuing his quest for the elusive appeal, Daniel meets Katie and her daughter Daisy. They have been relocated from London to Newcastle as the only place where they could secure more than a studio apartment to live, only to find the place unsuitable for human habitation. Offering up his carpentry skills to help sort the place out, Daniel and Katie strike up a warm but uneasy friendship, hampered at times by the differences in their backgrounds and the choices they have to make to survive.

Daniel and Katie’s persistent attempts at mutual aid and human connection serve as the obvious counterpoint to the callous British state bureaucracy. I, Daniel Blake is not exactly subtle with its juxtapositions, with Daniel and Katie’s humanity and empathy frequently contrasted with the robotic indifference of various functionaries. Daniel in particular is presented as a more or less flawless human: a kind and caring old man, suffering emotionally and physically from the death of his wife, whose only fault is to have been left behind by the times and the state he expected to look after him. This bluntness is even more pronounced on stage, where emotion or exposition are delivered by exhortatory monologue, but unlike in the The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, here primary colour emotions serve a purpose and reinforce rather than detract from the potency of the play.

Because I, Daniel Blake is of course not about a man named Daniel Blake. It is about the 190,000 to 330,000 nameless victims killed by austerity. Daniel Blake does not exist to go on a hero’s journey, but to give a face to the faceless dead, hidden behind the convenient statistical euphemisms of ‘excess deaths’ and ‘increased mortality’. If Daniel Blake is improbably sympathetic, it is as a pre-emptive strike against the conservative’s justification that surely the poor must have brought their fate upon themselves. Against this claim, we invoke Stafford Beer’s dictum that, no:

The purpose of a system is what it does. There is after all, no point in claiming that the purpose of a system is to do what it constantly fails to do.

Thus, a ‘welfare’ system that routinely finds sick and disabled people fit to work and forces the unemployed to look for employment that doesn’t exist does not exist to deliver collective social security, but instead serves to protect the interests of an imaginary taxpayer and to maintain the reserve army of labour. As Stephanie Kelton pointed out, ‘natural’ unemployment and its attendant suffering is a policy choice, and yet we still blame those unable to find work for their predicament.

The irony of social realism is of course that it is more popular with the bleeding-heart progressive middle classes than with the working class that is its subject, and one assumes this is even more true for an art form such as theatre. Given the audience will likely have been familiar with the story, one can be forgiven for asking what the point is of bringing I, Daniel Blake to the stage a decade after the original.

I, Daniel Blake answers this challenge through a clever piece of self-referential staging, projecting on a banner over the stage snippets of parliamentary speeches given since the movie came out. We hear a coterie of politicians justifying austerity and, in one instance, even denouncing and deriding I, Daniel Blake itself. The point is resounding clear. Ten years later, the victims and their relatives have not had justice. The social murder perpetrated through austerity remains barely acknowledged, while its architects enjoy esteemed positions at the British Museum, prominent charities, or to launder the reputation of predatory social media. It is national amnesia, promoted by an unaccountable political class and facilitated by a compliant media, against which Daniel Blake stands, and continues to stand, to remind us that 330,000 victims were not blips on computer screens or national insurance numbers, but human beings. Daniel Blake cannot rest until justice is done, and neither should we.

Notes & Suggestions

• Vacuous promises of ‘change’ and official sloganeering about the ‘end of austerity’ notwithstanding, austerity remains a reality for many citizens in the UK and abroad. If you need help navigating the Byzantine social security system, organisations such as Citizens Advice or Disability Rights UK are able to help.
• Possibly the best demonstration of the moral void at the heart of the British establishment, as well as the destructive focus on political etiquette over the material impact of political decisions, was the political and media class’ stronger condemnation of former shadow-chancellor John McDonnell’s description of the Grenfell disaster as social murder, than of those responsible for the disaster itself.
• Justice fails where power cannot be held to account. Doing so requires collective organising, through political parties, trade unions, community action groups and other campaigning organisations. If you are not already involved with any of these, seek one out. There are more likeminded people near you than you think.

Chapter 1: The Morning You Realize You Were Waiting to Be Led

There is a strange silence that comes when the person you were depending on is not where you expected them to be. It can happen in the kitchen before sunrise, when the coffee is brewing and the house is not awake yet. It can happen in a church pew after a hard week, when the song starts and your heart still feels behind. It can happen at work when the one person who usually knows what to do is unavailable, and suddenly the room starts looking around for someone else to be steady. That is the quiet place behind the Day 7 Mercy Creek YouTube story about becoming the body of Christ, and it is also the place many of us reach after we have learned a lesson but have not yet learned how to live without constant instruction.

I think there are moments when faith exposes how much we have confused guidance with closeness. We want Jesus near, but sometimes what we really mean is that we want Him to keep making every next step obvious. We want the strong feeling, the clear sign, the unmistakable moment, the voice that settles the room before we have to act. After a week of mercy, service, truth-telling, and spiritual correction, a person may understand the message with their mind and still feel afraid when life asks them to practice it without someone standing over their shoulder. That is why this reflection belongs beside the faith-based article on restoring gently when truth has to be spoken with mercy, because the road does not end when truth is learned. The road begins when truth has to become our hands, our feet, our voice, and our way of moving through the world.

Maybe you know that feeling. You prayed through something, received help, heard the right word at the right time, watched God provide in a way you could not deny, and for a little while your faith felt strong. Then the next morning came. The dishes were still there. The bill still had a due date. The difficult person still had your number. The workplace still had pressure. The family still had needs. The wound still needed time. The habit still needed surrender. You looked around for the same visible comfort that carried you yesterday, and when you did not feel it the same way, a quiet fear rose up inside. Did I lose something? Did God step back? Am I supposed to know what to do now?

That is a very human place to stand. It is not rebellion. It is not weakness. It is often the honest confusion of someone who has been helped by God and now wonders how to keep walking when the help does not look the same. We love moments when Jesus feels close enough to point to the towel, open the pantry door, quiet the accusing room, steady the frightened heart, or show us exactly what love requires. Those moments are gifts. But discipleship is not only receiving the gift. Discipleship is becoming the kind of person who remembers what the gift taught us when the room grows quiet again.

A mother may feel this after a serious conversation with her child. The night before, she prayed, cried, apologized for her own tone, corrected what needed correcting, and somehow the conversation ended with more peace than she expected. She goes to bed grateful. Then morning comes, and the child is distant again. The house is rushed. Someone cannot find a shoe. The lunchbox is missing. The old impatience rises in the mother before she has even finished her coffee. In that moment, yesterday’s spiritual breakthrough has to become today’s ordinary patience. She cannot live only on the memory of a holy conversation. She has to let that mercy shape how she answers at 7:15 in the morning.

That is where many of us struggle. We want transformation to feel dramatic, but most transformation has to survive breakfast. It has to survive traffic, tiredness, bills, misunderstandings, delayed responses, and the low-level strain of ordinary life. It has to survive the moments when nobody is impressed by our growth because they are too busy needing something from us. If faith only lives in the moment that moved us, it will fade when the moment passes. But if faith becomes embodied, it starts showing up in the way we listen, the way we speak, the way we help, the way we correct, the way we ask for forgiveness, and the way we notice who is standing near the edge of the room hoping someone will remember them.

This is why Paul’s picture of the body of Christ matters so deeply. It is not only a beautiful spiritual image. It is a serious responsibility. A body does not work because one part does everything. A body works because every part responds to the need of the whole. The hand reaches. The foot moves. The eye notices. The ear listens. The shoulder carries weight. The heart keeps beating even when no one sees it. When faith becomes a body, love stops waiting for someone else to begin.

That can sound inspiring until it becomes personal. It means I cannot always wait for someone more qualified to care. It means you cannot always assume compassion belongs to the person with the title, the microphone, the ministry role, the management position, or the stronger personality. It means the lonely coworker may be in front of you for a reason. The exhausted spouse may need your gentleness before you feel ready to give it. The aging parent may need patience when you are already tired. The teenager may need steadiness when you want distance. The person who disappointed you may need truth without contempt. The person who is usually strong may need someone to notice that they are not okay.

A man sitting in his parked truck after work may understand this better than he wants to admit. He has spent the day being useful. He answered questions, solved problems, carried pressure, and kept his voice steady when he did not feel steady inside. He wants to walk into his house and be left alone for twenty minutes. That desire is not evil. He is human. But when he opens the door, he sees his wife standing at the counter with the tired look he knows too well, and one of the children is trying not to cry over homework. In that moment, he has to decide whether love will stay as an idea or become a body. Maybe the holy thing is not a speech. Maybe it is putting down his keys, washing his hands, and asking, “Where do you need me?”

That one question can become faith in motion. It does not solve every problem. It does not make the man less tired. It does not erase his own needs. But it refuses to let weariness become selfishness. It remembers that being part of the body of Christ means we do not only receive care. We also become available to care. Not endlessly. Not foolishly. Not without rest, wisdom, or boundaries. But truly. With a heart willing to move when love is needed.

There is a hidden fear in this kind of message, and I want to name it honestly. Some people hear the call to serve and immediately feel more weight, not hope. They think, “I am already carrying too much. I am already the one people call. I am already the one who notices. I am already tired from being the dependable person.” That is real. Jesus is not asking you to become the savior of everyone around you. The body of Christ does not mean one person becomes the whole body. It means the burden is shared. If you are always the hand, maybe part of your healing is allowing someone else to be the shoulder. If you are always the shoulder, maybe part of your obedience is admitting you need the hand.

This is hard for people who have built their identity around being needed. It is also hard for people who have been disappointed so often that they stopped expecting help. Receiving care can feel risky. Asking for help can feel like standing in a doorway with your pride exposed. Letting someone else carry part of the burden can feel like losing control. But if we are truly members of one body, then needing help does not make us less faithful. It makes us honest. A body where one part refuses all help is not healthy. It is strained.

Maybe the deeper question is not only, “Will I serve?” Maybe it is also, “Will I let myself belong?” Belonging is not the same as being noticed in a crowd. It is not the same as being busy in a church, active online, respected at work, or known in a family. Real belonging means your weakness has somewhere to go. It means your tiredness does not have to hide forever. It means your gifts are welcomed, but you are not reduced to your usefulness. It means when one part suffers, the others do not stand at a distance and offer advice. They move closer.

That is the kind of Christian life many people are hungry for without always knowing how to say it. They do not only want more information about faith. They want faith that knows what to do when a neighbor is hurting, when a room is tense, when a child is ashamed, when a leader is exhausted, when a family is stretched thin, when someone has failed, when someone is missing, when someone is afraid to ask for food, forgiveness, prayer, or time. They want to know whether Jesus is still present when the visible moment has passed and all that remains is ordinary people deciding whether they will live what He showed them.

The answer is yes, but it may not always feel the way we expect. Sometimes Jesus is present through the person who brings food without making a show of it. Sometimes He is present through the one who tells the truth gently. Sometimes He is present through the friend who checks in after the crowd leaves. Sometimes He is present through the leader who protects dignity. Sometimes He is present through the child who notices what adults missed. Sometimes He is present through the quiet strength to take the next faithful step when nobody is telling you exactly how.

That is the movement underneath this final Mercy Creek companion reflection. It is not about a town becoming perfect. It is about people beginning to understand that an encounter with Jesus is meant to become a way of life. The empty place is not always abandonment. Sometimes it is an invitation to remember. Sometimes it is where faith grows legs. Sometimes it is where the lesson stops being something we admired and becomes something we live.

And maybe that is where you are right now. Not in the dramatic beginning of a breakthrough, but in the morning after. Not in the moment where everything feels clear, but in the place where you have to practice what God has already shown you. You may be looking around for the same feeling, the same sign, the same voice, the same visible comfort. But maybe Jesus is closer than you think. Maybe He is present in the opportunity to love the person in front of you. Maybe He is present in the courage to ask for help. Maybe He is present in the small act that proves mercy did not end with the lesson.

Chapter 2: When You Are Tired of Being the One Who Notices

The sink is full again, and nobody else seems bothered by it. There is a cup on the counter, a pan soaking badly, a towel half hanging from the oven door, and a school paper sitting under a refrigerator magnet with tomorrow’s date circled in red. The person standing there sees all of it at once. Not just the dishes, but the invisible work attached to the dishes. The lunches that need packing. The bill that needs paying. The message that still needs an answer. The appointment that has to be rescheduled. The emotional temperature of the house that somehow became their job to manage. They are not angry about one cup. They are tired of being the person who notices the cup, the deadline, the mood, the missing item, and the need before anyone else does.

That kind of tired is hard to explain without sounding petty. If you say, “I am tired of doing everything,” someone may point out the things they do, and maybe they are not wrong. If you say, “I am tired of being the only one who sees what needs to be done,” someone may hear accusation instead of exhaustion. If you say nothing, the resentment grows quietly in the corners. This is one of the hidden struggles of people who care deeply. They do not always want praise. They do not always want control. Sometimes they just want someone else to walk into the room and notice the weight without being handed a list.

This matters when we talk about being the body of Christ, because that image is beautiful, but it is not sentimental. A body where one part feels everything and every other part stays numb is not healthy. A body where one part carries all the movement while the others wait to be instructed is not whole. A body where the same person always feeds, always cleans, always prays, always calls, always repairs, always forgives first, always remembers, and always adjusts will eventually begin to ache under the imbalance, even if the work itself is good.

Many faithful people are worn down not because they do not love, but because they have mistaken love for carrying alone. They have become the default responder. The one who answers when the family is in crisis. The one who volunteers when no one else signs up. The one who checks on the hurting person. The one who makes sure the meeting works, the house runs, the church event happens, the parent gets to the appointment, the child has what they need, and the friend does not fall apart. They do not always know how it happened. They only know that when something needs doing, people look toward them.

That can start feeling like identity. At first, it may even feel meaningful. Being needed can feel close to being loved. Being dependable can feel like proof that your life matters. Being the one who notices can make you feel useful in a world where many people are ignored. But over time, if you are not careful, usefulness can become a prison. You begin to feel guilty when you rest. You become irritated when others do not move as quickly as you do. You stop asking for help because it feels easier to do it yourself than to explain why it matters. You become both servant and silent judge of everyone who does not serve the way you do.

That is not freedom. That is a soul under strain.

Jesus does not call us into that kind of life. He calls us into love, and love is strong, but love is not the same as pretending you have no limits. Even Jesus, in His earthly ministry, slept. He withdrew. He prayed. He let others serve Him. He sent disciples ahead. He gave people responsibility. He did not confuse obedience to the Father with being personally available to every demand at every moment. That matters because some of us have built a version of faith where we think saying yes to everything proves we are serious about God. But sometimes the more faithful thing is to admit, “I cannot be the whole body by myself.”

A caregiver may feel this while sitting at a small table with medication bottles lined up in front of them. There is a notebook with blood pressure numbers, a calendar full of appointments, and a phone nearby because the doctor’s office may call. They love the person they are caring for. That love is real. But they are also tired. They miss the ease of leaving the house without planning. They miss having a conversation that is not about symptoms, insurance, or schedules. They feel guilty for missing those things, as if love should make exhaustion disappear. Then someone in the family says, “You are so strong,” and the words land strangely because what they really need is not admiration. They need help.

In the body of Christ, admiration is not enough. We cannot keep praising the shoulder while refusing to lift any of the weight from it. We cannot keep telling the dependable person how amazing they are while allowing them to quietly collapse. Sometimes the most spiritual thing a community can do is stop complimenting the person who always carries and start carrying with them. Bring the meal. Make the call. Take the shift. Sit in the waiting room. Ask what needs doing, and then actually do it. Do not make the tired person manage your help. Learn to notice.

That last sentence may be one of the most practical forms of discipleship. Learn to notice. Notice the person who leaves quickly after church because they are trying not to cry in front of people. Notice the coworker who has gotten quieter over the last month. Notice the spouse who keeps saying, “I’m fine,” while moving through the house like someone holding back tears. Notice the parent who laughs off exhaustion because they do not want to sound ungrateful. Notice the teenager who acts careless but keeps drifting toward the edge of the room where they can still be seen if someone cares enough to look. The body of Christ begins to move when its parts become awake to one another.

But this chapter is not only for the people who need to notice. It is also for the person who is tired of noticing alone. You may need to let yourself be helped. That sounds simple, but it may be one of the hardest things you do. You may have to stop using competence as armor. You may have to say the honest sentence before resentment turns it into a sharp one. You may have to tell someone, “I need you to take this seriously without me reminding you three times.” You may have to admit, “I am tired, and I cannot keep being the only one who carries this.” You may have to let someone do it imperfectly instead of taking it back because they do not do it your way.

That is hard because control can disguise itself as responsibility. If you have been disappointed often enough, you may have learned to trust only your own hands. You may say, “It is easier if I do it,” and sometimes that is true in the immediate moment. But easier in the immediate moment can become heavier over a lifetime. If no one else ever learns to carry, the body stays weak, and you stay exhausted. Letting others help may slow things down at first. It may require patience. It may require instruction. It may require allowing the towels to be folded wrong, the pantry to be organized differently, the child’s homework routine to look less efficient, or the volunteer plan to feel less polished. But shared life is worth the discomfort of not controlling every detail.

A small church volunteer knows this when she has run the same community meal for years. She knows which tables wobble, which outlet does not work, how much coffee to make, which family needs extra food sent home, and which person always says they will help but arrives late. She is good at it. Too good, maybe. Everyone assumes she has it handled because she always has. One evening, she stands in the kitchen before anyone arrives and realizes she is angry before the work has even started. Not because she hates serving. Because she has never taught the room how to serve with her. She has trained people to rely on her while quietly resenting them for doing it.

That realization is not comfortable, but it can be holy. It may lead her to ask three people to take real ownership instead of just helping around the edges. It may lead her to step back from one role so someone else can grow. It may lead her to say no without bitterness. It may lead her to stop making her exhaustion proof of her faithfulness. The work may become less perfect for a while, but the body may become healthier.

This is where the empty place teaches something important. When the one we depended on is not visibly standing in the room, we discover what we have actually learned. Have we learned only to admire service, or have we learned to serve? Have we learned only to receive mercy, or have we learned to become merciful? Have we learned only to watch one faithful person carry the towel, or have we learned to pick it up ourselves? There is a difference between being moved by a holy example and being changed into a person who lives differently afterward.

The danger of beautiful moments is that we can turn them into memories instead of practices. We remember the feeling. We remember the lesson. We remember how much it meant to us. Then ordinary life comes back, and we go back to old arrangements. The same person carries too much. The same people stay passive. The same wounds go unnoticed. The same needs wait in silence. Faith becomes a story we admired rather than a body we inhabit.

The invitation is better than that. Jesus is not only comforting the tired servant. He is forming a community where the tired servant does not have to be alone. He is not only telling the passive person to care more. He is awakening them to the fact that they are needed. He is not only teaching people to ask for help. He is teaching others to become safe enough to be asked. That is a deeper kind of healing than one emotional moment can give.

Maybe tonight someone needs to look around their own life and ask, “Who has been carrying what I have stopped noticing?” Not with guilt as the final word, but with love as the next step. Maybe it is your spouse. Maybe it is your parent. Maybe it is your employee. Maybe it is your pastor. Maybe it is the friend who always checks on you first. Maybe it is the child who has been trying to be okay so the adults do not worry. Maybe it is the quiet person in the group who makes everything smoother and asks for almost nothing.

And maybe someone else needs to ask, “Where have I refused to let the body help me?” Maybe you are tired because life is genuinely heavy. Maybe you are also tired because you have not let anyone else near the weight. Jesus is gentle with that. He knows the reasons. He knows the disappointments. He knows the fear behind the sentence, “I’ve got it.” But He may still be inviting you to open your hand.

The body of Christ is not a theory for perfect people. It is a mercy for tired people, wounded people, stubborn people, learning people, people who notice too much, and people who have not noticed enough. It is the way Jesus keeps love moving through ordinary hands in ordinary rooms. One person cannot be the whole body. One person was never meant to be.

Chapter 3: When Jesus Feels Quiet but the Need Is Still in Front of You

The waiting room has old magazines, a muted television, and a coffee machine that sounds like it is working too hard. A man sits near the corner with his jacket folded across his lap, watching the hallway every time a nurse opens the door. He prayed before he came in. He prayed in the car, with both hands on the steering wheel and his forehead leaned forward for a moment before he got out. He asked God for peace. He asked for good news. He asked for something steady inside him. But now he is sitting under fluorescent lights, waiting for test results, and he does not feel brave. He feels small, tired, and unsure why God sometimes feels so close in one season and so quiet in another.

That is a difficult part of faith to say out loud. Many believers know how to talk about God’s presence when they feel it. They know how to describe the answered prayer, the open door, the right word at the right time, the moment of comfort that came like a hand on the shoulder. But they do not always know what to do with the quieter days. The days when the prayer is still real, but the feeling is not. The days when the need is still in front of them, but the reassurance does not arrive the way they wanted. The days when they have to choose obedience without the emotional lift that made obedience easier yesterday.

That is not a lesser form of faith. It may be one of the places faith becomes more honest.

There is a kind of spiritual childhood where we think closeness to Jesus means constant clarity. We want to feel directed in every moment. We want the sky to open before every hard conversation. We want peace to arrive before we take the step. We want certainty before we serve, forgive, apologize, rest, ask for help, or tell the truth. But much of Christian maturity happens when we do not receive the feeling first. We receive the way. We remember what Jesus has shown us, and then we walk in it while our emotions are still catching up.

The man in the waiting room does not suddenly stop being afraid because he has faith. Faith does not always remove the tremble from the hands. Sometimes faith is the reason he does not let fear make every decision. It is the reason he looks across the room and notices the older woman sitting alone, trying to fill out a form with fingers that do not move easily. It is the reason he stands, even with his own heart pounding, and asks if she needs help reading the small print. That small act does not erase his concern about the doctor’s report. But it does something holy inside the room. It refuses to let fear make him blind.

That is one of the quiet miracles of following Jesus. We can be in need and still notice need. We can be afraid and still show mercy. We can be waiting for our own answer and still become part of someone else’s help. This does not mean we pretend our own pain is not real. It means pain does not have to become the only thing we can see. When Christ lives in us, love can move through us even before all our own questions are settled.

A lot of people wait to serve until they feel whole. They think they need to be fully healed before they can encourage anyone else, fully confident before they can lead, fully peaceful before they can pray, fully strong before they can help. But the body of Christ is not made of people who have finished needing grace. It is made of people who are being held by grace while they move toward one another. Sometimes the hand that reaches is shaking. Sometimes the voice that encourages is tired. Sometimes the person who brings comfort is carrying unanswered prayer of their own.

This matters because the quieter seasons of faith can tempt us to withdraw into ourselves. When Jesus does not feel as visible as He did before, we may start protecting our hearts by pulling away from people. We may stop showing up. We may stop noticing. We may tell ourselves we have nothing to offer because we do not feel spiritually strong. We may quietly believe that if God felt closer, we would be more useful. But usefulness in the Kingdom is not the same as emotional certainty. A person can feel weak and still be faithful. A person can feel unsure and still love well. A person can feel spiritually dry and still take the next right step.

There is a woman who understands this when she sits at her desk on a Thursday afternoon, staring at an email she does not want to answer. The message is from someone who disappointed her months ago. Not in a dramatic way. Just enough to make trust harder. The person is asking for help now, and the woman feels the old hurt rise up. She has prayed about forgiveness more than once, but she does not feel warm. She does not feel ready for closeness. She does not feel like pretending. So she sits there, trying to decide whether love requires an answer, a boundary, or both.

That moment is not small. It is one of the places where faith becomes grown. She does not need to fake peace. She does not need to give access that wisdom does not support. She does not need to punish the person with silence just because silence feels powerful. She can answer with honesty and limits. She can say what she is able to do and what she is not able to do. She can help without reopening every door. She can choose mercy without surrendering discernment. That kind of response may not feel dramatic, but it is evidence that Jesus is teaching her how to walk.

The quietness of Jesus does not mean the absence of Jesus. That sentence may need to be carried slowly. There are times when He comforts us with a strong sense of nearness. There are other times when He comforts us by giving us what we need to obey. Not always what we need to feel certain. What we need to obey. A little patience. A little courage. A little restraint. A little honesty. A little willingness to ask for help. A little strength to get through the next hour without becoming someone we do not want to become.

Sometimes we look for Jesus only in the feeling of being rescued, but He is also present in the formation that helps us respond differently. He is present when the sharp reply stays unsent. He is present when the apology finally leaves our mouth. He is present when the tired person says, “I need help,” instead of “I’m fine.” He is present when the leader chooses dignity over embarrassment. He is present when the parent kneels beside the child instead of towering over them. He is present when the believer keeps serving, not because life is easy, but because love has become real.

A lonely person may discover this on a Friday night when the house is quiet and the phone does not light up. Loneliness has a way of making a person feel forgotten by both people and God. They may scroll through other people’s lives and feel as if everyone else has a table, a group, a person, a place to go. The temptation is to sink deeper into the feeling, to let it become proof that nothing matters. But then a name comes to mind. Someone else who might be alone. Someone who also might be waiting for a call. The lonely person hesitates, then sends a simple message: “I was thinking about you. How are you doing tonight?”

That message may become a small window in another person’s dark room. It may also become a window in their own. Not because loneliness disappears instantly, but because love has moved. A person who needed connection became connection. A person who felt unseen chose to see. That is not self-salvation. That is Christlike participation. It is the body of Christ learning to move even through wounded parts.

This is important because some people think service is only genuine when it comes from fullness. Sometimes it does. There are days when we feel strong, rested, grateful, and ready. Those days are gifts. But there are also days when service comes from surrender more than overflow. Not forced, resentful, self-destroying service, but honest obedience. The kind that says, “Lord, I do not feel strong, but I can do this one faithful thing.” The kind that lets love travel through ordinary weakness.

That does not mean every need in front of you is yours to meet. This matters. A quiet season with Jesus is not an invitation to become frantic. You are not the answer to every problem, and you are not failing God because you cannot carry everything. The body has many parts for a reason. Wisdom is learning which need is yours to touch, which need is yours to pray over, which need is yours to share with others, and which need is yours to release because it belongs in hands other than yours. The presence of a need is not always the same as an assignment.

But sometimes the need in front of you is yours for that moment. Not forever. Not entirely. Just enough for the next faithful act. Hold the door. Make the call. Tell the truth gently. Bring the meal. Ask the question. Sit beside the person. Let someone else help. Stop the gossip. Write the note. Pay attention. These acts may look small, but they are often how Jesus teaches us to keep walking when He feels quiet.

The man in the waiting room eventually hears his name. He stands, helps the older woman finish one last line on the form, and walks toward the nurse. His fear has not vanished. His test results still matter. His prayer is still waiting for an answer he cannot control. But something has happened. Fear did not get to make him blind. Waiting did not keep him from loving. The quietness did not mean God was gone. In a room full of uncertainty, one small act of mercy became evidence that the way of Jesus was still alive in him.

Chapter 4: The Small Yes That Keeps the Way Alive

A woman opens the door to the laundry room and finds the basket exactly where she left it. The clothes are clean, but they have been sitting long enough to wrinkle. The house is quiet in that late-evening way where every small sound feels louder than it should. She is tired, not just from the day, but from the feeling that so much of life is maintenance. Fold this. Answer that. Pay this. Remember that. Forgive again. Try again. Pray again. She stands there for a moment with one hand on the dryer door, wondering why the spiritual life so often comes down to ordinary decisions nobody will ever see.

That is where the final lesson has to land if it is going to become real. It cannot stay in a beautiful story, a meaningful video, a moving article, or a moment that made us feel something holy for a while. It has to come home with us into the laundry room, the office, the car, the kitchen, the clinic, the garage, the church basement, the hospital hallway, and the late-night quiet where nobody is measuring our faith but God. A lesson that only moves us while we are listening has not finished its work. It begins to finish its work when it changes what we do next.

The way of Jesus is often carried forward through small yeses. Not the kind that impress people. Not the kind that becomes a public testimony right away. The kind that happens when you choose patience in a room where impatience would be easy. The kind that happens when you ask for help before resentment writes its own speech. The kind that happens when you apologize without forcing the other person to comfort you. The kind that happens when you notice someone else’s burden without making them prove they deserve your care. The kind that happens when you tell the truth gently because silence would be easier and harshness would feel stronger.

Small yeses matter because most of life is not lived at the peak of emotion. Most of life is lived after the song ends, after the video is over, after the Sunday message, after the powerful conversation, after the hard apology, after the moment when you knew God was dealing with your heart. Then comes Tuesday. Then comes the coworker who still irritates you. Then comes the child who still pushes the boundary. Then comes the family member who still has a way of pulling old pain to the surface. Then comes the tired body, the unpaid bill, the unanswered message, the sink, the laundry, the quiet need right in front of you.

This is why Christian growth has to become embodied. It has to move into habits, tone, timing, choices, and reflexes. It has to shape the hand before it sends the text. It has to shape the mouth before the sharp sentence comes out. It has to shape the eyes so they see the person who is easy to overlook. It has to shape the feet so they move toward the need instead of around it. It has to shape the heart so it can receive help without shame and give help without pride.

A retired man may live this out in a very ordinary way. His neighbor’s trash can blows into the street after a storm. He sees it from his window. He could leave it there. He could tell himself someone younger should handle it. He could complain about the wind, the neighborhood, the lack of responsibility, or the way people do not pay attention anymore. Instead, he puts on his shoes, walks outside, and pulls the can back to the curb. No one thanks him. No one sees him. But something in him stays soft because he chose to serve the need in front of him instead of turning it into a private speech about what is wrong with everyone else.

That may sound almost too small to matter, but the soul is trained in small things. The person who practices kindness when it costs little may be more ready to practice mercy when it costs more. The person who notices the trash can may also learn to notice the lonely neighbor. The person who can bend low for an ordinary need may become less addicted to being above ordinary service. We become the kind of people we repeatedly practice being.

There is also a small yes in receiving. A woman recovering from surgery may hate needing help. She may be used to being the one who brings casseroles, checks on people, drives others to appointments, and remembers birthdays. Now someone else is standing at her door with soup, and she feels embarrassed. She wants to say, “You did not have to do that,” and close the door quickly so she can return to feeling strong. But instead, she lets the person in. She lets the soup sit on the counter. She lets herself be seen in a robe, tired and not fully in control. That too can be obedience. That too can be part of the body of Christ learning to live as a body.

Sometimes the hardest small yes is not doing more. It is letting pride loosen its grip. It is admitting that we need prayer. It is saying, “I am not okay today.” It is allowing someone else to carry a bag, make the call, sit with the child, take the shift, or hear the truth of our weariness. If the final lesson is that Christ’s people are meant to move together, then isolation cannot remain our default hiding place. Some of us have to learn to step forward. Some of us have to learn to let others step close.

The world often trains us in the opposite direction. It tells us to curate strength, manage image, protect control, and prove that we are fine. It rewards visible achievement more than quiet faithfulness. It notices the title before the towel, the platform before the pantry, the announcement before the private repair. But the Kingdom of God keeps dignifying hidden obedience. It keeps showing us that faith is not only what we say about Jesus, but what His love becomes through us when there is no spotlight.

This matters for the person who feels spiritually ordinary. You may not see yourself as someone with a large calling. You may not have a public ministry, a microphone, a large audience, or a role that people admire. But you have rooms you enter. You have people near you. You have words you speak. You have decisions you make when nobody is cheering. You have chances to restore gently, carry a burden, receive help, tell the truth, stop walking past pain, and practice mercy in a way that makes Jesus visible without needing to announce yourself.

A young man working a night shift may not feel like his life is spiritually significant as he mops a floor at 2:00 in the morning. He may be tired, underpaid, and unsure what he is building. But if he works honestly, treats people with dignity, refuses bitterness, prays quietly over his future, and helps the newer employee who feels lost, his life is not empty. It is being formed. The floor beneath his mop can become a place where faithfulness grows. God is not waiting for him to become impressive before his obedience matters.

This is the comfort and the challenge. The comfort is that the small life in front of us is not beneath God’s attention. The challenge is that we can no longer excuse lovelessness by saying nothing big was happening. Something big is always happening when a human heart chooses whether it will become more like Christ or more curved in on itself. The moment may be small, but the formation is not.

The final movement of this kind of story is not meant to leave us admiring a fictional town or wishing we lived in a place where Jesus would walk into the diner, the church basement, the clinic, or the square. It is meant to turn our attention toward the places we already live. The hallway outside the bedroom. The workplace chat. The dinner table. The waiting room. The garage. The apartment stairwell. The phone in our hand. The person we keep avoiding. The need we keep walking past. The apology we keep delaying. The help we keep refusing. The small yes that has been waiting for us.

Jesus is not finished when the visible moment ends. He is not absent just because the feeling becomes quieter. He is not gone because the lesson now requires practice. He is with His people as they become His body in the world, not perfectly, not dramatically, not without weakness, but truly. He is with the one who feeds, the one who carries, the one who notices, the one who protects, the one who asks, the one who receives, the one who restores, and the one who takes the next step with trembling faith.

The woman in the laundry room finally reaches into the basket. She folds one shirt, then another. Nothing about the room changes in a dramatic way. The house is still quiet. The day is still heavy. Tomorrow will still come with its own needs. But she is not only folding clothes. She is practicing faithfulness in the small place where life has placed her tonight. She whispers a prayer that is barely more than breath, asking Jesus to make her less bitter, more honest, more willing to receive help, and more ready to notice love when it comes through ordinary hands.

That is how the way stays alive. One small yes after another. One gentle truth. One shared burden. One humble apology. One received kindness. One quiet act of service. One decision not to let fear, pride, exhaustion, or disappointment have the final word. The empty place does not have to become despair. It can become the place where we remember what Jesus showed us and begin, slowly and honestly, to walk.

Your friend, Douglas Vandergraph

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Anticlimactic

The World Cup is a great festival for the world. Not perfect, it is one of the few events where people from all over the planet come together to play.

For that, it is also strangely anticlimactic. The group stage brings abundance – 48 teams this year – and every day comes with countless stories about the teams, their countries, players, and fans.

In the knockout phase, the matches are supposed to be better because of the more balanced pairings and the all-or-nothing outcome. Also, the number of teams dwindles exponentially until the final, the most important game of football/soccer, where only two are left.

By then, most of the world already doesn’t care.

Checkmating the White King

There's always chess going on here in the Roscoe-verse. Here's a Correspondence Chess (CC) game I won this morning playing Black by catching the White King in a Bishop-Rook-pawn-Queen combination checkmate on my 43rd move. This game started on the 16th of June and ended this morning. The graphic above shows position of pieces on our board at geme's end, and our full move record follows: 1. d4 h6 2. Bf4 Nf6 3. e3 e6 4. Bd3 d5 5. Nc3 Bd6 6. Bg3 O-O 7. Nf3 Nbd7 8. Ne5 Nxe5 9. dxe5 Bxe5 10. f4 Bxc3+ 11. bxc3 b6 12. Qf3 Bb7 13. e4 dxe4 14. Bxe4 Bxe4 15. Qe3 Bxg2 16. Rg1 Nd5 17. Qf2 Be4 18. c4 Nc3 19. a4 Bf5 20. Bh4 Ne4 21. Qg2 Qxh4+ 22. Kd1 Nc3+ 23. Kc1 g6 24. Re1 Qxf4+ 25. Kb2 Ne4 26. Red1 Nf2 27. Rf1 Qd4+ 28. Kb1 Ne4 29. a5 Qxc4 30. Qf3 Nd2+ 31. Kb2 Nxf3 32. Rxf3 Qxc2+ 33. Ka3 Qc5+ 34. Kb3 Rfd8 35. axb6 cxb6 36. Rc3 Rd3 37. Rxd3 Bxd3 38. Kb2 Rc8 39. Rxa7 Qc3+ 40. Ka2 Qc2+ 41. Ka3 Rc3+ 42. Kb4 Rb3+ 43. Ka4 Bb5# 0-1

And the adventure continues.

Pittsburgh Pirates vs Philadelphia Phillies

Today's MLB Game in the Roscoe-verse has the Pirates at (43-44) playing the (49-38) Phillies. First pitch is scheduled for 11:35 AM CDT, only minutes away as I sit here listening to the Pirates Radio Network, waiting for the start. As I usually do, I'll follow the game's score and stats in real time via MLB's Gameday Service where we also find a link to the radio-call of the game.

And the adventure continues.

I think today may be the best I have felt in the last few weeks. Physically I feel a bit of exhaustion, but mentally and emotionally I feel a little better.

I am even considering leaving the house to do an activity today. I haven’t done anything in the last week, with everything going on with my dog, but she seems okay today and I don’t think anything would drastically change if I leave for a couple of hours. I have a pet camera that I can check on her from wherever I am, and I will be 10-15 minutes away from home if anything changes.

No update on my situation yet, I am growing somewhat anxious because it is limiting a lot of what I can do without depending on anyone else. Also, it would be nice to work and know when my next paycheck is coming.

Thank you for your message. I am currently out of office with no set return date. I will get back to you when the time is right.

I don't often wade into politics here, but in light of the 250th anniversary of the most important political document ever drafted, I'm making an exception. The recent Supreme Court ruling that President Trump's Executive Order interpreting the 14th Amendment's language on citizenship is unconstitutional was not surprising to me. Chief Justice Roberts, Justice Kavanaugh, and Justice Barrett, though appointed by Presidents Bush and Trump, have disappointing track records. Perhaps the shining points in this ruling were the dissenting opinions of Justices Thomas and Alito, whose 90 and 40 page dissents present brilliant lessons in history and law. They should not go unread. Given their length, here are a few excerpts that I found brilliant. (Note: I removed numerous legal citations to make them more easily readable)

In America, you were generally a citizen if you were born here and this was your home. The legal word for home was domicile. The concepts were so linked as to be taken as effectively synonymous at time...Citizens were not the people who were temporarily passing through a territory or who happened to be born within it. Citizens were the permanent members of the body politic—the people whose roots were in a place, who called that place home, and who would, if necessary, go to war for that place...

The Court’s decision to hold the Citizenship Order facially (i.e., always) unconstitutional, in other words, makes it unlawful for the President to enforce the Order against a single person. He cannot enforce the Order against a child of an alien enemy or a child of a foreign spy. He cannot even enforce the Order against children who are raised in foreign countries, join foreign armies, and fight wars against the United States. The Court, without considering any of these individual circumstances, holds unconstitutional the application of the Citizenship Order in all of them.

In my view, the Citizenship Order is not facially unconstitutional. The Order is consistent with the original meaning of the Citizenship Clause, at least insofar as it applies to children born to parents, here lawfully or unlawfully, who are not domiciled in the United States. The Citizenship Clause was enacted for people who were born in this country and called it home. It was enacted for freed slaves such as Dred Scott, who had “a domicil” here and therefore were entitled to sue as citizens. It was enacted for men such as Frederick Douglass, who demanded citizenship “not as aliens nor as exiles,” but as “Americans.” Its authors and supporters promised, over and over again, that it would exclude the children of “persons temporarily resident” here, whom “we would have no right to make citizens.” In Senator Trumbull’s words: “What do we mean by ‘subject to the jurisdiction of the United States?’ Not owing allegiance to anybody else. That is what it means.” And, for decades after ratification, it was interpreted by all three branches of Government and by a wide range of legal authorities to be limited to people who were already Americans.

— Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, dissenting opinion, Trump v. Barbara

This is one of the most important decisions in the history of the Court, and in my judgment, the Court has made a serious mistake. As interpreted by the Court today, the Fourteenth Amendment confers citizenship on virtually everyone who happens to be born in this country, including the children of “birth tourists,” women who come here solely for the purpose of giving birth to a child and then promptly return home. Careful analysis of the text of the Fourteenth Amendment and the process that led to its adoption shows that it does not degrade the concept of United States citizenship in this way. Instead, the Fourteenth Amendment confers citizenship on only those children who, at birth, owe allegiance solely to this country...

According to the Court, the Fourteenth Amendment’s Citizenship Clause codified the British rule of birthright subjecthood with only one new exception, which was needed to accommodate the unique status of American Indians. That is a curious claim, and it is ironic that the Court should embrace it only days before we celebrate the 250th anniversary of our Declaration of Independence, which emphatically renounced the foundation on which the British rule rested. That rule did not concern “citizenship.” There was no such thing as a “citizen” of England, Scotland, or Ireland. The inhabitants of the British Isles were the King’s “subjects.”

— Supreme Court Associate Justice Samuel Alito, dissenting opinion, Trump v. Barbara

If you're interested—and I daresay you should be—read the entire decision and opinions here.

#history #politics

Letzter Tag für die Uniunterlagen: 26. Juni

Einen Tag vor der Deadline zu arbeiten hat leider doch nicht geklappt. Aber da es heute wieder schrecklich heiß werden sollte – wir nähern uns langsam den 40 Grad – haben wir beschlossen, von zu Hause aus zu arbeiten. Eigentlich ist es im Büro kühler und auch das Internet funktioniert dort besser. Aber man muss erst dorthin fahren und später wieder zurück. Also war es am Ende eine klassische Win-win-Entscheidung.

Wir haben uns bis zum Abend in unserem heißen Zimmer eingeschlossen. Und dann begann meine klassische Arbeit in letzter Minute! Eigentlich lief alles ganz gut. In den letzten Tagen bin ich erstaunlich produktiv geworden. Trotzdem haben mich drei Stunden konzentrierte Arbeit ohne Pause völlig erschöpft. Eine ganz typische Situation. Bei dieser Hitze war das wirklich blöd anstrengend. Übrigens klingt das deutsche Wort “blöd” für mich ganz ähnlich wie unser litauisches “bliamba” oder sogar wie das noch stärkere “blet”. Letzteres würde ich übrigens für offizielle Anlässe ganz sicher nicht empfehlen. Wie meine Kollegin und ich oft scherzen: Das hier ist eigentlich nicht für die Presse bestimmt. Da fragte ich mich plötzlich, ob wir dieses Wort vielleicht ursprünglich vom deutschen “blöd” übernommen haben...

Für heute reicht's vom Schreiben. Alles Weitere wäre wahrscheinlich gesundheitsschädlich. Ich möchte lieber noch etwas Positives an dieser schrecklichen Wärme finden. Und tatsächlich gibt es da etwas: die veränderten Schlafgewohnheiten unserer Hunde. Normalerweise möchten beide mit uns im Bett schlafen und am liebsten liegen sie beide neben mir. Das ist manchmal ziemlich anstrengend. Sie suchen sich nämlich keine feste Schlafposition, sondern wandern die ganze Nacht hin und her und komplizieren meine Erholung. Wenn es allerdings so heiß ist, zeigen sie ihre Liebe etwas vorsichtiger und bleiben lieber auf dem Boden liegen. Das gefällt mir.

1 July 2026

Bel sito (working title): have been working on a painting that began from looking at the golden wallpaper surrounding two small lamps hung askew at the hotel Yena and I stayed at for our last night in Venice on our recent trip. This has already been a unique process as far as accumulation is concerned—I've been gradually working into the painting day after day with pencil, scratches, and thin layers of the same shade of gray-blue (leaving light out of the picture, for now) aimed at the intricacies of the patterning, not for detail's sake but to hopefully get closer and closer to the effect of a wave of shimmering ornateness flattened into something threatening to become monolithic and frozen and cold. A good conversation about this yesterday with Edith in her studio as she works away on a similar visual tangle in the form of a patch of grass under a bracelet. Identifying naturally occurring dynamics, toggling them towards an equilibrium or lack thereof. Questions around how closely to hold the biographical as an invisible structure informing material decisions. If at all.

Currently parsing through James Duffield Harding's On Drawing Trees and Nature (originally published in 1855; expanded reprint published in 2005), and I've been pretty directly referencing his teachings on line, light, form, and negative space with respect to depicting foliage as I develop Bel sito. I think there's maybe something about what the mind does when confronted with varying amounts of blank space—automatically conjuring what it knows or hopes to be true—that feels analogous to the affectionate warping of patterns as they are reshaped in the process of being committed to memory.

The last dream I can recall was me, alone, having the sudden recollection of having casually taken out my IUD. My immediate thought was, “why would I do that?” I thought about moments where I took out my contacts and Invisalign and how relieving that can be. Sometimes I don't expect that relief and it feels kind of good but I feel best when I can see clearly or feel my teeth straightening. But it wouldn't make sense to need a respite from my IUD. It's practically invisible until I get my period.

In my dream, I was so convinced I had taken it out until I thought, that isn't even actually possible. People can't just take out their IUDs independently. I immediately felt better knowing with certainty that my IUD was still where I needed it. And that was it, the whole uneventful dream.

The next morning, I reflected on my dream even though it seemed meaningless at first. What made it significant to me was that I was able to reason with myself while I was dreaming, something I don't remember ever doing before. Perhaps it's because I am twenty-six now.

This dream reminds me of a recent time, in my awake life, where I felt convinced a guy I started sleeping with asked me about STDs. I felt poorly over the next few days that he could ever think I'd have one. I wanted him to see me as clean and responsible like I assumed him to be. The feeling became so prevailing I asked him about it the next time we saw each other. I genuinely asked, “did you ask me about having an STD? Because I am so convinced you did. I've never had one.” He was a bit taken aback but warm saying, “I think it's because I told you how I'd hype the crowd at my high school football games by chanting that the other school's girls had STDs.”

I wonder if I should be more worried about these occurrences where I've convinced myself of situations that never happened. The STD moment was the first time this has happened and the dream the second. Well these are the only times I actually know of, upon reflection. Will this become an issue for me the way it is for my grandmother and my mother and even my younger sister? I've been quick to write them off as irrational, behavior that is a product of not reading books or having stimulating conversations or questioning their religion. I don't have a complete thought here.

Angine de Poitrine in May 2026 at the Great Escape by Pauil Hudson. (Via WikiMedia — License: CC BY 4.0)

This morning I installed a music player that I am unfamiliar with, and decided that the first thing I should listen to is Angine de Poitrine Vol. 1 and Vol. II since I hadn't listened to them in a while. And then I found, by coincidence that they played the Montreal Jazz Festival last Saturday (June 27th, 2026) and broke the attendance record set by Stevie Wonder in 2009. I cannot imagine what the guys behind Khn and Klek are thinking right now. Just a year ago they were relatively unknown, and now they're playing for 200,000 fans in their hometown.

There have been a couple of things that I keep hearing and reading about Angine de Poitrine that bother me. The first is they are the “Answer to AI” or “AI could never come up with this music”. The second is they are just a fad and won't survive. And, of course, I have some thoughts on both of these topics.

Are They The Answer to AI?

I both agree and disagree with people who say this. There are two ways to look at it. The first way, and this is what most people mean, is that Artificial Intelligence could not create microtonal music based on building loops. The premise is that we don't normally listen to microtonal music, so there is no way an AI could come up with it on it's own.

But, what if I were to say that we do listen to microtonal music, just not nearly as much or as often as we do equal temperament music? We've had groups like King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard that have incorporated microtonality into their music for over a decade. True, they haven't risen to the same level of popularity of Angine de Poitrine, but they have proven popular enough to have produced twenty-five albums worth of music.

However, there are other things to consider. For some reason there are a lot of people that seem to assume that “microtonal” means using 24 EDO (Equal Divisions of the Octave), instead of the typical western style of 12 EDO instruments. But that isn't completely the truth. We have had composers and musicians going back as far as the 1940s that used (and often built) instruments with different tuning systems. The most notable was Harry Partch, who came up with his on 43-tone non-EDO tuning system.

But also, we should consider that instruments from other cultures do not adhere to the typical 12 EDO tuning systems. Possibly the most notable being the Sitar, which uses a tuning system that is unlike western tuning systems. Of course Indian Raja's have been reasonably known in the west, especially after George Harrison introduced the instrument on several Beatles songs.

Given that all of these types and styles of music are likely known to AI's, which have been fed vast catalogs of music, it's quite possible for one to come up with a form of microtonal music. The reason an AI hadn't come up with something that incorporated microtonality isn't because of the AI itself.

The reason that I agree with this statement is that Angine de Poitrine is more than just their microtonal music. They have an absurdist aesthetic combined with dadaism. They invented some lore for themselves as aliens that have come to earth and love rock music. Their music is more about making fun or parodying pop-rock music.

All of this is a complete package that would require someone with the imagination and artistic knowledge to have come up with. And, that's why there is no AI equivalent of Angine de Poitrine. The majority of the people prompting AI agents to create music don't have the level of knowledge and imagination.

Are They A Fad?

This is a more difficult question to figure out. There is one side of me that thinks the “gimmick” is likely to get old after a while. But, how long will that be? I don't know, and I don't think anyone really knows. If someone thinks they know they are likely just guessing. I mean, after all, how long did KISS go with their makeup and outfits? How long did Angus Young wear his schoolboy outfit in AC/DC?

In Japan, it's not at all unusual for music groups to adopt some form of aesthetic. Band Maid has been going for over ten years now wearing maid costumes. And I won't even get into the Visual Kei artists and their adoption of varying types of costumes. There is a whole culture in Japan which links visual aesthetic and artistry in a way that isn't a gimmick, it's expected and accepted.

What could be a bit trickier is where they go musically. Right now it seems that a lot of people see 24 EDO based sound as a novelty, instead of being a serious form of music. But I don't think that is an issue. There is still a lot of ground for them to explore musically with microtonality.

But I do think they will need to find some way to change up their format. Right now they have a uniquely identifiable music style. They will need to find a way to iterate on this style. They will need to find a way of keeping it fresh, while not alienating their current fans. I could speculate on several ways they could do this, but I am not them. I don't have the same thought process they do. After all, they've been playing together since they were thirteen years old. It's only for them to figure out where they want to go next.

So, in the end, are they a fad? Who knows, and who really cares? Just ride along with them. If they fail, they fail. If they succeed, then they succeed. I'll keep listening and decide when and if I want to stop listening. That's all you can do.

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Categories: #Music Tags: #microtonal, #antiai, #rockmusic, #parody, #dada License: Copyright Unattributed. Licensed under Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0.

What is Evidence-based Practice in Nursing?

Calling out to all the students embarking on their academic journey in nursing! Your assignments are a vital part of your education. In this case, evidence-based practice, or EBP, is a cornerstone. Wondering why? Well, it helps in providing the best quality patient care.

Moreover, for you nurses it is not a buzzword. EBP goes beyond this in Nursing. Think of it as a guiding principle that contributes to your decision-making. Moreover, it enhances patient outcomes.

Hence, EBP is vital for doing nursing assignments. Well, for those who do not know what this is, this blog is for you. Here, we are going to dive deep into evidence-based practices. Moreover, we are going to discover its role and significance in Nursing. So, come on! Stop scrolling and read our blog! It is going to come in handy during your academic career. Let's go! But hold one! First, we will understand what evidence-based practice is.

Evidence-Based Practice: A Brief Overview

EBP means using solid evidence, such as research observing patient preferences and your clinical expertise, to enhance decision-making. Think of it as a grounded approach for nurses to provide better outcomes. Gone are the days when nursing professionals relied on their institution. EBP has enhanced the healthcare field.

Some common examples include Protocols on alarm fatigue and management of angina. So, this was a brief overview of EBP. Now, come on! Let's move to the next part and discover its core components. They include:

Key Components

Here are some of the critical components of EBP in nursing.

1. Research Evidence

It is a foundation that helps make clinical decisions and improves outcomes. It includes diving into scientific studies, systematic reviews etc to collect the findings.

2. Clinical Expertise

Here comes the next one! Let's face it! Nurses are the valuable assets of the nursing field. With them they bring expertise, skills and knowledge. Well, they have hands-on-experience. It helps interpret research findings to enhance the quality of patient care.

3. Patient Preferences

Knowing the patient preferences for better results is vital. Well, recognizing this, EBP emphasises the use of patient preferences and goals for decision making. Moreover, by communicating with patients, nursing professionals ensure proper outcomes.

So, these are some of the key components of effective-based practices. Now, come on! Let's move ahead and discover its significance. Let's go!

Significance of EBP in Nursing

EBP is pivotal in bridging the gap between theory and practical applications. Moreover, it helps in delivering innovative patient care. Here are some of the other reasons why it is vital in nursing. They include:

1. Enhanced Patient Outcomes

Yup! You heard it right! EBP in nursing helps in providing enhanced patient outcomes. Furthermore, they ensure that interventions made are by using the best available evidence. Also, whether it prevents complications or manages diseases, it improves patient care. Now, come on! Let's move to the next point!

2. Cost Reduction

By using the EBP, nursing professionals can save on costs in the healthcare sector. Wondering how? By avoiding unnecessary procedures, one gets better care without compromising the quality. Hence, the reason why EBP in nursing is vital

3. Professional Growth

Yeah! EBP contributes to one's personal and professional growth. Furthermore, engaging in these provides one with skills needed to excel in the field. Well, while working on the tasks they learn how to incorporate theory into the practice. Thus, it fosters life-long learning and critical thinking.

While EBP plays a vital role in nursing, applying it can be challenging. Do you want to know what they are? Then look below!

Challenges

When implementing EBP in nursing students, they often face difficulties for various reasons. They include:

1. Let's be honest! Access to all the available resources is not possible. Hence, it can hinder one's focus. Moreover, it can impact their ability to stay updated with recent trends. But, one can now access every research material. Wondering how? Well, by seeking help from cheap nursing assignment help UK. These experts can also guide you on what to do. Hence you should go for them.
2. Being on a time crunch is another barrier. Due to a heavy workload, one finds it hard to engage in EBP practices.
3. Moreover, many nurses lack the relevant skills and training for research-based practices. Hence, it can impact the EBP. For this, providing education is vital.
4. Moreover, many nurses can't adapt to the change. Well, it also poses the challenge of using EBP practices.

Conclusion

You have reached the end of the guide. So, evidence-based practices are not about gaining theoretical knowledge. Instead it is about gaining practical experiences. Moreover, by using the best evidence one can enhance patient care. It also helps drive better outcomes. Also it helps in cost effectiveness.

However, EBP in nursing has its own perks. You can overlook the challenges it brings. Be it unavailability of resources, time constraints or lack of skills. They all serve as barriers. Thus for this healthcare experts need to come together. It will help with better patient care. Through constant support and education one can gain knowledge on EBP.