He wears a mask, and his face grows to fit it.

—George Orwell in Shooting an Elephant

#Life #Quotes

06:30 alarm rings, time to wake up, I should take a shower, Livi it's all good baby, sleep a bit longer, towel, shower, why is it not heating up? fuck I turned off the flat heating and the water heating all together oh no check the control, test one. Nothing. Test two. Damn whatever, today is nordic cold shower day, let me check it after work. Damn its cold, its cold and my throat is hurting, you can do this Paula, you can do this, hold your breath, ok enough, where's the blowdryer, oh here it is, it's 7h00, let me dry just the scalp, ok. Good. The rest can dry by itself. Sun protector. Brush my teeth. Vitamin B12. Vitamin D. A glass of water. Cooome Livi! Let's go gassi, Livi! Slowly. Schau, Livi! Our friend crow! Hi, crow! How are you doing? Livi nonono, don't scare the crow, it's our friend, schatzi. Da, komm her! Nice, a pee, maybe another one? Great and potty? Super, Livi! Yaaay! Let's go back to have breakfast! Press D. Let's wash these paws? Hop Hop, bathtube. Bravo. Livi, Friss schön, Schatzi! Hmmm nhami. Super. Now let's wash the bowl, and change the clothes where's my beanie? Here it is. Livi, mom will go to work but she will be back soon ok? We will go out again. Go to bed. Bye, love you. Press E. The bike padlock. the key, thekeythekey here it is, nice. Helmet, Youtube > Leif Vollebekk in Kate Bush cover? wow, nice. What a beautiful day. Why are people bringing their 5 yo kids to the city bike lane? Are they crazy? Up to Maria Hilfe, nice, Kirchengasse, bring the bike up, office key, park the bike, laptop laptop, connect, display, two screens, nice. Email 1, email 2, email 3, teams chat, city light posters from Germany are missing the Spring campaign signature, no, it's not according to the guideline, could we change it please? ok, you focus on production with graphic designer, we'll contact the printer to check for reprint. Hi, good morning! Yes, fine, let's grab a coffee. Email 4, email 5, yes, to ingest it in the platform you need to save it as csv., no, this is an excel, fine, send it over, there you go, you can ingest it now, email 6, email 7, hey everyone, kind reminder could you please update the strategy function slides, our preview is today at 3PM, yes leadership is invited, yes, I'll present it, here's the last year campaign from 2025 review for comparison, slides 8, 11 and 13 please. thanks, great, merch check, ecommerce check, content check, paid media, owned media, PR, performance media check, email 8, email 9, email 10, brief for Spotify, radio spot, ok. Good, folks, I am going home, yeah tomorrow I am here. Okay, byeee. Take the bike, press E, cycle cycle cycle, press D. Hi Liiiivi, hi cutie, I missed you. Just one more call and we go out together ok? Done. Let's go, livi? GASSI? Who wants to go gassi? Yaaaaay! Hi, danke, yes, she's very sweet, no, it's not an afghani, yes, she's 4 years old now, Mädchen, ja, danke, Du bist auch schön, danke, rerere, Tschüss!! Let's go back, Livi, it's dinner time, yaaay, there you go, wash the paws again, super, now insect food nhami, ok, I will go back soon, Livi. Mom needs to buy something to eat. Billa or Spar Billa or Spar? Fuck it, Billa. Avocado. Rice cookies. Tofu. Barista oat milk. Banana. Hmmm, what else, ah whatever. Next time. Mit karte bitte, paaaast, danke, Tschüss! walk walk. press D. FUCK IT THIS LIFT IS STUCK AGAIN ARE YOU KIDDING ME. Ring the alarm. Hi. Yes. I'm stuck in the lift. Could you please send the assistance? Please be fast, please, thank you. I will wait. I mean, I can only wait. HAHAHAHA THAT'S FUCKING UNBELIEVABLE. Let's watch a video, 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes, 20 minutes, HI, yes, I'm here, ok, yes, I can hear you. The control is on the first floor, ok, I'll wait, Hi, oh, thanks, this lift is always a struggle, thanks so much, saved my day. Hi Livi, I'm back, let me take a shower, will cuddle you soon. AH no, the heating. ok, Valliant manual, pump check all good, Gebläse check, hmm still on 0, maybe it's the hot water reservoir hmm Warmwasserspeicher, let's wait one minute, two minutes, 5 minutes. Nothing, ok I need a screwdriver. Found the screwdriver. Test one, test two, nothing. Ok, tomorrow I try again. Whatsapp, hi mom, all good, no don't worry, I'm fine. Heeey hi, yes it's been a while, hahaha, If I like Pedro Pascal? Of course I like him, who doesn't? What? Communist? Well, you had a dictatorship in Chile I kind of understand how it hits. Hm. Right, well, I tend to the left spectrum so it's hard to say something. Oh it's fine, you can write in Spanish if you prefer, I'll understand. Hm. Well, I'd still understand him being progressive? Oh the Apple ads, he did, well, yes, I understand it might seem contradicting. Hahaha, gotcha, yes, ok, well, I guess I need a shower, have a good evening! Hi, E. How's my labubu? AHHAHA, shut up. Hey, maybe we can all go to this new restaurant that opened here in the 5th on Sunday then. Okay, cool. Oh wow, it's 21:00, I should be sleeping, I'll try to sleep. Where's my book? Livi, come here, lay down on your bed, Schatzi. Yes, super. I love you, you're the cutest. Tomorrow we take a longer walk ok? Sleep tight, love. I promise you from tomorrow on life will be today.

Surfing saved my life.

That’s an over-dramatic way of putting it. Perhaps the more accurate thing to say is that surfing has played an integral role in the working out of my salvation, a grace from God that helps me better understand His grace overall. But saying “surfing saved my life” grabs one’s attention a little bit better.

I’d grown up a skateboarder, starting in the summer of 1996, which put me adjacent to surfing. Over the next four years or so, I’d be in surfing’s orbit in some form or another—either by being in stores that sold clothing and accessories related to both or because my youth pastor, who taught me a lot about skateboarding, was also a surfer and was trying to get me and my best friend to join him some Saturday.

My mom was not a beach person. So I seldom saw the ocean growing up. We lived in Orlando, which meant a trip to the beach would have been an event (at least an hour’s worth of driving each way). But I was very much into things like snorkeling and SCUBA. My first ever job was at a pet store that specialized in fish and I became borderline obsessed with the little critters to the point that I briefly considered ichthyology as a career. Which is all to say that I had a sort of hunger for the sea.

***

I’ve written about it before, but I was a kind of misfit kid. I didn’t really fit in with a lot of people, except my best friend and his little brother (who were practically family to me). I was too “Christian” for a lot of the cool kids at my school (even though it was a Baptist school), but also too alternative and grungy for the youth group set at the time. I fought with school administrators almost every day and openly rebelled against much of the fundamentalist elements in our church. I got really good at “code-switching” when around certain groups, only really feeling like myself when I was with friends or alone at home.

During my junior year of high school (second-to-last year before graduation, for those readers who might have a different school system) I got kinda tired of fighting with everyone. I watched Office Space for the first time and it opened my mind to a completely different way of thinking: not giving a shit. I decided to just do what I wanted to do. And I decided, after winter break, that I wanted to play baseball.

I worked hard. I carried a baseball with me everywhere like I was Pistol Pete and his basketball. I was throwing and catching after school, going to batting cages. I was hitting solid line drives off the 90 MPH pitching machine. But, I did not make the cut. I have my suspicions about this (my mom worked for the church of which my school was parochial and there had been long-simmering tensions between the two institutions; none of the church staff kids were picked that year). Regardless, this turned out to be a God-send because one day I was skating at the church and my best friend shows up and tells me that he and Eddy (our youth pastor) had gone surfing together and that it was awesome. He told me “my dad is going to take us to the beach tomorrow, you should come.”

That day would have been the date of my first baseball game had I made the team.

We drove to New Smyrna Beach, rented long boards, and waded out into the freezing cold water. I was in a wetsuit (I was taking SCUBA lessons as part of a Marine Biology class, so had acquired one as part of this, thankfully). I don’t remember much about the conditions. All I remember was taking the board to the white water and trying to catch whatever was breaking. New Smyrna, at high tide, has a long flat section of shallow water (which makes it ideal for kids playing at the beach and why it’s a popular family spot) and so I was pushing off the sand and into white water.

I’ll never forget standing up for the first time. The wave was maybe shin-high, and I was basically going straight toward the beach. But the speed and the simple fact that I was being moved by a small amount of water shifted something deep in my mind. I wound up getting hit by my board later that day, which also left an impression (both literally and figuratively):

there was something much bigger than me out there.

***

I was an angry kid. Apparently this is not uncommon for young men who grow up without fathers. My dad left my mom as soon as he found out she was pregnant with me and I never met the man (he died in July of last year). I don’t consider myself someone with “daddy issues” or whatever. But I do agree with something Donald Miller writes about in his book for guys who grow up without dads, entitled To Own A Dragon, where he notes that fathers (or father-figures) are key in helping young men learn to channel their aggressions and frustrations. We have a lot of testosterone, which is necessary for our development, and it begins to mess with us in our teenage to young adult years. Someone who’s been through it can help us navigate the path. I did not have that person.

I had a bunch of anger pent up and I took it out on authority figures, or on people that I felt were hypocritical. It often felt like the world was out to get me somehow. Plus, I was smart in a way that didn’t quite fit with my Baptist school environment (I excelled in creative pursuits; I was also quite good in history and Bible, which did afford me some accolades, but I hated doing homework and so my grades did not reflect, to the school’s eyes, my abilities). I was a self-centered little snot who thought he was smarter and better than everyone else around him. I did not realize it at the time, but I needed to get my ass kicked around a bit, on a kind of spiritual level.

***

One of my favorite surfing stories, one that has woven itself into the fabric of our shared mythology, is the story of Greg Noll’s last wave. The short version of the story is this: during an immense swell that hit the Hawaiian islands during the winter of 1969, Noll paddled out at Makaha (in defiance of law enforcement) and caught what people have said was the largest wave surfed at the time. Noll, known for his bombastic nature, allowed the size of the wave to get bigger in the retelling: first 50 feet, then 70, and so on. Regardless of the size, what’s true is that Greg Noll caught this wave, came in, loaded his board onto the roof of his car, and never surfed again. He continued to shape surfboards and be part of the industry. But he never paddled out again.

There are numerous interviews about this. The reason Noll gives for quitting surfing was that he had reached a point in life where, in his own words, he was begging God to send him a wave that he could not ride. He challenged God and God answered. He said that that wave humbled him and made him realize that he could not continue down this path anymore. Surfing was going to kill him because he did not know how or when to stop. Until that wave made that decision for him.

I love this story because it feels true to my situation. For Greg Noll, it took an eternally-growing wave to put him in his place. For me, it took an ankle-high roller.

I learned from that tiny wave that I was not the center of the universe. I would come to learn that I am a recipient of God’s grace, surfing the waves He sends.

***

That day of surfing set me on my path. I caught a wave that I’m still riding. If not for surfing, I would not be who and where I am today. Surfing would teach me about humility and God’s grace. It would also become a deciding factor in where I went to college, which would put me right in front of the Episcopal parish that would reignite my Christian faith after a few years of faltering. This would, of course, lead to my call to the ordained priesthood. It would also predispose me toward Hawai’i, the birthplace of surfing.

It was in March of 2000 that I first surfed. And it was in March of 2020 that I would begin my life in Hawai’i. There is a fairly straight line between those two points.

Had I remained an angry young man, I might’ve gone down a similar path as my dad. But God had other plans in mind.

So, yeah, surfing saved my life.

***

The Rev. Charles Browning II is the rector of Saint Mary’s Episcopal Church in Honolulu, Hawai’i. He is a husband, father, surfer, and frequent over-thinker. Follow him on Mastodon and Pixelfed.

NOTE: The header photo is the only known close-up photo I have of myself surfing. It was taken by my friend Kurt probably in the summer of 2004 when I lived in Fort Pierce Florida. I’m surfing a kinda busted Yater Spoon that I bought on the cheap from Spunky’s Surfshop, a board that would also play an important role in my spiritual life, which I’ll write about some other time.

#Surfing #Spirituality #Christianity #Jesus #Theology

There is a moment that comes to nearly every human life when the soul begins to realize that faith is not merely something we talk about, but something we must live through with endurance. Hebrews 12 opens with imagery that feels almost cinematic when you slow down enough to truly see it. The writer invites us to imagine ourselves running a race, but not a quiet solitary jog through empty countryside. Instead we are running inside a vast stadium surrounded by what Scripture calls a great cloud of witnesses. These witnesses are the faithful who came before us, the men and women whose lives were marked by courage, perseverance, and trust in God even when their circumstances seemed impossible. Their presence is not meant to intimidate us, but to remind us that we are part of something larger than our own short lifetime. Faith is not a private hobby practiced in isolation; it is a living story stretching across centuries, carried forward by one generation after another. Every believer who has ever trusted God through hardship becomes part of that cloud. And when we begin to understand this picture deeply, we start to realize that our own lives are not random or unnoticed but connected to a sacred unfolding story that continues to move forward through us.

The race described in Hebrews 12 is not about speed, and it is certainly not about comparison. One of the subtle mistakes many people make in their spiritual lives is assuming that faith should look impressive to others. We sometimes imagine that the strongest believers are the ones who appear to move effortlessly through life, never stumbling and never struggling. But the language of endurance tells a different story entirely. Endurance assumes difficulty, resistance, and moments where continuing forward requires deep inner resolve. The race of faith is not won by those who sprint early and collapse later, but by those who continue placing one step in front of the other when their legs feel heavy and their breath feels short. In other words, Hebrews 12 speaks to the long obedience of the soul. It acknowledges that the journey with God often unfolds across years of quiet perseverance rather than dramatic moments of triumph. When people hear the phrase “run with endurance the race set before us,” they sometimes overlook the deeply personal part of that sentence. The race set before us is not identical for every person. Each life carries its own terrain, its own hills, its own unexpected storms, and its own moments where the path feels lonely. Yet God remains present in every one of those landscapes, guiding the runner who continues forward in trust.

The writer of Hebrews also introduces one of the most liberating ideas in the entire passage when he tells us to lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely. The difference between those two categories is worth careful reflection. Sin is the obvious burden that pulls us away from God’s design for our lives. But weights can be more subtle. A weight might not be inherently sinful, yet it still slows our progress. Sometimes weights appear in the form of distractions that consume our time and attention. Other times they appear as fears we have carried for so long that they begin to feel normal. Many people unknowingly run their race while dragging emotional baggage that God never intended them to carry. The invitation of Hebrews 12 is not simply to try harder, but to travel lighter. When we release the unnecessary burdens that entangle our hearts, the journey with God begins to feel different. Faith becomes less about grinding effort and more about clear direction. It becomes possible to see the path ahead because our vision is no longer clouded by everything we have been dragging behind us. This idea alone has the power to transform how we think about spiritual growth. The goal is not to prove our strength by carrying every burden imaginable, but to trust God enough to release what no longer belongs in our hands.

At the center of the entire passage stands a single phrase that anchors everything else: looking to Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. This statement contains a depth that cannot be exhausted by a quick reading. To call Jesus the author of faith means that faith itself begins with Him. Our relationship with God is not something we invent through our own spiritual creativity. It begins because God first reached toward us. Long before we ever took our first uncertain steps toward faith, Christ had already stepped into human history to make reconciliation possible. But the passage goes even further by calling Him the finisher of our faith. This means that the story does not end with our fragile beginnings. Jesus does not merely start the work and then leave us alone to complete it. He remains present throughout the entire process, guiding, shaping, correcting, and strengthening the believer as life unfolds. When people feel overwhelmed by the weight of their own imperfections, this truth becomes profoundly comforting. Faith is not sustained by our perfection but by Christ’s faithfulness. Our role is not to manufacture spiritual power but to keep our eyes oriented toward the One who carries the story forward.

The writer then reminds us that Jesus endured the cross for the joy set before Him. This phrase has puzzled many readers over the centuries because the cross represents unimaginable suffering. Yet Hebrews insists that joy existed on the horizon beyond that suffering. The joy was not the pain itself but the redemption that would flow from it. Jesus saw what would be accomplished through His sacrifice. He saw the restoration of humanity’s relationship with God. He saw the possibility of millions of lives being transformed through grace. He saw people who had been trapped in despair discovering hope again. When Christ looked toward the cross, He was looking through the pain toward the restoration it would bring. This perspective carries enormous implications for our own struggles. When believers face seasons of hardship, we often interpret those moments as meaningless suffering. But Hebrews invites us to consider that God may be working toward outcomes we cannot yet see clearly. Faith allows the soul to hold onto hope even when the present moment feels heavy. It does not deny the difficulty of the road, but it refuses to believe that the road ends in darkness.

Another powerful dimension of Hebrews 12 emerges when the writer begins to speak about discipline. In modern culture the word discipline often carries negative associations. Many people hear the term and immediately imagine punishment or rejection. But the passage frames discipline in an entirely different light by connecting it to the identity of being God’s children. Discipline, according to Hebrews, is evidence of belonging. Just as a loving parent guides and corrects a child in order to help them grow into maturity, God shapes the lives of those He loves. This process is rarely comfortable in the moment. Growth seldom is. Yet the writer insists that discipline ultimately produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it. The language here is agricultural and patient. Harvests do not appear overnight. Seeds are planted, seasons pass, storms come and go, and only after time does the fruit begin to appear. Spiritual maturity follows a similar rhythm. God’s work in our lives unfolds gradually through experiences that stretch our character and deepen our trust. The discipline we experience today often becomes the strength we depend upon tomorrow.

This understanding of discipline helps believers reinterpret many of life’s difficulties. Instead of seeing hardship as evidence that God has abandoned us, Hebrews suggests that some challenges may actually be part of God’s refining work. This does not mean that every painful experience is directly orchestrated by God, but it does mean that God is capable of bringing growth out of circumstances that initially appear discouraging. The soul that learns to trust God through these seasons becomes resilient in a way that cannot be manufactured through comfort alone. Over time the believer begins to recognize that faith is not fragile after all. It can withstand storms because it is rooted in something deeper than temporary circumstances. The Christian life therefore becomes less about avoiding difficulty and more about discovering God’s presence within it. When we begin to view our struggles through this lens, even the hardest seasons can take on new meaning. The road may still be difficult, but it is no longer empty of purpose.

Hebrews 12 continues by encouraging believers to strengthen their weak hands and steady their trembling knees. The imagery here suggests a community that supports one another through the race of faith. Christianity was never intended to be lived entirely alone. The early believers understood that encouragement, accountability, and shared wisdom were essential for spiritual growth. When one person grows weary, another can remind them why the journey matters. When someone begins to lose heart, another voice can gently guide them back toward hope. This communal dimension of faith reflects the heart of the gospel itself. God did not design humanity for isolation. We flourish when we walk together toward the same source of life. The call to strengthen one another therefore becomes part of the race itself. Every act of encouragement becomes a way of helping someone else continue forward.

The writer then urges believers to pursue peace with everyone and to pursue holiness without which no one will see the Lord. These two pursuits belong together more closely than many people realize. Peace reflects how we relate to others, while holiness reflects how we orient our hearts toward God. Both are necessary because faith expresses itself in both directions. A person cannot claim deep spiritual devotion while consistently creating division and hostility around them. At the same time, peace that ignores the call to holiness becomes shallow and temporary. Hebrews invites believers into a life where inner transformation and outward relationships move in harmony. The more a person grows in closeness with God, the more their character begins to reflect the patience, compassion, and integrity that Jesus displayed. Holiness therefore becomes less about rigid rule-keeping and more about allowing God’s presence to reshape the entire landscape of the soul.

The passage also contains a sober warning about bitterness. The writer describes bitterness as a root that can grow quietly beneath the surface and eventually cause trouble for many people. This imagery is remarkably accurate to real human experience. Bitterness rarely appears suddenly in full form. Instead it begins as a small wound that remains unresolved. If that wound is continually revisited without healing, it begins to deepen. Over time the bitterness spreads outward, influencing how a person interprets other relationships and circumstances. What started as a single hurt eventually colors the entire emotional landscape of a life. Hebrews calls believers to remain vigilant against this process because bitterness can slowly erode joy, gratitude, and trust. The antidote is not pretending that pain never occurred, but bringing those wounds honestly before God so that healing can begin. Forgiveness does not erase the past, but it prevents the past from imprisoning the future.

One of the quiet turning points in Hebrews 12 arrives when the writer contrasts two mountains that represent two entirely different spiritual realities. The first mountain is Sinai, the place where the law was given amid thunder, fire, darkness, and trembling. The imagery is intense and overwhelming because Sinai represented a moment when humanity encountered the holiness of God in a way that revealed how distant and unapproachable that holiness seemed. The people who stood at the base of that mountain were terrified, not because God desired to frighten them, but because the raw power of divine holiness exposed the limitations of human righteousness. Even Moses, who stood closer to God than almost anyone in that moment, described himself as trembling with fear. Sinai revealed something profoundly true about the human condition: left to our own efforts, we cannot climb high enough to reach God. The law was never meant to serve as a ladder by which humanity could earn its way into heaven. Instead it revealed the depth of our need for grace.

But Hebrews does something remarkable after describing Sinai. It tells believers that they have not come to that mountain. Instead they have come to Mount Zion, the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem. The atmosphere shifts completely when the writer begins describing this second mountain. Instead of thunder and terror, there is celebration. Instead of distance, there is welcome. Instead of trembling fear, there is joyful assembly. Zion represents the fulfillment of what Sinai pointed toward. Through Christ, believers are invited into a relationship with God that is no longer defined by separation but by reconciliation. The writer describes an innumerable gathering of angels, the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and God Himself standing at the center of it all. It is an image of belonging that stretches beyond anything the human imagination normally conceives. Faith, according to Hebrews, is not merely about moral improvement or spiritual discipline. It is about being welcomed into a living community that spans heaven and earth.

At the center of this gathering stands Jesus, described as the mediator of a new covenant. The word mediator carries immense weight because it captures the bridge that Christ forms between God and humanity. Under the old covenant, the people relied on priests and sacrifices that had to be repeated continually. Each sacrifice pointed toward the seriousness of sin but could never permanently remove its power. The blood of animals symbolized atonement, yet it remained only a shadow of something greater that was still to come. When Hebrews speaks of the sprinkled blood of Jesus that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel, it is drawing on a story from the earliest pages of Scripture. Abel’s blood cried out from the ground as a testimony to injustice and violence. The blood of Christ, however, speaks a different message entirely. It speaks forgiveness rather than accusation. It speaks reconciliation rather than judgment. It speaks restoration rather than exile. Through Christ, the relationship between God and humanity is not merely patched together but transformed into something entirely new.

The writer then delivers a warning that carries both urgency and compassion. He urges readers not to refuse the One who is speaking. Throughout the history of faith, God has spoken in many ways. Sometimes His voice came through prophets, sometimes through Scripture, sometimes through quiet conviction within the human heart. But Hebrews insists that the clearest and most decisive expression of God’s voice came through Jesus Christ. To ignore that voice is not simply to miss a helpful piece of advice; it is to turn away from the very source of life. Yet the warning is not meant to produce fear alone. It is meant to awaken awareness. God continues to speak because He desires relationship. The call to listen is therefore an invitation to remain open to the transformation that God is continually offering.

The passage concludes with a powerful image of God shaking the heavens and the earth. This idea may initially sound unsettling, but its deeper meaning becomes clearer as the writer explains it. The shaking represents the removal of what cannot last so that what is truly permanent can remain. Much of what humans build throughout life feels solid and secure in the moment, yet history repeatedly reminds us how fragile those structures can be. Wealth, status, cultural trends, and political systems all rise and fall across generations. Hebrews invites believers to anchor their lives in something that cannot be shaken. The kingdom of God stands beyond the instability of human systems because it is rooted in God’s eternal character. When believers place their hope in that kingdom, they begin to experience a stability that circumstances alone cannot provide.

Receiving this unshakable kingdom leads naturally to gratitude. The writer calls believers to respond with reverence and awe, recognizing the holiness of the God who welcomes them into His presence. Reverence does not mean shrinking away in fear. Instead it reflects a deep awareness of the sacredness of the relationship we have been invited into. When someone truly understands the grace they have received, gratitude becomes the natural posture of the heart. Worship stops being a weekly ritual performed out of obligation and becomes a sincere response to the beauty of God’s character. The more deeply we recognize what Christ has done, the more naturally reverence flows from within us.

One of the quiet miracles of Hebrews 12 is how it reshapes the way believers think about their own lives. Instead of viewing life as a random series of disconnected events, the passage reveals a larger narrative unfolding beneath the surface. Every challenge becomes part of a race being run. Every moment of discipline becomes part of a training process shaping the soul. Every act of encouragement becomes part of a community journeying together toward the same destination. And every step of faith becomes part of a story that stretches from the earliest witnesses of Scripture all the way into eternity. When people begin to see their lives through this lens, the ordinary moments of daily existence take on deeper meaning. The quiet decisions we make, the kindness we offer, the patience we practice, and the trust we extend toward God all become threads woven into a much larger tapestry.

There is also something profoundly comforting about the realization that the race of faith does not depend on flawless performance. Hebrews never asks believers to run perfectly. Instead it asks them to run faithfully. The difference between those two ideas is enormous. Perfection focuses on avoiding every possible mistake. Faithfulness focuses on continuing forward even after mistakes occur. The writer of Hebrews understood that human beings stumble. That is precisely why he continually directs attention back toward Jesus. When our eyes remain fixed on Christ, failure no longer becomes the final word. Grace remains larger than our missteps, and the path forward remains open.

As believers move through life, they eventually begin to notice that the race described in Hebrews 12 contains seasons of both intensity and quiet endurance. Some moments feel dramatic and decisive, like crossing a mountain pass where the view suddenly expands. Other moments feel ordinary, like walking mile after mile through terrain that looks almost unchanged. Yet both types of seasons play essential roles in the formation of faith. The dramatic moments remind us of God’s power and presence in unmistakable ways. The quiet stretches teach us perseverance and trust. Over time the believer begins to recognize that God is present in both kinds of seasons. The mountaintop and the valley both become places where the soul learns to depend on Him.

The imagery of the great cloud of witnesses also begins to feel more personal as life unfolds. When we read about the faithful figures described earlier in Hebrews, they may initially seem distant and almost mythical. But as the years pass, we begin to encounter people in our own lives who embody similar courage and devotion. Perhaps it is a mentor who quietly lived with integrity for decades. Perhaps it is a parent who endured hardship without losing faith. Perhaps it is a friend who continued to trust God through circumstances that would have broken someone else. These individuals become part of our own cloud of witnesses, reminding us that the race can indeed be finished well. Their stories encourage us to keep running when our own strength feels thin.

The invitation of Hebrews 12 ultimately leads believers toward a life of profound hope. The passage acknowledges suffering, struggle, and discipline without minimizing their difficulty. Yet it refuses to allow those realities to define the entire story. The race has a destination. The training has a purpose. The shaking has an outcome. The kingdom that awaits believers cannot be shaken because it is built upon the unchanging character of God Himself. When the soul truly absorbs this truth, anxiety about temporary circumstances begins to lose its grip. The future no longer appears as an unpredictable threat but as a continuation of the story God is already guiding.

And so the believer continues forward, sometimes running with strength, sometimes walking slowly, sometimes leaning on others for encouragement, but always moving toward the One who began the journey in the first place. The path may twist and rise in ways we did not expect, but the destination remains secure. Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, remains ahead of us, beside us, and within us all at once. The race is not solitary, the road is not meaningless, and the finish line is not uncertain. It is held firmly within the promise of the God who calls His sons and daughters home.

Your friend, Douglas Vandergraph

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There are moments in every sincere spiritual journey when a person encounters a question in Scripture that feels too direct to ignore. These questions are not signs of weak faith. They are often the doorway into a deeper, more mature relationship with truth. One of those questions has circulated for generations, quietly passing between curious minds who are reading the earliest pages of the Bible and trying to understand the world they describe. The question is simple enough that a child might ask it, yet profound enough that many adults hesitate before answering it out loud. If God created Adam and Eve, and Adam and Eve had sons named Cain and Abel, then where did their wives come from? The question is not hostile toward faith. It is the natural result of reading the story carefully and wanting the details to make sense. When people finally give themselves permission to ask it openly, something important happens. Instead of weakening faith, the honest pursuit of the answer often strengthens it because it reveals the depth and realism of the biblical narrative.

The opening chapters of Genesis introduce us to the beginning of the human story. They describe a moment when humanity did not yet exist and then suddenly did. According to the biblical account, God formed Adam from the dust of the ground and breathed life into him. Shortly afterward, Eve was created as Adam’s companion, completing the first human relationship. From that point forward the story begins to move, not through abstract ideas, but through family. The Bible does not present the beginning of humanity as a mass creation of millions of people scattered across the earth. Instead, the entire human race begins with one couple. This design immediately tells us something about the way God intended human life to unfold. Humanity was meant to grow, multiply, and expand through generations of family relationships. The first two humans were not simply individuals placed on the earth. They were the starting point of a lineage that would eventually become every nation, culture, and language that exists today.

When we reach the story of Cain and Abel, the narrative focuses on two sons whose lives take very different directions. Abel becomes known for offering a sacrifice that pleases God, while Cain becomes remembered for committing the first act of murder in human history. The tragedy of that moment echoes throughout the entire biblical storyline because it shows how quickly human freedom can drift away from God’s design. After Cain kills Abel, the story continues, and that is where the question naturally arises. Cain eventually leaves and builds a life for himself, and Scripture tells us that he had a wife. For readers who are thinking carefully, the question becomes unavoidable. If Adam and Eve only had two sons, where did this wife come from?

The answer is not hidden, but it does require paying attention to what the text actually says rather than what we assume it says. Genesis does not claim that Adam and Eve had only two children. In fact, the Bible explicitly tells us that Adam had many sons and daughters over the course of his long life. The narrative names Cain, Abel, and later Seth because they play a role in the unfolding storyline, but those names represent only a small portion of the growing first family. In the earliest generation of humanity, the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve married one another because there were no other humans yet. Cain would have married one of his sisters or possibly a niece from the expanding family line that had already begun to form.

For many people in the modern world, hearing that explanation triggers an immediate sense of discomfort. Today the idea of close family marriages is both morally prohibited and genetically dangerous. However, the conditions of the earliest human generations described in Genesis were fundamentally different from the conditions we experience today. The biblical narrative presents the first humans as being created directly by God, meaning they would not have carried the layers of genetic mutation that have accumulated throughout thousands of years of human history. The genetic risks that exist in modern populations would not have been present in the same way during the earliest generations. What feels shocking when viewed through modern biological conditions would not have carried the same dangers at the very beginning of humanity’s existence.

It is also important to recognize that the moral law forbidding incest was not given until much later in the biblical timeline. Those laws appear in the Mosaic Law, many generations after the population had grown large and human societies had become far more complex. By that point in history, God established clear boundaries designed to protect both family structure and genetic health within expanding communities. In the earliest stage of humanity, however, the population had to grow from the single family that existed. The beginning of the human story required a form of family multiplication that would later become unnecessary and forbidden once the population expanded.

When we step back and look at the broader picture, the question about Cain’s wife stops being a stumbling block and becomes something else entirely. It becomes a reminder of how small the beginning of humanity truly was. The entire human race started with one couple and one family. Every civilization, every culture, every language, and every nation that has ever existed can trace its distant roots back to that original beginning. The scale of that truth is almost impossible to fully grasp. Billions of human lives have unfolded across thousands of years, yet all of them ultimately connect to the same starting point described in the opening chapters of Genesis.

That realization reveals something profound about the character of God. God is not intimidated by small beginnings. In fact, throughout Scripture we see that God repeatedly chooses small beginnings as the starting point for extraordinary outcomes. The pattern appears so consistently that it becomes one of the defining characteristics of how God works in the world. The human race begins with two people. The nation of Israel begins with one man named Abraham who is wandering through a foreign land with no children and no clear future. The ministry of Jesus begins with a small group of ordinary followers who have no political power, no military strength, and no influence within the institutions of their time. Yet from those small beginnings come movements that reshape the course of human history.

This pattern carries a powerful message for anyone who has ever felt like their life started too small to matter. Many people quietly believe that greatness belongs only to those who began with visible advantages. They assume that meaningful impact requires the right background, the right resources, or the right connections. But the biblical story consistently challenges that assumption. God often chooses beginnings that appear ordinary, fragile, or even unlikely. The smallness of the beginning is not a weakness in God’s design. It is often the very stage on which His creativity and power become most visible.

When people wrestle with the question of Cain’s wife, they are often trying to resolve a detail within the story. What they sometimes miss is the larger truth the story reveals about how God builds history. God begins with something small and allows it to grow. The first family becomes a growing community. The community becomes tribes and nations. Those nations develop cultures, languages, and histories that spread across the earth. What began quietly in a garden eventually becomes the entire human civilization.

The same principle appears again and again throughout the rest of Scripture. God rarely introduces His plans with overwhelming force or dramatic spectacle. Instead, He plants seeds. Those seeds grow slowly, often in ways that are not immediately visible to the people living through the early chapters of the story. Yet as time passes, the full scope of what God began becomes impossible to ignore.

For individuals living in the present day, this truth carries deep encouragement. Many people look at their current circumstances and feel like their starting point is too limited to produce anything meaningful. They see their background, their struggles, their past mistakes, or their lack of resources, and they quietly conclude that their story cannot possibly grow into something significant. But the opening chapters of the Bible tell a different story. They reveal a God who specializes in beginnings that appear small.

As the story of humanity continues to unfold through Scripture, the pattern that begins in Genesis becomes easier to recognize. God does not rush the development of the human story, and He does not seem concerned with whether the beginnings look impressive to human observers. The first family grows quietly across generations, and from that growth entire civilizations eventually appear. What begins with Adam and Eve expands outward through time in ways that those first humans could never have imagined while they were standing in the early chapters of their existence. This is part of the beauty of the biblical narrative. It does not pretend that history began with grandeur and spectacle. Instead, it shows that the foundation of everything we know today began with a simple family relationship between a man and a woman placed in a garden by their Creator. When we allow ourselves to see that clearly, the scale of what God accomplished through such a small beginning becomes one of the most inspiring elements of the entire biblical story.

The question about Cain’s wife therefore becomes more than a historical curiosity. It becomes an invitation to think about the nature of beginnings themselves. Every great story in human history begins somewhere small. Before a nation exists, there is a group of families learning how to live together. Before a movement spreads across continents, there is a small group of people sharing an idea. Before a life of influence touches others, there is often a quiet season where growth happens out of sight. The early chapters of Genesis reveal that God is completely comfortable working in those quiet beginnings. He does not appear to be in a hurry. Instead, He allows time, relationship, and human development to gradually unfold the world that He has set into motion.

For many people, one of the most difficult parts of life is learning to trust the early chapters of their own story. It is easy to admire the finished outcomes we see in history, but much harder to remain patient during the slow growth that produces those outcomes. We live in a world that celebrates visible success, quick results, and dramatic achievements. Because of that cultural pressure, people sometimes look at their own lives and feel discouraged when progress seems slow or ordinary. Yet the biblical pattern suggests that God rarely begins His greatest works with immediate visibility. He begins quietly, often through circumstances that appear almost too small to matter.

Consider again the first family described in Genesis. Adam and Eve could not possibly have imagined the scale of what would grow from their lives. They could not see cities rising across continents. They could not envision languages forming, cultures developing, and generations stretching thousands of years into the future. Yet every one of those developments traces back to the simple reality that God began the human story with them. What looked like a modest beginning became the foundation of everything that followed.

This truth carries profound meaning for people who sometimes feel like their lives are unfolding in quiet or unnoticed ways. Many individuals live faithfully, work diligently, love their families, and pursue purpose without receiving the recognition that the world often associates with significance. They may wonder whether their efforts truly matter or whether their story will ever grow into something meaningful. The early chapters of Genesis offer a reassuring perspective in moments like that. They remind us that the size of a beginning does not determine the value of what will grow from it.

The story of Cain and Abel also illustrates another important dimension of the human journey. From the very beginning, human history contains both beauty and brokenness. The first family experiences love, creativity, and growth, but it also encounters jealousy, violence, and grief. Abel’s death reveals that humanity’s relationship with God has already been disrupted by sin. Yet even in the presence of tragedy, the story does not stop. Life continues. Families continue. The human story moves forward. This persistence is not accidental. It reflects the determination of God to continue working through humanity even when humanity struggles with its own weaknesses.

That resilience within the biblical narrative carries an important message for anyone who feels discouraged by their own mistakes or by the brokenness they see in the world around them. The presence of failure does not end the story. God continues to work through imperfect people in imperfect circumstances. The unfolding of human history demonstrates that God’s purposes are not easily stopped by the setbacks that occur along the way. Even when individuals falter, the larger story continues to move toward the future that God is guiding.

When we think about the expansion of humanity from that first family, it becomes clear that time plays an essential role in God’s design. Growth takes time. Generations build upon the lives of those who came before them. The human story unfolds gradually rather than instantly. This rhythm appears throughout the Bible, reminding us that God often chooses to work through processes rather than shortcuts. Seeds grow into trees over seasons. Families grow into communities over generations. Movements grow into transformations over decades and centuries.

Understanding this rhythm can help people find peace during seasons when their own progress feels slow. The biblical narrative does not promise that meaningful growth will always be immediate. Instead, it shows that God is deeply committed to the long arc of history. What begins quietly today may produce consequences far beyond what anyone currently sees. The seeds planted in one generation may bear fruit in another. Faithfulness in small moments may eventually shape lives in ways that are impossible to measure at the time they occur.

When people ask where Cain found his wife, they are sometimes looking for a problem within the text. What they often discover instead is a reminder of how remarkably small the beginning of humanity truly was. From one family came the entire human race. From that small beginning came every relationship, every society, and every chapter of history that followed. The scale of that expansion reflects the creative power of the God who set the story in motion.

This understanding invites a different way of looking at our own lives. Instead of measuring significance only by what is visible today, we can recognize that the beginnings we are living through may hold possibilities that extend far beyond the present moment. The God who began humanity with two people in a garden is still capable of working through the quiet beginnings that exist in ordinary lives. What appears small from a human perspective may be the starting point of something far more meaningful than anyone can currently imagine.

The biblical story encourages us to approach honest questions without fear. Questions do not weaken faith when they are asked sincerely. Instead, they often lead to deeper understanding. The question about Cain’s wife reminds us that the Bible invites thoughtful reading and honest reflection. When we engage with Scripture in that way, we discover that its message is not fragile. It is strong enough to withstand curiosity, examination, and careful thought.

In the end, the early chapters of Genesis are not merely explaining how humanity began. They are revealing the character of the God who began it. He is a Creator who works patiently through time. He is a God who sees potential in beginnings that appear small. He is a God who continues to guide the unfolding of the human story even when that story includes moments of confusion or struggle.

The human race began as one family and expanded into the vast tapestry of lives that fill the earth today. That expansion reminds us that beginnings do not need to be large in order to matter. What matters is the presence of the Creator who breathes life into the beginning and allows it to grow.

If the story of humanity could grow from a single family into the entire world we see today, then the beginnings unfolding in our own lives may also carry possibilities that reach further than we currently understand. The God who started the human story has not stopped writing it. Every life is part of that ongoing narrative, and each new chapter continues to reveal the quiet, patient creativity of the One who began it all.

Your friend, Douglas Vandergraph

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“We will take out easily destroyable targets that will make it virtually impossible for Iran to ever be built back, as a Nation, again — Death, Fire, and Fury will reign [sic] upon them.”

This is NOT the Just War Tradition in practice. This is NOT how this works. It's simply not.

At best, this most certainly would violate the jus in bello tenets of distinction, proportionality, and military necessity. At worst, the United States would abdicate any claim to moral authority among the nation.

Clearly the regime in Iran is demonic and horrid, one of the worst in the world; however, from a Christian perspective all is NOT fair in love and war. It never has been. These are not the tactics of the United States of America. These are not the tactics of a nation behaving with honor. These are the tactics of treachery. These are the tactics of the ungodly.

You cannot rationalize this approach under any historic Christian understanding of the Just War Tradition. It is inexcusable. God, save us.

#history #politics #theology

Until yesterday, it had been over twenty years since the means and opportunity last aligned such that I bought a painting. I'd been in Chepstow on Saturday morning, doing my usual rounds of the town's 'thrifting' locations, when, at the Red Cross charity shop I saw the walls lined with a dozen or more paintings and drawings. One in particular caught my eye — a street scene (Fig. 15) with a French look about it. The price was £100: high for a charity shop; not so high for a unique work of art. Unwilling to act on an immediate impulse, I decided to think it over.

Yesterday was a day off work. I'd been meaning to gather together a batch of records and CDs that had become surplus to requirements, and donate them somewhere. That somewhere, I realised, could be the Red Cross shop with the paintings. I dropped off the music and paid £103: for the painting plus a shirt I’d noticed while I was waiting for it to be taken down from the wall. The shop manager told me that the artworks had all come from the collection of a local ceramicist, who had been downsizing in advance of a move.

The painting is in oils or some other thickly-applied paint on a tatty old piece of board: there's some damage at its edges and at least one hole right through it. The frame is a somewhat distressed wooden one painted an unappealing shade of grey. The picture is signed and dated at the bottom right, though not altogether legibly. The artist's name was Peter S[omething] and the painting was made in (I think) '52. I've hung it at the top of the stairs, where a framed collage had previously been. I very much like how it looks there.

Elsewhere in Chepstow on Saturday I bought three '80s LPs for a tenner. These, I realised later, were linked by the letter 'L': the self-titled debut album by The Lounge Lizards; Will the Wolf Survive by Los Lobos; and Lyle Lovett & his Large Band. I was unfamiliar with all three but was happy to take a chance on them given their inexpensiveness. This was a trio that proved to be a decidedly mixed bag.

I'd seen or heard any number of mentions of the Lounge Lizards over the years without ever knowingly hearing a note of their music. On first acquaintance I really enjoyed the album: '50s jazz flavours served up with post-punk avant-garde attitude. An accomplished effort though it was, the Los Lobos record wasn't well-aligned with my current tastes and I didn't take a shine to it. As for the Lyle Lovett disc, it was a frustrating case inasmuch as I loved about half of it and disliked the rest: I may get a CD copy so I can more readily skip the tracks I don't care for.

I greatly admired Maria Stepanova's non-fiction opus In Memory of Memory when I read it a few years ago. Seeing a novel of hers (The Disappearing Act) has been newly published in English I thought I'd get a copy of it, and also try some of her poetry, in the shape of the 2021 collection War of the Beasts and the Animals. I read the latter (translated, like the other books, by Sasha Dugdale) on Wednesday and Thursday.

Inspired here & there by high modernism and dense with allusion, some of it felt opaque to the point of obscurity. Elsewhere were less forbidding poems based on ballads & songs, though some of those too came across like puzzles I couldn't necessarily solve. In short, although there were moments I could grasp and savour, I felt like its demands often exceeded my limited abilities as a reader.

https://elgan.com/why-you-should-love-blogs-now-more-than-ever

Why you should love blogs now more than ever

, Mike Elgan (@MikeElgan@mastodon.social) on sharkey (source)

I saw Mike's post in my timeline, and it's referenced above. While I know some people hate AI with a passion, I agree that AI content has, for the most part, made the internet harder to enjoy. I agree with his post wholeheartedly, and maybe it will bring blogs – and hearing from people on blogs – back into the spotlight.

There was a time when most blogs looked quaint and personal, reflecting the owner's personality not only in their words but in the site's visuals. I also agree with Dave Winer's views on blogs, though not the idea of leaving everything completely unedited. If by “unedited” he means honest, uncensored feelings, I'm fine with that. But I do think having an AI or another human proofread your work is usually a good idea.

When I read some of my earlier posts from my youth – about 25 years ago when I was in my mid-twenties – I often think, what did I even mean there? It may make no sense now, and when I see something like that I cringe and immediately do some blog gardening and fix it. I don't want an AI to turn everything into perfect polish, but I do want my writing to make sense. Sometimes I ramble and chase rabbits the way I do in conversation, and that can lose readers' attention. I hate walking away from someone and thinking, what were we even talking about? That was all over the place.

So yes blogs look like the are coming back and that is good thing in my opinion and Google if you listening Blogger will be 30 years old in a few years. How about doing some updates too it but keep it conservative and non AI related and keep the spirit of it alive and just bring it forward into the modern age.

#blogging #opinion

Tidying up

Recently, I've been struggling to figure out what I'm working on in terms of writing. February was a kick ass month where I released video projects and did nearly 60K words.

I ended up going through my entire list of open projects and discovered I had about 15 fiction projects on my plate. I also found I had writing folders I didn't recognize by code name. That and some other things made me realize I might have too much going on.

When I was making appointments with clients regularly as part of my IT job, I came to a truth that has helped me ever since. If you give someone the open ended question “when would you like to meet,” you're probably not going to get an answer any time. You've got SLAs, and they've got a hypothetical infinity to choose from.

If you instead suggest two specific times, they may accept one of them or they may propose their own. The effective range of possibility is still the same but now it doesn't look nearly as intimidating.

I've used random number generators for myself since I was a child. Assign each possibility its own number and run the RNG. Even if it picks one I decide I definitely don't want to do, running the RNG helped make that possibility real enough to turn it down.

On the other hand, it also helps to clear out the clutter.

So I made a list of all my active projects and moved the others to a folder I use for projects that are on hold.

The number is still fifteen (or fourteen depending on how you count) but now I can see it a little better.

And maybe I can make myself an RNG project picker in Python that will read project names from my fancy new table.

At the moment, the big thing is to get enough of my mental desk clean so that I can think and do a bit of writing.

#PersonalEssay

Vijf keer iets zwaars op de maag, graag!

Och wat zou ik graag zitten met iets zwaars op de maag ook wacht ik nog op een gulle gever zodat ik iets heb voor op mijn lever mijn dieet is zelfs zo arm dat ik geen grip meer heb op mijn twaalfvingerige darm ik zou bij god niet weten wat er nog in me zit om op te vreten de laatste keer dat ik iets te bikken kon halen was vorige week toen ik er op bed over lag te malen kon ik de vrijheid van meningsuiting maar verliezen dan kreeg ik weer iets voor mijn kiezen ik kan er heel slecht tegen dat er niks op de schaal ligt voor wikken en wegen voor de lege keukenkastjes denk ik elk etmaal weer had ik bij die gehaalde gram maar een onsje meer het enigste waar ik nog een beetje van geniet is dat mijn ongebruikte keuken er iedere dag onberispelijk uitziet door deze vorm van buitensporige verschraling val ik van lieverlee steeds vaker in herhaling

Och wat zou ik graag zitten met iets zwaars op de maag ook wacht ik nog op een gulle gever zodat ik iets heb voor op mijn lever mijn dieet is zelfs zo arm dat ik geen grip meer heb op mijn twaalfvingerige darm ik zou bij god niet weten wat er nog in me zit om op te vreten de laatste keer dat ik iets te bikken kon halen was vorige week toen ik er op bed over lag te malen kon ik de vrijheid van meningsuiting maar verliezen dan kreeg ik weer iets voor mijn kiezen ik kan er heel slecht tegen dat er weer niks op de schaal ligt voor afwegen voor de lege keukenkastjes denk ik elk etmaal weer had ik bij de gehaalde gram maar een onsje meer het enigste waar ik nog een beetje van geniet is dat mijn ongebruikte keuken er iedere dag onberispelijk uitziet door deze vorm van buitensporige verschraling val ik van lieverlee steeds vaker in herhaling

Och wat zou ik graag zitten met iets zwaars op de maag ook wacht ik nog op een gulle gever zodat ik iets heb voor op mijn lever mijn dieet is zelfs zo arm dat ik geen grip meer heb op mijn twaalfvingerige darm ik zou bij god niet weten wat er nog in me zit om op te vreten de laatste keer dat ik iets te bikken kon halen was vorige week toen ik er op bed over lag te malen kon ik de vrijheid van meningsuiting maar verliezen dan kreeg ik weer iets voor mijn kiezen ik kan er heel slecht tegen dat er weer niks op de schaal ligt voor afwegen voor de lege keukenkastjes denk ik elk etmaal weer had ik bij de gehaalde gram maar een onsje meer het enigste waar ik nog een beetje van geniet is dat mijn ongebruikte keuken er iedere dag onberispelijk uitziet door deze vorm van buitensporige verschraling val ik van lieverlee steeds vaker in herhaling

Och wat zou ik graag zitten met iets zwaars op de maag ook wacht ik nog op een gulle gever zodat ik iets heb voor op mijn lever mijn dieet is zelfs zo arm dat ik geen grip meer heb op mijn twaalfvingerige darm ik zou bij god niet weten wat er nog in me zit om op te vreten de laatste keer dat ik iets te bikken kon halen was vorige week toen ik er op bed over lag te malen kon ik de vrijheid van meningsuiting maar verliezen dan kreeg ik weer iets voor mijn kiezen ik kan er heel slecht tegen dat er weer niks op de schaal ligt voor afwegen voor de lege keukenkastjes denk ik elk etmaal weer had ik bij de gehaalde gram maar een onsje meer het enigste waar ik nog een beetje van geniet is dat mijn ongebruikte keuken er iedere dag onberispelijk uitziet door deze vorm van buitensporige verschraling val ik van lieverlee steeds vaker in herhaling

Och wat zou ik graag zitten met iets zwaars op de maag ook wacht ik nog op een gulle gever zodat ik iets heb voor op mijn lever mijn dieet is zelfs zo arm dat ik geen grip meer heb op mijn twaalfvingerige darm ik zou bij god niet weten wat er nog in me zit om op te vreten de laatste keer dat ik iets te bikken kon halen was vorige week toen ik er op bed over lag te malen kon ik de vrijheid van meningsuiting maar verliezen dan kreeg ik weer iets voor mijn kiezen ik kan er heel slecht tegen dat er weer niks op de schaal ligt voor afwegen voor de lege keukenkastjes denk ik elk etmaal weer had ik bij de gehaalde gram maar een onsje meer het enigste waar ik nog een beetje van geniet is dat mijn ongebruikte keuken er iedere dag onberispelijk uitziet door deze vorm van buitensporige verschraling val ik van lieverlee steeds vaker in herhaling

Zeg Bar en Boosman heb ik dit stukje nou al eerder gepub- liceerd of niet?

#002308 – 23 de Setembro de 2025

Em Portugal fica-se muito impressionado com a fúria com que a equipa nacional de rugby canta o hino, como se fossem personagens do 300, em emocionados berros de quem se prepara para a guerra. Eu, neste futuro próximo em que o Irão continua a ser bombardeado e a ripostar espalhando a guerra em volta, fiquei impressionado com uma atitude oposta, bem mais corajosa: a equipa feminina de futebol do Irão, durante a Taça Asiática, protestou contra o regime iraniano com silêncio, recusando-se a cantar o hino. Fala-se agora de que repercussões podem sofrer ao regressar ao Irão, algumas jogadoras pediram asilo político.

It’s nice to know that some of my readers have Kobo devices. In addition to my Kindle Paperwhite Gen 7, I also have a Kobo Clara HD. I love my Clara because it’s so easy to upload EPUBs on it.

I’m currently reading The Last Coyote by Michael Connelly. After watching the entire seasons of Bosch, Bosch Legacy, and Ballard, I started reading the books from the beginning. I know Connelly also has the Lincoln Lawyer series and some standalone stories, maybe I’ll read them.

But I do want to read all the Bosch and Ballard ones. I’m quite surprised how different the books are compared to the TV shows. Still, I’m entertained and I can’t stop reading them.

So, what books are you reading right now? Let me know and I might check them out.

#books #Ballard #Bosch #Kindle #Kobo #reading

Spurs vs. Celtics.

My game of choice tonight comes from the NBA, it will feature the Boston Celtics vs. my San Antonio Spurs. With its scheduled start time of 7:00 PM Central Time, this is as late a game as I dare watch during the work week. (No, I don't work anymore, but the wife does. And I need to be up early to fix her coffee and help her leave on time.) So it'll be necessary to have my night prayers caught up by game's end so I can turn in right away.

And the adventure continues.

Jeg har to tatoveringer. Den ene er på leggen. Det hender jeg glemmer den litt, for jeg ser den sjelden, men jeg vet den er der. Den dukket opp på en heisatur til Rhodos for tre år siden. I LOVE BEERSKIS, står det. Jeg elsker ølski. Det hender folk tror det skal være whiskey, men nei, det er ølski, stå på ski og drikke øl.

Den andre fikk jeg på min første guttetur ever, til Ayia Napa. En kompis tok og tatoverte inn bursdagen sin på håndleddet, og da måtte jeg gjøre det og. 02.03.1993 på det venstre håndleddet, på innsiden, rett over pulsåra.

Det var for femten år siden. Jeg var 18 år. I dag fyller jeg 33.