On New Year’s Day, I put out a playlist that contains the 100 tracks I discovered the previous year that I’ve enjoyed the most. So here is my Best Of 2025 in music: BO2025 – hope you enjoy.

It’s 2026 I embrace it with both arms

Even the small black dog — which looks like a lion — has celebrated by taking a cucumber stick in the corner of his mouth, pretending to smoke it like a cigar; then having done that, he shat on the living room floor. Now he is sleeping peacefully on the sofa next to me.

I will try to use his casual happy go lucky attitude as an inspiration now for myself as I enter this new year with three pair of eyes: normal, glasses and finally the pair I opened to the undercurrents. They too are a pair, because they so accurately measure depth…

May this year be the best one in several decades!!

So say we all.

Speaking of which, I saw the dogs circular chewing bone earlier today. It reminded me of the chakram: a circular throwing weapon made famous by Xena.

That’s a powerful woman whose courage I shall also be inspired with

As well as her desire to good, with or without baggage. Make up for all of the past which cannot be changed.

and finally captain Janeway: coffee: black! Doing the right thing, acting on what is known! Leaving none behind!

Let’s go do you feel it

Do your best

It’s all you got

It is New Year’s Eve as I write this. Tomorrow not only marks the start of the Year of our Lord, 2026, it also marks the end of the first week of Christmas. The feast for that is one that we call the feast of the Holy Name of Jesus, but this is a more recent name. For much of Christian history, this has been known as the Feast of the Circumcision.

The readings for the day reflect this: “After eight days had passed, it was time to circumcise the child; and he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb” (Luke 2:21 NRSV). Matthew keeps thing brief by simply noting that Joseph names Jesus (indeed, the actual birth of Jesus more or less happens “off camera” in Matthew’s gospel). In Jewish custom, a male child is circumcised on the eighth day after birth, the number eight being significant as a marker of a new beginning. It was also the custom to declare the child’s name for the first time.

It is curious to me that we in the Episcopal Church opt to ignore the circumcision aspects of the feast day, especially given the fact that we’ve begun addressing areas prone to anti-Semitic interpretation in our liturgical calendar (with a lot of focus on how various readings from John’s gospel have been misconstrued for anti-Semitic purposes over the centuries). That Jesus was incarnate as a Jew is central to understanding Him. His being circumcised is what denotes Him as a Jew.

The scholar Susannah Heschel, the daughter of the great Abraham Heschel, wrote an excellent-though-disturbing book entitled Aryan Jesus that traces the development of Nazi theology and the anti-Semitic threads that ran through German theology going back at least as far as Martin Luther (who was famously anti-Semitic). She places a degree of importance on the liberal theological developments of the late 1800s and early 1900s and how much work was done to distance Jesus from His Jewish identity. Many of the scholars and theologians from this time managed to survive WWII and wound up working in American universities and seminaries. Since the US did not treat such academics as Nazis or Nazi sympathizers, they were able to operate fairly unnoticed, continuing to articulate a Jesus quite divorced from His Jewish heritage.

We see two lasting legacies of this work. The first is the continued treatment of gnosticism as a kind of suppressed “true” version of Christianity that the Church felt threatened by. One of the hallmarks of Christian gnostic ideas is that the God of Judaism is an evil being called the “Demiurge” who wants to enslave humanity in our material existence (with Jesus representing a true God of light that wants to free us from the corruptions of our flesh and materiality). Such gnostic ideas find a degree of resonance with schools of Buddhism, and this is the other legacy of the volkish, Nazi-adjacent theologies of early-20th Century German theology: the attempts to connect Jesus with Buddha. Putting Jesus closer to Buddhism takes Him further away from His Jewishness. Ironically, some of the most avowedly “progressive” people I know unwittingly subscribe to a theological line that was created by vile anti-Semites, but do so out of some desire to be inclusive.

The much-celebrated theologian Stanley Hauerwas says that Christians cannot be properly Christian without understanding themselves as Jewish first. In that same vein he would argue that Jesus cannot be properly understood without knowing Him as a Jew. Which means that we should be talking about the Feast of the Circumcision, even if the topic is uncomfortable. It is the only right and proper thing to do if we are serious about resisting anti-Semitism in our religion.

I spent the majority of my ordained ministry in Southeast Florida, the last six of which in Boca Raton before being called to Saint Mary’s. If you don’t know, Boca Raton has a very large Jewish population. I was also the head chaplain of an Episcopal School, which tends to draw students from the Jewish community (some estimates said that our student population was somewhere around 40% Jewish). Ministering in this context was invaluable for me in my own theological development. There are things about Jesus and the New Testament that I would never have picked up on had I not spent a ton of time around Jews. For instance, the notorious story of Jesus and the Syro-Phoenician woman (found in Mark and Luke) seems to most like a story of Jesus being a jerk to a woman in need, his reference to “throwing to dogs” what is meant for “the children” sounding like a racial slur. But this story is actually Jesus at His most rabbinical, teaching a lesson to His disciples in a manner quite consistent with the accounts of the rabbis in the Talmud and Mishna. I never would have caught this had I not been blessed with the opportunity to teach and lead worship with a large group of Jewish students.

In like manner, I would not have learned about the importance of names. Names in the Bible are not arbitrarily repeated because names in Judaism are not arbitrarily repeated. In some Jewish traditions, a child is only named after a dead relative—or after a hero of the faith, with the expectation that they will live according to the name given them.

Notice Joseph. We have two Josephs in our Bible: the child of Jacob/Israel, of technicolor-dream-coat fame and Mary’s husband, who helped raise Jesus. Both have parallel stories in that both are forced into Egypt for the express purpose of preserving God’s people. There’s also the fact that both Josephs are fathers to respective Jesuses.

New Testament Joseph is, of course, the “earthly” father of Jesus. Old Testament Joseph, Joseph ben Israel, went to Egypt. While there he married Asenath and had two children: Manasseh and Ephraim. For whatever reason, Joseph ben Israel does not get a tribe named after him. Instead, his two sons do. From Ephraim (after several generations) begets Nun, who begets Moses’ eventual second-in-command, Joshua. In Hebrew the name “Joshua” is rendered as Yeshua which is also translated in Greek as “Jesus.” This is cool for a couple of reasons.

First, the name means “God’s salvation/deliverer.” Joshua ben Nun is said to have delivered God’s people to their promised land and also liberated (saved) it from idolaters. Joshua/Jesus is, of course, the Savior or humanity and creation. Second, Judaism holds to an idea of two Messiahs, one from David’s lineage (the Mashiach ben David) and another from Joseph’s (the Mashiach ben Yosef), a Messiah that is destined to die in battle. The Gospels are more overt about Jesus’ connections to David, but these connections to Joseph ben Israel cannot be ignored. That God would want New Testament Joseph to name Mary’s son after the famed liberator Joshua helps to speak of the ways in which Jesus fulfills Jewish messianic prophecies—He’s both messiahs, one that dies and one that lives!

Again, these are the sorts of things we miss out on when ignore Jesus’ Jewishness. Indeed, an entire level of meaning of Jesus’ name is lost when we focus on the name at the expense of the circumcision. The two go together, as the scriptures attest.

We are told that Jesus’ name is the “name above all names,” a name at which “every knee shall bend.” That name is, inescapably, a Jewish name rife with Jewish meaning. This is a fact we ignore to our detriment.

In closing out this series on the week of post-Christmas commemorations, we return to the Child that started it all. And we consider once again the words of one the great hymns of this season:

What child is this, who, laid to rest, On Mary’s lap is sleeping, Whom angels greet with anthems sweet While shepherds watch are keeping? This, this is Christ the King, Whom shepherds guard and angels sing; Haste, haste to bring Him laud, The babe, the son of Mary!

This is Jesus, God’s salvation. This is Jesus, the King of the Jews. This is Jesus, the seed promised to Abraham, from which the entire world is blessed.

***

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.

Tonight, on New Year’s Eve, the sky is gray with clouds. Laden with snow, they cover even the moon like baking parchment. However, this seems to only soften and multiply its shine — like a lampshade — rather than obscure it.

But now it’s all black as the clock nears twelve, and some snow has fallen, like a rich amount of white Parmesan cheese, like when the waiter asks when to stop, but noone is stopping.

And I have a headache in my left brain half, the other half is full of confusion.

I think that it’s 2025 I am feeling still.

But it’s not even an hour left of that.

And I have great hopes for the future.

I saw this moon shining through on this day and knew that too for a good omen!

Je suis développeur et pourtant, j’ai passé une année sans écrire de code (si vous m’autorisez quelques lignes ça et là que j’ai rajoutées dans une configuration ou pour faire un renommage par lot). Je suis idéologiquement réfractaire à l’IA générative, mais le boulot d’un développeur consiste à s’adapter aux changements de technologie en gardant le cap et la méthode qui lui permettent de créer dans n’importe quel contexte. Et comme j’ai dépassé les 50 ans, je sais que la moindre défaillance sur mon CV signifie mise en retraite anticipée. Par conséquent, embrasser ce que l’IA générative a à offrir à mon métier m’a été naturel, il se pourrait même que je garde encore des pulsions technophiles que l’âge m’avait appris à raisonner.

Dans la guerre des LLMs, Anthropic a très vite été mon chouchou, parce qu’il est très fort en code, mais aussi très fort en compréhension linguistique en générale. Mes prompts ont quasiment tout le temps été rédigés en français, et je n’ai quasiment jamais senti que Claude faisait des mauvaises interprétations de mes demandes à cause de la langue ; évidemment, parfois mes mauvais prompts l’ont envoyé dans le mur. La version chat de Claude demandait une certaine patience : des limites d’utilisation drastiques, et une taille de contexte réduite, même dans les projets en version payante. Pendant plusieurs mois, j’étais plutôt une exception à utiliser Claude à la place de ChatGPT, mais la tendance s’est inversée d’un coup avec l’arrivée de Claude Code et de son intégration dans les plans payants pour le chat. Pour une centaine d’euros par mois, on pouvait enfin utiliser Claude à tout moment, et avoir un contexte exceptionnel large puisque Claude Code pouvait lire nos fichiers directement dans le projet.

J’ai utilisé cette IA générative non seulement pour des tâches de code, mais aussi pour créer des textes courts, longs, des romans, des visual novels en Renpy, des manuels de jeu. J’ai été grisé parfois, je me suis arraché les cheveux aussi parfois, mais je me suis fait mon opinion sur la base de ma propre expérience, et c’est bien sur de cela dont je vais parler maintenant. A l’heure où j’ai rendu à un éditeur un draft de 50 pages pour une publication future à 95 % rédigée et mise en page par Claude, j’ai envie de prendre du recul, d’autant que… spoiler, je n’ai pas l’intention de continuer dans cette voie.

Au niveau professionnel, malgré quelques retards dont je me serai bien passés, et quelques cassages énervants que j’aurais pu éviter avec une meilleure méthodologie, l’évidence est là : l’IA code mieux que moi, elle code plus vite que moi, et je n’ai aucune tristesse à la regarder construire des fonctionnalités complexes devant mes yeux, bien au contraire : j’imagine qu’un architecte ne se demande pas pourquoi ce n’est pas lui qui a posé la poutre et visé les tuyauteries. L’offensive des gros éditeurs de services d’IA générative sur la production du code a pu parfois donner l’impression d’une volonté de mettre à mal la professionnel, mais en vérité les raisons pour lesquelles les llms sont forts en coding se devinent aisément : les bases de connaissances de code étaient déjà complètement numérisées, écrire dans un langage pour une machine s’avère sûrement bien moins compliqué que de parler une langue humaine, et l’entraînement des llms peut se faire avec l’implication volontaire de développeurs enthousiastes plutôt que dans des usines néocoloniales où on demande à des étrangers de statuer sur la catégorisation d’un contenu.

Au niveau personnel, sur les essais d’écriture que j’ai fait via claude, le bilan est nettement moins glorieux. La phase de recherche et de production de contenus est tout aussi rapide que pour écrire une application informatique, mais par contre les critères d’acceptation ne se mesurent pas au fait que « ça fonctionne » ou non. Sur du code, vous pouvez faire des analyses de cohérence qui sont réussies haut la main par un llm, mais sur une rédaction en français, la cohérence se cherche sur de multiples axes : la logique interne du texte, le respect de la grammaire, la cohérence du ton employé sur l’ensemble de la rédaction, le respect des références qu’on a voulu lui insuffler et j’en passe. Et là je ne suis même pas encore en train de juger l’intérêt global du texte pour un lecteur humain, nous sommes restés sur les fondations du projet qui, dès le début, prend l’eau. Alors j’ai écopé. Constatant que Claude était incapable de réussir sur un texte long ce qu’il savait faire sur des milliers de code, j’ai revu ma méthodologie pour me charger des choix stratégiques, des idées et structures globales, et lui laisser broder dessus. Même ainsi, vous vous tirez des balles dans le pied car dès que vous voulez remanier une idée, essayer une autre direction, faire revoir à l’IA tous les endroits du texte qui ont trait à vos changements ne peut jamais complètement s’automatiser. Vous finissez par avoir une prose où pullulent les incohérences de sens, de ton, et de lexique. Tel un oignon, vous avancez par couche, vous faites des vagues de relecture complète avec annotation, que l’IA va corriger, mais vous savez qu’aux prochaines avancées de votre ouvrage, d’autres relectures seront nécessaires.

Fan de jeu de rôle, j’ai évidemment testé aussi les fonctionnalités du chat pour savoir si l’interactivité d’une IA pouvait remplacer un véritable MJ, surtout en ces temps où tous les jeux sont frappés par la mode commercial du jeu en solitaire. Et dans les app stores, sont légion les produits qui vont proposent des jeux de drague, d’exploration narrative ou de jeu de rôles avec une série de personas au design aguicheur. Je les ai essayé et détesté très vite, d’abord parce que le coût est prohibitif (oui, plus que de louer les services d’un vrai mj pour une partie chez vous), mais aussi parce que l’expérience est désastreuse. La continuité narrative n’est jamais vraiment respectée, les dialogues sont des lieux communs qui lassent très vite, les descriptions ne sont jamais bien dosées… Pour qui aime le jeu de rôles textuel, la souffrance est réelle !

Mais comme je vous l’ai dit, Anthropic a une place particulière dans mon coeur, car il a toujours reconnu ses erreurs (à l’inverse d’un ChatGPT qui soutient les pires mensonges), il est positif et plutôt pro-actif, j’ai très rarement l’impression de perdre mon temps avec lui, du moins sur l’instant. Alors je me suis dit que j’allais concevoir une sorte de programme narratif, dans lequel l’IA serait mon MJ, et en lui donnant un ensemble de consignes et de garde fou, il pourrait être aussi bon que les applis vendues dans les app stores. En fait, il a été bien meilleur, une fois que je l’ai préparé sur les règles, sur les intrigues, les pnjs, sur le ton à adopter pour chacun, j’avais des résultats convaincants. Tellement convaincants que j’avais rajouté dans le système une couche de code visual novel pour convertir mes comptes rendus partie en jeu vidéo ! Malheureusement, un dialogue qui est amusant dans un entre-soi avec la machine doit être relu, modifié, enrichi pour devenir une création publiable pour le public, j’en revenais encore une fois à ce constat : malgré le temps important et les efforts non négligeables que j’avais passé, ajouté au temps très important et aux efforts non négligeable d’Anthropic pour créer son modèle, j’étais encore très loin d’atteindre la qualité d’une production humaine d’intérêt. Il y avait bien l’illusion de la quantité, le vernis des myriades de recherches que l’on peut faire quand on a un agent numérique pour chercher les informations à votre place, mais l’ensemble restait bancal, inachevé. Là où l’IA générative pouvait complètement me replacer dans une production de code, j’étais au contraire constamment obligé de la soutenir et de l’aider sur une demande créative, et quand je parle de créativité, entendons-nous, je reste dans un domaine ludique sans grand enjeu intellectuel.

Et je ne vous ai pas parlé de mes essais à utiliser mon texte de visual novel pour créer des illustrations de personnages avec trois émotions, ca a été plusieurs jours épiques dans les méandres des applications de création d’images par IA avec des dizaines de modèles aux différences sybillines qui sont incapables de garder un contexte réel (c’est à dire comprendre les éléments de l’image, et les faire évoluer selon la demande).

J’ai l’impression d’être ce réalisateur journaliste dans Supersize Me qui a mangé du McDonalds pendant un mois, je suis heureux d’avoir été au bout de l’expérience, mais quand je regarde derrière moi et je vois tous les dégâts (relatifs) derrière moi, j’ai aussi envie de pleurer. J’ai poursuivi une chimère vendue par tous les influenceurs, j’ai cru la toucher du doigt, et au final à minuit, elle m’est apparue pour ce qu’elle est : un écran de fumée. Car, si je suis honnête, j’aurais sûrement réussi à faire tout ces créations moi-même, j’aurais mis beaucoup plus de temps et d’efforts à les faire qu’avec de l’IA, mais je n’aurais pas été obligé de les réécrire ou de les mettre honteusement dans un tiroir. A fortiori pendant un moment où les artistes montent au créneau pour qu’on arrête de leur dire que des algorithmes vont faire mieux qu’eux pour moins cher.

Asma Mhalla parle très bien du danger de l’objectif de rentabilité et d’efficience qui est vendue avec l’IA. D’une part, tout le temps n’a pas envie d’être data analyst pointu avec des compétences en programmation, et d’autre part, en enlevant tous les moments où la performance était moindre, l’IA essore les intellects des experts qui travaillent avec, les exhorte à être géniaux 8h par jour au lieu de 2h ou 3h, évidemment c’est impossible. Et d’ailleurs, lorsque vous le faites, vous avez un sentiment de vide qui s’installe, l’impression que vous êtes l’employé de la machine et que ce n’est plus elle qui travaille pour vous.

Je vous invite évidemment, soit à prendre une position éthique du bon sens comme dit Aurélien Barrau, et ne pas utiliser l’IA générative qui est une monstruosité écologique, économique et politique, soit si votre métier peut se combiner avec un llm pour vraiment vous aider (c’est mon cas), à borner les usages que vous avez avec. Dans ce dernier cas, la mauvaise conscience est encore là mais vous ne sacrifiez pas votre carrière et vos résultats sur une prise de position courageuse (mais sectaire). Car en vérité, comme tous les questions qui touchent à la planète et à l’humanité, ce n’est pas parce que vous ferez votre part de colibri dans votre coin que d’autres n’en profiteront pas pour prendre votre place et faire deux fois pire que vous. Je trouve le quotidien suffisamment déprimant et complexe à vivre pour ne pas y rajouter la culpabilité de ne pas être le héros exemplaire que je devrais être si je suivais à la lettre les idéaux pour lesquels je crois. Je songerai sérieusement à redevenir dans le camp des gentils quand il y a moins de la moitié de mon pays qui est pour arrêter les massacres à Gaza, le racisme, et contre l’application des lois proposées par la Convention Citoyenne du Climat.

Et 2026 dans tout cela ?

Une conférence résume vraiment tous les enjeux autour de la bulle spéculative autour de l’IA, en passant par les enjeux militaires, géostratégiques, économiques, sociaux, écologiques et même poétiques, je vous la laisse en guise d’étrennes. Portez-vous bien, testez les IA si vous voulez, mais interrogez-vous sur ce qu’elle vous apporte vraiment, et si vous n’auriez pas fait mieux vous même (certes plus lentement, mais pour plus de qualité).

https://youtu.be/44m76J6DkZY?si=nEaJ5CwWV6qWy7zD

#stopia #newyearsday #offgaming

Je suis développeur et pourtant, j’ai passé une année sans écrire de code (si vous m’autorisez quelques lignes ça et là que j’ai rajoutées dans une configuration ou pour faire un renommage par lot). Je suis idéologiquement réfractaire à l’IA générative, mais le boulot d’un développeur consiste à s’adapter aux changements de technologie en gardant le cap et la méthode qui lui permettent de créer dans n’importe quel contexte. Et comme j’ai dépassé les 50 ans, je sais que la moindre défaillance sur mon CV signifie mise en retraite anticipée. Par conséquent, embrasser ce que l’IA générative a à offrir à mon métier m’a été naturel, il se pourrait même que je garde encore des pulsions technophiles que l’âge m’avait appris à raisonner.

Dans la guerre des LLMs, Anthropic a très vite été mon chouchou, parce qu’il est très fort en code, mais aussi très fort en compréhension linguistique en générale. Mes prompts ont quasiment tout le temps été rédigés en français, et je n’ai quasiment jamais senti que Claude faisait des mauvaises interprétations de mes demandes à cause de la langue ; évidemment, parfois mes mauvais prompts l’ont envoyé dans le mur. La version chat de Claude demandait une certaine patience : des limites d’utilisation drastiques, et une taille de contexte réduite, même dans les projets en version payante. Pendant plusieurs mois, j’étais plutôt une exception à utiliser Claude à la place de ChatGPT, mais la tendance s’est inversée d’un coup avec l’arrivée de Claude Code et de son intégration dans les plans payants pour le chat. Pour une centaine d’euros par mois, on pouvait enfin utiliser Claude à tout moment, et avoir un contexte exceptionnel large puisque Claude Code pouvait lire nos fichiers directement dans le projet.

J’ai utilisé cette IA générative non seulement pour des tâches de code, mais aussi pour créer des textes courts, longs, des romans, des visual novels en Renpy, des manuels de jeu. J’ai été grisé parfois, je me suis arraché les cheveux aussi parfois, mais je me suis fait mon opinion sur la base de ma propre expérience, et c’est bien sur de cela dont je vais parler maintenant. A l’heure où j’ai rendu à un éditeur un draft de 50 pages pour une publication future à 95 % rédigée et mise en page par Claude, j’ai envie de prendre du recul, d’autant que… spoiler, je n’ai pas l’intention de continuer dans cette voie.

Au niveau professionnel, malgré quelques retards dont je me serai bien passés, et quelques cassages énervants que j’aurais pu éviter avec une meilleure méthodologie, l’évidence est là : l’IA code mieux que moi, elle code plus vite que moi, et je n’ai aucune tristesse à la regarder construire des fonctionnalités complexes devant mes yeux, bien au contraire : j’imagine qu’un architecte ne se demande pas pourquoi ce n’est pas lui qui a posé la poutre et visé les tuyauteries. L’offensive des gros éditeurs de services d’IA générative sur la production du code a pu parfois donner l’impression d’une volonté de mettre à mal la professionnel, mais en vérité les raisons pour lesquelles les llms sont forts en coding se devinent aisément : les bases de connaissances de code étaient déjà complètement numérisées, écrire dans un langage pour une machine s’avère sûrement bien moins compliqué que de parler une langue humaine, et l’entraînement des llms peut se faire avec l’implication volontaire de développeurs enthousiastes plutôt que dans des usines néocoloniales où on demande à des étrangers de statuer sur la catégorisation d’un contenu.

Au niveau personnel, sur les essais d’écriture que j’ai fait via claude, le bilan est nettement moins glorieux. La phase de recherche et de production de contenus est tout aussi rapide que pour écrire une application informatique, mais par contre les critères d’acceptation ne se mesurent pas au fait que « ça fonctionne » ou non. Sur du code, vous pouvez faire des analyses de cohérence qui sont réussies haut la main par un llm, mais sur une rédaction en français, la cohérence se cherche sur de multiples axes : la logique interne du texte, le respect de la grammaire, la cohérence du ton employé sur l’ensemble de la rédaction, le respect des références qu’on a voulu lui insuffler et j’en passe. Et là je ne suis même pas encore en train de juger l’intérêt global du texte pour un lecteur humain, nous sommes restés sur les fondations du projet qui, dès le début, prend l’eau. Alors j’ai écopé. Constatant que Claude était incapable de réussir sur un texte long ce qu’il savait faire sur des milliers de code, j’ai revu ma méthodologie pour me charger des choix stratégiques, des idées et structures globales, et lui laisser broder dessus. Même ainsi, vous vous tirez des balles dans le pied car dès que vous voulez remanier une idée, essayer une autre direction, faire revoir à l’IA tous les endroits du texte qui ont trait à vos changements ne peut jamais complètement s’automatiser. Vous finissez par avoir une prose où pullulent les incohérences de sens, de ton, et de lexique. Tel un oignon, vous avancez par couche, vous faites des vagues de relecture complète avec annotation, que l’IA va corriger, mais vous savez qu’aux prochaines avancées de votre ouvrage, d’autres relectures seront nécessaires.

Fan de jeu de rôle, j’ai évidemment testé aussi les fonctionnalités du chat pour savoir si l’interactivité d’une IA pouvait remplacer un véritable MJ, surtout en ces temps où tous les jeux sont frappés par la mode commercial du jeu en solitaire. Et dans les app stores, sont légion les produits qui vont proposent des jeux de drague, d’exploration narrative ou de jeu de rôles avec une série de personas au design aguicheur. Je les ai essayé et détesté très vite, d’abord parce que le coût est prohibitif (oui, plus que de louer les services d’un vrai mj pour une partie chez vous), mais aussi parce que l’expérience est désastreuse. La continuité narrative n’est jamais vraiment respectée, les dialogues sont des lieux communs qui lassent très vite, les descriptions ne sont jamais bien dosées… Pour qui aime le jeu de rôles textuel, la souffrance est réelle !

Mais comme je vous l’ai dit, Anthropic a une place particulière dans mon coeur, car il a toujours reconnu ses erreurs (à l’inverse d’un ChatGPT qui soutient les pires mensonges), il est positif et plutôt pro-actif, j’ai très rarement l’impression de perdre mon temps avec lui, du moins sur l’instant. Alors je me suis dit que j’allais concevoir une sorte de programme narratif, dans lequel l’IA serait mon MJ, et en lui donnant un ensemble de consignes et de garde fou, il pourrait être aussi bon que les applis vendues dans les app stores. En fait, il a été bien meilleur, une fois que je l’ai préparé sur les règles, sur les intrigues, les pnjs, sur le ton à adopter pour chacun, j’avais des résultats convaincants. Tellement convaincants que j’avais rajouté dans le système une couche de code visual novel pour convertir mes comptes rendus partie en jeu vidéo ! Malheureusement, un dialogue qui est amusant dans un entre-soi avec la machine doit être relu, modifié, enrichi pour devenir une création publiable pour le public, j’en revenais encore une fois à ce constat : malgré le temps important et les efforts non négligeables que j’avais passé, ajouté au temps très important et aux efforts non négligeable d’Anthropic pour créer son modèle, j’étais encore très loin d’atteindre la qualité d’une production humaine d’intérêt. Il y avait bien l’illusion de la quantité, le vernis des myriades de recherches que l’on peut faire quand on a un agent numérique pour chercher les informations à votre place, mais l’ensemble restait bancal, inachevé. Là où l’IA générative pouvait complètement me replacer dans une production de code, j’étais au contraire constamment obligé de la soutenir et de l’aider sur une demande créative, et quand je parle de créativité, entendons-nous, je reste dans un domaine ludique sans grand enjeu intellectuel.

Et je ne vous ai pas parlé de mes essais à utiliser mon texte de visual novel pour créer des illustrations de personnages avec trois émotions, ca a été plusieurs jours épiques dans les méandres des applications de création d’images par IA avec des dizaines de modèles aux différences sybillines qui sont incapables de garder un contexte réel (c’est à dire comprendre les éléments de l’image, et les faire évoluer selon la demande).

J’ai l’impression d’être ce réalisateur journaliste dans Supersize Me qui a mangé du McDonalds pendant un mois, je suis heureux d’avoir été au bout de l’expérience, mais quand je regarde derrière moi et je vois tous les dégâts (relatifs) derrière moi, j’ai aussi envie de pleurer. J’ai poursuivi une chimère vendue par tous les influenceurs, j’ai cru la toucher du doigt, et au final à minuit, elle m’est apparue pour ce qu’elle est : un écran de fumée. Car, si je suis honnête, j’aurais sûrement réussi à faire tout ces créations moi-même, j’aurais mis beaucoup plus de temps et d’efforts à les faire qu’avec de l’IA, mais je n’aurais pas été obligé de les réécrire ou de les mettre honteusement dans un tiroir. A fortiori pendant un moment où les artistes montent au créneau pour qu’on arrête de leur dire que des algorithmes vont faire mieux qu’eux pour moins cher.

Asma Mhalla parle très bien du danger de l’objectif de rentabilité et d’efficience qui est vendue avec l’IA. D’une part, tout le temps n’a pas envie d’être data analyst pointu avec des compétences en programmation, et d’autre part, en enlevant tous les moments où la performance était moindre, l’IA essore les intellects des experts qui travaillent avec, les exhorte à être géniaux 8h par jour au lieu de 2h ou 3h, évidemment c’est impossible. Et d’ailleurs, lorsque vous le faites, vous avez un sentiment de vide qui s’installe, l’impression que vous êtes l’employé de la machine et que ce n’est plus elle qui travaille pour vous.

Je vous invite évidemment, soit à prendre une position éthique du bon sens comme dit Aurélien Barrau, et ne pas utiliser l’IA générative qui est une monstruosité écologique, économique et politique, soit si votre métier peut se combiner avec un llm pour vraiment vous aider (c’est mon cas), à borner les usages que vous avez avec. Dans ce dernier cas, la mauvaise conscience est encore là mais vous ne sacrifiez pas votre carrière et vos résultats sur une prise de position courageuse (mais sectaire). Car en vérité, comme tous les questions qui touchent à la planète et à l’humanité, ce n’est pas parce que vous ferez votre part de colibri dans votre coin que d’autres n’en profiteront pas pour prendre votre place et faire deux fois pire que vous. Je trouve le quotidien suffisamment déprimant et complexe à vivre pour ne pas y rajouter la culpabilité de ne pas être le héros exemplaire que je devrais être si je suivais à la lettre les idéaux pour lesquels je crois. Je songerai sérieusement à redevenir dans le camp des gentils quand il y a moins de la moitié de mon pays qui est pour arrêter les massacres à Gaza, le racisme, et contre l’application des lois proposées par la Convention Citoyenne du Climat.

Et 2026 dans tout cela ?

Une conférence résume vraiment tous les enjeux autour de la bulle spéculative autour de l’IA, en passant par les enjeux militaires, géostratégiques, économiques, sociaux, écologiques et même poétiques, je vous la laisse en guise d’étrennes. Portez-vous bien, testez les IA si vous voulez, mais interrogez-vous sur ce qu’elle vous apporte vraiment, et si vous n’auriez pas fait mieux vous même (certes plus lentement, mais pour plus de qualité).

https://youtu.be/44m76J6DkZY?si=nEaJ5CwWV6qWy7zD

#stopia #newyearsday #offgaming

The SOUND “Angershade” sounds like modern darkness engineered with surgical precision—a fusion of atmosphere, weight, and tension. The music feels architectural: layers built deliberately, each instrument occupying its own dimensional space. The bass is the gravitational core—deep, melodic, and relentless. It moves like a pulse through fog, carrying both groove and emotion. The tone is rich and textured, often driven, slightly overdriven, or compressed to sit thick in the mix without losing clarity.
The drums form the spine: cinematic, patient, and deliberate. The kicks land heavy but spacious, the snares tight and reverberant, toms tuned low to create rolling depth. Every rhythm breathes—it’s not speed that drives it but gravity. The percussion feels human but mechanical in discipline, giving the music that “engine heartbeat” beneath its atmosphere.
Guitars are ghosts and weather systems—minimalist but expressive. They shimmer in layers of reverb and delay, often swelling rather than striking, acting as texture instead of riff. When distortion enters, it’s sculpted—dense, wide, and emotional, never messy. Clean tones glisten like broken glass in moonlight, shifting between melancholy and menace.
Synths and ambient textures weave through everything, not as decoration but as foundation—pads that move like breathing, subharmonic swells that blur the line between analog and digital. The sound design leans cinematic, balancing warmth and sterility, melody and decay.
Altogether, the sound of Angershade feels like the moment between collapse and creation—industrial precision colliding with human melancholy. It’s rhythm as architecture, tone as emotion, and silence as an instrument. Every frequency feels intentional, as if sculpted to make darkness beautiful. The CHRONOLOGY ERA I 09/2008 – Founded and Registered
03/2014 – First Track “Glock” demoed
05/2014 – “Glock” sesssion recorded & mixed
06/2015 – “Glock” mastered and released an SP Era II 07/2018 – Concept for first album begins 08/2018 – “Envy” conceptualized
 09/2018 – “Hex” conceptulized
 10/2018 – Sampled voiced created with Tes & Olivia “The Witches”
01/2019 – “Isolation” written & live demoed
 02/2019 – “Adept” conceptualized
 03 – 05/2019 – “Demos completed”
 06 – 07/2019 – Session recording begins and ends for “Arete” 
09/2019 – Mixdown of Arete
 10/2019 – Mixdown and Mastering of Arete
 11/2019 – Cover concept design and Release date set for Arete
 12/05/2019 – Arete released under Yegge Label with CdBaby. 
10/2020 – “Hex (Prognosticator Mix)” started
 12/03/2020 – “Hex (Prognosticator Mix)” released under Sonancy Label
 02/2021 – Promo for Sonancy featuring Half written track “HeXXmaS” launches
 03/2021 – prepping the Session releases for “Hex” and “Envy” Sessions
 04/2021 – Sonancy closes its doors, assets acquired by Yegge Publishing.
 05/2021 – Hex & Envy Sessions Released under Auricle label and Soundcloud.
 10/2021 – Demoing “The Isolation Sessions”
 02/2022 – Session recording “The Isolation Sessions”
 05 – 07/2022 – Mixing and mastering “The Isolation Sessions”
 07/28/2022 “The Isolation Sessions” released under the Yegge Label with Distrokid
 08/2022 – All releases except The Hex Sessions & The Envy Sessions change distributors over to Distrokid
 03/2023 – Plans to remaster Arete start
 05 – 08/2023 – Arete Remastered and planned as an LP release on CD, Vinyl, and Streaming.
 08/2023 -
``13th “The Hex Sessions” & “The Envy Sessions” & “Vinyl & CD Pre-order launches”
 10/11/2023 VInyl CD Preorder ends and is released. 
11/17/2023 Arete “Remastered” released on streaming
 12/2023 – 06/2024 Hiatus Era III 7/2024 – Present | Stages of the new album begin from concept to release.
 12/2025 | Relocate studio to an undisclosed location. Only a select few to know location. Work on new album commences.

I love the start of a new year. It gives you the illusion of a clean slate, and often that’s all you need to make changes and start new things. It’s not about life-changing resolutions; it’s about saying that this will be the best year ever and believing in it, at least for a while.

Acts 7 is not a gentle chapter. It is not devotional in the soft sense. It is not designed to make anyone feel affirmed in what they already believe. Acts 7 is a collision. It is the longest speech in the book of Acts, and it is delivered by a man who knows he will not walk away once he finishes speaking. Stephen is not defending himself in order to survive. He is testifying in order to be faithful. That distinction changes everything about how this chapter must be read.

Most people remember Acts 7 as the chapter where Stephen is stoned. That memory, while accurate, misses the deeper shock of the chapter. The execution is not the climax. The sermon is. Stephen’s death is the consequence, not the point. The point is that he tells the truth in a room that has already decided what truth is allowed to sound like. Acts 7 is not about martyrdom as spectacle. It is about what happens when a faithful retelling of God’s story exposes the danger of religious certainty without humility.

Stephen stands before the Sanhedrin, the same religious authority that condemned Jesus. He is accused of speaking against Moses, the law, and the temple. In other words, he is accused of being dangerous to tradition. His response is not to deny the charge in the way they expect. Instead, he does something far more unsettling. He tells their own story back to them, but he tells it honestly.

From the first sentence of his speech, Stephen takes control of the narrative. He begins with Abraham, not Moses. That alone is significant. He reminds them that God called Abraham while he was still in Mesopotamia, before the promised land, before circumcision, before the law, before the temple. The implication is quiet but devastating. God was moving long before your structures existed. God was speaking long before your systems were in place. God’s faithfulness does not begin with your institutions.

Stephen’s retelling of Israel’s history is not a history lesson for beginners. His audience knows these stories intimately. That is precisely why his approach is so dangerous. He is not introducing new facts. He is re-framing familiar ones. He highlights patterns that are uncomfortable to acknowledge. Over and over again, he emphasizes how God initiates and people resist. God sends deliverers, and they are rejected. God speaks through unexpected voices, and those voices are ignored or opposed. God moves ahead of the people, and the people cling to what feels safe.

Abraham leaves. Joseph is betrayed by his brothers. Moses is rejected by the very people he is sent to save. The pattern is not accidental. Stephen is building toward something, and his listeners can feel it. Every example tightens the room. Every story removes another layer of insulation between their self-image and the truth.

What makes Stephen’s speech so powerful is not anger. It is clarity. He does not shout. He does not insult until the end. He lets the story itself do the work. He shows that Israel’s history is not a straight line of obedience but a complicated relationship with a faithful God and a resistant people. This is not an attack on Israel. It is a refusal to romanticize the past in order to protect the present.

When Stephen speaks about Moses, the tension becomes unmistakable. Moses is the hero of the law, the deliverer, the lawgiver. Stephen honors Moses deeply, but he also tells the parts of the story that are often softened. He reminds them that Moses was rejected the first time he tried to intervene. “Who made you a ruler and judge over us?” they asked. Stephen does not skip that line. He underlines it with history. The deliverer was rejected before he was accepted. The savior was misunderstood before he was followed.

The parallels to Jesus are obvious, but Stephen does not even need to name them yet. The pattern speaks for itself. God’s messengers are rarely welcomed by the people who believe they are most faithful. Deliverance does not arrive in the form people expect, and when it does not, it is often resisted.

Stephen also dismantles the idea that God’s presence is confined to sacred spaces. He reminds them that God appeared to Moses in the wilderness, in Midian, in a burning bush far from Jerusalem. The holy ground was not defined by architecture but by God’s presence. This is a direct challenge to temple-centered faith. Not because the temple is evil, but because it has been elevated beyond its purpose.

By the time Stephen reaches the golden calf, the air is thick. He points out that while Moses was receiving living words from God, the people were crafting an idol. They wanted something visible, manageable, controllable. This is not ancient history. It is a diagnosis. People prefer gods they can predict over a God who speaks and disrupts.

Stephen’s speech is relentless in its honesty, but it is also deeply rooted in Scripture. He is not rejecting the story of Israel. He is insisting that the story be told fully. He refuses to let selective memory become a substitute for faithfulness. This is why Acts 7 still matters so much. It exposes the danger of knowing the Bible well enough to quote it but not well enough to let it confront us.

The turning point of the speech comes near the end, when Stephen finally names the pattern explicitly. He says what the stories have been implying all along. “You stiff-necked people,” he says, “uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit.” This is the moment when the room explodes internally. Up until now, Stephen has been narrating history. Now he is interpreting it. And in doing so, he collapses the distance between past and present.

Stephen does not accuse them of being worse than their ancestors. He accuses them of being the same. That is far more threatening. If they were worse, they could dismiss him as exaggerated. If they were different, they could reassure themselves that they had learned. But if they are the same, then everything is at risk.

He goes even further. He accuses them of betraying and murdering the Righteous One. The implication is unmistakable. The pattern has continued. The prophets were persecuted. The deliverers were rejected. And now, the Messiah has been killed by those who believed they were defending God.

This is not blasphemy. It is prophecy. It is also why Stephen cannot survive this speech. The Sanhedrin does not need more evidence. They are not interested in dialogue. They are enraged because Stephen has stripped away their moral insulation. He has exposed the possibility that religious certainty can coexist with resistance to God.

Stephen’s vision of Jesus standing at the right hand of God is not a triumphant escape. It is a confirmation. He sees Jesus not seated, but standing. As if to welcome him. As if to bear witness to his faithfulness. As if to affirm that telling the truth, even when it costs everything, is not wasted.

What follows is brutal. Stephen is dragged outside the city and stoned. But even in his death, his words continue. He echoes Jesus, praying for forgiveness for those who are killing him. This is not weakness. It is alignment. Stephen dies as he lived, fully conformed to the pattern of Christ.

Acts 7 forces uncomfortable questions. Not about history, but about us. Do we love God’s story, or do we love our version of it? Are we open to the possibility that God may move beyond the structures we have built to honor Him? Do we recognize the danger of confusing tradition with obedience?

Stephen’s speech is not preserved in Scripture because it is eloquent, though it is. It is preserved because it reveals something essential about faith. Faith is not proven by how fiercely we defend what we have inherited. Faith is revealed by how willing we are to follow God when He moves in ways that unsettle us.

Acts 7 reminds us that it is possible to know Scripture and still resist the Spirit. It is possible to defend God and still oppose His work. It is possible to honor the past while missing the present. Stephen did not die because he hated Israel. He died because he loved God’s truth more than his own safety.

This chapter refuses to let us remain comfortable readers. It asks whether we are listening to God or merely protecting our assumptions. It challenges us to examine whether our faith is alive and responsive, or carefully preserved and untouchable.

In the next part, we will look more closely at why Stephen’s retelling of history was so threatening, how Acts 7 reshapes the way we understand religious authority, and what this chapter demands from anyone who claims to follow Jesus today.

Stephen’s speech becomes even more unsettling the longer you sit with it, because Acts 7 is not merely an indictment of ancient leaders. It is a mirror held up to every generation that believes it has finally arrived at religious maturity. What makes this chapter endure is not that it exposes corruption in someone else, long ago, but that it quietly asks whether we would have stood with Stephen or stood with the stones.

One of the most overlooked aspects of Acts 7 is that Stephen never once argues for novelty. He is not presenting a new religion. He is not discarding Moses. He is not rejecting the law. He is insisting that God has always been bigger than the containers built to hold Him. That distinction matters, because religious resistance rarely announces itself as rebellion. It almost always disguises itself as faithfulness.

Stephen shows that the people he is addressing did not wake up one day intending to oppose God. They believed they were guarding something sacred. That is the danger. The greatest threat to living faith is not open hostility. It is settled certainty. It is the belief that God has already spoken fully and finally in ways that require no further listening.

This is why Stephen spends so much time emphasizing movement. Abraham moves. Joseph is moved. Moses flees and returns. Israel wanders. God’s presence appears in unexpected places. Acts 7 is a story in motion. The Sanhedrin, by contrast, represents fixity. Authority rooted in location. Power anchored to place. Truth tied to structure. Stephen’s crime is not doctrinal error. It is reminding them that God does not stay where He is put.

The temple looms large in this conflict. For the leaders, the temple is the ultimate symbol of God’s nearness. For Stephen, the temple has become a test case. Not because it is false, but because it has been absolutized. When something meant to point to God becomes the thing we defend most fiercely, it has quietly taken God’s place.

Stephen quotes the prophets to make this point unmistakable. “Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool,” God says. “What kind of house will you build for me?” This is not anti-worship. It is anti-control. God is reminding His people that He cannot be contained, domesticated, or owned. Any attempt to do so, no matter how sincere, risks becoming idolatry.

This is where Acts 7 cuts deeply into modern faith as well. It challenges the assumption that longevity equals correctness. It confronts the idea that tradition automatically confers authority. Stephen does not deny the value of what came before. He denies the right of any generation to freeze God’s movement in time.

Stephen’s accusation that they “resist the Holy Spirit” is one of the most sobering phrases in the New Testament. Resistance to the Spirit is not framed here as moral failure. It is framed as spiritual rigidity. The inability to recognize God’s voice when it speaks differently than expected. The refusal to follow when obedience threatens identity.

What makes this resistance so tragic is that it is consistent. Stephen points out that their ancestors persecuted the prophets. Now they have murdered the Righteous One. The problem is not ignorance. It is pattern. And patterns, once exposed, are difficult to deny.

This is why the reaction is so violent. Truth that indicts behavior can be debated. Truth that exposes identity is unbearable. Stephen does not simply accuse them of doing something wrong. He tells them who they are becoming. He tells them they have aligned themselves with the very forces they believe they oppose.

Acts 7 also forces us to rethink courage. Stephen’s boldness is not reckless. It is rooted. He speaks as someone who knows the story so well that he cannot lie about it to save himself. His courage flows from coherence. His faith is not compartmentalized. It is integrated. What he believes, he lives. What he teaches, he embodies.

Stephen’s vision of Jesus standing at God’s right hand is not incidental. In Jewish imagery, a seated figure signifies completed work. A standing figure signifies advocacy or readiness. Stephen sees Jesus as one who stands to receive him, to testify on his behalf, to affirm that his life and death are not meaningless. This vision reframes martyrdom. Stephen is not abandoned. He is accompanied.

The presence of Saul at Stephen’s execution is another detail loaded with significance. Saul is introduced not as a villain, but as a witness. He watches. He approves. And later, he will become Paul. Acts 7 is not only about judgment. It is about seed. Stephen’s faithfulness plants something that will later explode into the Gentile mission. God is already at work beyond the moment of violence.

This reminds us that obedience does not always look successful in the moment. Stephen does not see the fruit of his witness. He does not get to watch Saul’s conversion. He does not get to participate in the church’s expansion. Faithfulness is not rewarded with immediate validation. Sometimes it is simply received by God and planted in ways we will never see.

Acts 7 challenges the metrics by which we measure impact. Stephen’s ministry appears short, interrupted, cut off. Yet his words echo through the rest of Acts. His theology shapes the church’s understanding of mission. His death accelerates the scattering of believers, which spreads the gospel further. What looks like defeat becomes multiplication.

This chapter also forces a painful self-examination. Would we recognize God if He spoke outside our preferred frameworks? Would we follow truth if it threatened our belonging? Would we listen to a voice like Stephen’s, or would we label it dangerous, divisive, or unfaithful?

Acts 7 does not allow us to remain neutral. It demands that we decide whether faith is primarily about preserving what we have received or responding to what God is doing now. It exposes the cost of telling the truth in systems that reward compliance over courage.

Stephen’s final prayer is perhaps the most haunting element of the chapter. He does not curse his killers. He does not demand justice. He entrusts himself to God and asks forgiveness for those who are killing him. This is not spiritual performance. It is the fruit of a life shaped by Jesus. In that moment, Stephen becomes a living echo of the cross.

Acts 7 leaves us with no neat conclusions. It ends with blood on the ground and witnesses walking away. And yet, it also leaves us with hope. God is not finished. The story is still moving. The Spirit is not contained.

This chapter reminds us that faithfulness may cost more than we want to pay, but it also assures us that obedience is never wasted. Stephen’s voice was silenced, but his truth was not. It continues to speak, unsettling comfortable faith and calling believers back to a living, listening, courageous trust in God.

Acts 7 stands as a warning and an invitation. A warning against mistaking tradition for truth. An invitation to follow God wherever He leads, even when the path is dangerous, misunderstood, or costly. It calls us to be people who know the story well enough to tell it honestly, even when honesty is the very thing that threatens us.

Stephen did not shatter the room because he was loud. He shattered it because he was faithful. And that kind of faith still disrupts everything it touches.

Your friend, Douglas Vandergraph

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#Acts7 #Stephen #BibleStudy #FaithAndCourage #ChristianWriting #NewTestament #Martyrdom #HolySpirit #TruthOverComfort

2025 is leaving for good and I look forward to 2026. Let’s spend the last day with family and friends, be optimistic, and handle all our problems the best we can. Finally, let’s all continue writing. Happy New Year, everyone!

#happynewyear #goodbye2025 #hello2026

Prayer is often misunderstood because it is often oversimplified. People talk about it as if it is a technique, a ritual, or a formula that works if performed correctly. But prayer is not a system to master. It is a relationship to enter. It is not something you do to God; it is something you do with Him. And once that distinction settles into your heart, prayer stops feeling like pressure and starts feeling like permission.

Most people don’t struggle with believing that prayer exists. They struggle with believing it matters. They wonder whether their words actually travel anywhere, whether their quiet thoughts make a difference, whether their tears count as language. And that doubt usually grows in the space between praying and waiting. When answers don’t come quickly, when circumstances don’t change immediately, when silence stretches longer than comfort, prayer can begin to feel like effort without evidence.

But prayer was never meant to be measured by speed. It was meant to be measured by connection.

Prayer begins long before words form. It begins in the awareness that you are not self-sufficient. That awareness is not weakness; it is clarity. Prayer is the soul admitting that it was never designed to carry life alone. We were created for dependence, not dominance. The modern world glorifies independence, but faith begins with surrender. Prayer is the moment we stop pretending we can save ourselves.

There is something profoundly honest about prayer when it is stripped of performance. When you no longer feel the need to impress God with polished language or spiritual vocabulary, prayer becomes real. Real prayer sounds like exhaustion. It sounds like hope mixed with fear. It sounds like gratitude tangled with grief. It sounds like a person showing up without armor.

Prayer is not about presenting your best self. It is about presenting your true self.

This is where many people get stuck. They think prayer requires spiritual confidence, when in reality prayer produces it. They think prayer is something strong people do, when it is often the birthplace of strength itself. You do not pray because you are confident; you pray because you are not. You pray because something inside you knows that what you have is not enough.

And that knowledge is sacred.

Prayer is the place where control loosens its grip. When you pray, you are admitting that you cannot dictate outcomes, manipulate timing, or force resolution. That can feel terrifying at first, especially for people who are used to fixing things. But prayer is not about losing control; it is about transferring it. It is about placing weight onto shoulders that were actually designed to carry it.

When you pray, you are not informing God of something He does not know. You are aligning yourself with what He already sees. Prayer doesn’t change God’s awareness; it changes your posture. It repositions you from resistance to trust, from panic to patience, from isolation to presence.

Presence is one of the most overlooked aspects of prayer. Many people pray for answers when what they need first is assurance. Prayer does not always bring explanation, but it consistently brings companionship. And companionship in the middle of uncertainty is not a small gift. It is often the difference between despair and endurance.

There are seasons when prayer feels natural and seasons when it feels forced. Both matter. Prayer spoken through joy and prayer whispered through exhaustion are equally heard. Heaven does not weigh prayers by emotional strength. It listens for sincerity. Some of the most powerful prayers ever prayed were not confident declarations but trembling admissions.

Help me. I don’t understand. I’m tired. I trust You anyway.

These are not weak prayers. They are brave ones.

Prayer has a way of revealing what truly matters to us. When we slow down long enough to pray, we often discover that what we thought we needed was not actually what our soul was asking for. Prayer peels back layers. It exposes motives. It brings clarity where noise once lived. That clarity can be uncomfortable because it often calls us to change before circumstances do.

This is why prayer transforms people even when situations remain the same. It reshapes the interior landscape. It softens hardness, strengthens resolve, and teaches patience in a culture addicted to immediacy. Prayer retrains the heart to trust timing it cannot control.

Waiting is not wasted time in prayer. Waiting is where trust is built. Silence after prayer is not rejection; it is often invitation. An invitation to remain. To listen. To grow roots instead of chasing results.

So many people give up on prayer because they mistake quiet for absence. But silence does not mean God has stepped away. It often means He is working beyond what you can see. Some answers take time because they require alignment across people, circumstances, and hearts. Some prayers are answered slowly because the person praying is still being prepared.

Prayer does not rush maturity.

There is also a misconception that prayer should always make us feel better. While prayer often brings peace, it sometimes brings conviction. It may challenge habits, confront pride, or expose fear. That discomfort is not failure; it is refinement. Prayer is not a soothing ritual designed to keep life unchanged. It is an invitation into transformation.

When you pray consistently, you begin to notice subtle shifts. You respond differently. You speak differently. You endure differently. You may still face the same challenges, but you face them with a steadiness that did not exist before. This is the quiet strength prayer builds over time.

Prayer is also deeply personal. It is not meant to look identical in every life. Some people pray through words. Others pray through silence. Some pray through journaling. Others through walking, singing, or simply sitting in awareness. What matters is not the method but the openness. Prayer thrives where honesty lives.

You do not need perfect faith to pray. You need willingness. You do not need certainty. You need sincerity. God is not waiting for you to become stronger before listening. He listens because you are His.

There is something deeply grounding about knowing that you are heard even when you do not feel understood by anyone else. Prayer provides a place where explanation is unnecessary. Where vulnerability is safe. Where you do not have to earn attention. That alone is healing.

Over time, prayer begins to shift how you see difficulty. Instead of asking only for escape, you begin to ask for endurance. Instead of demanding clarity, you begin to value growth. Instead of fearing hardship, you begin to trust that it is not meaningless. Prayer reframes suffering without minimizing it.

This does not mean prayer removes pain. It means pain no longer has the final word.

Prayer teaches you to live with open hands. To release outcomes. To trust that what is unfolding is not random, even when it feels confusing. That trust is not blind optimism. It is grounded confidence rooted in relationship.

The deeper you go in prayer, the less you feel the need to impress anyone else. Approval loses power. Comparison fades. You become anchored in something steady instead of chasing validation. Prayer reshapes identity.

And identity shapes everything.

As prayer becomes less about requests and more about relationship, you begin to recognize God’s presence in ordinary moments. In breath. In stillness. In unexpected peace. Prayer does not confine God to quiet corners of your day. It opens your eyes to His nearness everywhere.

Eventually, prayer becomes less something you schedule and more something you carry. It becomes a posture rather than a practice. A constant awareness that you are not alone, not unseen, not unsupported.

This is the quiet power of prayer. Not that it guarantees easy answers, but that it guarantees presence. And presence changes how you walk through everything.

This is only the beginning of what prayer unfolds over time. Its depth is not discovered quickly. It is discovered faithfully.

If prayer were only about asking for things, most people would eventually grow disillusioned. Requests unanswered. Timelines unmet. Outcomes different from expectation. But prayer was never meant to be a transaction. It was meant to be a transformation. And the longer you stay with it, the more you begin to understand that prayer is shaping you in ways you could not have planned for yourself.

One of the quiet truths about prayer is that it exposes what we truly trust. When life is smooth, prayer can feel optional. But when life presses in, prayer becomes instinct. It reveals where our confidence really rests. In those moments, prayer is less about theology and more about survival. It is the soul reaching for something solid when everything else feels unstable.

Prayer teaches you how to remain instead of escape. Our culture trains us to avoid discomfort at all costs. To distract ourselves. To numb ourselves. To run from anything that feels heavy. Prayer does the opposite. It invites you to stay present. To bring the weight with you rather than abandoning it. To trust that God is not afraid of what you are carrying.

This is why prayer often feels hardest when it matters most. Sitting with God in uncertainty requires courage. It requires resisting the urge to demand quick answers. It requires believing that being held is sometimes more important than being explained to. Prayer teaches patience not by lecturing it into existence, but by asking you to practice it.

Over time, prayer reshapes your expectations. You begin to notice that some prayers are answered not by removing the burden, but by strengthening your back. Not by changing the path, but by changing your stride. Not by fixing everything immediately, but by giving you the resilience to keep walking.

There is a humility that prayer cultivates that nothing else can. When you pray honestly, you acknowledge limits. You acknowledge dependency. You acknowledge that control was never yours to begin with. That humility does not diminish you; it grounds you. It places you in reality rather than illusion.

Prayer also has a way of slowing life down. It interrupts the constant urgency that tells you everything must be solved right now. In prayer, you learn to breathe again. You learn that not every question needs an immediate answer, and not every tension needs immediate resolution. Some things unfold best when given time.

This is why prayer and trust are inseparable. Prayer without trust becomes anxiety disguised as spirituality. Trust without prayer becomes self-reliance with religious language. Together, they form a posture of openness. A willingness to be led rather than driven.

Prayer is not always dramatic. In fact, most of its power is quiet. It works beneath the surface, like roots growing where no one can see. And just like roots, its impact is revealed later. In stability. In endurance. In the ability to stand when storms arrive.

There will be moments when prayer feels dry. When words feel empty. When motivation disappears. These seasons are not signs of failure. They are invitations to remain faithful even without emotional reward. Prayer does not require inspiration; it requires presence. Sometimes the most meaningful prayer is simply showing up.

God does not measure prayer by eloquence or enthusiasm. He measures it by honesty. A distracted prayer is still heard. A weary prayer still matters. A confused prayer still counts. You do not need to feel close to God for prayer to be effective. Prayer is often the bridge that brings closeness back.

As prayer deepens, you may notice your language changing. Less demanding. More listening. Less bargaining. More surrender. This shift does not mean you stop asking. It means your asking becomes rooted in trust rather than fear. You still bring desires, but you hold them with open hands.

Prayer also teaches discernment. It sharpens awareness. You begin to sense when something is not aligned. When a door is closing for a reason. When waiting is protection rather than punishment. Prayer gives you eyes to see beyond immediate disappointment.

One of the most overlooked effects of prayer is how it changes how you treat others. When you spend time in honest prayer, empathy grows. Patience increases. Judgment softens. You become more aware of how much grace you receive, and that awareness spills outward. Prayer reshapes relationships by reshaping the heart.

Prayer is not an escape from responsibility. It is preparation for it. It does not replace action; it grounds it. The strongest action often flows from a prayerful posture because it is rooted in clarity rather than reaction. Prayer helps you move from impulse to intention.

And prayer reminds you that you are seen. Even when no one else understands the full weight of what you carry, prayer provides a place where nothing needs to be explained. Where silence is understood. Where tears are language enough. That sense of being known without needing to perform is profoundly healing.

Eventually, prayer stops feeling like something you do and starts feeling like someone you are with. It becomes less about moments and more about awareness. Less about speaking and more about abiding. You begin to live from prayer rather than visit it.

This does not mean life becomes easy. It means life becomes anchored. You still face loss, disappointment, and uncertainty. But you face them with a deeper steadiness. With a confidence that does not depend on circumstances cooperating. With a peace that does not require everything to make sense.

Prayer does not guarantee outcomes. It guarantees presence. And presence is often what carries us through when answers are slow in coming.

If you stay with prayer long enough, you will one day look back and see how it was shaping you all along. How it was strengthening your faith quietly. How it was teaching you to trust without proof. How it was preparing you for things you did not yet know you would face.

Prayer is not about getting everything right. It is about staying connected. Staying honest. Staying open.

And that is where its power truly lives.

Your friend, Douglas Vandergraph

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#002282 – 28 de Agosto de 2025

Moonhaven dá-me a impressão nítida de ter recebido alguma inspiração do Those Who Walkaway from Omelas, da Ursula K. Le Guin.

Uma boa parte das histórias sci-fi, mesmo das boas, sobre utopias são a repetição de um mesmo enredo: um grupo, sociedade ou experiência social é aparentemente saudável e conducente à prosperidade dos indivíduos que colectivamente se associaram, mas cedo se revelam os podres do comportamento humano, que basicamente mostram que nenhum tipo de organização se pode sustentar com base na boa vontade e na liberdade. Parecem-me sempre uma reinvenção dos argumentos mais básicos contra o anarquismo e que geralmente partem de assunções erradas sobre o que propõe o anarquismo.

Mas nada disso acontece nesta história. As intrigas políticas e os interesses que conspiram para conquistar o poder neste enredo são relevantes e esclarecedores. Fico muito curioso para saber como as próximas temporadas evoluem.

#002281 – 27 de Agosto de 2025

Walkaway foi escrito por Cory Doctorow 14 anos depois de Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom. E parece encontrar uma solução para alguns dos problemas que uma sociedade com tecnologia suficientemente poderosa para grupos de pessoas serem quase autosuficientes encontra. Sobretudo a ameaça que um grupo se aproprie dos recursos que outro grupo construiu.