In Summary: * Having just taken the night meds, and the brain already slowing down, I can reliably predict a quiet evening ahead. Listening to relaxing music now, shall work on the night prayers, then start shutting things down around here.

Prayers, etc.: * daily prayers

Health Metrics: * bw= 220.90 lbs. * bp= 142/85 (66)

Exercise: * kegel pelvic floor exercises, half squats, calf raises, wall push-ups

Diet: * 07:10 – 1 peanut butter sandwich * 07:30 – 1 banana * 10:30 – plate of pancit * 12:45 – 1 fresh apple * 14:00 – 2 fried eggs, bacon, fried rice

Activities, Chores, etc.: * 07:00 – bank accounts activity monitored * 07:30 – read, pray, follow news reports from various sources, surf the socials, nap * 12:00 – watching an NFL Wild Card Playoff Game, Bills vs Jaguars * 15:05 – after the Bills won, turned off the TV and turned on the radio, tuned to B97 – The Home for IU Women's Basketball, broadcast from Bloomington, Indiana, for pregame coverage then for the radio call of tonight's NCAA Women's College Basketball Game, Indiana Hoosiers vs. Iowa Hawkeyes.... And Iowa wins 56 to 53. * 18:00 – read, pray, follow news reports from various sources, surf the socials

Chess: * 12:15 – moved in all pending CC games

As a freelancer, I write a lot of content for business owners—which is actually very helpful as a writer, because there are some parts of the process where you kind of want to think like an entrepreneur. And I think I’m in one of those stages now. I've had the concept of a novel running around in my brain for a while, but I've been struggling to get it going on the page. Don't get me wrong—I've written a lot of words for it. I've built more of the world than I probably need to, created a bunch of characters, and had a fair number of false starts on the plot. It’s just all of that hasn’t yet come together into a cohesive book.

But this year, I've resolved to finally get the first draft of it written. And I know I can. I've written novels before, and all of the pieces are there. I just need some new strategies to put them into place. So I went back through my notes from a couple of recent relevant freelance projects and picked out a few things I'm going to adapt to my novel writing to help me get this thing in motion.

#1: Set SMART goals.

This one's prevalent in academia as well as the corporate world, so it's something I'd imagine most readers have at least seen. Just in case, though, SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Bound. In other words, to set effective goals, you want to make sure you clearly define exactly what you'll do and by when, and that this is something you can realistically achieve that will move you closer to your ultimate objective. 

Many of the writers I know are very bad at this. I'm including myself here. There's this temptation to say that creative projects need to happen “at the will of the muse” and you shouldn't limit them with metrics or deadlines. But “waiting for the muse” is also an easy way to write exactly nothing. Attatching actual numbers, dates, and other specific details to your goals makes them real, and you don't need to sacrifice any creativity to do so. 

SMART goals also don't need to be complicated. My big-picture goal for the novel is: “Finish the full first draft of the novel by the end of 2026.” This checks all 5 of boxes: it concerns a specific work and defines what stage of completion I want to have it in by a defined point in time. And I've written many book-length manuscripts within a year before, so I know this is achievable, especially since I have a solid chunk of the worldbuilding done. 

Of course, most business gurus would say it's best to set goals with smaller timelines than an entire year, which is why the second thing I'm adopting is...

#2: Break big goals into small milestones. 

Writing a speculative novel is a big project with a lot of moving parts, enough of them that trying to wrap your head around it can feel overwhelming if you try to think about it as one massive entity. That same thing happens to entrepreneurs when they're trying to start a business, or scale it, or optimize their systems, or whatever other business-ey things they need to do. 

The solution to this is to stop thinking of it as One Big Thing. Mark that down as your eventual end point, but then zoom in a bit and think through the various steps that you'll need to take to get there. Exactly what that looks like will depend on how you tend to write. If you're a plotter, the first step will be writing the outline, then those chapters you plot out can each be their own milestone. For pantsers, it might be more effective to break it down base on word count, setting milestones at every few thousand words. The point isn't so much how you subdivide the tasks, but just that you give yourself bite-sized chunks that don't feel as scary to tackle as a whole book. 

I've used this strategy to help motivate me through long projects before. I'm typically a pantser, so my usual approach is to set word count goals. With this book, though, I'm actually doing a bit of broad-strokes outlining and plot planning before trying to start the next round of writing. I haven't outlined down to the chapter-by-chapter level, but I've mapped out the major plot points, and am using those arrival points as my milestones. Which actually leads nicely into...

#3: Use the right tools for the project.

If you're even peripherally connected to the entrepreneurial world, you know there is a seemingly infinite array of websites, apps, SaaS platforms, and other tech available for small businesses. There are so many because each one focuses on a slightly different area. The ones for startups have different features than the ones for big enterprises; some are all-in-one solutions while others are just for accounting, or inventory tracking, or automating your marketing—you get the idea. Just because a program works well for one business doesn't mean it's the right choice for another one. And the best tool for a new company isn't necessarily what they'll use forever. As the company gets bigger, or changes its focus, the best tools for them to use are probably going to change, too. Smart companies regularly audit their tech stack to make sure it reflects their current needs and look for ways they could use it more efficiently.

The same thing goes for writing. It's smart to have some go-to tools, but you don't want to fall into the trap of using the same tools just out of habit, especially if they don't seem to be working like they used to. That was the realization I had after a few false starts on this project. Clearly, my usual approach of “find it when I write it” wasn't getting me where I needed to go. Maybe it would eventually, if I kept beating my head against that metaphorical wall, but it seems like I might get where I'm going faster if I try out some different ways of getting there. Hence the switch to writing an outline: it's a new tool I haven't tried yet, and one that might be a better fit for the story I'm trying to write. 

I'd say this goes for other types of tools, too. If you usually type in Micosoft Word but are feeling stuck, try handwriting for a bit, or use a different platform like Google Docs, or try cutting out the writing middle man entirely and speak your story into words using your phone's speech-to-text tool. At the worst, it's a way to come at the story from a fresh angle, and that can shake some new ideas loose. And, in the process, you might find a better tool for your writing process that you can work into your regular routine. 

#4: Know your market. 

My first impulse is to push back against this advice every time I hear it. My knee-jerk reaction is that “writing to a market” feels sales-ey and sell-out-ish. I want to tell the stories that excite me, not the things I think other people want to read. But I think this advice doesn't need to mean changing the story you're telling. Instead, I think it's about understanding who is most likely to read what you write, what other things they're reading, and how your story is going to fit in with the other fiction that's out there.

This isn't just something that comes up during the marketing stage, either. When you're stuck on a project, reading other stuff that's in the same area can help to spark ideas. I've been aiming to do this lately, curating my reading list to focus on novels that are in the same kind of genre-blurring, sci-f/fantasy territory. I'm also actively seeking out books that were published within the last year. It's a way for me to see what's going on in this corner of the publishing landscape right now, and also lets me get a head start on building my list of comps when I am done with the novel and ready to start querying. 

#5: Focus on the things that will have the biggest impact. 

Another must-do for any small business is to find its niche. Successful entrepreneurs know how to identify the specific value they offer to customers and devote most (if not all) of their energy to that most valuable product. On the other side, when businesses try to offer too many different products or services, or they try appeal to too broad of an audience, then they can end up sabotaging their efforts because their messaging is confusing, or they're trying to split their attention into too many directions. 

Writers make this mistake, too. Or at least I do. And I've definitely been suffering from low focus on this particular project. The world I'm working in is a very fun one, weaving in elements of folklore along with sci-fi and post-apocalyptic aspects—which means lots of opportunities to fall down research rabbit holes, on top of the temptation to go overboard building the world beyond the scope of what's actually needed for the story. 

And that ultimately needs to be the question guiding all of the effort I put toward the novel: What story am I telling, and what details does the reader need to enjoy that story to its fullest? Any world worth writing in is going to have far more interesting stuff in it than will fit in a single story. That's what gives it that feeling of a real place on the page and makes readers want to spend time there. But that can also turn into a trap, because it means there will always be new interesting corners of the world to discover if you let yourself keep wandering, and you can do that forever without ever actually producing a novel if you don't impose some limits on your imagination. 

I expect this will prove the most useful of the strategies I'm adopting for me to finally make progress on this novel, because I think this is the main roadblack that's been keeping me from moving forward. Of course, I haven't written the damn thing yet, so I suppose there's no proof at this point that they'll help me at all. But I'm excited to take a new approach to this book, and I feel like I have a clearer view of how to move forward than I did on my last attempt at the novel, so in that respect I suppose they've already given me a boost. 

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There is something deeply unsettling about Revelation chapter six, and not in the sensational way that people often treat it. It is unsettling because it strips away our last remaining illusions. By the time you reach this chapter in the Book of Revelation, you are no longer dealing with vague prophecy or distant symbolism. You are standing at the edge of reality itself as God peels back the thin veil that keeps humanity from seeing what has always been happening beneath the surface of history. Revelation 6 does not introduce chaos into the world. It reveals the chaos that was already there. It does not create suffering. It removes the blindfold that made us pretend suffering was random or meaningless. It is the moment when heaven opens a door and says, “Look. This is what your world has been running on.”

John does not describe this chapter like a man witnessing explosions or fire from the sky. He describes it like a man watching seals being opened. That detail matters. Seals are not weapons. Seals are locks. They hold things back. They preserve things. They delay exposure. When the Lamb opens the seals, He is not releasing new evil into the earth. He is removing restraints. He is allowing what has been waiting underneath human systems, empires, economies, and belief structures to finally show itself. The Four Horsemen do not ride in because God suddenly becomes angry. They ride in because humanity has finally reached the point where its own lies can no longer support the weight of its own reality.

The Lamb who opens the seals is Jesus. That alone changes everything. The One who died for the world is now the One who reveals the truth about the world. This is not vengeance. This is clarity. And clarity is terrifying when you have built a civilization on denial.

The first seal opens, and a rider on a white horse appears, carrying a bow and wearing a crown. He goes forth conquering and to conquer. Many people rush to identify this figure as Christ, but the context does not allow that. This rider does not bring peace. He initiates a chain reaction that ends in death, famine, and collapse. This white horse is not purity. It is deception. It is the illusion of righteousness. It is conquest wrapped in moral language. It is the kind of power that tells itself it is doing good while quietly building an empire on force. History is filled with this rider. He wears different names in different eras, but he always arrives first. Before violence, before hunger, before mass death, there is always someone who claims to be the answer.

This is how evil works. It never begins with horror. It begins with hope that has been hijacked.

When the second seal opens, a red horse comes forth. Its rider is given the power to take peace from the earth so that people should kill one another. This is not a foreign invasion. This is internal collapse. This is civil war. This is neighbors turning on neighbors. This is ideologies, races, political identities, and cultural tribes turning into weapons. The red horse does not create anger. It removes the thin social agreements that keep anger from exploding. It is the moment when words are no longer enough, and people begin to believe that blood will finally make them feel right again.

The third seal releases a black horse carrying scales. This rider brings famine and economic collapse. But the famine here is not simply a lack of food. It is a distorted economy. The text describes a world where basic necessities become impossibly expensive while luxury goods remain untouched. This is not random scarcity. This is inequality reaching a breaking point. This is a system that still protects the powerful while the masses starve. The black horse reveals that money itself has become a lie. It no longer represents value, labor, or fairness. It represents control.

And then comes the fourth seal. A pale horse. Death rides it. Hades follows behind. A quarter of the earth is given over to sword, hunger, disease, and wild beasts. This is not just war. This is systemic collapse. This is when everything people thought was stable suddenly stops working. Medicine fails. Governments fail. Food chains fail. Security fails. The world people trusted evaporates.

But the most shocking moment in Revelation 6 is not the horsemen.

It is the fifth seal.

When it opens, John does not see destruction on earth. He sees martyrs in heaven. He sees souls beneath the altar crying out, asking God how long until justice comes. This moment is devastating because it tells us something most people do not want to hear. God sees every faithful life that was crushed by injustice. None of it was forgotten. None of it was meaningless. And none of it is ignored. The delay of judgment was not indifference. It was patience.

These souls are not told to be quiet. They are told to rest a little longer. Even in heaven, they are waiting. That means something profound. God’s justice is not impulsive. It is timed. It is purposeful. It is complete.

And then comes the sixth seal.

The world itself reacts.

Earthquakes. The sun turns black. The moon becomes blood. Stars fall. The sky splits open. Mountains and islands move. Kings, rich men, powerful men, slaves, and free people all run and hide. They do not cry out against God’s cruelty. They cry out because they finally recognize Him. They know who is sitting on the throne. They know who the Lamb is. And they know that the story they told themselves about power, success, and security was a lie.

Revelation 6 is not about the end of the world.

It is about the end of pretending.

This chapter shows us what happens when God stops shielding humanity from the consequences of its own systems. The seals are not plagues. They are disclosures. They show what conquest becomes. They show what violence multiplies into. They show what greed produces. They show what ignoring injustice leads to. And they show what happens when truth finally arrives without mercy for our illusions.

Most people read Revelation 6 and feel fear.

What it should produce is recognition.

Because everything in this chapter already exists.

The white horse rides in every ideology that promises salvation through dominance. The red horse rides in every culture that cannot stop fighting itself. The black horse rides in every economy that rewards the few and starves the many. The pale horse rides in every society that pretends death is someone else’s problem.

The seals do not introduce these forces.

They remove the filters that made them look normal.

That is why the Lamb is the One who opens them.

Jesus does not destroy the world.

He reveals it.

And when truth is finally seen, the world realizes it has been standing on fragile lies all along.

The deeper you sit with Revelation 6, the more it begins to feel less like a prophecy of the future and more like a mirror of the present. The seals do not belong to some distant, cinematic apocalypse. They belong to the structure of reality itself. They belong to every civilization that ever tried to build heaven without God. The reason this chapter feels so heavy is because it speaks a truth humanity has always tried to bury: when God is removed from the center, something else always takes His place, and that something is never gentle.

The white horse, which so many mistake as righteousness, is in fact the birth of counterfeit saviors. Every empire, every ideology, every political movement that claims it will finally fix everything without addressing the human heart rides under that banner. It wears white not because it is pure, but because it wants to look pure. That is how false hope spreads. It does not announce itself as evil. It presents itself as necessary. It tells people that if they just give it enough power, enough obedience, enough compromise, then peace will finally come. History proves it never does.

And once people believe in a false savior, violence is never far behind. That is why the red horse follows the white. When the promises of human power fail, people turn on each other. They always do. They look for someone to blame. They look for someone to punish. They look for someone to sacrifice so they do not have to face their own emptiness. Revelation 6 exposes this cycle. It shows us that war is not an accident. It is the inevitable result of placing ultimate hope in anything other than God.

The black horse then steps into the wreckage. Economic collapse is not just about money. It is about what a society values. When justice collapses, when truth collapses, when human dignity collapses, the economy always follows. Revelation shows a world where the basics of life become unreachable while luxury remains protected. That is not famine. That is moral bankruptcy. It is what happens when systems are designed to preserve power instead of people.

The pale horse, Death, is the final consequence of all of it. Not just physical death, but spiritual numbness. A world where life becomes cheap. A world where suffering becomes background noise. A world where people stop being shocked by tragedy because they have seen too much of it to care. That is the most terrifying form of death of all. It is not when bodies stop breathing. It is when hearts stop feeling.

And then Revelation does something that no human story ever does. It shifts the camera away from the chaos and into heaven. The souls beneath the altar are not forgotten victims. They are honored witnesses. They are people who chose truth when it was costly. They are people who refused to bow to the systems of deception. Their cry for justice is not bitterness. It is longing for the world to finally be healed.

What God gives them is not revenge. It is rest.

That is one of the most beautiful and misunderstood moments in Scripture. God does not rush judgment because He is not cruel. He waits because He is merciful. Every delay is another chance for repentance. Every pause is another invitation for someone to turn back. Even in Revelation 6, where the world seems to be unraveling, God is still leaving space for grace.

The sixth seal shows us the moment when that space finally closes. The heavens roll back. Reality becomes undeniable. The people of the earth do not cry out because God is unfair. They cry out because God is real. They finally see Him. They finally know that all their structures, all their power, all their money, and all their lies cannot protect them anymore.

That is the heart of Revelation 6. It is not about terror. It is about truth.

And truth always feels like terror to those who have built their lives on illusion.

For those who follow Jesus, this chapter is not meant to produce fear. It is meant to produce alignment. It asks us a haunting question: what are you building your life on? Is it on the shifting ground of culture, success, and approval? Or is it on the Lamb who opens the seals? Because everything else will eventually be shaken.

Revelation 6 reminds us that history is not random. Your suffering is not invisible. Your faith is not wasted. The world is not spiraling out of control. It is moving toward a reckoning where every lie will be exposed and every tear will be seen.

And in the center of it all is not a tyrant.

It is a Lamb.

That is the hope of this chapter. Not that the world will be spared from truth, but that truth is being opened by the One who loves us enough to die for us.

The seals will be opened.

The world will be revealed.

But for those who belong to Christ, this is not the end of hope.

It is the beginning of restoration.

** Your friend, Douglas Vandergraph**

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There are moments in Scripture where the air itself feels heavy, where the text does not simply speak but waits, as if the universe is holding its breath. Revelation 5 is one of those moments. It is not loud at first. It does not begin with thunder or war or judgment. It begins with stillness, with a sealed scroll, and with a question that echoes across heaven, earth, and the depths beyond: Who is worthy?

That question is not academic. It is existential. It is the question every human life asks in one form or another. Who is worthy to carry the weight of history? Who is worthy to unlock meaning? Who is worthy to tell us where this story is actually going? In a world drowning in opinions, outrage, ambition, and noise, Revelation 5 drops us into a holy courtroom where no one is campaigning, no one is boasting, and no one is self-promoting. Heaven is not looking for confidence. Heaven is looking for worth.

John sees a scroll in the right hand of the One seated on the throne. It is written on both sides, sealed with seven seals. This is not a casual document. This is the record of God’s will for creation. This is history, destiny, justice, mercy, judgment, and restoration bound into one divine manuscript. This scroll contains everything that must happen for evil to be dealt with, for suffering to be answered, and for God’s promises to be fulfilled. If it remains sealed, nothing moves forward. If it is never opened, the story of the world remains unfinished.

A mighty angel proclaims with a loud voice, “Who is worthy to open the scroll and break its seals?” And then something devastating happens. No one steps forward. Not in heaven. Not on earth. Not under the earth. No prophet. No king. No martyr. No spiritual giant. No angel. No saint. No one.

This is the part we often read too quickly. Heaven is silent. Earth is empty. Hell has no candidate. There is no being in all of existence who can claim the right to unfold God’s plan. And John, the same man who has seen Jesus transfigured, who leaned against His chest at the Last Supper, who watched Him bleed on the cross, now weeps uncontrollably. He is not crying because he is confused. He is crying because he understands what it means if the scroll stays closed. It means injustice wins. It means death has the final word. It means suffering never gets its answer. It means evil never gets exposed. It means the prayers of the saints are never completed. It means history ends unresolved.

John’s tears are the tears of every person who has ever buried someone too soon, who has ever been betrayed, abused, forgotten, or crushed by a world that did not play fair. His tears are the ache of every unanswered prayer and every wound that seems to have no explanation. If there is no one worthy, then nothing means anything.

And that is when one of the elders says something that changes everything: “Do not weep. Behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that He can open the scroll and its seven seals.”

Notice what happens here. Heaven does not say, “Stop crying because it doesn’t matter.” Heaven says, “Stop crying because someone has already won.” That is a radically different kind of comfort. It is not denial. It is victory. The elder does not point John to a philosophy or a principle. He points him to a Person. A Lion. A King. A conqueror.

But when John turns to see the Lion, he does not see what he expects. He sees a Lamb, standing as though it had been slain.

This is one of the most powerful and disorienting moments in all of Scripture. The Lion conquers by being a Lamb. The King wins by being killed. The One who is worthy is not the one who took life, but the one who gave His. The universe is not redeemed by force, but by sacrifice.

This Lamb is not weak. He is standing. He is alive. He bears the marks of death, but death did not keep Him. He has seven horns and seven eyes, symbols of complete power and perfect knowledge. This is not a victim. This is a victor who chose suffering as His weapon.

And He walks to the throne.

Think about that. No angel escorts Him. No one announces Him. He simply walks up to the very center of reality and takes the scroll from the right hand of God. That is a claim no created being could ever make. This is divine authority meeting divine will. This is Jesus, the crucified and risen Son, taking responsibility for the future of everything.

When He does, heaven erupts.

The four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fall down before the Lamb. They are holding harps and bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. That means something staggering: your prayers are in that room. Every whispered cry. Every desperate plea. Every tearful prayer you thought was ignored. They have been gathered, preserved, and brought before the Lamb at the moment He takes control of history.

And they sing a new song.

“You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, for You were slain, and by Your blood You ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation.”

This is not a song about power. It is a song about purchase. Worthiness does not come from strength. It comes from sacrifice. Jesus is worthy because He paid for us. He did not conquer by crushing His enemies. He conquered by absorbing the cost of their sin.

And look who He purchased. Not one tribe. Not one culture. Not one nation. Everyone. This is a kingdom that does not belong to one race, one denomination, or one era. This is a redeemed humanity drawn from the entire human story. That means the person you don’t understand, the culture you didn’t grow up in, and the believer who doesn’t look like you is still part of this song.

Then the worship widens.

John hears the voice of many angels, numbering myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands. That is not poetic exaggeration. That is an uncountable host. And they all say with a loud voice, “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing.”

Seven attributes. Complete praise. Everything the world chases, heaven gives to Jesus. Power, wealth, wisdom, might, honor, glory, blessing. None of it is stolen. All of it is deserved.

And then something even more astonishing happens. Every creature in heaven, on earth, under the earth, and in the sea joins in. Creation itself becomes a choir. All of existence acknowledges that the Lamb on the throne is the center of reality.

This is not a future hope. This is a present truth. Revelation is not showing you what might happen. It is showing you what is happening right now in the unseen realm. While the news cycles spin, while empires rise and fall, while injustice screams and suffering groans, there is a Lamb on the throne holding the scroll.

That changes everything.

It means your pain is not pointless. It means your prayers are not forgotten. It means your life is not random. It means history is not spiraling out of control. It means the One who was wounded for you is now reigning for you.

Revelation 5 is not about predicting disasters. It is about establishing who holds the future. And the answer is not a tyrant. It is not a politician. It is not an ideology. It is a Lamb who still bears the scars of love.

And that means whatever you are facing right now, you are not standing before a closed scroll.

You are standing before an opened one.

What makes Revelation 5 so devastatingly beautiful is not just what happens in heaven, but what it says about what is happening to you. The scroll in the Lamb’s hand is not just the future of nations and empires. It is the future of your life, your wounds, your prayers, and your unanswered questions. When Jesus takes that scroll, He is not just taking responsibility for cosmic history. He is taking responsibility for your story.

We spend so much of our lives trying to take control of our own scrolls. We want to decide how things should go, how people should treat us, how our pain should be resolved, and how our prayers should be answered. We grip our plans tightly because deep down we are terrified that if we let go, everything will fall apart. Revelation 5 quietly tells us something that changes the way fear works. The scroll was never in your hands to begin with. It was always in His. The future was never resting on your strength, your discipline, or your understanding. It was resting on the Lamb who was slain.

That is why John’s tears matter so much. They are not weakness. They are honesty. They are the raw expression of what it feels like when you realize you cannot fix what is broken. John cries because he understands the stakes. In the same way, you cry because you know what it feels like when things are too big for you. You cry because the diagnosis, the betrayal, the grief, or the confusion is more than you can carry. Revelation 5 does not shame those tears. It answers them.

The elder does not say, “Stop crying because everything is fine.” He says, “Stop crying because Someone has already overcome.” That means your peace does not come from pretending things do not hurt. It comes from knowing that pain does not get the last word. The Lamb who was slain is not just sympathetic. He is sovereign.

This is where so many people misunderstand Christianity. They think faith means denial. They think worship means ignoring reality. Revelation 5 shows the opposite. Heaven is deeply aware of how broken the world is. That is why the scroll matters. That is why the Lamb’s wounds matter. God does not save the world by pretending it is not broken. He saves it by stepping into the break and absorbing it.

Every scar on Jesus is a testimony that suffering did not scare Him away. He did not redeem us from a distance. He entered the darkness and walked through it. And because He did, He alone is worthy to define what the darkness means.

That is why the prayers of the saints are in bowls before Him. Nothing you have ever prayed has been wasted. Some prayers feel unanswered because they are waiting for the scroll to unfold. You are not ignored. You are included. Your prayers are part of what God is doing, even when you cannot see how.

This is where worship becomes something much deeper than music. In Revelation 5, worship is not emotionalism. It is recognition. Heaven worships because it sees clearly. It sees the Lamb for who He really is. When we worship on earth, we are aligning ourselves with what is already true in heaven. We are declaring that Jesus is worthy even when our circumstances feel chaotic.

That is why worship is so powerful in suffering. When you choose to worship while you are hurting, you are not lying to yourself. You are telling the truth about who is actually in control.

The world tells you that power belongs to those who dominate. Revelation 5 tells you that power belongs to those who love enough to bleed. The world tells you that wealth belongs to those who hoard. Revelation 5 tells you that true riches belong to the One who gave everything away. The world tells you that wisdom belongs to those who manipulate. Revelation 5 tells you that wisdom belongs to the One who chose the cross.

That is the upside-down kingdom of God, and it is not theoretical. It is personal. It means the way you live, forgive, love, and endure is shaped by the Lamb, not by the lionhearted brutality of this world.

One of the most overlooked parts of Revelation 5 is that the Lamb is standing. He was slain, but He is not lying down. He was killed, but He is not defeated. He stands in the center of the throne, not off to the side. That means the resurrection is not just something that happened to Jesus. It is something that now defines reality. Death does not sit at the center. Life does.

When everything in your life feels fragile, Revelation 5 reminds you that the center is not fragile. The throne is not shaking. The scroll is not lost. The Lamb is not anxious.

That does not mean you will not struggle. It means your struggle is not meaningless. It means your suffering is not random. It means your obedience, even when it costs you, is not invisible.

The Lamb who opens the scroll is also the Lamb who sees you.

That truth changes how you wait. It changes how you pray. It changes how you endure. You do not have to know how everything will turn out. You only have to know who holds the scroll.

And the One who holds it is the same One who loved you enough to die for you.

That is why Revelation 5 is not frightening. It is stabilizing. It is the revelation that the future is not in the hands of chaos. It is in the hands of Christ.

He is not just worthy.

He is faithful.

He is not just powerful.

He is good.

And He is not just reigning over the universe.

He is reigning over your story.

That means you can keep going.

That means you can keep believing.

That means you can keep trusting even when the path is unclear.

The Lamb is still opening the scroll.

And He is writing redemption into every page.

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Your friend, Douglas Vandergraph

There are moments in life when everything suddenly becomes quiet, not because nothing is happening, but because something eternal has just stepped into the room. Revelation chapter four is that kind of moment. The world does not explode, armies do not clash, angels do not announce judgment. Instead, a door opens. A voice speaks. And a man who had been exiled to a rocky prison island is suddenly invited into the center of all reality. What John sees in this chapter is not just a glimpse of heaven. It is a correction to how we understand power, suffering, worship, and the meaning of our own small lives.

Before Revelation four, the story is still grounded on earth. John is writing to churches that are struggling, persecuted, confused, and often compromised. They are living under the shadow of Rome. They are losing their jobs, their families, sometimes their lives because they refuse to say that Caesar is lord. Their faith feels fragile. Their prayers feel small. Their future looks uncertain. And then, without warning, heaven interrupts the story. John is no longer looking at the chaos of the Roman world. He is pulled into the command center of the universe.

The chapter begins with a door standing open in heaven. That alone should stop us. Scripture does not say a door cracked open, or a door reluctantly unlocked. It is standing open. Heaven is not sealed off from human suffering. God is not distant from history. The invitation is not hidden. It is visible. Open. Accessible. The voice that calls John through the door sounds like a trumpet, not because it is loud, but because it is authoritative. This is not a suggestion. It is a summons. Come up here, the voice says, and I will show you what must take place.

John is immediately in the Spirit. He does not climb. He does not travel. He does not earn his way in. God lifts him. That is always how revelation works. Heaven is not discovered. It is revealed. And the first thing John sees is not streets of gold, not angels, not departed saints. He sees a throne.

That detail matters more than most people realize. Before God shows John anything about the future, He shows him who is in charge of the present. The throne is not empty. The universe is not leaderless. History is not random. There is a seat of authority, and someone is sitting on it. Everything else in this chapter revolves around that single fact.

The One on the throne is described in ways that stretch human language to the breaking point. John reaches for colors and precious stones because ordinary words are too small. Jasper and carnelian are not meant to be a literal paint swatch. They are meant to communicate overwhelming brilliance, beauty, and weight. This is not a weak God. This is not a tired God. This is not a sentimental God. This is a God whose presence alone radiates absolute authority and absolute holiness.

Around the throne is a rainbow, but not the soft, faded rainbow we think of after a storm. This is an emerald rainbow, intense and alive. It echoes the covenant God made with Noah, a promise that judgment would never have the final word. Even in the throne room of ultimate power, mercy is still visible. Judgment may come, but it never cancels grace.

Surrounding the throne are twenty-four other thrones, and on them sit twenty-four elders. They are clothed in white, symbolizing purity, and they wear crowns, symbolizing authority. These elders are not rivals to God. They are representatives of God’s redeemed people, possibly reflecting the twelve tribes of Israel and the twelve apostles. The message is that God has not forgotten His people. They are not invisible in heaven. They are seated in places of honor.

From the throne come flashes of lightning, rumblings, and peals of thunder. This is Sinai imagery. It is the sound of divine power being held in perfect control. God is not chaotic, but He is not tame either. The throne room is alive with holy energy. In front of the throne burn seven lamps, which represent the sevenfold Spirit of God. This tells us that God’s Spirit is fully present, fully active, and fully aware.

Then John sees something that feels almost strange: a sea of glass, clear as crystal. In ancient Jewish thought, the sea represented chaos, danger, and uncontrollable forces. Here, that chaos is perfectly still. The message is simple and staggering. Nothing threatens God. Nothing disrupts His rule. What feels turbulent and terrifying to us is calm under His authority.

At the center and around the throne are four living creatures, covered with eyes. They are not cute angels. They are terrifyingly alive, completely aware, and utterly devoted to God. One looks like a lion, one like an ox, one like a man, and one like an eagle. These represent the highest forms of created life: wild animals, domesticated animals, humanity, and birds of the air. All creation is present in this worship scene. Everything that breathes is represented here.

These creatures never stop saying, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come.” Notice what they are not saying. They are not talking about what God does. They are talking about who God is. Holiness is not just one of His traits. It is His essence. He is completely other, completely pure, completely beyond corruption. Yet He is also eternal. He was, He is, and He is to come. Nothing limits Him. Time does not contain Him. History moves inside His will.

Every time the living creatures give glory, the twenty-four elders fall down. They remove their crowns and lay them before the throne. This is one of the most powerful images in the entire book. Everything they have, every authority they hold, every victory they won, they place at God’s feet. They are not clinging to their achievements. They are surrendering them. Heaven is not a place of ego. It is a place of worship.

The elders declare that God is worthy to receive glory and honor and power because He created all things. This is not a small statement. In a Roman world that worshiped emperors, Revelation four declares that only God is worthy. Not Rome. Not Caesar. Not wealth. Not military strength. Creation itself exists because God willed it to exist. That means your life is not an accident. Your story is not random. You are here because God chose you to be.

Revelation four is not just a beautiful vision. It is a spiritual reorientation. It tells suffering believers, then and now, that no matter how loud the world becomes, heaven is louder. No matter how chaotic the headlines are, the throne is steady. No matter how weak you feel, God’s power has not diminished by one degree.

This chapter is placed exactly where it is for a reason. Before God reveals judgments, before He reveals beasts and plagues and battles, He reveals Himself. He anchors the entire story in worship. Everything that follows must be interpreted through the reality of this throne room. God is not reacting to evil. He is reigning over it.

When you read Revelation four, you are being invited to step through that open door as well. You are being reminded that your anxiety does not sit on the throne. Your past does not sit on the throne. Your fear does not sit on the throne. God does.

And when heaven sees God clearly, heaven responds with surrender, awe, and worship. That is not just a future scene. That is a present invitation.

What makes Revelation chapter four so spiritually disarming is not just what John sees, but what he stops seeing. The moment the throne appears, Rome disappears. Chains disappear. Exile disappears. The loneliness of Patmos fades into the background. The political machinery of empire, the cruelty of human systems, the daily anxiety of survival all become small when placed next to the immovable center of reality. The throne does not argue. It does not defend itself. It simply exists, and in its existence it defines what is real.

That is one of the deepest truths this chapter gives us. Worship is not denial of suffering. It is perspective. When the eyes of the heart are lifted, fear shrinks. When God becomes large again, everything else returns to its proper size. Revelation four is God pulling the curtain back and saying, “This is what has always been here, even when you thought you were alone.”

John does not hear God explain why suffering exists. He is not given a theological lecture. He is shown a throne. Sometimes answers do not come in the form of explanations but in the form of presence. The God who sits at the center of all things does not owe us a defense, but He gives us something better. He gives us Himself.

The elders casting their crowns is not symbolic theater. It is the most honest posture a created being can take before its Creator. Every accomplishment, every gift, every moment of faithfulness, every act of endurance is acknowledged not as personal achievement but as grace. They do not throw their crowns away. They offer them. That distinction matters. God does not erase what we have been given. He invites us to give it back in worship.

This reveals something about the nature of heaven that most people miss. Heaven is not passive. It is not floating. It is not boredom dressed up as eternity. Heaven is active, intentional, focused worship. The entire environment is structured around the recognition of God’s worth. Everything that exists there exists in alignment with Him.

The four living creatures never grow tired of saying holy. That tells us something about God’s nature. His holiness is not something you get used to. It does not become background noise. It does not fade into familiarity. Even beings who have existed in His presence for ages are still undone by it. Every moment reveals something new about who He is.

The phrase “who was and is and is to come” anchors the entire chapter in divine permanence. God is not a temporary force. He is not shaped by the moment. He is not responding to history. History is responding to Him. Every era, every empire, every rise and fall of civilization is contained within the steady being of God.

That means your story, however painful or confusing, is not outside His reach. The throne you see in Revelation four is the same throne that governs every breath you take. The God who holds galaxies in place also knows the quiet details of your heart.

The sea of glass is not just beautiful imagery. It is a declaration of peace. Chaos has no authority in the presence of God. What rages on earth is still before heaven. The storms that batter human lives are calm at the feet of the throne. That does not mean we do not feel them. It means they do not get the final word.

When Revelation four is read slowly and prayerfully, it becomes a kind of spiritual reset. It pulls us out of the tyranny of urgency. It pulls us out of the illusion that everything depends on us. It gently but firmly returns our attention to the One who actually carries the weight of the world.

The brilliance, the thunder, the elders, the creatures, the worship, all of it is telling one story. God is worthy. Worthy of trust. Worthy of obedience. Worthy of surrender. Worthy of hope.

The churches John wrote to were facing uncertainty. Some were drifting. Some were afraid. Some were tempted to compromise. Revelation four was meant to remind them that faith is not about holding on to a belief system. It is about standing in the presence of a living God who reigns even when it looks like He does not.

And that is just as true now. In a world that feels loud, fractured, and unpredictable, the throne still stands. The door is still open. The invitation is still being given. Come up here. See what is real. Let your heart remember who is in charge.

When you step into that vision, something inside you begins to change. You stop asking if God is in control, and you start asking how you can align your life with His reign. Worship stops being a moment and becomes a way of being.

That is the quiet miracle of Revelation four. It does not shout. It reveals. And once you have seen the throne, you never see the world the same way again.

Your anxieties will still exist, but they will no longer feel infinite. Your struggles will still matter, but they will no longer feel ultimate. Because behind everything you face is a throne that cannot be shaken, a God who cannot be moved, and a kingdom that will not fade.

And that, more than anything else, is what gives the soul courage.

Your friend, Douglas Vandergraph

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23 December 2025

Terminal advertisement (working title): a painting put into action today based on seeing that aforementioned Brazil tourism ad of Christ the Redeemer while on a moving walkway on my way through Heathrow. There's something emerging in the studio about the reconstruction of particular moments of seeing that I hope is beginning to stretch beyond the full stop stillness I have perhaps tried to capture in the past. And I think it has to do with identifying imagistic planes that somehow relate to the multiplicity of specific lived sensations. In the recall of the kinds of scenes I'm inclined to paint, I'm finding—through photos, sketches, and memory—that there becomes a kind of 360 degree inventory of phenomena that holds possible planar ingredients. And while I don't want to fall into the trap of manufacturing those ingredients, I do think they are worth noticing. In Flat window, they were represented by a combination of perceptions related to reflections, barriers, borderlines, and changes in light that became essentially a sequence of transparencies to layer on top of one another toward a hybrid image.

In this painting today, it seemed like the phenomena were less distinct and perhaps manifested more as a melding of planes rather than a separating and layering of them. I think I can trace this to the experience of seeing the advertisement itself: the micro shifts in fluorescent light bouncing off of the vinyl image as I passed it, the ambiguous tonal environment around it that seemed to blend into a big neutral goop, seeing the seams between each vinyl panel and then losing them again—those were the bits of recall that became planar and then united in shapelessness, the Christ figure a strangely warping and beckoning bit of solidity swimming in and around them.

21 December 2025

Devotional objects in my room at my new flat, a week since moving in:

My great grandfather's watch that my mother restored and gifted to me (Gruen, 1936), the white linen Ruba gifted to me (underneath the watch, forming a bed for it), the Korean celadon ceramic turtle Yena gifted to me, my yellow-orange telecaster that my father gifted to me, the antique Italian bronze candleholder (currently being used as an incense holder) that Yena gifted to me after her most recent trip to Venice, the house slippers that Yena gifted to me, the family photos (a mix of photos dating back to the early 90s comprised of Polaroids, photo booth photos, and prints of my mother's film photography) that I have mounted on the back of my door.

There are chapters in Scripture that feel like they are reading us instead of us reading them, and Revelation chapter three is one of those passages that does not politely knock. It walks straight into the room of our lives and begins moving the furniture. It looks at what we call faith, what we call devotion, what we call being alive in Christ, and it quietly, piercingly asks whether any of it is actually breathing. This chapter is not about ancient churches that disappeared two thousand years ago. It is about modern people who attend, serve, post, argue, quote, and build entire identities around faith, yet still somehow feel hollow inside. It is about what happens when belief becomes a brand instead of a burning, living relationship with Jesus.

Revelation three contains three letters, and each one feels like it was written to a different type of believer living today. There is the church that thinks it is alive but is spiritually asleep. There is the church that feels weak but is actually faithful. And there is the church that believes it has everything while being utterly poor in the only ways that actually matter. These are not theological categories. They are emotional, spiritual, human realities. They are the three ways people drift from Jesus without even realizing it.

The frightening thing about Revelation three is that Jesus is not speaking to atheists or skeptics. He is speaking to people who would absolutely call themselves Christians. He is speaking to people who have history with God, language about God, and opinions about God. That makes this chapter dangerous in the best possible way, because it strips away the false comfort of religious familiarity. It does not let us hide behind the idea that we are “on the right team.” It asks whether we are actually alive.

The first church Jesus addresses is Sardis, and the words He uses are terrifyingly simple. He says they have a reputation for being alive, but they are dead. That sentence alone could preach for a thousand years. A reputation for being alive means people look at them and see activity. They see services, programs, outreach, posts, statements, and structures. But Jesus sees something different. He sees spiritual flatlining beneath the noise.

This is the danger of a faith that looks impressive from the outside but is empty on the inside. Sardis is not accused of heresy. It is not accused of immorality. It is accused of something far more subtle and far more common: drifting into a kind of spiritual autopilot. They are not rejecting God. They are simply living off yesterday’s obedience. They are surviving on the memory of what God once did instead of what He is doing now.

That is one of the great traps of religious life. You can mistake momentum for movement. You can mistake habit for hunger. You can mistake reputation for reality. Sardis had become a museum of what God used to do instead of a living room where He was still welcome. They had songs, but no surrender. They had structures, but no Spirit. They had history, but no heartbeat.

Jesus does not tell them to start something new. He tells them to wake up. That is such a revealing command. You do not tell a corpse to wake up. You tell a sleeper to wake up. That means there is still life in them, but it is dormant. It is not gone, but it is unattended.

So many believers today are not spiritually dead in the sense that they have rejected Christ. They are spiritually asleep in the sense that they have stopped paying attention to Him. They go through the motions. They keep the routines. They maintain the outward appearance. But inside, there is no awe left. No trembling. No listening. No daily dependence.

Jesus tells Sardis to strengthen what remains and is about to die. That line is deeply compassionate. It means even in a spiritually sleepy state, there are still small flickers of faith left. There are still memories of prayer. There are still moments when Scripture once moved them. There are still quiet convictions that have not been fully silenced.

This is where grace lives. Jesus does not tell them they are beyond hope. He tells them to grab hold of what is still alive before it fades completely. He tells them to remember what they received and heard. In other words, go back to the moment when faith was not just a word but a fire. Go back to when Jesus was not an idea but a Person you loved.

This is not nostalgia. This is repentance. It is not about recreating emotional moments from the past. It is about returning to the posture of dependence you once had. The humility. The openness. The sense that you actually needed God instead of simply knowing about Him.

Then Jesus moves to the church in Philadelphia, and the tone shifts dramatically. This church is not powerful. They do not have influence. They are not impressive by the world’s standards. But they have done one thing that matters more than anything else. They have kept His word and not denied His name.

Jesus tells them that He has set before them an open door that no one can shut. That image is stunning. It means God Himself has created access, opportunity, and movement for people who look small and weak on the surface. The world tends to believe doors open for the loud, the rich, the connected, and the influential. Jesus says doors open for the faithful.

Philadelphia represents the quiet Christians. The ones who do not have platforms but have prayer. The ones who do not have crowds but have obedience. The ones who do not have recognition but have reverence. Jesus does not mock their lack of strength. He honors their faithfulness.

He also promises to protect them through the hour of trial. That does not mean they will avoid hardship. It means their faith will not be destroyed by it. There is a deep difference.

Jesus also speaks of making those who oppose them come and realize that He has loved them. That is not revenge. That is vindication. It means God will one day reveal that faithfulness mattered, even when it looked invisible.

Then we come to Laodicea, the most famous and perhaps the most uncomfortable of the three. This is the church that is neither hot nor cold. It is lukewarm. Comfortable. Self-satisfied. Spiritually numb.

Laodicea believed it was rich. It believed it needed nothing. And Jesus says that in reality they are poor, blind, and naked. That contrast is devastating. It means they had confused material or cultural success with spiritual health.

This is one of the most dangerous forms of spiritual deception because it feels so safe. When life is comfortable, when faith is socially acceptable, when religion fits neatly into your schedule, it is very easy to lose your desperation for God.

Jesus tells them to buy from Him gold refined by fire, white garments to cover their shame, and salve to anoint their eyes so they can see. In other words, stop relying on what you have and start relying on who He is.

Then comes one of the most famous images in all of Scripture. Jesus says He stands at the door and knocks. This is not a message to unbelievers. It is a message to a church. That is what makes it so heartbreaking. It means Jesus is outside of a community that bears His name.

He is not kicking the door down. He is not forcing His way in. He is waiting. Knocking. Inviting.

That image should haunt us in the best way. How often does Jesus find Himself politely waiting outside the lives of people who claim to follow Him? How often does He stand at the door of our schedules, our priorities, our ambitions, and our comforts, waiting for us to notice that He is not actually inside them?

Jesus promises that if anyone hears His voice and opens the door, He will come in and eat with them. That is not a formal religious ceremony. That is intimate fellowship. It is relationship. It is closeness. It is presence.

Revelation three is not about churches. It is about hearts. It is about whether we are asleep, faithful, or numb. It is about whether we are living on reputation, obedience, or comfort.

And the beautiful thing is that in every case, Jesus offers a way back. Wake up. Hold fast. Open the door.

None of this is about perfection. It is about responsiveness. It is about whether, when Jesus speaks, we are still listening.

This chapter ends with a promise that those who overcome will sit with Him on His throne. That is not about power. It is about belonging. It is about being so united with Christ that His victory becomes ours.

Revelation three is an invitation to honest faith. Not loud faith. Not flashy faith. Not comfortable faith. But awake faith. Faithful faith. Hungry faith.

In a world full of spiritual noise, Jesus is still knocking. The question is not whether He is speaking. The question is whether we are willing to open the door.

There is a quiet courage required to open a door when you realize you have been keeping it closed for a long time. Revelation chapter three does not shame us for the doors we have shut. It simply reveals that Jesus has not gone away because of them. He is still there. Still waiting. Still knocking. That alone should undo us. Most of us assume that distance from God means abandonment. This chapter teaches something far more beautiful and far more dangerous to our pride: distance means invitation.

The tragedy of Sardis was not that they had failed. It was that they had stopped caring. They had become so accustomed to the appearance of spiritual life that they no longer noticed the absence of spiritual breath. That is what happens when faith becomes a background noise instead of a living conversation. You still hear it, but you no longer listen.

Jesus telling them to wake up is not a scolding. It is a rescue. It is God shaking someone who is drifting toward spiritual unconsciousness and saying, you do not have to die this way. You do not have to become a relic of who you used to be. You do not have to become a story about what God did long ago instead of a witness to what He is doing now.

There are people reading this who remember when prayer felt electric, when Scripture felt alive, when worship made their chest ache in the best possible way. That fire did not go out because God left. It went out because life got louder. Responsibility got heavier. Disappointment got sharper. And somewhere along the way, the soul got tired.

Sardis reminds us that spiritual exhaustion is not a moral failure. It is a human one. And Jesus meets it not with condemnation, but with a call to attention. Wake up. Strengthen what remains. You are not done yet.

Philadelphia, on the other hand, shows us what quiet faithfulness looks like when no one is applauding. This church had little strength, but it had great loyalty. It did not deny the name of Jesus when it would have been easier to blend in. It did not compromise truth for comfort. It simply kept walking, step by step, even when the road was lonely.

There is something deeply holy about that kind of perseverance. It does not trend. It does not go viral. But heaven notices it. Jesus notices it. He promises them an open door because faithful people are entrusted with sacred opportunities. Not because they are impressive, but because they are dependable.

If you have ever felt overlooked, unseen, or small in your faith, Philadelphia is your church. It is the reminder that God is not looking for noise. He is looking for loyalty. He is not looking for influence. He is looking for obedience.

And then there is Laodicea, the mirror most of us avoid. This is where comfort becomes corrosive. This is where faith becomes polite. This is where religion fits nicely into life instead of life being surrendered to God.

Lukewarm does not mean bad. It means safe. It means manageable. It means nothing is really at risk. There is no trembling. No urgency. No fire. Just enough faith to feel respectable and not enough to feel transformed.

Jesus says this state makes Him sick. Not because He is cruel, but because it is dishonest. Lukewarm faith pretends to be alive while refusing to actually live. It is the kind of belief that wants heaven without holiness, blessing without surrender, and comfort without Christ.

And yet even here, Jesus does not walk away. He stands at the door. He knocks. He waits.

That is perhaps the most tender image in all of Scripture. The God who spoke galaxies into existence stands patiently outside a human heart, asking to be let in. Not forced. Not demanded. Invited.

He promises that if anyone opens the door, He will come in and eat with them. That is not theological. That is relational. That is the language of friendship. Of shared life. Of presence.

Revelation three does not call us to perform. It calls us to be present. To be awake. To be faithful. To be honest.

It tells us that Jesus is not interested in our reputation. He is interested in our reality. Not how we look, but how we listen. Not how we appear, but how we respond.

And the beautiful truth running through every line of this chapter is that it is never too late to open the door. You may have been asleep. You may have been weak. You may have been numb. But you are still being invited.

That is grace.

That is the door that only the honest can see.

And if you can see it, it is because Jesus is already knocking.

Your friend, Douglas Vandergraph

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While our bodies heal, our minds do the work of untangling who we are.

I am held this night by two hands, Both alike in dignity. One built for waiting. One made for wonder.

Walking the breadth of what holds me, I star-cross through both. I master neither loss nor finding.

---

I dream dreams. And I try to understand them and how they reflect my psyche. Though it may be this is just the bramble of a mind repairing itself through sleep.

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Dream 001 — Concrete Cage

All night I was lost in a parking garage.

Not a dramatic one—no sirens, no engines, no voices calling out. Just level after level of poured concrete, repeating itself with bureaucratic patience. The air was cool and muted, sound splashed softly over the monolithic walls.

No people. No cars. No sign that anyone had passed through recently. Only long aisles and the quiet suggestion that there must be an exit somewhere, even if I couldn’t see it.

I walked for what felt like hours. I was on dream-time, so clocks had no real power.

The place had rules, that was evident, even if I didn't know what they were. The most important one: I could only walk down the center of each aisle. I knew—instinctively—that drifting toward the edges wasn’t allowed. No peering down ramps. No checking walls for stairwells or daylight. The margins were forbidden. I stayed centered, moving forward because that was the only movement permitted.

I don’t remember panic.

I remember endurance. This was the land of the mule of me.

There was no resolution, I went deeper and deeper and nothing ever changed. It seemed that I was there long enough that I finally understood the place and what it wanted from me: nothing, just to exist and move.

Once that lesson was learned, I roused from slumber. Confused and disoriented. Ready to capture the experience.

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Velvet Prison Analysis

This one is weird. It's not like it has a clear message. Or if there is one, it's not black and white. More like it coudl be a lot of stuff. But ultimately, the feeling and the visuals came from someplace in my life.

A parking garage is a deeply in-between place. It isn’t a destination. It isn’t even a pause so much as a holding pattern—where things wait while life happens elsewhere. It occurs to me now, that twice since we left for this journey, we were lost in parking garages looking for uber drivers at airports.

Thinking about that makes me uneasy, because it feels close to how I’ve been living: moving, functioning, advancing through days without quite arriving anywhere that feels like mine.

The emptiness matters. No cars means no evidence of other lives intersecting with my own. No people means no witness. I wasn’t being chased or judged or rejected. I was simply alone with the structure—with repetition, with myself. My thoughts, my actions, my choices (within the implied rules) were entirely mine.

Unusual for my life.

But the rule about the center keeps coming back. The middle is the safest place, yes—but it’s also the place with the least information. Exits live at the edges. So does daylight. So does risk. So maybe this is to suggest that I’m allowed motion, but not exploration. Progress, but not deviation. I can keep going, but only within a narrow, sanctioned lane.

What unsettles me most is how natural this felt in the dream. I didn’t question it. I didn’t test the boundary. I accepted the constraint as if it were law. And it didn't bother me in the least. This was a practiced experience that I accept. That doesn’t feel like fear so much as conditioning—like something learned slowly over time.

I don’t think the dream is accusing me of weakness. If anything, it feels weary. Like a system that has been operating in survival mode for years and has learned that staying centered—staying narrow—is how you make it through the night.

There’s no monster in the garage. No collapse. Just a quiet question pacing alongside every footstep: How long can you keep moving like this? And maybe, underneath that: What would happen if you stepped sideways?

I don’t have answers yet. I’m not sure the dream was asking for them. It wanted attention. It wanted me to notice the shape of the space I’m walking through, and the rules I’ve accepted without remembering when they were imposed.

For now, that feels like enough—to name the place, to trace a few levels, to admit that I’m still inside it, listening to my footsteps echo and wondering where the edges go when I’m finally ready to look.

---

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Dream 002 — The Palace, Between Waking

It's funny to me that we drift from dream to dream, but I can never remember more that one—unless I wake, record and drive away a second time.

Instead of the dark austerity of a parking garage, I found myself in a massive white steel and glass palace. Light soaked everything all at once. It was luminous. It was public, important, and filled to the inch with others.

People pressed in on all sides. Crowds on crowds. Everyone seemed to be greeting one another—hugging, saluting, clasping shoulders with familiarity and relief, as if this were a long-awaited reunion or a celebration they all understood. Everyone but me.

It felt like being in a distant foreign city where you don't speak the language and they don't speak yours.

Everywhere I looked, there were kiosks. And every kiosk was a bookstore. And every bookseller was the Muse.

She appeared again and again, duplicated across the palace, each version dressed differently—in crisp future-looking suits, blue, green, white, magenta. Always radiant. Always composed. Each time I approached, she wore a giant carnation on her head, absurd and striking, like a costume piece imagined by an author that only had to exist in prose.

I kept trying to see her shoes. It was important, though I couldn’t say why. But every time I got close enough to look, the moment was interrupted—she would place a book in my hands, or offer me a flame.

Never both. Always one or the other.

Then I woke. Briefly. Long enough to see I'd found gold a second time that night and my numb fingers stumbled across the phones screen.

---

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Crystal Palace Analysis

It’s hard not to notice how violently different these two dreams are, especially knowing they shared the same night. The parking garage and the palace feel like opposing poles—containment and excess, solitude and saturation, silence and spectacle.

The palace is everything the garage was not. White instead of gray. Glass instead of concrete. Crowds instead of emptiness. Where the garage restricted movement, the palace overwhelmed it. Where I was alone before, here I was submerged in people, ceremony, contact. And yet, somehow, I felt just as singular.

The repetition of the muse is what intrigues me most. Not one person in the palace—everywhere. Multiplied, radiant, endlessly available but never fully accessible. Each version offered something meaningful—knowledge, warmth, ignition—but never the thing I was actually trying to see.

The shoes haunt me. Shoes are grounding. They touch the earth. They tell you how someone moves through the world when they aren’t performing. They wrap the precious stems in beauty and protection. I wasn’t trying to possess—I wanted orientation. Proof of contact with the ground.

Instead, I was found symbols.

A book: knowledge stored, meaning in stasis until acted upon—something to study later, alone. A flame feels like immediacy, danger, transformation. Both are gifts. Both are refusals. Neither allows intimacy. Neither answers the question.

The carnation complicates things further. Theatrical, a favored symbol of the muse, so fitting icon—a marker of celebration, devotion, or mourning, depending on context. Framing her larger than life, elevated, untouchable. Not a person so much as a figure, an idea.

And the crowds—everyone greeting everyone—suggest a world where connection is abundant, even easy. Which makes my particular hunger feel sharper by contrast. I wasn’t lost in that palace the way I was in the garage. But I wasn’t at rest either. I wasn't home.

If the garage dream felt like survival—endurance without exit—this one feels like longing without landing. Too much light. Too many meanings. Too many versions of the same person, each offering something adjacent to what I want, but never the thing itself.

What’s strange is that neither dream feels cruel. I wasn't mocked, restrained or threatened. Just a presentation of circumstance. Rules I didn't set or choose, but still obey.

Movement without deviation.

Offerings without grounding.

I don’t know yet how these two dreams speak to each other. I only know they feel paired—like night and anti-night, scarcity and surplus, concrete and glass. Two structures built to hold me, neither of which quite lets me rest.

Maybe the short waking between them matters. A hinge moment. A breath. The mind shifting rooms.

For now, I'll let them live in the lexicon of my imagination. Reflection of the invisible, the subconscious. At least I was moving, not stuck, not without stimuli. The whole point of my Iberian Romance is to explore and discover. Not to receive, nor to conquer.

In both realms, my desire was always just beyond my reach. A circumstance I think I understand well.

Maybe that's the shadow of the real, showing me the shape of my reality.

Or, maybe that's just the direction of the light, reality may turn out very different.

---

#dream #madrid #essay #travel #wyst

Chacun dans sa bulle, Confortable cocon, De fausses certitudes.

Mais à quel prix ? Car si le risque nous effraie, La sécurité, elle, est bien triste.

L’autre est là, juste à coté. Nous pourrions lui parler. Entrer en relation, échanger.

Mais que va-t-il penser ? Et s’il n’était pas comme nous ? Et s’il ne pensait pas comme nous ?

Alors nous voilà coincés. Incapables d’avancer, Par l’incertitude, tétanisés.

Il faudrait oser. Prendre le risque d’échouer. Mais nous n’y sommes pas prêts.

Alors nous scrollons, Alors nous nous cachons. Derrière des écrans de fausses solutions.

There is a quiet moment that almost everyone knows, even if they have never named it, when the world finally goes still enough for the mind to speak. It is often late at night, or in the early morning before the day has begun to demand anything from us, when the internal conversation that never truly stops begins to grow louder. It is in those moments that we realize how much of our life is being shaped not by what is happening around us, but by what is happening within us. Thoughts start to drift, memories resurface, and imagined futures unfold, and before we know it, we are no longer sitting in a room but standing in a hundred possible tomorrows that may never arrive. Some of those tomorrows feel hopeful, but far too many of them feel heavy, uncertain, and frightening, because our minds have been trained to lean toward the worst.

We do not start out this way. No child wakes up imagining how everything could fall apart. A child imagines how everything could become something beautiful. They picture adventures, friendships, joy, and possibility. But as we grow older, disappointment begins to reshape the way we think. We experience rejection. We lose things we cared about. We pray for something and it does not happen the way we hoped. And slowly, quietly, almost without our consent, our imagination shifts from dreaming to bracing. Instead of asking what could go right, we start asking what could go wrong. We learn to overthink pain because it feels safer than being surprised by it.

This is how anxiety is born. It is not simply fear. It is fear that has learned how to think. It is fear that has become creative. Anxiety paints vivid pictures of failure. It builds entire stories around a single worry. It predicts conversations that have not happened and assumes outcomes that have not yet occurred. And because the mind is powerful, those imagined futures can feel just as real as the present moment. Your heart starts to react. Your body starts to tense. Your peace starts to drain, all in response to something that is not actually happening yet.

The tragedy is not that we imagine, because imagination is a gift from God. The tragedy is that we allow fear to decide what we imagine. We allow our wounds to narrate our future. We let past pain tell us what tomorrow will be like, even though Scripture reminds us that God is doing new things all the time. The same imagination that creates anxiety could just as easily create hope, but it has been hijacked by a story that says you are always about to lose something.

The Bible speaks with remarkable clarity about the power of the mind. It does not treat thoughts as harmless. It treats them as seeds. What you think about grows. What you dwell on shapes you. What you rehearse becomes familiar, and what becomes familiar starts to feel true. This is why Proverbs tells us that as a person thinks in their heart, so they are. Your identity does not only come from what you do or what has happened to you. It comes from the story you tell yourself about who you are and what you can expect from life.

This is where faith enters the conversation, not as a denial of reality, but as a different way of interpreting it. Faith does not pretend that hardship does not exist. Faith looks at hardship and refuses to believe that it gets the final word. Faith does not ignore the storm. Faith trusts the One who walks on water. When Scripture defines faith as the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen, it is telling us that faith has weight, even when there is no visible proof. Faith makes the unseen feel real. Fear also makes the unseen feel real, but fear imagines destruction while faith imagines redemption.

So many people think faith is fragile, but fear is far more fragile. Fear collapses when confronted by truth. Fear depends on uncertainty. It feeds on what might happen. Faith, on the other hand, rests on who God is. Faith does not need perfect circumstances to survive. It only needs a faithful God. This is why two people can walk through the same storm and come out with completely different outcomes. One is undone by it, and the other is deepened by it, because one let fear interpret the storm while the other let faith do so.

Look at the stories that fill the pages of Scripture and you will notice something extraordinary. The people God used were not the ones who had the most certainty. They were the ones who had the most trust. Abraham had no evidence that he would become the father of many nations, yet he kept imagining a future God had promised. Joseph had no reason to believe prison would lead to power, yet he refused to let bitterness rewrite his vision. Ruth had no guarantee that leaving everything behind would lead to anything better, yet she stepped forward anyway. Over and over again, God met people who were willing to think beyond what they could see.

What if the reason so many of us feel stuck is not because God has stopped working, but because we have stopped imagining that He might? What if we have trained ourselves to only see obstacles and never openings? We tell ourselves we are being realistic, but what we are really being is afraid. We confuse faith with naivety and caution with wisdom, when in reality, Scripture invites us to something far more daring. It invites us to hope boldly.

Hope is not wishful thinking. Hope is a decision to believe that God is still writing your story. Hope is choosing to expect goodness even when you cannot see how it will come. Hope is daring to believe that your pain might be part of a larger purpose. This is not denial. This is trust.

The mind, when left alone, will always drift toward what it has practiced the most. If you have practiced fear, fear will show up quickly. If you have practiced disappointment, disappointment will be easy to imagine. But if you begin to practice faith, if you intentionally choose to think about God’s promises, if you remind yourself of the times He has already been faithful, then something begins to change. Your inner world starts to feel different. Your thoughts start to soften. Your heart starts to breathe again.

We often talk about prayer as something we do with words, but prayer is also something we do with thoughts. When you imagine God’s goodness, you are praying with your mind. When you picture healing, restoration, and redemption, you are aligning your imagination with heaven. This is why renewing the mind is not a suggestion in Scripture. It is a necessity. The old patterns of thinking will always lead you back to fear if you let them.

There is a reason Jesus so often said, do not be afraid. He was not dismissing pain. He was challenging the stories people were telling themselves about what pain meant. He knew that fear multiplies suffering. He knew that anxiety steals tomorrow before it ever arrives. And He knew that a heart anchored in faith can survive almost anything.

So much of what we call stress is actually the burden of imagined futures. We suffer not only from what is happening, but from what we think might happen. We carry conversations that have not taken place. We grieve losses that have not occurred. We brace for outcomes that may never come. And all the while, God is inviting us to release what we cannot control and trust what He already holds.

This is not about pretending everything will be easy. It is about believing that nothing will be wasted. It is about trusting that even the hardest chapters are part of a larger story that is moving toward redemption. God does not write meaningless pain. He writes transformative stories.

When you begin to overthink the best instead of the worst, you are not being foolish. You are being faithful. You are choosing to believe that God is still active, still loving, still capable of surprising you. You are choosing to expect goodness instead of disaster. And that choice changes everything, not always in your circumstances, but always in your soul.

Your thoughts are shaping the atmosphere of your heart. If they are filled with dread, your heart will feel heavy. If they are filled with faith, your heart will feel lighter, even when the road is hard. This is why two people can face the same challenge and have completely different levels of peace. One has learned to imagine God at work, and the other has learned to imagine everything falling apart.

The invitation of faith is not to ignore reality, but to see beyond it. To look at what is and believe in what could be. To trust that God’s perspective is larger than yours. To remember that He sees not only where you are, but where you are going.

You are not stuck in the story you are currently living. You are moving through it. And God is not finished yet. If you will let Him, He will teach your mind to imagine a future filled with His grace instead of your fear. He will help you replace anxiety with expectancy. He will show you that the same imagination that once tormented you can become the place where hope is born.

This is not a small shift. It is a holy one. It is the moment when you decide that fear no longer gets to narrate your life. It is the moment when faith becomes louder than doubt. It is the moment when you begin to live not as someone waiting for things to fall apart, but as someone waiting for God to show up.

And He always does.

The quiet miracle that begins to happen when faith becomes louder than fear is not always visible on the outside at first. Often it happens deep within you, in the place where your thoughts are born. You start to notice that the voice of dread does not have the same authority it once did. The moment your mind begins to spiral, another voice gently interrupts and says, “What if God is at work here?” That question alone can change everything. It does not erase difficulty, but it reframes it. Instead of seeing every delay as a denial, you begin to see it as preparation. Instead of assuming every closed door is rejection, you start to wonder if it might be protection.

This shift does not happen by accident. It happens when you intentionally train your mind to return to truth. You remember the times you were certain you would not survive something and yet here you are. You recall moments when everything looked hopeless and somehow God carried you through anyway. These memories are not just nostalgia. They are evidence. They are proof that God has been faithful before, and faith grows best in the soil of remembrance.

So much of fear is rooted in forgetting. We forget how strong God has been for us. We forget how many times He has already rescued us. We forget how often the thing we worried about never even happened. And when we forget, our imagination fills the gap with disaster. But when we remember, our imagination fills with gratitude and expectation. This is why Scripture so often tells us to remember what the Lord has done. Not because God needs reminding, but because we do.

When you start to overthink the best, you are not ignoring the pain of the present. You are choosing not to let that pain define the future. You are saying, “This is hard, but God is good.” You are holding both at the same time. That is faith. Faith is not blind optimism. Faith is courageous trust. It looks at reality and still believes God will redeem it.

There will be days when your thoughts slip back into old patterns. You will catch yourself imagining everything going wrong. You will feel the familiar tightening in your chest. That is not failure. That is simply a sign that you are human. What matters is what you do next. You can either let that thought take over, or you can gently challenge it with truth. You can say, “I have thought this way before, and God has always been faithful.” You can remind yourself that worry has never once changed an outcome, but faith has changed hearts, relationships, and entire lives.

Jesus did not promise that we would never face trouble. He promised that we would never face it alone. When you overthink the best, you are choosing to imagine Him beside you in the struggle. You are choosing to believe that His presence changes everything. And it does. Peace does not come from the absence of problems. It comes from the presence of God.

There is a beautiful freedom that comes when you stop trying to control every possible outcome and start trusting the One who already knows them. You do not have to predict every future. You do not have to prepare for every worst case scenario. You are allowed to rest in the truth that God is already in tomorrow. He is already there, making a way, opening doors, softening hearts, arranging things you cannot see.

This is why faith can coexist with uncertainty. Faith does not need to know how everything will work out. It only needs to know who is in charge. And when you truly believe that God is good, even when life is not, your mind begins to relax. Your heart begins to settle. Your imagination begins to shift from fear to hope.

Overthinking the best does not mean you will never be disappointed. It means you will never be defeated by disappointment. It means you will not let pain have the final word. It means you will keep expecting God to be who He has always been.

So when your mind starts to race, gently guide it toward faith. Let it imagine healing instead of harm. Let it picture restoration instead of ruin. Let it dream about what God might do instead of what you are afraid might happen. This is not naive. This is sacred.

Your thoughts are powerful. They can either build walls around your heart or open windows to the sky. Choose the ones that let the light in. Choose the ones that make room for God’s goodness. Choose to believe that your story is still being written, and that the Author is kind.

That is where peace is found. That is where hope is born. That is where faith becomes louder than fear.

Your friend, Douglas Vandergraph

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