The studio backlot stank of fake blood and desperation as I flubbed the incantation—again. “Cut!” roared Director Carmichael, his cigar stub trembling like an epileptic divining rod. My co-star Ryder smirked, adjusting his prop sword with that infuriating I-trained-at-Julliard flair. “Maybe try acting next time?” he whispered. The enchanted spotlight above us pulsed—an actual goddamn will-o'-the-wisp they'd rented from Prague. I wiped my palms on the doublet. One more take. The script's eldritch runes shimmered. The wisp screamed. Ryder's perfect hair caught fire. Carmichael dropped his cigar. “No,” I corrected, stepping over the burning diva, “method acting.”

#Scratch

I'm in the finishing touches stage of putting together a cryptid guidebook, a project that's been downright fun on a bun to put together. In this particular book I limited my focus to cryptids from Appalachia, an area with a high concentration of critters lurking high up in the mountains, deep in the woods, or down in the hollers. And as much as I knew about local cryptids before I started this research, there were still some surprises along the way. One of them, for me, was the number of serpentine or snake-like creatures, and not just down south where things stay tolerable for large reptiles all year. Even up in New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio, they have reptilian monsters with recurring sightings year after year. 

Now, I know—reptiles can survive in northern Appalachia, which has plenty of snakes and turtles that call it home, along with amphibians like frogs and salamanders. But large reptilian predators tend to stick to warmer climates, especially the types of predators sometimes reported in northern Appalachia's lakes and rivers. Of course, that type of thing has never been a concern for mythological creatures. Norse mythology prominently features a serpent, after all, and that comes from another landscape where reptiles aren't exactly happy in the winter. Really, the prevalence of serpent-like monsters in Appalachia is refective of a much larger pattern. No matter the origin of the folklore or mythology, odds are, it has a snake.

 

Which naturally made me wonder just why snakes—specifically giant snakes—are so universal. I did a post on the prevalence of dragons a little while back, and I think some of those same explanations could probably apply here. Massive snakes could be attempts to explain discovered dinosaur bones or a record of encounters with now-exctinct species. While that could be the source of their appearance, though, the core role of snakes in many cultures' perceptions of the world, and the meaning assigned to them, goes well beyond this idea. 

The snakes that started everything

Many mythologies include one or more primordial creatures, beings that existed before humanity—and often even before the gods who created humanity. Their fate typically falls into two camps. One group are killed in process of creating the world (frequently so their body can be used to form the landscape), while the other continue to live on, either asleep underneath the earth or in some way supporting the earth or the universe. The legends of beasties in this latter group may include an prophecy that the beast will someday wake up and cause all kinds of havoc, potentially up to and including the end of the world as we know it. 

And you've probably guessed by now the reason I'm bringing this up: a lot of these creatures are snakes. To give a non-exhaustive list of examples, some of these include:

• Ayida-Weddo – the “Rainbow Serpent” of the Fon people of Benin that was also adopted into Vodou, which  helped creator goddess Mawu-Lisa shape the world and now coils under the world to keep it from collapsing. Earthquakes are caused by its movements, and it's said that someday it will eat its own tail, causing the Earth to sink into the abyss
• Andndayin oj – the Armenian “Abyssal Serpent” that lives in the black waters around the world tree
• Antaboga – The first being that existed in the mythology of Java in Indonesia. It created the world turtle that all other life sprang from, along with Dewi Sri, the rice goddess
• Bobbi-Bobbi – a sea serpent Dreamtime ancestor for the Binbinga people of Australia, who created bats for them to hunt and gave them boomerangs to hunt with
• Naga Padoha – giant serpent from the mythology of the Batak of Sumatra who guards the underworld. The goddess Sideak Parujar created the world on his back, and earthquakes happen when he struggles
• Pakhangba – powerful serpentine god of the Meitei in India, considered the ultimate ancestor as the father of the seven dragon ancestors of the Meitei clans
• Shesha – or Ananta, the king of the nagas in Hindu mythology, who holds the entire universe on the hoods of his many heads
• Ungud – snake god from the Wunambal people of Australia, who lived underground at the start of the world and helped the sky deity Wallanganda to create life through their dreams
• Unhcegila – Lakota and Dakota horned serpent who flooded the land when she emerged from the primordial waters, the proceeded to terrorize early humans until a warrior finally slays her, leaving her body to form the rocks of the Badlands

...and there are more that follow in a similar vein, often in the Rainbow Serpent archetype in Australia and the Horned Serpent model in American myths. To be fair, snakes certainly aren't the only animals to be given this status; turtles and birds are other recurring figures in this role. But snakes were commonly seen as embodying a kind of primordial force, even beyond the examples given here. The ancient Greeks, for instance, saw snakes as symbolizing an energy that can both create and destroy, and used snakes broadly in their mythology even though, as one scholar put it, snakes played “no meaningful practical role in the lives of the anicent Greeks.”

Scholars often cite some of a snake's unique attributes as the reason behind this. Shedding its skin is a big one. This makes it a logical symbol of renewal, rebirth, and transformation, things that are often heavy themes in mythologies. There's also the fact that snakes slither on the ground. They're connected to the earth, and through it to the ancestors and the underworld. Other snakes can transcend boundaries, moving both in water and on land or climbing trees, giving them a natural place as intermediaries between humans and the sky, water, and earth that are seen as realms of the divine. 

Snakes as creators

Another sizeable sub-set of mythological snake figures are those that are portrayed as creators or culture heroes. In part because they seem to contradict some of the prevailing wisdom about where snake monsters in folklore come from. One theory that came up a lot in my research was that giant snakes in folklore represented early humans' fear about encountering poisonous or dangerous snakes in the wild. That makes sense when the snakes are framed as monsters, but doesn't track quite as well to them teaching humans, or even creating them in the first place.

Some examples of mythical creatures in this category include: 

• Amaru – double-headed serpent said by the Inca to live at the bottoms of lakes and rivers. Its ability to transcend worlds makes it a conduit for spiritual knowledge
• Awanyu – horned serpent of the Tewa Pueblo who taught humans rituals related to rainfall, which he is said to control
• Degei – the creator god of Fijian mythology, who hatched an egg that produced the first humans
• Fuxi – culture hero with a serpent body in Chinese mythology, seen as the first emperor of China who invented music, cooking, hunting, fishing, and writing
• Kukulkan- the feathered serpent of Maya myth (later reprized by the Aztec as Quetzalcoatl) seen as a mediator between the heavens and earth, and representative of cyclical time
• Nuwa – mother goddess from Chinese mythology who molded humans out of yellow clay. She has the head of a woman with the body of a snake

...and there are certainly more. The snake is also associated as a familiar or symbolic animal with an array of helpful deities, like Wadjet from Egyptian mythology or the Rod of Asclepius from ancient Greece, which is the image of a snake circling a staff that's associated with medicine and healing. That seems particularly counterintuitive, but it again gets back to that idea of snakes as symbols for renewing life. Some alchemists even thought they knew the secret to immortality. 

It's also worth noting that even helpful snakes in folklore and mythology often have a dangerous side. Serpent deities are often connected to weather, meaning they can bring helpful rains but also devastating floods. Primordial beings that created the world can also ruin cities with earthquakes just by shifting a coil, or even destroy the earth entirely. The source of that snake around staff imagery used by the Greeks was an older Sumerian god, Ningizzida, who was often depicted as a horned serpent and took a seasonal descent into the underworld to represent the changing seasons. This is another example of the serpent in mythology linked to the earth, which makes it a source of both sustenance and fear. 

Snakes as monsters and destroyers

This is the role most modern folk tales cast snakes into, and it's a common one across mythology, too. It's also the one that makes the most logical sense, like I alluded to in the last section. Most humans have an instant fear and/or ick reaction to snakes. Stories about encounters with dangerous snakes are just as prone to the fish-story effect as anything else, with the offending animal getting just a bit bigger with every telling, or the snake's dangerous attributes might get intentionally exaggerated to turn the story into a cautionary tale for kids about why not to mess with the colorful thing making the rattly noise with its tail. 

The question of why snakes persist in cold-weather places is probably another one that has two answers. Some could stem from encounters or stories brought back by travelers in warmer landscapes. These kinds of stories would seem particularly fantastic and noteworthy to someone who's used to the more reasonably sized snakes found in temperate climates. The other answer, I think, is that the implausibility of a giant snake in a place like Pennsylvania is part of its appeal. It adds to a being's mystique if it's living somewhere it's not supposed to be. When animals do this, it breaks the rules you know for them, and that makes them seem even more powerful and terrifying. 

I suppose, when you stop to think about it, it isn't so strange that snakes are so common in myths and folklore. They live on every continent except antarctica, meaning humans have been living alongside snakes from their earliest days. I suppose it's no wonder they'd work their ways into our stories. 

See similar posts:

#Mythology #Cryptids #Folklore

When 92 per cent of students admit they're using AI to complete assignments, and 88 per cent have used generative tools to explain concepts, summarise articles, or directly generate text for their work, according to the UK's Higher Education Policy Institute, educators face an uncomfortable truth. The traditional markers of academic achievement (the well-crafted essay, the meticulously researched paper, the thoughtfully designed project) can now be produced by algorithms in seconds. This reality forces a fundamental question: what should we actually be teaching, and more importantly, how do we prove that students possess genuine creative and conceptual capabilities rather than mere technical facility with AI tools?

The erosion of authenticity in education represents more than a cheating scandal or a technological disruption. It signals the collapse of assessment systems built for a pre-AI world, where the act of production itself demonstrated competence. When assignments prioritise formulaic tasks over creative thinking, students lose connection to their own voices and capabilities. Curricula focused on soon-to-be-obsolete skills fail to inspire genuine curiosity or intellectual engagement, creating environments where shortcuts become attractive not because students are lazy, but because the work itself holds no meaning.

Yet paradoxically, this crisis creates opportunity. As philosopher John Dewey argued, genuine education begins with curiosity leading to reflective thinking. Dewey, widely recognised as the father of progressive education, emphasised learning through direct experience rather than passive absorption of information. This approach suggests that education should be an interactive process, deeply connected to real-life situations, and aimed at preparing individuals to participate fully in democratic society. By engaging students in hands-on activities that require critical thinking and problem-solving, Dewey believed education could foster deeper understanding and practical application of knowledge.

Business schools, design programmes, and innovative educators now leverage AI not merely as a tool for efficiency but as a catalyst for human creativity. The question transforms from “how do we prevent AI use?” to “how do we cultivate creative thinking that AI cannot replicate?”

Reframing AI as Creative Partner

At the MIT Media Lab, researchers have developed what they call a “Creative AI” curriculum specifically designed to teach middle school students about generative machine learning techniques. Rather than treating AI as a threat to authentic learning, the curriculum frames it as an exploration of creativity itself, such that children's creative and imaginative capabilities can be enhanced by innovative technologies. Students explore neural networks and generative adversarial networks across various media forms (text, images, music, videos), learning to partner with machines in creative expression.

The approach builds on the constructionist tradition, pioneered by Seymour Papert and advanced by Mitchel Resnick, who leads the MIT Media Lab's Lifelong Kindergarten group. Resnick, the LEGO Papert Professor of Learning Research, argues in his book Lifelong Kindergarten that the rest of education should adopt kindergarten's playful, project-based approach. His research group developed Scratch, the world's leading coding platform for children, and recently launched OctoStudio, a mobile coding app. The Lifelong Kindergarten philosophy centres on the Creative Learning Spiral: imagine, create, play, share, reflect, and imagine again.

This iterative methodology directly addresses the challenge of teaching creativity in the AI age. Students engage in active construction, combining academic lessons with hands-on projects that inspire them to be active, informed, and creative users and designers of AI. Crucially, students practice computational action, designing projects to help others and their community, which encourages creativity, critical thinking, and empathy as they reflect on the ethical and societal impact of their designs.

According to Adobe's “Creativity with AI in Education 2025 Report,” which surveyed 2,801 educators in the US and UK, 91 per cent observe enhanced learning when students utilise creative AI. More tellingly, as educators incorporate creative thinking activities into classrooms, they observe notable increases in other academic outcomes and cognitive skill development, including critical thinking, knowledge retention, engagement, and resilience.

Scaffolding AI-Enhanced Creativity

The integration of generative AI into design thinking curricula reveals how educational scaffolding can amplify rather than replace human judgement. Research published in the Journal of University Teaching and Learning Practice employed thematic analysis to examine how design students engage with AI tools. Four key themes emerged: perceived benefits (enhanced creativity and accessibility), ethical concerns (bias and authorship ambiguity), hesitance and acceptance (evolution from scepticism to strategic adoption), and critical validation (development of epistemic vigilance).

Sentiment analysis showed 86 per cent positive responses to AI integration, though ethical concerns generated significant negative sentiment at 62 per cent. This tension represents precisely the kind of critical thinking educators should cultivate. The study concluded that generative AI, when pedagogically scaffolded, augments rather than replaces human judgement.

At Stanford, the d.school has updated its Design Thinking Bootcamp to incorporate AI elements whilst maintaining focus on human-centred design principles. The approach, grounded in Understanding by Design (backward design), starts by identifying what learners should know, understand, or be able to do by the end of the learning experience, then works backwards to design activities that develop those capabilities.

MIT Sloan has augmented this framework to create “AI-resilient learning design.” Key steps include reviewing students' backgrounds, goals, and likely interactions with generative AI, then identifying what students should accomplish given AI's capabilities. This isn't about preventing AI use, but rather about designing learning experiences where AI becomes a tool for deeper exploration rather than a shortcut to superficial completion.

The approach recognises a crucial distinction: leading for proficiency versus leading for creativity. Daniel Coyle's research contrasts environments optimised for consistent task-based execution with those designed to discover and build original ideas. Creative teams must understand that failure isn't just possible but necessary. Every failure becomes an opportunity to reframe either the problem or the solution, progressively homing in on more refined approaches.

Collaborative Learning and AI-Enhanced Peer Feedback

The rise of AI tools has transformed collaborative learning, creating new possibilities for peer feedback and collective creativity. Research published in the International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education examined the effects of generative AI tools (including ChatGPT, Midjourney, and Runway) on university students' collaborative problem-solving skills and team creativity performance in digital storytelling creation. The use of multiple generative AI tools facilitated a wide range of interactions, fostered dynamic and multi-way communication during the co-creation process, promoting effective teamwork and problem-solving.

Crucially, the interaction with ChatGPT played a central role in fostering creative storytelling by helping students generate diverse and innovative solutions not as readily achievable in traditional group settings. This finding challenges assumptions that AI might diminish collaboration; instead, when properly integrated, it enhances collective creative capacity.

AI-driven tools can augment collaboration and peer feedback in literacy tasks through features such as machine learning, natural language processing, and sentiment analysis. These technologies make collaborative literacy learning more engaging, equitable, and productive. Creating AI-supported peer feedback loops (structuring opportunities for students to review each other's work with AI guidance) teaches them to give constructive feedback whilst reinforcing concepts.

Recent research has operationalised shared metacognition using four indicators: collaborative reflection with AI tools, shared problem-solving strategies supported by AI, group regulation of tasks through AI, and peer feedback on the use of AI for collaborative learning. With AI-driven collaboration platforms, students can engage in joint problem-solving, reflect on contributions, and collectively adjust their learning strategies.

The synergy between AI tutoring and collaborative activities amplifies learning outcomes compared to either approach alone. This creates a powerful learning environment addressing both personalisation and collaboration needs. Collaborative creativity is facilitated by AI, which supports group projects and peer interactions, fostering a sense of community and collective problem-solving that enhances creative outcomes.

Authentic Assessment of Creative Thinking

The rise of AI tools fundamentally disrupts traditional assessment. When a machine can generate essays, solve complex problems, and even mimic creative writing, educators must ask: what skills should we assess, and how do we evaluate learning in a world where AI can perform tasks once thought uniquely human? This has led to arguments that assessment must shift from measuring rote knowledge to promoting and evaluating higher-order thinking, creativity, and ethical reasoning.

Enter authentic assessment, which involves the application of real-world tasks to evaluate students' knowledge, skills, and attitudes in ways that replicate actual situations where those competencies would be utilised. According to systematic reviews, three key features define this approach: realism (a genuine context framing the task), cognitive challenge (creative application of knowledge to novel contexts), and holistic evaluation (examining multiple dimensions of activity).

The Association of American Colleges and Universities has developed VALUE (Valid Assessment of Learning in Undergraduate Education) rubrics that provide frameworks for assessing creative thinking. Their definition positions creative thinking as “both the capacity to combine or synthesise existing ideas, images, or expertise in original ways and the experience of thinking, reacting, and working in an imaginative way characterised by a high degree of innovation, divergent thinking, and risk taking.”

The VALUE rubric can assess research papers, lab reports, musical compositions, mathematical equations, prototype designs, or reflective pieces. This breadth matters enormously in the AI age, because it shifts assessment from product to process, from output to thinking.

Alternative rubric frameworks reinforce this process orientation. EdLeader21's assessment rubric targets six dispositions: idea generation, idea design and refinement, openness and courage to explore, working creatively with others, creative production and innovation, and self-regulation and reflection. The Centre for Real-World Learning at the University of Winchester organises assessment like a dartboard, with five dispositions (inquisitive, persistent, imaginative, collaborative, disciplined) each assessed for breadth, depth, and strength.

Educational researcher Susan Brookhart has developed creativity rubrics describing four levels (very creative, creative, ordinary/routine, and imitative) across four areas: variety of ideas, variety of sources, novelty of idea combinations, and novelty of communication. Crucially, she argues that rubrics should privilege process over outcome, assessing not just the final product but the thinking that generated it.

OECD Framework for Creative and Critical Thinking Assessment

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development has developed a comprehensive framework for fostering and assessing creativity and critical thinking skills in higher education across member countries. The OECD Centre for Educational Research and Innovation reviews existing policies and practices relating to assessment of students' creativity and critical thinking skills, revealing a significant gap: whilst creativity and critical thinking are largely emphasised in policy orientations and qualification standards governing higher education in many countries, these skills are sparsely integrated into dimensions of centralised assessments administered at the system level.

The OECD, UNESCO, and the Global Institute of Creative Thinking co-organised the Creativity in Education Summit 2024 on “Empowering Creativity in Education via Practical Resources” to address the critical role of creativity in shaping the future of education. This international collaboration underscores the global recognition that creative thinking cannot remain a peripheral concern but must become central to educational assessment and certification.

Research confirms the importance of participatory and collaborative methodologies, such as problem-based learning or project-based learning, to encourage confrontation of ideas and evaluation of arguments. However, these initiatives require an institutional environment that values inquiry and debate, along with teachers prepared to guide and provide feedback on complex reasoning processes.

In Finland, multidisciplinary modules in higher education promote methods such as project-based learning and design thinking, which have been proven to enhance students' creative competencies tremendously. In the United States, institutions like Stanford's d.school increasingly emphasise hands-on innovation and interdisciplinary collaboration. These examples demonstrate practical implementation of creativity-centred pedagogy at institutional scale.

Recent research published in February 2025 addresses critical thinking skill assessment in management education using Robert H. Ennis' well-known list of critical thinking abilities to identify assessable components in student work. The methodological framework offers a way of assessing evidence of five representative categories pertaining to critical thinking in a business context, providing educators with concrete tools for evaluation.

The Science of Creativity Assessment

For over five decades, the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking (TTCT) have provided the most widely used and extensively validated instrument for measuring creative potential. Developed by E. Paul Torrance in 1966 and renormed four times (1974, 1984, 1990, 1998), the TTCT has been translated into more than 35 languages and remains the most referenced creativity test globally.

The TTCT measures divergent thinking through tasks like the Alternative Uses Test, where participants list as many different uses as possible for a common object. Responses are scored on multiple dimensions: fluency (total number of interpretable, meaningful, relevant ideas), flexibility (number of different categories of responses), originality (statistical rarity of responses), elaboration (amount of detail), and resistance to premature closure (psychological openness).

Longitudinal research demonstrates the TTCT's impressive predictive validity. A 22-year follow-up study showed that all fluency, flexibility, and originality scores had significant predictive validity coefficients ranging from 0.34 to 0.48, larger than intelligence, high school achievement, or peer nominations (0.09 to 0.37). A 40-year follow-up found that originality, flexibility, IQ, and the general creative index were the best predictors of later achievement. A 50-year follow-up demonstrated that both individual and composite TTCT scores predicted personal achievement even half a century later.

Research by Jonathan Plucker reanalysed Torrance's data and found that childhood divergent thinking test scores were better predictors of adult creative accomplishments than traditional intelligence measures. This finding should fundamentally reshape educational priorities.

However, creativity assessment faces legitimate challenges. Psychologist Keith Sawyer wrote that “after over 50 years of divergent thinking test study, the consensus among creativity researchers is that they aren't valid measures of real-world creativity.” Critics note that scores from different creativity tests correlate weakly with each other. The timed, artificial tasks may not reflect real-world creativity, which often requires incubation, collaboration, and deep domain knowledge.

This criticism has prompted researchers to explore AI-assisted creativity assessment. Recent studies use generative AI models to evaluate flexibility and originality in divergent thinking tasks. A systematic review of 129 peer-reviewed journal articles (2014 to 2023) examined how AI, especially generative AI, supports feedback mechanisms and influences learner perceptions, actions, and outcomes. The analysis identified a sharp rise in AI-assisted feedback research after 2018, driven by modern large language models. AI tools flexibly cater to multiple feedback foci (task, process, self-regulation, and self) and complexity levels.

Yet research comparing human and AI creativity assessment reveals important limitations. Whilst AI demonstrates higher average flexibility, human participants excel in subjectively perceived creativity. The most creative human responses exceed AI responses in both flexibility and subjective creativity.

Teachers should play an active role in reviewing AI-generated creativity scores and refining them where necessary, particularly when automated assessments fail to capture context-specific originality. A framework highlights six domains where AI can support peer assessment: assigning assessors, enhancing individual reviews, deriving grades and feedback, analysing student responses, facilitating instructor oversight, and developing assessment systems.

Demonstrating Creative Growth Over Time

Portfolio assessment offers perhaps the most promising approach to certifying creativity and conceptual strength in the AI age. Rather than reducing learning to a single test score, portfolios allow students to showcase work in different formats: essays, projects, presentations, and creative pieces.

Portfolios serve three common assessment purposes: certification of competence, tracking growth over time, and accountability. They've been used for large-scale assessment (Vermont and Kentucky statewide systems), school-to-work transitions, and professional certification (the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards uses portfolio assessment to identify expert teachers).

The transition from standardised testing to portfolio-based assessment proves crucial because it not only reduces stress but also encourages creativity as students showcase work in personalised ways. Portfolios promote self-reflection, helping students develop critical thinking skills and self-awareness.

Recent research on electronic portfolio assessment instruments specifically examines their effectiveness in improving students' creative thinking skills. A 2024 study employed Research and Development methodology with a 4-D model (define, design, develop, disseminate) to create valid and reliable electronic portfolio assessment for enhancing critical and creative thinking.

Digital portfolios offer particular advantages for demonstrating creative development over time. Students can include multimedia artefacts (videos, interactive prototypes, sound compositions, code repositories) that showcase creative thinking in ways traditional essays cannot. Students learn to articulate thoughts, ideas, and learning experiences effectively, developing metacognitive awareness of their own creative processes.

Cultivating Creative Confidence Through Relationships

Beyond formal assessment, mentorship emerges as critical for developing creative capacity. Research on mentorship as a pedagogical method demonstrates its importance for integrating theory and practice in higher education. The theoretical foundations draw on Dewey's ideas about actors actively seeking new knowledge when existing knowledge proves insufficient, and Lev Vygotsky's sociocultural perspective, where learning occurs through meaningful interactions.

Contemporary scholarship has expanded to broader models engaging multiple mentoring partners in non-hierarchical, collaborative, and cross-cultural partnerships. One pedagogical approach, adapted from corporate mentorship, sees the mentor/protégé relationship not as corrective or replicative but rather missional, with mentors helping protégés discover and reach their own professional goals.

The GROW model provides a structured framework: establishing the Goal, examining the Reality, exploring Options and Obstacles, and setting the Way forward. When used as intentional pedagogy, relational mentorship enables educators to influence students holistically through human connection and deliberate conversation, nurturing student self-efficacy by addressing cognitive, emotional, and spiritual dimensions.

For creative development specifically, mentorship provides what assessment cannot: encouragement to take risks, normalisation of failure as part of the creative process, and contextualised feedback that honours individual creative trajectories rather than enforcing standardised benchmarks.

Reflecting on Creative Process

Perhaps the most powerful tool for developing and assessing creativity in the AI age involves metacognition: thinking about thinking. Metacognition refers to knowledge and regulation of one's own cognitive processes, regarded as a critical component of creative thinking. Creative thinking can be understood as a metacognitive process in which combination of individual cognitive knowledge and action evaluation results in creation.

Metacognition consistently emerges as an essential determinant in promoting critical thinking. Recent studies underline that the conscious application of metacognitive strategies, such as continuous self-assessment and reflective questioning, facilitates better monitoring and regulation of cognitive processes in university students.

Metacognitive monitoring and control includes subcomponents such as goal setting, planning execution, strategy selection, and cognitive assessment. Reflection, the act of looking back to process experiences, represents a particular form of metacognition focused on growth.

In design thinking applications, creative metacognition on processes involves monitoring and controlling activities and strategies during the creative process, optimising them for the best possible creative outcome. For example, a student might recognise that their work process begins with exploring the solution space whilst skipping exploration of the problem space, which could enhance the creative potential of the overall project.

Educational strategies for cultivating metacognition include incorporating self-reflection activities at each phase of learning: planning, monitoring, and evaluating. Rather than thinking about reflection only when projects conclude, educators should integrate metacognitive prompts throughout the creative process. Dewey believed that true learning occurs when students are encouraged to reflect on their experiences, analyse outcomes, and consider alternative solutions. This reflective process helps students develop critical thinking skills and fosters a lifelong love of learning.

This metacognitive approach proves particularly valuable for distinguishing AI-assisted work from AI-dependent work. Students who can articulate their creative process, explain decision points, identify alternatives considered and rejected, and reflect on how their thinking evolved demonstrate genuine creative engagement regardless of what tools they employed.

Cultivating Growth-Oriented Creative Identity

Carol Dweck's research on mindset provides essential context for creative pedagogy. Dweck, the Lewis and Virginia Eaton Professorship of Psychology at Stanford University and member of the National Academy of Sciences, distinguishes between fixed and growth mindsets. Individuals with fixed mindsets believe success derives from innate ability; those with growth mindsets attribute success to hard work, learning, training, and persistence.

Students with growth mindsets consistently outperform those with fixed mindsets. When students learn through structured programmes that they can “grow their brains” and increase intellectual abilities, they do better. Students with growth mindsets are more likely to challenge themselves and become stronger, more resilient, and creative problem-solvers.

Crucially, Dweck clarifies that growth mindset isn't simply about effort. Students need to try new strategies and seek input from others when stuck. They need to experiment, fail, and learn from failure.

The connection to AI tools becomes clear. Students with fixed mindsets may view AI as evidence they lack innate creative ability. Students with growth mindsets view AI as a tool for expanding their creative capacity. The difference isn't about the tool but about the student's relationship to their own creative development.

Sir Ken Robinson, whose 2006 TED talk “Do Schools Kill Creativity?” garnered over 76 million views, argued that we educate people out of their creativity. Students with restless minds and bodies, far from being cultivated for their energy and curiosity, are ignored or stigmatised. Children aren't afraid to make mistakes, which proves essential for creativity and originality.

Robinson's vision for education involved three fronts: fostering diversity by offering broad curriculum and encouraging individualisation of learning; promoting curiosity through creative teaching dependent on high-quality teacher training; and focusing on awakening creativity through alternative didactic processes putting less emphasis on standardised testing.

This vision aligns powerfully with AI-era pedagogy. If standardised tests prove increasingly gameable by AI, their dominance in education becomes not just pedagogically questionable but practically obsolete. The alternative involves cultivating diverse creative capacities, curiosity-driven exploration, and individualised learning trajectories that AI cannot replicate because they emerge from unique human experiences, contexts, and aspirations.

What Works in Classrooms Now

What do these principles look like in practice? Several emerging models demonstrate promising approaches to teaching creative thinking with and about AI.

The MIT Media Lab's “Day of AI” curriculum provides free, hands-on lessons introducing K-12 students to artificial intelligence and how it shapes their lives. Developed by MIT RAISE researchers, the curriculum was designed for educators with little or no technology background. Day of AI projects employ research-proven active learning methods, combining academic lessons with engaging hands-on projects.

At Stanford, the Accelerator for Learning invited proposals exploring generative AI's potential to support learning through creative production, thought, or expression. Building on Stanford Design Programme founder John Arnold's method of teaching creative problem-solving through fictional scenarios, researchers are developing AI-powered learning platforms that immerse students in future challenges to cultivate adaptive thinking.

Research on integrating AI into design-based learning shows significant potential for teaching and developing thinking skills. A 2024 study found that AI-supported activities have substantial potential for fostering creative design processes to overcome real-world challenges. Students develop design thinking mindsets along with creative and reflective thinking skills.

Computational thinking education provides another productive model. The ISTE Computational Thinking Competencies recognise that design and creativity encourage growth mindsets, working to create meaningful computer science learning experiences and environments that inspire students to build skills and confidence around computing in ways reflecting their interests and experiences.

The Constructionist Computational Creativity model integrates computational creativity into K-12 education in ways fostering both creative expression and AI competencies. Findings show that engaging learners in development of creative AI systems supports deeper understanding of AI concepts, enhances computational thinking, and promotes reflection on creativity across domains.

Project-Based Instructional Taxonomy provides a tool for course design facilitating computational thinking development as creative action in solving real-life problems. The model roots itself in interdisciplinary theoretical frameworks bringing together theories of computational thinking, creativity, Bloom's Taxonomy, and project-based instruction.

Making Creative Competence Visible

How do we certify that students possess genuine creative and conceptual capabilities? Traditional degrees and transcripts reveal little about creative capacity. A student might earn an A in a design course through skilful AI use without developing genuine creative competence.

Research on 21st century skills addresses educational challenges posed by the future of work, examining conception, assessment, and valorisation of creativity, critical thinking, collaboration, and communication (the “4Cs”). The process of official assessment and certification known as “labelisation” is suggested as a solution both for establishing publicly trusted assessment of the 4Cs and for promoting their cultural valorisation.

Traditional education systems create environments “tight” both in conceptual space afforded for creativity and in available time, essentially leaving little room for original ideas to emerge. Certification systems must therefore reward not just creative outputs but creative processes, documenting how students approach problems, iterate solutions, and reflect on their thinking.

Digital badges and micro-credentials offer one promising approach. Rather than reducing a semester of creative work to a single letter grade, institutions can award specific badges for demonstrated competencies: “Generative Ideation,” “Critical Evaluation of AI Outputs,” “Iterative Prototyping,” “Creative Risk-Taking,” “Metacognitive Reflection.” Students accumulate these badges in digital portfolios, providing granular evidence of creative capabilities.

Some institutions experiment with narrative transcripts, where faculty write detailed descriptions of student creative development rather than assigning grades. These narratives can address questions traditional grades cannot: How does this student approach ambiguous problems? How do they respond to creative failures? How has their creative confidence evolved?

Professional creative fields already employ portfolio review as primary credentialing. Design firms, architectural practices, creative agencies, and research labs evaluate candidates based on portfolios demonstrating creative thinking, not transcripts listing courses completed. Education increasingly moves toward similar models.

Education Worthy of Human Creativity

The integration of generative AI into education doesn't diminish the importance of human creativity; it amplifies the urgency of cultivating it. When algorithms can execute technical tasks with superhuman efficiency, the distinctly human capacities become more valuable: the ability to frame meaningful problems, to synthesise diverse perspectives, to take creative risks, to learn from failure, to collaborate across difference, to reflect metacognitively on one's own thinking.

Practical curricula for this era share common elements: project-based learning grounded in real-world challenges; explicit instruction in creative thinking processes paired with opportunities to practice them; integration of AI tools as creative partners rather than replacements; emphasis on iteration, failure, and learning from mistakes; cultivation of metacognitive awareness through structured reflection; diverse assessment methods including portfolios, process documentation, and peer review; mentorship relationships providing personalised support for creative development.

Effective assessment measures not just creative outputs but creative capacities: Can students generate diverse ideas? Do they evaluate options critically? Can they synthesise novel combinations? Do they persist through creative challenges? Can they articulate their creative process? Do they demonstrate growth over time?

Certification systems must evolve beyond letter grades to capture creative competence. Digital portfolios, narrative transcripts, demonstrated competencies, and process documentation all provide richer evidence than traditional credentials. Employers and graduate programmes increasingly value demonstrable creative capabilities over grade point averages.

The role of educators transforms fundamentally. Rather than gatekeepers preventing AI use or evaluators catching AI-generated work, educators become designers of creative learning experiences, mentors supporting individual creative development, and facilitators helping students develop metacognitive awareness of their own creative processes.

This transformation requires investment in teacher training, redesign of curricula, development of new assessment systems, and fundamental rethinking of what education accomplishes. But the alternative (continuing to optimise education for a world where human value derived from executing routine cognitive tasks) leads nowhere productive.

The students entering education today will spend their careers in an AI-saturated world. They need to develop creative thinking not as a nice-to-have supplement to technical skills, but as the core competency distinguishing human contribution from algorithmic execution. Education must prepare them not just to use AI tools, but to conceive possibilities those tools cannot imagine alone.

Mitchel Resnick's vision of lifelong kindergarten, Sir Ken Robinson's critique of creativity-killing systems, Carol Dweck's research on growth mindset, John Dewey's emphasis on experiential learning and reflection, and emerging pedagogies integrating AI as creative partner all point toward the same conclusion: education must cultivate the distinctly human capacities that matter most in an age of intelligent machines. Not because we're competing with AI, but because we're finally free to focus on what humans do best: imagine, create, collaborate, and grow.

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References & Sources

Association of American Colleges & Universities. “VALUE Rubrics: Creative Thinking.” https://www.aacu.org/initiatives/value-initiative/value-rubrics/value-rubrics-creative-thinking

Adobe Corporation and Advanis. “Creativity with AI in Education 2025 Report: Higher Education Edition.” https://blog.adobe.com/en/publish/2025/01/22/creativity-with-ai-new-report-imagines-the-future-of-student-success

Association for the Advancement of Colleges and Schools of Business. “AI and Creativity: A Pedagogy of Wonder.” https://www.aacsb.edu/insights/articles/2025/02/ai-and-creativity-a-pedagogy-of-wonder

Bristol Institute for Learning and Teaching, University of Bristol. “Authentic Assessment.” https://www.bristol.ac.uk/bilt/sharing-practice/guides/authentic-assessment-/

Dweck, Carol. “Mindsets: A View From Two Eras.” National Library of Medicine. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6594552/

Frontiers in Psychology. “The Role of Metacognitive Components in Creative Thinking.” https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02404/full

Frontiers in Psychology. “Creative Metacognition in Design Thinking: Exploring Theories, Educational Practices, and Their Implications for Measurement.” https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1157001/full

Gilliam Writers Group. “John Dewey's Experiential Learning: Transforming Education Through Hands-On Experience.” https://www.gilliamwritersgroup.com/blog/john-deweys-experiential-learning-transforming-education-through-hands-on-experience

International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education. “The Effects of Generative AI on Collaborative Problem-Solving and Team Creativity Performance in Digital Story Creation.” Springeropen, 2025. https://educationaltechnologyjournal.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s41239-025-00526-0

ISTE Standards. “Computational Thinking Competencies.” https://iste.org/standards/computational-thinking-competencies

Karwowski, Maciej, et al. “What Do Educators Need to Know About the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking: A Comprehensive Review.” Frontiers in Psychology, 2022. https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1000385/full

MIT Media Lab. “Creative AI: A Curriculum Around Creativity, Generative AI, and Ethics.” https://www.media.mit.edu/projects/creative-ai-a-curriculum-around-creativity-generative-ai-and-ethics/overview/

MIT Media Lab. “Lifelong Kindergarten: Cultivating Creativity through Projects, Passion, Peers, and Play.” https://www.media.mit.edu/posts/lifelong-kindergarten-cultivating-creativity-through-projects-passion-peers-and-play/

MIT Sloan Teaching & Learning Technologies. “4 Steps to Design an AI-Resilient Learning Experience.” https://mitsloanedtech.mit.edu/ai/teach/4-steps-to-design-an-ai-resilient-learning-experience/

OECD. “The Assessment of Students' Creative and Critical Thinking Skills in Higher Education Across OECD Countries.” 2023. https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/the-assessment-of-students-creative-and-critical-thinking-skills-in-higher-education-across-oecd-countries_35dbd439-en.html

Resnick, Mitchel. Lifelong Kindergarten: Cultivating Creativity through Projects, Passion, Peers, and Play. MIT Press, 2017. https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262536134/lifelong-kindergarten/

Robinson, Sir Ken. “Do Schools Kill Creativity?” TED Talk, 2006. https://www.ted.com/talks/sirkenrobinsondoschoolskillcreativity

ScienceDirect. “A Systematic Literature Review on Authentic Assessment in Higher Education: Best Practices for the Development of 21st Century Skills, and Policy Considerations.” https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0191491X24001044

Springeropen. “Integrating Generative AI into STEM Education: Enhancing Conceptual Understanding, Addressing Misconceptions, and Assessing Student Acceptance.” Disciplinary and Interdisciplinary Science Education Research, 2025. https://diser.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s43031-025-00125-z

Stanford Accelerator for Learning. “Learning through Creation with Generative AI.” https://acceleratelearning.stanford.edu/funding/learning-through-creation-with-generative-ai/

Tandfonline. “Mentorship: A Pedagogical Method for Integration of Theory and Practice in Higher Education.” https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/20020317.2017.1379346

Tandfonline. “Assessing Creative Thinking Skills in Higher Education: Deficits and Improvements.” https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03075079.2023.2225532

UNESCO. “What's Worth Measuring? The Future of Assessment in the AI Age.” https://www.unesco.org/en/articles/whats-worth-measuring-future-assessment-ai-age

Villarroel, Veronica, et al. “From Authentic Assessment to Authenticity in Assessment: Broadening Perspectives.” Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 2023. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02602938.2023.2271193

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Tim Green UK-based Systems Theorist & Independent Technology Writer

Tim explores the intersections of artificial intelligence, decentralised cognition, and posthuman ethics. His work, published at smarterarticles.co.uk, challenges dominant narratives of technological progress while proposing interdisciplinary frameworks for collective intelligence and digital stewardship.

His writing has been featured on Ground News and shared by independent researchers across both academic and technological communities.

ORCID: 0009-0002-0156-9795 Email: tim@smarterarticles.co.uk

This weekend was quite productive for me! I managed to put together the Pironman5 Max and install a 16GB Raspberry Pi 5, and I also moved my 1TB NVMe drive from my old 8GB Pironman5, which served my homelab and home server for a year. I've owned the Pironman5 Max since June, but my ongoing health issues had left me too drained to assemble it until now. Thankfully, my new medication, Camzyos, has really helped me regain some energy.

Compact and mysterious, this sleek black box hints at high-tech secrets within, standing ready for its next mission.

I'm planning to repurpose the old 8GB Pironman5 for testing various operating systems. While I enjoy the Pironman5 series from Sunfounder, I'm not thrilled with their LCD and the software that comes with it.

I've also been busy loading more Blu-rays and DVDs onto my home Plex server, a task that is quite labor-intensive.

#hardware #tech-gadgets #technology

There is a quiet exhaustion that sets in when faith becomes something you feel you have to prove instead of something you’re allowed to live inside. It doesn’t show up all at once. It creeps in slowly. It sounds like doing all the right things while secretly wondering why your soul still feels tight. It looks like knowing the language of belief while feeling strangely disconnected from the joy that belief once brought you. Galatians 3 speaks directly into that space. Not with a gentle suggestion, but with a piercing question that still lands uncomfortably close to home: having begun by the Spirit, are you now trying to finish by the flesh?

This chapter is not written to outsiders. That’s what makes it so unsettling. Paul isn’t correcting atheists or skeptics. He is speaking to believers who started well, who genuinely encountered God, and who then slowly drifted into thinking that growth requires more effort than trust. Galatians 3 is not about abandoning obedience. It’s about exposing the subtle shift where obedience replaces dependence. That shift is deadly to the soul, and most people never notice when it happens.

The Galatians did not wake up one morning and decide to reject Christ. They didn’t abandon the gospel outright. They added to it. They layered expectations on top of grace. They allowed the idea to take root that faith is the entry point, but performance is how you stay acceptable. That mindset feels responsible. It feels mature. It feels spiritual. And it quietly suffocates the life out of faith.

Paul does something unusual here. Instead of starting with theology, he starts with experience. He asks them to remember what actually happened when they believed. Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law, or by hearing with faith? That question matters because memory is a spiritual anchor. When faith begins to feel heavy, the first thing religion does is rewrite the story of how it all started. Performance always wants to take credit retroactively. Grace refuses to let it.

The Spirit came before the rules. The Spirit came before the behavior changed. The Spirit came before anything was cleaned up. That’s not a loophole. That’s the design. God did not wait for human readiness. He responded to trust. Galatians 3 insists that the same principle that saves you is the principle that sustains you. And the moment you forget that, faith turns into a treadmill.

One of the most damaging lies religious systems tell is that spiritual growth means needing grace less over time. Galatians 3 says the opposite. Maturity is not independence from grace. It is deeper reliance on it. The more clearly you see God, the more you realize how completely dependent you are on what He supplies rather than what you produce.

Paul calls their shift foolish, not because they are unintelligent, but because it contradicts lived reality. You don’t outgrow the Spirit. You don’t graduate into self-powered holiness. You don’t begin by trust and end by effort. That logic might make sense in every other area of life, but it collapses in the kingdom of God. Faith does not scale the way human systems do.

Then Paul does something else that is deeply disruptive. He pulls Abraham into the conversation. Not as a symbol, but as evidence. Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness. That line dismantles every attempt to redefine belonging around performance. Abraham did not earn righteousness. He trusted. And that trust came long before circumcision, law, or religious structure.

This matters because people love to weaponize tradition. They love to say, this is how it’s always been done, while quietly ignoring why it was done in the first place. Paul strips away the illusion that heritage equals holiness. If Abraham is the father of faith, then faith is the family trait. Not law-keeping. Not external markers. Trust.

Galatians 3 forces an uncomfortable realization. You can look religious and still be operating in fear. You can follow rules and still be driven by insecurity. You can be surrounded by spiritual language and still be disconnected from spiritual life. Paul is not attacking obedience. He is exposing the motive behind it. Are you obeying because you are secure, or because you are afraid of losing approval?

The chapter goes on to explain something many people misunderstand about the law. The law was never meant to be the engine of transformation. It was meant to reveal the need for rescue. It diagnoses. It does not heal. Trying to use the law to become righteous is like using a mirror to wash your face. It shows you the dirt clearly, but it cannot remove it.

This is where so many believers get stuck. They know what’s wrong. They see the gap between who they are and who they want to be. And instead of running toward grace, they double down on effort. They add more rules. More disciplines. More pressure. And the more they try to fix themselves, the more discouraged they become.

Paul explains that the law was a guardian until Christ came. Not a savior. Not a life-giver. A guardian. Temporary. Purposeful. Limited. When Christ arrives, the role of the guardian changes. You don’t remain under supervision forever. You are invited into maturity. And biblical maturity is not rigid control. It is relational trust.

One of the most radical declarations in Galatians 3 is that in Christ, you are all sons of God through faith. That language matters. Sons were heirs. Sons had access. Sons belonged. This was not about gender. It was about status. Paul is saying that faith relocates your identity. You are no longer trying to earn a place. You are living from one.

This is where the chapter explodes into freedom. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. That sentence has been quoted often, but rarely absorbed fully. Paul is not erasing difference. He is removing hierarchy. He is dismantling every system that assigns value based on external categories.

In Christ, worth is no longer distributed by achievement, background, ethnicity, gender, or social standing. It is received. Fully. Equally. Permanently. That truth is not just theological. It is deeply practical. Because when worth is settled, comparison loses its power. Competition fades. Performance anxiety loosens its grip.

Most spiritual burnout does not come from doing too much. It comes from trying to prove something that has already been given. Galatians 3 is a call to stop auditioning for a role you already have. It invites believers to lay down the exhausting need to validate their faith through visible success or flawless obedience.

Paul ends this section by tying inheritance to promise rather than law. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise. That phrase is loaded with meaning. Heirs don’t earn. They receive. They don’t negotiate their standing. They live from it.

This chapter asks a question every believer eventually has to face. Are you living like a child who trusts the Father, or like an employee afraid of being fired? Those two postures produce very different lives. One produces peace, growth, and joy even in struggle. The other produces anxiety, comparison, and quiet despair disguised as devotion.

Galatians 3 does not minimize obedience. It relocates it. Obedience becomes the fruit of trust, not the condition for love. Holiness becomes response, not leverage. Growth becomes something God produces in you, not something you force out of yourself.

If faith has started to feel heavy, if prayer has turned into pressure, if spiritual disciplines feel more like obligation than connection, Galatians 3 is not condemning you. It is calling you back. Back to how it started. Back to hearing and trusting. Back to breathing again.

The gospel was never meant to be a ladder you climb. It was a door you walked through. And once you’re inside, you don’t keep checking your credentials. You learn how to live in the house.

Now we will continue this exploration, moving deeper into what it actually means to live as an heir, how freedom and transformation coexist, and why returning to grace is not regression, but the truest form of spiritual maturity.

What Galatians 3 presses on next is the idea of inheritance, and this is where many believers quietly lose their footing. Inheritance sounds abstract until you realize it answers one of the most persistent questions of the human heart: where do I stand, really? Not on my best day, not when I’m spiritually motivated, not when I’ve had a good week, but when nothing about me feels impressive. Paul insists that standing before God is not recalculated daily. It is settled by promise.

A promise is fundamentally different from a contract. Contracts depend on performance. Promises depend on the character of the one who makes them. That distinction alone reshapes how faith functions in real life. When believers operate as if their relationship with God is contractual, everything becomes fragile. Confidence rises and falls. Prayer becomes cautious. Failure feels catastrophic. But when faith rests on promise, the weight shifts. God’s faithfulness becomes the anchor, not human consistency.

Paul emphasizes that the law, which came centuries after Abraham, cannot nullify a promise already given. This matters because people often treat later religious systems as if they redefine earlier grace. Paul refuses that logic. Grace is not a temporary solution replaced by something stricter. It is the foundation that everything else rests on. The law clarified the problem. It did not replace the solution.

This helps explain why so many sincere believers struggle with shame long after they’ve committed their lives to Christ. Shame thrives wherever identity is conditional. If your sense of belonging depends on your ability to meet expectations, then every shortcoming feels like a threat. Galatians 3 dismantles that threat by relocating identity into promise rather than performance.

Paul’s argument leads to a profound truth that many people intellectually accept but practically resist. If righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing. That sentence is not theological decoration. It is a line drawn in the sand. Either grace is sufficient, or it is not. There is no hybrid model where grace starts the process and effort completes it.

That hybrid model is appealing because it preserves a sense of control. It allows people to believe they have a measurable role in securing their standing. But control is not the same as security. In fact, control often masks fear. Galatians 3 exposes how deeply human fear wants something visible to rely on, even when God has already given something better.

Faith, in Paul’s framing, is not mental agreement. It is relational reliance. Abraham believed God. He trusted God’s word enough to reorder his life around it. That trust was credited as righteousness, not because trust is a work, but because trust opens the door for God to act without interference.

This has enormous implications for how transformation actually happens. Many believers assume change requires pressure. They believe growth is driven by dissatisfaction and urgency. But Scripture repeatedly shows that transformation flows from security. When you know you are loved, you are free to change. When you fear rejection, you hide, perform, or burn out.

Galatians 3 does not argue against discipline, obedience, or growth. It argues against using those things as currency. Discipline without grace becomes self-improvement. Obedience without trust becomes compliance. Growth without security becomes exhaustion. Paul is not lowering the bar. He is changing the source of strength.

One of the quiet tragedies in religious communities is how often people confuse seriousness with maturity. They equate intensity with depth. They assume the most burdened people are the most devoted. Galatians 3 challenges that assumption by pointing back to the Spirit as the active agent in transformation. The Spirit is not activated by pressure. He is welcomed by trust.

Paul’s language about being clothed with Christ after baptism reinforces this identity shift. Clothing is not something you earn. It is something you put on. It covers you. It identifies you. To be clothed with Christ is to have His righteousness wrap around your life, not as a costume, but as a new reality. You don’t perform in it. You live in it.

That imagery confronts the constant self-evaluation many believers carry. Am I doing enough? Am I growing fast enough? Am I disciplined enough? Those questions are not signs of humility. They are often symptoms of insecurity. Galatians 3 offers a better question: am I trusting deeply enough to let God do what only He can do?

Paul’s insistence on unity is not just social. It is theological. If everyone is an heir through faith, then no one gets to rank themselves above another. Hierarchies collapse in the presence of grace. That does not erase leadership or calling, but it removes superiority. The moment faith becomes a competition, it has already drifted from its source.

This chapter also speaks to people who feel spiritually behind. Those who believe others have accessed something they missed. Galatians 3 quietly but firmly says there is no second-tier inheritance. You either belong, or you don’t. And if you belong to Christ, you are fully included. Not conditionally. Not eventually. Now.

Many believers live as if they are waiting to become heirs. Paul says you already are one. That shift from future hope to present identity changes everything. You don’t strive to become accepted. You grow because you are accepted. You don’t obey to earn closeness. You obey because closeness already exists.

Galatians 3 is especially important for anyone who has been wounded by religious systems that emphasized control over care. It validates the sense that something was off without discarding faith itself. Paul is not anti-structure. He is anti-anything that replaces reliance on God with reliance on self.

This chapter also redefines what it means to “take faith seriously.” Serious faith is not grim. It is grounded. It is resilient because it does not depend on perfect conditions. It can withstand failure because failure does not threaten belonging. That kind of faith produces endurance, not because the person is strong, but because the foundation is secure.

When Paul speaks so sharply to the Galatians, it is not out of irritation. It is out of concern. He sees a community trading life for management, trust for technique, and relationship for regulation. He knows where that path leads. He has walked it himself. And he refuses to let them believe that regression into performance is progress.

Galatians 3 invites believers to return to a posture they may associate with their earliest moments of faith. Not naïveté, but openness. Not ignorance, but dependence. It reminds us that the gospel is not something we move beyond. It is something we move deeper into.

For many people, the most radical spiritual step is not doing more, but releasing the need to measure themselves constantly. It is trusting that God is not evaluating them with a clipboard. It is believing that growth happens in the presence of love, not under the threat of rejection.

This chapter quietly dismantles the idea that God’s pleasure fluctuates with human effort. If righteousness is credited by faith, then God’s approval rests on His promise, not your performance. That truth does not make obedience optional. It makes obedience relational rather than transactional.

Galatians 3 ultimately asks whether you believe God is trustworthy. Not just for salvation, but for transformation. Not just for forgiveness, but for growth. Not just for eternity, but for today. Do you trust Him enough to stop trying to complete His work with your own strength?

For anyone tired of carrying faith like a weight instead of a gift, this chapter does not shame you. It calls you home. It invites you to loosen your grip on control and rediscover the freedom of reliance. Not because effort is bad, but because it was never meant to be the engine.

Faith breathes where trust lives. And Galatians 3 reminds us that the air has always been there.

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In Summary: * Today has been heavy duty cleaning, getting ready for a vistit from the daughter-in-law and her fiance. They won't be staying here with us, but they'll be in and out over the next two or three weeks.

Prayers, etc.: My daily prayers

Health Metrics: * bw= 226.53 lbs. * bp= 138/81 (75)

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

Diet: * 07:40 – 1 peanut butter sandwich, cookies * 08:25 – 1 seafood salad and cheese sandwich * 12:10 – home made chicken and noodles soup with white rice

Activities, Chores, etc.: * 07:00 – bank accounts activity monitored * 07:10 – read, pray, follow news reports from various sources, surf the socials * 12:00 – listen to the radio call of an IU women's basketball game ... !U wins over the Western Carolina Catamounts 77 to 44 * 13:00 to 15:00 – clean and organize back porch * 16:00 – listening to relaxing Christmas music * 19:30 – time now to wrap up the night prayers and try to get ready for bed.

Chess: * 17:55 – moved in most pending CC games, shall catch the rest tomorrow

Galatians 2 is not a polite chapter. It does not smile softly while offering encouragement. It does not whisper safe religious platitudes. It walks straight into the room, looks power in the eyes, and says what must be said—even if it fractures reputations, exposes hypocrisy, and costs relationships that once felt untouchable. This chapter is about truth that refuses to bow, faith that will not be edited for acceptance, and the kind of freedom that can only exist when approval is no longer the goal.

Paul is not writing as a detached theologian here. He is writing as someone who has already paid the price for conviction. Years have passed since his dramatic conversion, and the gospel he preaches has not been softened by time. If anything, it has been sharpened. Galatians 2 is where the tension between divine calling and human systems becomes visible. It is where the question is no longer “What do people expect?” but “What does God require?”

From the opening lines, Paul frames the issue around authority—not political authority, not institutional authority, but spiritual authority. He goes to Jerusalem not to seek permission, not to ask for validation, but to confirm alignment. This distinction matters. There is a difference between unity and submission to pressure. Paul understands the value of unity, but he refuses unity that comes at the expense of truth. That refusal sets the tone for everything that follows.

The early church is growing, and growth always exposes fault lines. As Gentiles begin entering the faith in large numbers, a question surfaces that is far more dangerous than it appears: Do people need to become culturally Jewish before they can be spiritually Christian? Behind that question sits a deeper one—Is grace enough, or does God still require performance markers to feel satisfied?

Paul’s answer is unequivocal. Grace is enough. And because it is enough, anything added to it becomes a distortion. This is not a minor disagreement about customs or preferences. This is about the nature of salvation itself. Once you add requirements to grace, grace stops being grace. It becomes a transaction. Paul will not allow that shift, no matter who endorses it.

What makes Galatians 2 especially uncomfortable is that the opposition does not come from obvious enemies. It comes from respected leaders, well-meaning believers, and people whose approval would have made Paul’s life easier. False brothers, as Paul calls them, slip in quietly. They do not announce themselves as threats. They come cloaked in religious language, appealing to tradition, order, and concern for holiness. But beneath the surface, their message undermines freedom.

This is where modern readers often miss the danger. The most damaging distortions of faith rarely arrive shouting rebellion. They arrive whispering responsibility. They sound mature. They feel safe. They appeal to fear—fear of chaos, fear of being wrong, fear of losing control. Paul recognizes this immediately. He does not debate endlessly. He does not compromise partially. He says plainly that he did not yield to them for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel might remain.

That sentence should stop us cold. Not yield for a moment. There are times when compromise is wisdom, and times when compromise is betrayal. Galatians 2 teaches us how to tell the difference. When the core of the gospel is at stake—when freedom in Christ is threatened—yielding even briefly creates precedent. And precedent, once established, becomes expectation.

Paul’s defense of Titus is a living illustration of this truth. Titus is a Gentile believer, uncircumcised, fully accepted by God. To force Titus to undergo circumcision would be to declare that faith in Christ was insufficient. Paul refuses. Not because he disrespects Jewish tradition, but because he respects the work of Christ more. This is not rebellion against heritage; it is allegiance to redemption.

One of the most important insights in Galatians 2 is Paul’s view of leadership. He acknowledges the reputation of those considered pillars in the church, but he makes a startling statement: God does not show favoritism. In other words, spiritual rank does not grant spiritual immunity. Even the most respected voices are accountable to the truth. This is both liberating and terrifying. Liberating, because truth is not controlled by hierarchy. Terrifying, because no one is exempt from correction.

Paul’s encounter with Peter later in the chapter proves this point in painful clarity. Peter, the bold apostle, the rock, the one who walked on water and preached at Pentecost, falls into hypocrisy. Not because he stops believing the gospel, but because he stops living consistently with it. When certain men arrive, Peter withdraws from eating with Gentiles. His behavior communicates exclusion, even if his theology remains intact.

Paul confronts him publicly. That alone should unsettle us. Modern faith culture often avoids public correction at all costs, labeling it unloving or divisive. Galatians 2 challenges that assumption. Paul understands that public actions with public impact require public accountability. Silence in this moment would have been endorsement. Correction becomes an act of love, not aggression.

This confrontation reveals something crucial about hypocrisy. Hypocrisy is not merely saying one thing and doing another. It is acting in a way that pressures others to abandon freedom. Peter’s withdrawal does not stay isolated. Others follow. Even Barnabas, Paul’s close companion, is led astray. This is how influence works. When leaders bend, systems shift. When courage falters at the top, confusion spreads below.

Paul names the issue clearly. Peter is not acting in line with the truth of the gospel. That phrase is essential. Truth is not only something we confess; it is something we walk in. Behavior that contradicts grace, even subtly, distorts the message. Galatians 2 reminds us that how we live teaches as loudly as what we say.

The heart of the chapter arrives when Paul articulates the theological foundation beneath his confrontation. A person is not justified by works of the law, but through faith in Jesus Christ. This is not abstract doctrine. It is lived reality. If justification comes through law, then Christ died for nothing. That statement leaves no room for negotiation. Either grace saves completely, or the cross becomes insufficient.

Paul’s language grows deeply personal here. He does not speak only as an apostle defending doctrine. He speaks as a man who has died and been raised. “I have been crucified with Christ,” he writes. This is not metaphorical exaggeration. It is identity transformation. The old self—the self defined by performance, approval, and self-righteous striving—has been put to death. What remains is life lived by faith in the Son of God.

This is where Galatians 2 moves from controversy to confession. Paul’s courage flows from surrender. He can stand unapproved by people because he is fully accepted by God. He can confront hypocrisy because his identity no longer depends on belonging to the right group. The life he lives now is not driven by fear of rejection but by trust in the One who loved him and gave Himself for him.

That final phrase carries immense weight. Loved. Gave. Himself. The gospel is not a system to manage behavior. It is a relationship grounded in sacrifice. When that truth grips the heart, performance loses its power. Comparison loses its grip. Approval loses its authority.

Galatians 2 confronts every generation with the same uncomfortable question: What are you adding to grace? It may not look like circumcision. It may look like image management, political alignment, moral superiority, or cultural conformity. It may look like unspoken expectations that determine who truly belongs. Whatever form it takes, anything added to grace diminishes the cross.

Paul’s refusal to yield is not arrogance. It is protection. He guards the freedom of believers who may never know his name but will live under the weight of whatever precedent is set. His stand preserves a gospel that is as radical today as it was then—a gospel that saves without qualifiers and transforms without coercion.

Galatians 2 does not invite comfortable reflection. It invites costly honesty. It asks whether we are willing to be misunderstood, criticized, or excluded for the sake of truth. It asks whether we live as people crucified with Christ, or merely affiliated with Him. It asks whether we truly believe that if righteousness could be gained through effort, Christ died for nothing.

This chapter leaves no middle ground. It does not allow grace to be admired from a distance. It demands that grace be trusted fully, lived boldly, and defended courageously. In a world obsessed with approval, Galatians 2 calls us back to freedom—the kind that only exists when truth matters more than reputation.

Galatians 2 does not merely expose external pressures; it uncovers an internal battle every believer eventually faces. The moment grace truly takes root, something inside us resists it. We want to contribute. We want to justify ourselves. We want proof that we deserve what has been given freely. Paul understands this instinct intimately because he lived it more intensely than most. His former life was built on religious excellence, moral superiority, and visible achievement. Grace did not simply forgive that life; it rendered it obsolete. And that is why Galatians 2 feels so disruptive. It does not improve the old system. It replaces it entirely.

When Paul insists that justification comes through faith and not through works of the law, he is not attacking discipline, obedience, or growth. He is dismantling the lie that these things can earn standing with God. This distinction is vital, because many believers unknowingly reverse the order. They start with grace but slowly shift toward performance as the sustaining force. Galatians 2 calls that drift what it is—a departure from truth, not merely a different emphasis.

What makes this chapter enduring is that it reveals how easily fear can override conviction. Peter did not suddenly reject Gentile believers. He did not publicly deny the gospel he preached. He simply adjusted his behavior when the wrong people were watching. That subtle shift carried enormous consequences. Fear of opinion began shaping conduct. Social pressure began dictating fellowship. The moment Peter separated himself, the message changed—even without words.

This is how distortion often enters the church. Not through loud heresy, but through quiet retreat. Through the instinct to avoid discomfort. Through the desire to remain respectable in the eyes of influential voices. Galatians 2 forces us to ask who we are most afraid of disappointing. The answer to that question usually reveals who we are truly living for.

Paul’s confrontation with Peter is not rooted in personal rivalry. It is rooted in pastoral responsibility. Paul sees what is at stake. If leaders model fear-based separation, the community will absorb it as doctrine. If behavior contradicts belief, belief will eventually be reshaped to justify behavior. Paul interrupts that cycle immediately.

There is something deeply instructive in the way Paul frames his rebuke. He does not accuse Peter of abandoning Christ. He accuses him of inconsistency. “If you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you force the Gentiles to live like Jews?” This question exposes the hypocrisy beneath the surface. Peter himself has lived in freedom. To deny that freedom to others is not faithfulness—it is fear.

Galatians 2 reminds us that inconsistency among leaders does more damage than overt rebellion. Open rebellion can be confronted and corrected. Hypocrisy spreads quietly, carried by influence and unspoken permission. That is why Paul acts decisively. Truth delayed becomes truth diluted.

As the chapter unfolds, Paul anchors everything in identity. “I have been crucified with Christ.” This statement is not poetic language meant to inspire emotion. It is a declaration of spiritual death and resurrection. The self that needed approval, security through status, and validation through achievement no longer governs Paul’s life. That self died with Christ. The life that remains is sustained by trust, not effort.

This is where Galatians 2 becomes deeply personal for every reader. The struggle is rarely about whether we believe in grace. Most Christians would affirm it readily. The struggle is whether we live as if grace is enough. We often accept grace for salvation but reject it for daily life. We believe Christ saves us, but we behave as if we must sustain ourselves through performance. Paul dismantles that division completely. The same faith that justifies us sustains us.

When Paul says, “The life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God,” he is describing ongoing dependence. Faith is not a doorway we pass through on our way to self-sufficiency. It is the air we breathe every day. To move away from that dependence is not maturity; it is regression.

The emotional center of Galatians 2 rests in Paul’s final emphasis on love. “Who loved me and gave Himself for me.” This is not theoretical theology. It is relational reality. Grace is not merely God overlooking sin; it is God giving Himself. Once that truth is grasped, the desire to add requirements loses its appeal. You do not improve a gift like that. You receive it. You live from it.

Galatians 2 challenges the systems we build to feel safe. Systems promise control, predictability, and order. Grace introduces vulnerability, trust, and surrender. Systems reward conformity. Grace produces transformation. The tension between these two realities is ongoing, and Paul makes it clear which one must prevail.

This chapter also exposes how easily we confuse unity with uniformity. True unity flows from shared trust in Christ, not from shared external markers. When uniformity becomes the goal, freedom becomes the casualty. Galatians 2 refuses to sacrifice freedom for the illusion of order.

There is a sobering warning here for every generation of believers. The gospel can be preserved in language while being denied in practice. Orthodoxy can coexist with exclusion. Sound doctrine can mask fearful behavior. Galatians 2 insists that truth must be embodied, not merely defended.

Paul’s closing declaration is one of the most uncompromising statements in Scripture: “I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for nothing.” There is no softer way to say it. Any system that implies human effort completes what Christ began empties the cross of its power.

This does not produce spiritual laziness. It produces spiritual clarity. When grace stands alone, obedience becomes response, not currency. Holiness becomes fruit, not leverage. Love becomes motivation, not obligation.

Galatians 2 leaves us with a choice that is both simple and costly. We can live approved by systems, traditions, and expectations—or we can live crucified with Christ, free from the need to earn what has already been given. One path offers safety and applause. The other offers life.

Paul chose life. And in doing so, he preserved a gospel that continues to unsettle, liberate, and transform. Galatians 2 does not invite us to admire Paul’s courage from a distance. It invites us to share it. To stand when standing costs us. To remain faithful when faithfulness isolates us. To trust grace even when grace offends.

The truth is, freedom always disrupts what benefits from control. Grace always threatens what depends on performance. And the cross will always expose whatever tries to replace it. Galatians 2 stands as a permanent reminder that the gospel is not fragile, but it must be guarded—not by compromise, not by fear, but by unwavering trust in what Christ has already finished.

This is not a chapter to be read once and moved past. It is a mirror held up to the church, asking whether we truly believe what we claim to preach. And it is an invitation to live from a place where approval no longer governs obedience, because love has already secured belonging.

Your friend, Douglas Vandergraph

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I saw a child lead the beasts and the nations flee the light.

NARRATOR:

A twig will grow out of the stump of Jesse, And a sprout from his roots will bear fruit.

And the spirit of Jehovah will settle upon him, The spirit of wisdom and of understanding, The spirit of counsel and of mightiness, The spirit of knowledge and of the fear of Jehovah.

And he will find delight in the fear of Jehovah. He will not judge by what appears to his eyes, Nor reprove simply according to what his ears hear.

He will judge the lowly with fairness, And with uprightness he will give reproof in behalf of the meek ones of the earth. He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth And put the wicked to death with the breath of his lips.

Righteousness will be the belt around his waist, And faithfulness the belt of his hips.

The wolf will reside for a while with the lamb, And with the young goat the leopard will lie down, And the calf and the lion and the fattened animal will all be together; And a little boy will lead them.

The cow and the bear will feed together, And their young will lie down together. The lion will eat straw like the bull.

The nursing child will play over the lair of a cobra, And a weaned child will put his hand over the den of a poisonous snake.

They will not cause any harm Or any ruin in all my holy mountain, Because the earth will certainly be filled with the knowledge of Jehovah As the waters cover the sea.

In that day the root of Jesse will stand up as a signal for the peoples. To him the nations will turn for guidance, And his resting-place will become glorious.

In that day Jehovah will again offer his hand, a second time, to reclaim the remnant of his people who are left from Assyria, from Egypt, from Pathros, from Cush, from Elam, from Shinar, from Hamath, and from the islands of the sea.

He will raise up a signal for the nations and gather the dispersed ones of Israel, And he will gather together the scattered ones of Judah from the four corners of the earth.

The jealousy of Ephraim will be gone, And those who show hostility to Judah will be done away with. Ephraim will not be jealous of Judah, Nor will Judah show hostility toward Ephraim.

And they will swoop down on the slopes of the Philistines to the west; Together they will plunder the people of the East. They will thrust out their hand against Edom and Moab, And the Ammonites will become their subjects.

Jehovah will divide the gulf of the Egyptian sea And wave his hand over the River. With his scorching breath he will strike it in its seven torrents, And he will cause people to walk across in their sandals.

And there will be a highway out of Assyria for the remnant of his people who are left, As there was for Israel in the day he came out of the land of Egypt.

ISAIAH 12

NARRATOR:

In that day you will certainly say:

SPEAKER (THE PEOPLE):

“I thank you, O Jehovah, For although you were angry with me, Your anger gradually subsided, and you comforted me.

Look! God is my salvation. I will trust and feel no dread; For Jah Jehovah is my strength and my might, And he has become my salvation.”

With rejoicing you will draw water From the springs of salvation.

And in that day you will say: “Give thanks to Jehovah, call on his name, Make his deeds known among the peoples! Declare that his name is exalted.

Sing praises to Jehovah, for he has done magnificent things. Let this be made known in all the earth.

Cry out and shout for joy, you inhabitant of Zion, For great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel.”

ISAIAH 13

NARRATOR:

A pronouncement against Babylon that Isaiah the son of Amoz saw in vision.

JEHOVAH:

“Raise up a signal on a mountain of bare rocks. Call out to them, wave your hand, So that they may come into the entrances of the nobles.

I have issued the command to those whom I have appointed. I have summoned my warriors to express my anger, My proudly exultant ones.”

NARRATOR:

Listen! A crowd in the mountains; It sounds like a numerous people! Listen! The uproar of kingdoms, Of nations gathered together! Jehovah of armies is mustering the army for war.

They are coming from a distant land, From the extremity of the heavens, Jehovah and the weapons of his wrath, To bring ruin to all the earth.

NARRATOR (CALL TO THE PEOPLE):

Wail, for the day of Jehovah is near! It will come as a destruction from the Almighty.

That is why all hands will go limp, And every man’s heart will melt with fear.

The people are panic-stricken. They are seized with convulsions and pain, Like a woman in labor. They look at one another in horror, With faces inflamed by anguish.

Look! The day of Jehovah is coming, Cruel both with fury and with burning anger, To make the land an object of horror, And to annihilate the land’s sinners from it.

For the stars of the heavens and their constellations
Will not give off their light; The sun will be dark when it rises, And the moon will not shed its light.

JEHOVAH:

“I will call the inhabited earth to account for its badness, And the wicked for their error. I will put an end to the pride of the presumptuous, And I will humble the haughtiness of tyrants.

I will make mortal man scarcer than refined gold, And humans scarcer than the gold of Ophir.

That is why I will make the heavens tremble, And the earth will be shaken out of its place At the fury of Jehovah of armies in the day of his burning anger.”

NARRATOR:

Like a hunted gazelle and like a flock with no one to gather them, Each will return to his own people; Each will flee to his own land.

Whoever is found will be pierced through, And whoever is caught will fall by the sword.

Their children will be dashed to pieces before their eyes, Their houses will be looted, And their wives will be raped.

JEHOVAH:

“Here I am raising up against them the Medes, Who regard silver as nothing And who take no delight in gold.

Their bows will shatter young men; They will show no pity on the fruit of the womb Nor mercy to children.

And Babylon, the most glorious of kingdoms, The beauty and the pride of the Chaldeans, Will be like Sodom and Gomorrah when God overthrew them.

She will never be inhabited, Nor will she be a place to reside in throughout all generations. No Arab will pitch his tent there, And no shepherds will rest their flocks there.

The desert creatures will lie down there; Their houses will be filled with eagle owls. The ostriches will reside there, And wild goats will skip about there.

Howling creatures will cry out in her towers, And jackals in her luxurious palaces. Her time is near, and her days will not be prolonged.”

It's 4 days until Christmas, and it feels like I can breathe again. It was Church today, a place I've visited for most Sundays for the past year; it feels like my safe place. Everyone is so loving there. I'm greeted with my smiles, hugs and people remember my name. It's a place where I can truly let go and feel supported in the arms of God. I wasn't always a believer. In fact for what I mostly remember, I was super against anything that brought any hope. So much pain had happened to me that I just couldn't see why or how God could be possible, but I found my way back normally through my lowest points. I think it's funny that's where most of us find him. In our darkest moments, we cry out to him because we finally let go, and we are met with that small bit of hope. I think that's all it takes, is that little bit of hope sometimes. When we can be truly honest and say, “God, I've got this much hope, show me, I need you”. He will move mountains to show you just how much that little bit of hope means to him. I said this to him one evening in despair. I had been working on my business, and I was so close to giving up. I say this like it was 3 years ago... this was 2 weeks ago, and I was just about to give up, and then I opened my arms and heart wide, and I said “ God, I've got this much hope, show me, I need you”. The next day I went on my day as normal, but this time I decided to post a video of me creating my product and boom, I was met with 27 orders. 27 ORDERS!! Please understand that I hadn't made a sale in weeks, so 27 orders from that little bit of hope was mind-blowing. You see what he can do with just the smallest bit of hope; imagine what he could do with your full bag of hope. It's 4 days before Christmas, and I feel this hope within me getting bigger and bigger as I remember I've, you've, we've got the biggest supporter up there working his magic even when we can't see or understand. I once didn't believe in anything, and now I can't unsee all the beauty he has done for me. If you stayed to the end. Thank you, and just remember, God can do a lot even with just a small bit of hope. Most of all, he just wants your heart's honesty.

Thoughts. Justawomentryingtodochange.

So I was perusing the photos dumped by the Justice Department, and I saw two photos of a man I once worked for, Danny Hillis. (My first job out of college was at Thinking Machines Corporation, the doomed supercomputer manufacturer founded by Hillis, who knew computers, and Sheryl Handler, who knew business. Apparently neither of them was actually very good at what they did because the computers broke all the fuckin’ time and they couldn’t sell them after a while and the whole venture went belly up a few years after I left).

Anyway, I don’t know much about Danny Hillis as a human being. But here he is, fully clothed on a bed on what I assume is Epstein’s plane with a tacky faux fur spread. Hillis wears a puckish, bemused grin.

What a scamp! What boyish charm! What a piece of shit!

Now I don’t know what Danny Hillis did on Epstein’s plane any more than I know what Bill Clinton, Bill Gates, Woody Allen, Chris Tucker, Alan Dershowitz, or anybody else did on his plane.

But here’s what I do know—I think we’ve gotten what’s legal and what’s moral confused in this case. Because there is no evidence that has been relased that any of Epstein’s buddies broke any laws, news sources are always careful to say things like, “the fact that these people appear in the Epstein photo dump is not evidence of wrongdoing.” But I think it’s more accurate to say “their appearance in these photos is not evidence that they broke laws.”

Because they did do wrong. Dershowitz has asserted that he got a massage from a young woman of indeterminate age but did not remove his underwear, so it’s all good. Now, again, that may be legally true, but morally? He knew something was very wrong in Epstein’s world, and rather than speaking out, he chose to participate and keep quiet about it. That may be legal, but it’s not moral.

Gates and Clinton assert that they didn’t know, which is, frankly, risible. Did you see the documentary? The pool guy on Epstein’s island knew something was extremely off—he was disgusted by what he inferred was going on and quit. If only some of the most important people in the world had half the moral courage and clarity of a guy who cleans pools in the Virgin Islands.

Epstein traveled with teenage girls and seems to have made no effort to hide their presence from his guests. Getting away with this in front of everyone seemed to be part of the thrill for him. Remember, folks—we’re not held to the “beyond a resonable doubt” standard about people we choose to hang out with. We can stop hanging with people because we have a vague, unproven sense that there’s something off about them.

Gates and Clinton did not choose to stop hanging out with Epstein. Notably, Melinda French formerly Gates absolutely knew something was hinky with this dude and was very unhappy about Bill hanging out with him. But Bill Gates—a man we’ve granted tremendous power over education and public health—chose to hang out with him anyway.

So did everybody else. And so most of these people won’t be prosecuted, can’t be prosecuted, but that doesn’t mean we can’t condemn them as terrible people. Because they are terrible, terrible people. Clinton and Gates in particular had the power to shut the whole enterprise down, to publicly say “yeah, this guy hangs out with a lot of teenage girls and it feels inappropriate and made me uncomfortable.” Or they could have, at the very least, quietly spread the word through their associates, and hangers-on and turned Epstein into a pariah. And they didn’t do it. Instead, they lent him their legitmacy.

And look—when you lend your legitimacy to a monster like Jeffrey Epstein, you don’t get it back. Dershowitz is already pretty much of a pariah, but the same thing needs to happen to all these turds. I will never have the opportunity to turn down an invitation to an event because an Epstein crony like Bill Clinton or Bill Gates or Woody Allen or Mick Jagger will be there, but other people will. And should.

We don’t need to know beyond a reasonable doubt that these men broke the law. We know that they were aware of girls being treated like things and took no action to stop it or dissociate themselves from it. That might not make them legally liable, but it makes them bad people. They should be denounced and treated as such.

(Yes, btw, I know Trump’s justice department is covering up his complicity in the entire Epstein affair, but I don’t believe any reasonable person believes that Trump is anything but an evil predator. So yes, the current info dump is meant to draw our attention to these other guys, but these other guys deserve our contempt as well.)

1.

Da jeg gik på universitetet havde jeg, naturligvis, flere bekendtskaber. Ingen af dem startede i fredagsbaren, som ellers er fordommen, selv om nogle af dem sluttede her. I stedet startede de på læsesalen. Jeg var en flittig studerende og min kærlighed til filosofien var nogle gange svær at adskille fra mit begær i det hele taget. Med en vis forsigtighed vil jeg dog påstå at det er sådan det bør være, at man må anerkende at Sokrates havde ret ved at lade et vist erotisk element spille en rolle for det at lære noget. Jeg lærte i hvert fald i løbet af årene at gennemskue hvem der egentlig var flittige og dygtige, og både ubevidst og bevidst har jeg undgået eller skåret folk fra, fordi de ikke gad læse lektier eller var værd at føre samtaler med. Det er en sans jeg nu har udviklet til så højt et niveau at jeg kan se på folk om de tænker godt. Ved at se på deres manerer eller på den måde de rent fysisk holder om en tekst på – og hvis der er noget, jeg er blevet overbevist om på netop universitetet, så er det at det ydre også er det indre.

Som altid er det de episoder der aldrig blev til noget, som man husker bedst. Eksempelvis husker jeg at gå en hel vinter og kigge efter en meget smuk kvinde som jeg tror læste kunsthistorie, og som jeg overvejede at give mit nummer, indtil jeg en dag gik forbi bag hende på læsesalen og opdagede at hun skrev sine noter i et dårligt opsat Microsoft OneNote, hvilket gjorde at jeg mistede interessen. Omvendt havde jeg et årelangt crush på en historiker fordi jeg en dag havde lagt mærke til at vedkommende brugte de smukke Faber-Castell highlighters i luksuriøse, let knækkede farver og med en harmonisk runding i plastikhylsterets kanter. Da jeg var ung og dum, havde jeg stor foragt for highlighters som jeg syntes var for meget: teatralske og unødvendige. I takt med at jeg blev mere moden og begyndte at tage tingene alvorligt, skiftede jeg dog mening. Nu forstår jeg at det teatralske er nødvendigt, for hvis ikke jeg har lyst til at skrive noter eller highlighte – hvis ikke man begærer at holde sin pen i hånden – så får jeg det ikke gjort. Jeg husker en medstuderende jeg engang gjorde nar ad (undskyld Mathies!) fordi han bruge lineal til at sætte helt lige streger under citater. I dag ejer jeg selv tre forskellige linealer til det formål.

2.

På et tidspunkt bragte min iver mig til Université de Sorbonne i Paris. Det hører til midt i den del af byen der ligger på Seinens venstre bred, rive gauche, som jeg havde lært at kende på forhånd fra vaskemærket på vintage Yves Saint Laurent-skjorter, og hvis betydning jeg havde googlet indgående. Selvom selve universitetet har ligget der i århundreder, foregår ca. halvdelen af undervisningen på Centre Universitaire Clignancourt der ligger i den nordlige ende af metrolinje 4, lige akkurat indenfor grænsen af selve Paris’ 20 arrondissementer. Et sted jeg ikke havde googlet, og hvor koncentrationen af sælgere af illegale cigaretter ved Metrostoppet er en af de største i Paris. På ægte fransk maner skal man overleve to års undervisning i denne Corbusier-inspirerede betonbygning før man får lov at komme ind til terazzogulvene på det gamle Sorbonne. Som udvekslingsstuderende havde man dog en mere fri adgang til undervisningen, og jeg havde derfor nogle dage om ugen hvert sted. Det gjorde at jeg arbejdede skiftevis på læsesalen begge steder, og jeg kunne ikke lade være med at hænge mig i forskellene. På det gamle Sorbonne sidder man vitterligt nedenunder et fresko af videnskaben – malet som en kvinde med bare patter – omgivet af tre lag stuk. Man læser ved gamle træborde belagt med linoleum, og alle håndtag er guldbelagte i de håndskårede døre. Det var selvfølgelig en stor oplevelse at læse franske klassikere fra Descartes i den slags omgivelser, og jeg udviklede hvad jeg forventer bliver en livslang fascination af René Descartes her.

På trods af dette endte jeg med at holde mere af La bibliothèque Clignancourt med dens den rå beton og de med vilje blotlagte vandrør – tænk et lidt tættere og mere hyggeligt Centre Pompidou – fordi lysindfaldet og indeklimaet trods alt var bedre i denne nyere bygning. Efter undervisning og en espresso fra møntautomaten (1 euro, serveret i en 1 dl stor hvid plastikkop) gik jeg en dag op mod en af de pladser jeg foretrak, på anden sal i den nordlige ende. Her så jeg lige ved hovedtrappen en meget smuk kvinde skrive noter til nogle bøger om hvad der så ud til at være statistisk metode for sociologi. Hun var en af den slags kvinder man ønsker sig at se når man vælger at tage på udveksling til Frankrig. Cool, og med vintage jeans der sidder på den der helt rigtige nonchalant måde, ikke for stramt og ikke for løst, som kun franske it-girls kan ramme helt rent. Løst hår, som jeg husker det, og en oversized striktrøje. Det mest tiltrækkende ved hende var dog hendes noteapparat. To farver highlighter og par ark notepapir liggende lidt skødesløst omkring sig. Som næsten alle franske studerende skriver hun noter på dobbelte ark hvor et A3-ark er bukket på midten og der er trykt linjer så man som et ark fra en hæftet bog reelt kan skrive på fire A4-sider på ét stykke papir, de såkaldte copie double. Og selvfølgelig en pæn skråskrift der slap ved hver 3-4. bogstav:  hot girl stuff. Men det var trods alt ikke så meget det hun skrev der gjorde størst indtryk på mig, men hvad hun skrev med. Måske på grund af hendes skønhed i øvrigt var det her jeg første gang lagde mærke til den lille grønne pen hun skrev med – en opdagelse som siden har haft en stor betydning i mit liv. Det var en limegrøn plastikpen i et meget særegent design, med et aflangt hul i midten og et formstøbt greb der gør at man kun kan holde den én vej. Jeg forstod at det var noget specielt, og i de følgende dage begyndte jeg at lægge mærke til at mange af de andre studerende havde samme model, og samtidig forstod jeg at jeg selv måtte skaffe mig sådan en.

Det lykkedes at finde den lille grønne pen nogle dage senere. Det var en af de dage hvor jeg havde fået lov at komme ind i de gamle haller nede i byen og kunne overvære Maitre Romano forelæse i et rum udelukkende af mørkt træ, stående foran et andet, enormt freskomaleri, dette med motiv af en enlig munk i et goldt middelhavslandskab. Claude Romano, som han hedder, er selv ret tør, men ikke desto mindre en ekstremt dygtig fænomenolog, og han forelæste med et kursus som slet og ret hed la verité, altså „Sandheden“, hvilket var det første jeg valgte at følge. Her forklarede han os at det sjældent er særligt gavnligt at spørge hvad en ting er, og han foreslog i stedet at spørge hvor tingen er. Denne anbefaling har tjent mig godt gennem årene, og selv med det erotiske begær har jeg haft bedre held med at spørge hvor tiltrækningen er, frem for hvad den består af.

Om eftermiddagen i vinduet i en lille butik med fine skriveredskaber på Boulevard Saint-Michel, en typisk parisisk boulevard med grønne løvtræer, ser jeg en lille udstilling i vinduet med det jeg leder efter. I en række kulørte farver ligger den genkendelige pen som jeg på skiltet kunne se,  er plastikfyldepennen Lamy Safari. Inde i butikken bliver jeg ekspederet af en meget tjenstvillig men frastødende ældre bretonsk udseende herre, med sine hornbriller hængende i en snor nedover den brune pullover. I dag kan jeg stadig se for mig hvordan han instruerede mig venligt og tålmodigt i, hvordan man sætter blækpatron i og skifter mellem fin og medium spids. Jeg blev dog nødt til at skynde på ham fordi han havde dårlig ånde og lange, klamme negle der gjorde det svært for ham at håndtere de fine dele i fyldepennen. Ud over det rent fysiske ubehag blev jeg ekstremt irriteret over hvor underligt det var, at manden kunne leve af at være ekspedient og skulle fremvise relativt eksklusive varer – Lamy Safari var klart en af de billigste modeller – og så samtidig have så ulækre hænder. I forbindelse med at jeg skulle skrive dette kiggede jeg efter stedet på Google Maps for at finde butikkens navn, men jeg kan se at den er lukket. Jeg forestiller mig at han altså ikke havde stor succes.

3.

I dag har jeg har jeg lært at man i Frankrig tvinger eleverne til at bruge fyldepen i skolen frem for blyant eller kuglepen. Det er årsagen til at de fleste franske studerende bruger dem: det er en vane som hænger ved. Jeg ved ikke helt hvad de franske undervisningsmyndigheders argument for det dogme er, men hvis det stod til mig gjorde man det samme herhjemme fordi fyldepennen simpelthen er det bedste skriveredskab. Der findes et helt nøgternt nytteargument her – nogle ville sige „rationelt“ – som går ud på at fyldepennen kun kan skrive hvis man holder den rigtigt. Det lærer naturligvis børn at holde pennen rigtigt. (At skrive med den krampagtige klo-hånd er simpelthen frastødende for mig.) Derudover kræver det mindre tryk at skrive med fyldepen, og det betyder at man ikke kramper så meget i hånden når man skal skrive stil, diktat og opgaver. Det er pudsigt hvordan man, når man først har prøvet en fyldepen, forstår hvor hårdt man egentlig trykker ned med en kuglepen.

Men det er ikke disse „rationelle“ argumenter som jeg finder afgørende. Det er de æstetiske kvaliteter. En fyldepen føles bare lækkert når den trækkes hen over papiret. Prøv selv. Og så er der stregen. Stregen! Det afgørende er stregen! Man skal ikke have tegnet meget for at forstå at nogle streger er smukke, mens andre er flade og ligegyldige. Som regel kan man allerede føle det mens man sætter den, og før man overhovedet kigger, om stregen er sat uden fokus og intensitet. Erfarne tegnere giver tit nybegyndere det råd at de skal trykke hårdere med blyanten fordi man i starten ikke tør sætte en ordentlig streg. Det er ikke fordi man nødvendigvis skal trykke hårdt for at tegne en smuk streg, men det hjælper én til at sætte sig igennem. Man kan simpelthen ikke tegne en smuk streg hvis man fedtspiller. Det skyldes at bly har en vis organisk kvalitet som er afhængig af hvordan man trykker, og som netop gør at man kan kan variere udtrykket, og altså lader stregen udtrykke noget om den der har tegnet den . Denne kvalitet findes ikke i dårlig blæk, eller i hvert fald ikke på samme måde, og slet ikke i kuglepenne som jeg er kommet til at hade proportionalt med at jeg har lært at elske fyldepenne.

Kuglepennen er på sin vis en genial opfindelse, det anerkender jeg, for man kan skrive nemt på næsten alle overflader uden at grisse, og den virker som regel. Den kan det hele, kunne man sige. Men her ligger også problemet: kuglepennen er lidt god til alt, men ikke bedst til noget. Måske det bedste valg til at skrive på avispapir der suger meget blæk, og som er for porøst til at bruge stiftblyant. Men selv her har jeg fundet ud af at en tør tuschpen – specifikt en Pilot Frixion – fungerer bedre. Jeg har dog en vis svaghed for kitsch, og jeg synes at der er noget fantastisk skønt over vellykket industrielt design, som eksempelvis de berømte BIC-penne af skiftevis blåt og gennemsigtigt plastik, både den med den sekskantede krop og den runde med clipsen hvor modhagen kommer ud i siden. Men som regel er kuglepenne bare en del af verdens plastikoverforbrug. På mit arbejde står der flere kasser med ligegyldige sponsor-kuglepenne med organisationens logo på som ingen bruger, mens chefen synes at det er for dyrt at købe ordentlige penne som medarbejderne kunne få glæde af. En praksis som vist er normen de fleste steder. Det er ikke fordi jeg er ekstrem her, jeg mener blot at der er enorm forskel på en skod 5-kroners pen med firmalogo og en Uni Mitsubishi eller en Zebra til omkring de 35 hvilket burde være indenfor budgettet på en almindelig dansk arbejdsplads. Problemet er ikke så meget plastikhylsteret men at kravet om billig produktion betyder at blækket også er billigt. Kuglepenne fyldes af et voksagtigt blæk der gør at spidsen aldrig tørrer ud, og som gør at stregen aldrig flyder ud på papiret. Et træk som gør kuglepennen idiotsikker. Til gengæld er det det som gør at man skal trykke hårdt fordi blækket ligesom skal gnides ud på papiret. Det voksagtige bindemiddel sætter også store begrænsninger for hvilke slags pigment der kan indgå i blækket til en kuglepen, og det er forklaringen på kuglepennens ligegyldige streg. Det gør det simpelthen umuligt at sætte en god streg med en kuglepen. Min position på dette område er radikal, det er jeg klar over, men jeg mener helt alvorligt at der aldrig er lavet en smuk tegning med kuglepen – jeg har i hvert fald aldrig set en. Aldrig set en håndskrift i kuglepen jeg blev betaget af. Jeg har aldrig kunnet begære nogen jeg har set bruge en bruge en billig plastikkuglepen, jeg får the ick som med voksne der går rundt i smækbukser eller med store Garmin-ure. Jeg bliver både frastødt og forundret over at møde voksne mennesker med flotte jobs som bor i huse til mange millioner, og som går op i deres udseende og livets øvrige detaljer, men som alligevel er tilfredse med at bruge en eller anden ligegyldig sponsorkuglepen de har fået på en konference engang for to år siden. Der er ekstremt mange mennesker som skriver i hånden hver dag, men som ikke er parat til at bruge bare 40 kr. på en ordentlig japansk rollerball med gode skriveegenskaber og farvedybde i blækket.

En fyldepen bliver, som navnet antyder, fyldt med blæk af én selv løbende. Denne blæk er vandbaseret og flyder nogle gange ud og grisser lidt. Til gengæld har man nærmest uendelige muligheder for at variere farverne, både hvad angår selve farens valør og dybde, men man kan også lave farver der changerer eller har glimmer og den slags i hvilket jeg dog ikke er så interesseret i. I stedet interesser det mig mest at læse om og prøve de forskellige udgaver af sort blæk. Det skyldes at en vandbaseret blæk med gode pigmenter kan have mindst lige så meget spil som en god blyant. Det gør at man kan sætte en smuk streg, lige meget om man tegner eller skriver noter.

4.

Jeg mødte aldrig denne kvinde igen fra biblioteket. Men jeg har selvfølgelig tænkt på hende. Bruger hun stadig sin grønne Lamy Safari? Hvor ville jeg gerne røre ved den. Men jeg tænker også på andre skriveredskaber. Jeg forestiller mig en sen aften på læsesalen tilbage på Amager, vi er efterhånden kun to tilbage,  og jeg ser hvordan hun skriver på en opgave om bronzealderkunst med sin Platinum Preppy i lilla – tænk Gameboy Color-plastik – og retter på sine kawaii hårspænder. En kvinde som forstår at kvalitet ikke nødvendigvis skal koste, og at æstetik er noget man kan lære at se i alt hvis man sætter sig for det. Hun bærer en top med bare arme. Vi kommer til at smile til hinanden. Eller jeg forestiller mig at jeg mødes med en mørkhåret arkitekt i Milano, hun kommer gående fra tegnestuen et sted i nærheden, vi drikker Campari Spritz et lokalt sted mens hun fylder sin Caran d’Ache 844 med bly-stifter i HB2. Klassisk skønhed, kontrolleret men organisk, tilgivende. Vi konverserer og hun griner af mine vittigheder, mens en scooter kører forbi, inviterer hun mig hjem til aftensmad. Eller jeg forestiller mig at jeg møder en kvinde på et hotel et sted i Centraleuropa, måske i München eller Strasbourg. Jeg er på forretningsrejse, hun bærer Phoebe Philo og bemærker min fyldepen, mens jeg skriver i min kalender i hotelbaren. Jeg bestiller cocktails til os mens hun finder sin Platinum Curidas i smoke grey frem, en pen med en elegant plastikstøbning og en sofistikeret lukkemekanisme. Moderne, selvsikkert og sexet. Hun spørger om jeg har overskydende blæk, vi går op på mit værelse for at finde det til hende…

Jeg drømmer om at sidde på en københavnsk fortovscafe og læse avis mens jeg venter på min kæreste. Hun kommer cyklende, vi får et glas hvidvin, hun giver mig en gave. Det er en flaske Iroshizuku-blæk – den bedste – i mørk blommefarve. Jeg fylder den i og laver krydsord mens hun taler i telefon. Vi behøver ikke at tale sammen. Hun lader mig se hende, se hende låse cyklen, se hende tage elevatoren, se hende åbne en mælkekarton og drikke, se hende skære sig i fingeren på dyrt japansk notepapir, se hende leve. Og vi er lykkelige.

There are moments in life when you realize something sacred is being quietly rewritten right in front of you. Not with a red pen or a loud announcement, but with subtle shifts in tone, softened edges, and well-intentioned adjustments that promise peace while slowly draining truth of its power. Galatians 1 is written into that kind of moment. It does not whisper. It does not negotiate. It does not ask for permission. It confronts, disrupts, and restores all at once. And if we are honest, it does something even more unsettling—it refuses to let us domesticate grace.

Paul’s opening words to the Galatian churches feel almost abrupt. There is no warm buildup, no extended thanksgiving, no gentle easing into the issue. He moves straight to the fracture. Something has gone wrong, and it has gone wrong fast. The gospel they received—freely, fully, without conditions—is being replaced by something that looks spiritual, sounds responsible, and feels safer to those who prefer systems over surrender. Paul calls it what it is: not another version of the gospel, but a distortion of it. That word matters. A distorted gospel is not a weaker gospel; it is a dangerous one. It carries familiar shapes while quietly rearranging the center.

This chapter matters because it speaks to every generation that has ever felt the pressure to make faith more acceptable, more manageable, more aligned with the expectations of religious culture or social order. Galatians 1 exposes the temptation to improve the gospel by adding guardrails God never installed. It reveals how quickly grace offends those who believe righteousness should be earned, monitored, or measured. And it reminds us that when grace is altered—even slightly—it ceases to be grace at all.

Paul’s astonishment is not theatrical; it is pastoral. He is shocked not because the Galatians asked questions or wrestled with obedience, but because they were abandoning the very foundation that called them into life. The phrase “so quickly” carries weight. It tells us how fast fear can move when certainty feels threatened. These believers did not wake up intending to reject Christ. They were persuaded, likely by voices that sounded authoritative, biblical, and deeply concerned about holiness. But concern for holiness without trust in grace always leads to control. Paul recognizes that immediately.

What makes Galatians 1 uncomfortable is that Paul refuses to soften his language for the sake of harmony. He says that even if an angel from heaven preaches a different gospel, let them be accursed. That is not poetic exaggeration; it is theological triage. Paul is drawing a line not around personality or preference, but around the very nature of salvation. If grace depends on anything beyond Christ, then Christ is no longer sufficient. And if Christ is not sufficient, faith becomes a burden rather than a refuge.

This chapter forces us to confront a truth we often resist: sincerity does not protect us from distortion. The Galatians were not malicious. They were not rebellious. They were trying to be faithful. That is what makes this warning timeless. The most dangerous shifts rarely come from open denial; they come from well-meaning additions. Paul understands that once the gospel becomes something you must complete, manage, or maintain through performance, it stops being good news. It becomes another law wearing religious language.

Paul’s defense of his apostleship is not about ego or authority. It is about source. He wants them to know where this gospel came from, because origin determines authority. He did not receive it from men. He did not learn it through institutional training. It was revealed to him by Jesus Christ. That matters because a gospel born from human systems will always reflect human priorities—status, control, hierarchy, and fear of losing order. A gospel revealed by Christ does the opposite. It dismantles hierarchy, levels status, and replaces fear with freedom.

Paul’s own story reinforces the point. He was not an obvious candidate for grace. He was zealous, disciplined, respected, and violent in his certainty. His transformation did not come from gradual improvement or moral refinement. It came from interruption. Christ met him, confronted him, and redirected his entire life. Paul does not present his past to inspire admiration; he presents it to prove that grace is not negotiated. If God saved Paul without prerequisites, then no one gets to add requirements now.

There is something deeply relevant here for anyone who has ever felt like they had to clean themselves up before approaching God. Galatians 1 insists that the gospel does not begin with self-improvement. It begins with surrender. Paul’s authority comes not from his résumé but from his obedience to revelation. He did not consult with flesh and blood. He did not seek approval from those who were apostles before him. He went where God sent him and let time, faithfulness, and fruit testify to the truth of his calling.

That detail matters more than we often realize. Paul is not rejecting community or accountability; he is rejecting permission-based obedience. There is a difference. Permission-based faith waits until everyone agrees before moving. Revelation-based faith moves because God has spoken. Galatians 1 exposes how easily spiritual environments can become gatekeepers of grace rather than witnesses to it. Paul refuses to allow the gospel to be held hostage by tradition, status, or fear of controversy.

This chapter also challenges our modern tendency to confuse peace with truth. Paul could have avoided conflict by staying quiet. He could have allowed the Galatians to “work it out” gradually. But love does not always look like silence. Sometimes love looks like clarity. Paul’s words are sharp because the stakes are high. When the gospel is compromised, people do not just get confused; they get crushed. Performance-based faith always leads to exhaustion, comparison, and despair.

What Galatians 1 ultimately confronts is our addiction to control. Grace cannot be controlled. It cannot be rationed or regulated. It cannot be distributed based on merit. That is why it offends religious systems that depend on hierarchy. Paul understands that the moment grace is fenced in, it stops being grace and starts being currency. And currency always creates winners and losers. The gospel was never meant to do that. It was meant to free captives, not rank them.

There is a personal dimension to this chapter that often goes unnoticed. Paul says he is not trying to please people. If he were, he would not be a servant of Christ. That statement is not bravado; it is confession. Paul knows how tempting approval can be. He knows how easily mission drifts when acceptance becomes the goal. Galatians 1 is not written from a place of detachment; it is written from experience. Paul has lived both sides—approval from people and obedience to Christ—and he knows they are rarely the same path.

This chapter quietly asks every reader a hard question: whose approval shapes your faith? When the gospel offends cultural sensibilities, do you soften it? When obedience costs influence, do you delay it? When truth disrupts comfort, do you reinterpret it? Galatians 1 does not allow us to pretend neutrality. It insists that the gospel either remains intact or it doesn’t. There is no middle version.

Yet even in its severity, Galatians 1 is deeply hopeful. Paul is not writing to condemn the Galatians but to reclaim them. His astonishment is fueled by love. He believes they can return because grace has not changed. That is the beauty of this chapter. It does not suggest that the gospel is fragile; it suggests that people are. And because people are fragile, the gospel must be protected—not from scrutiny, but from distortion.

As Paul recounts how God set him apart from his mother’s womb and called him by grace, he is not elevating himself. He is magnifying the initiative of God. Before Paul did anything right or wrong, God already had a purpose. That truth dismantles both pride and shame. Pride dies because calling is not earned. Shame dissolves because calling is not revoked by failure. Galatians 1 plants us firmly in the reality that grace precedes effort and sustains obedience.

This is why the chapter ends not with triumph but with worship. Those who heard Paul’s story glorified God because of him. That is always the correct outcome of true grace. When grace is authentic, it does not draw attention to the recipient; it points back to the Giver. Distorted gospels produce impressive personalities. The real gospel produces worship.

Galatians 1 leaves us with a choice that every generation must face anew. Will we guard the gospel as it was given, or will we reshape it to fit our fears? Will we trust grace enough to let it offend our instincts for control? Will we believe that Christ is enough, even when systems tell us more is required?

This chapter does not let us stay comfortable. But it does offer us something better—freedom that does not depend on performance, identity that does not collapse under pressure, and faith that rests not in our consistency but in Christ’s sufficiency.

One of the most overlooked tensions in Galatians 1 is the collision between divine calling and religious expectation. Paul does not describe a smooth transition from persecutor to apostle. He describes isolation, obscurity, and misunderstanding. After his encounter with Christ, he does not immediately step into prominence. He goes away. He waits. He grows. This matters because it dismantles the myth that obedience is always rewarded with affirmation. Sometimes obedience looks like silence while God does work that no audience can validate.

Paul’s withdrawal into Arabia is not escapism; it is formation. Grace does not merely rescue us from guilt—it reshapes us from the inside out. The gospel Paul defends in Galatians 1 is not shallow permission to remain unchanged. It is radical transformation that begins with grace and continues through surrender. That nuance is critical. Paul is not arguing against obedience; he is arguing against prerequisites. Obedience flows from grace, not toward it.

This distinction is where many believers quietly stumble. We know grace saves us, but we often live as though growth is maintained by effort alone. Galatians 1 refuses that separation. If grace is sufficient to save, it is sufficient to sustain. The moment we believe we must supplement grace with performance to remain accepted, we have already stepped into another gospel. Paul’s warning is not theoretical—it addresses the daily posture of the heart.

Notice how Paul frames his past again and again. He does not deny his zeal. He does not minimize his discipline. He does not excuse his violence. Instead, he places all of it under the authority of grace. This is crucial for those who come from deeply religious backgrounds. Galatians 1 does not mock discipline or commitment; it reorders them. It insists that even the most impressive devotion means nothing if it is disconnected from Christ.

There is something profoundly liberating about Paul’s refusal to sanitize his story. He allows the tension to remain visible. He was advancing beyond many of his peers. He was respected. He was confident. And he was wrong. Galatians 1 gives permission to admit that sincerity does not equal accuracy. That truth is uncomfortable, but it is also freeing. It means being wrong does not disqualify you from grace; it positions you to receive it.

Paul’s encounter with the apostles years later reinforces another essential truth: unity does not require uniformity of origin. When Peter, James, and John recognize the grace given to Paul, they do not demand replication of their path. They acknowledge difference without suspicion. That moment is quietly revolutionary. It shows us that the gospel produces unity not by forcing sameness, but by anchoring identity in Christ rather than method.

This is particularly relevant in an age obsessed with platforms and legitimacy. Galatians 1 dismantles the idea that calling must be validated by proximity to power. Paul’s gospel was not less authentic because it did not originate in Jerusalem’s inner circle. God’s authority does not flow through popularity; it flows through obedience. That truth frees those who feel unseen, overlooked, or unsupported. The gospel does not need your résumé to be real.

Another uncomfortable reality emerges here: distorted gospels often gain traction because they offer clarity where grace requires trust. Rules feel safer than relationship. Systems feel more predictable than surrender. Galatians 1 exposes how easily fear disguises itself as wisdom. The pressure placed on the Galatians was not framed as rebellion; it was framed as responsibility. But responsibility without grace always becomes control.

Paul’s insistence that he is not seeking human approval cuts sharply into modern faith culture. Many distortions of the gospel today are not driven by malice, but by the desire to avoid offense. Galatians 1 reminds us that the gospel will offend—not because it is cruel, but because it removes our leverage. Grace eliminates boasting. It levels status. It removes bargaining power. That is deeply unsettling for any system built on hierarchy.

Yet Paul does not present grace as chaotic or careless. The freedom he defends is not lawlessness; it is alignment. When Christ becomes the center, obedience no longer functions as currency—it becomes response. Galatians 1 teaches us that the gospel is not fragile, but it is precise. Change the center, and everything else collapses.

One of the quiet tragedies Paul addresses is how quickly joy disappears when grace is replaced with obligation. The Galatians were not becoming more holy; they were becoming more anxious. That is always the fruit of another gospel. When faith becomes something you must maintain through vigilance, peace evaporates. Assurance shrinks. Comparison grows. Paul’s urgency is pastoral because he sees where this road leads.

Galatians 1 also speaks powerfully to those who feel disqualified by their past. Paul does not argue for grace despite his history; he argues for grace because of it. His transformation becomes evidence of God’s initiative, not his improvement. That matters for anyone who believes they missed their chance, went too far, or stayed away too long. Grace does not operate on expiration dates.

As the chapter closes, we are left not with instructions, but with orientation. The gospel Paul defends is not a set of behaviors—it is a declaration of what God has done in Christ. Everything else flows from that. When that declaration is altered, faith collapses inward. When it remains intact, faith expands outward in freedom and worship.

Galatians 1 ultimately asks us whether we trust grace enough to let it stand alone. Not grace plus discipline. Not grace plus tradition. Not grace plus approval. Just grace. Christ alone. That is the gospel Paul refuses to negotiate. That is the gospel the Galatians were tempted to abandon. And that is the gospel every generation must decide whether it will protect or replace.

Grace does not ask permission. It does not wait for consensus. It does not bend to fear. Galatians 1 stands as a warning and an invitation—guard what you have received, and let Christ remain enough.

—

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Reading Slump Over

This review includes references to sexual assault and human trafficking. It is #NSFW

Medium Used: 100% ebook

Ratings out of 5

Overall Rating:
💜💜💜 (3/5)

Sweetness Level:
🍫🍫 (2/5)

Steam Quality Level:
🔥🔥🔥🔥 (4/5)

Steam Quantity Level:
🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️ (5/5)

FMC Likability:
😈😈😈 (3/5)

MMC Likability:
👨‍💼👨‍💼👨‍💼 (3/5)

Plot Engagement:
⛓️🔒 (2/5)

At least 1 bad dad (pass/fail):
💯 (pass)

Spoiler Free Review

Make Me, Sir is a spice heavy suspense romance. The female protagonist, Gabi, is an FBI social worker who volunteers to support an investigation by being a decoy (bait) for a human trafficker targeting bratty submissive at BDSM clubs in Tampa Bay, FL. Undercover, Gabi becomes the latest sub “trainee” at Tampa's premier lifestyle club, The Shadowlands. Unfortunately for Gabi, Trainees at the Shadowlands are instructed by Master Marcus, whose no bullshit tutelage makes being the worst behaved sub in the Shadowlands a bit of a challenge.

I liked this book, but I felt that it suffers from a problem a lot of books in this sub genre¹, the first half+ of the book is practically PWP² despite this the suspense/plot is enjoyable but more or less abandons the spice while the plot runs it course. It would have been a smoother read for me if it had been a bit more of a balance of a plot and spice throughout.

Overall it's a fairly decent read and one I'd recommend for people who particularly like high spice BDSM books with this dynamic. If you need a balance of plot and kink throughout or prefer love stories that aren't almost 100% set inside of a kink club there's probably better books to pick up.

^{1 what I'll call “dim” contemporary romance set in BDSM night clubs i.e. not quite “dark” contemporary romance
Plot? What Plot? https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/PWP}

What I liked about this book
* Spice had a solid variety of scenes. * This was part of a series but it actually did some scenes from the perspective of the MCs of an earlier book. This was done well, I didn't feel like i was missing much not having read the previous books but I also felt like the side character relationships were more meaningful with these other perspective scenes.
* Gabi is a Social Worker at the FBI not an agent/officer. It was cool how Sinclair made her skills as a social worker her strength in the investigation and the general “undercover” premise but with somebody who wasn't in law enforcement I found intriguing.

What I did not like about this book
* Early on Gabi's inner monologue keeps comparing Marcus to her dad. No Thanks!
* Dragged in the middle a bit.

Spoilers Review

Click to show Spoilers

What I liked Spoilers
* Sassy banter between Marcus and Gabi. Gabi learning she actually is sassy and Marcus learning he likes it worked for me. I could see them together and it made sense with their lives outside the club and backstories.
* Couple scenes where Gabi goes into Subspace and is then snuggled and they made me melt. So hot and romantic.
* Gabi is revealed to have been on the streets for a bit as a child and a pick pocket. This comes back around in the climax in a perfect way and I loved it. Kind of made it worse for me though that Sinclair didn't balance plot and smut pacing more. She can clearly weave a story.

What I didn't like Spoilers
* Awkwardly talking about BDSM kink in front of grandma and grandpa at lunch is not cute. No thanks. * Gabi volunteers to decoy because her friend was kidnapped. This book doesn't close that thread. Idk if later books do but wow, that really salts the HEA a bit.

This Book Reminded Me of:

• Natural Law by Joey W. Hill as it has a similar premise and setting.
• Servicing The Target by Cherise Sinclair which is also from this series.
  ^{Both of these have a dominant FMC and submissive MMC}
  

Get the book

The Sequels book take what the 1st built and deliver action packed, contemporary fantasies, with Veronica Mars meets X-Men vibes.

Content Warning: These books and this review include references to gun violence and car crashes.
This review is: #SFW

Medium Used:
* 80% paperback 20% audiobook via Hoopla {White Hot by Ilona Andrews}
* 100% paperback {Wildfire by Ilona Andrews}

Ratings out of 5

Overall Rating:
💜💜💜💜💜 (5/5) ¹

Sweetness Level:
🍫🍫🍫🍫 (4/5)

Steam Quality Level:
🔥🔥🔥🔥 (4/5)

Steam Quantity Level:
🌶️🌶️🌶️ (3/5)

FMC Likability:
🕵️🕵️🕵️🕵️🕵️ (5/5)

MMC Likability:
🐉🐉🐉🐉 (4/5)

Plot Engagement:
🔍🔍🔍🔍🔍(5/5)

At least 1 bad dad (pass/fail):
0️⃣ (fail)

BONUS audiobook narration:🔉🔉🔉🔉🔉

^{1 the rating I gave book 1 {Burn for Me by Ilona Andrews} was a 4/5 in 2022. I did not revisit it as part of reading the sequels.}

Spoiler Free Review of the first trilogy in the Hidden Legacy Series

Each book in Ilona Andrews' The Hidden Legacy series is an action/adventure mystery set in an alternative history modern day Houston. The first three books are told from the perspectives of Nevada Baylor, a mid twenties private investigator. In Nevada's world the most important part of the genetic lottery is magical prowess. The resulting society is a caste system based on the magical strengths of each family.

Nevada and her family get by in this society by keeping their heads down and their rare magics hidden. Nevada is the primary bread winner and does her best to follow a strict code in her work as a private investigator. Work that is widely aided by the fact that she is a human lie detector – an incredibly rare and feared form of magic.

In book one Nevada's work drags her into the world of Houston's upper elite. Here she encounters one of the most powerful mages in the world Connor 'Mad' Rogan. A war hero, telekinetic, billionaire who is a crazed paranoid asshole.

The first trilogy in Hidden Legacy is exactly the slow burn I prefer in a serialized romance story. Connor and Nevada's love develops over the three series with time passing on page. They face multiple external conflicts together that forces them to see the good and the bad in each other. It does not deliver the meltiest gush or the sweatiest spice but the raw chemistry (with plenty of sassing) that develops over the series places them among my favorite book couples.

At the end of the day, the number one thing that sets this series apart (particularly book 2 and book 3) is the quality of the plot, action, and humor. I did not want to put White Hot nor Wildfire down. Plenty of time is set aside to establish side characters and Nevada's relationships with them. The individual mysteries/client jobs Nevada works gives each book its own beginning, middle, and end but the trilogy also fits together as an overarching story.

** What I love about this trilogy**
* The side characters are all interesting and loveable in unique ways. Each character adds something to the world.
* The sass between Nevada and Connor is excellent through the whole series. They feel right for each other in so many ways.
* Action, mystery, sappy sweet scenes, and steamy tension with an unrushed payoff.

What I do not like about this trilogy
* Book 1 starts off with a bit of some odd vibes (see spoilers).
* The series shifts to other member's of Nevada's family after book 3. I haven't read anything but the transition Novella yet but I kind of love Nevada and am sad to have the story move on.
* There is an excessive amount of car violence / crashes. It does not bother me but I know people who this would be a massive deal breaker for who I'd otherwise like to recommend this series to.

Spoilers Review

Click to Review Spoilers

^{I decided to finish this review that I had started 2.5 months ago when I read White Hot and Wildfire these books so below spoiler section is lighter than my typical reviews.}

Some of my favorite parts of this trilogy.
* Anytime Nevada calls Rogan “Connor” when he is emotionally distraught or distant.
* “Love makes you helpless. You think about the object of your affection all the time. Your happiness or misery depends on another person’s mood. You give up all power over yourself, hand it to the person you love, and trust that they will be gentle with it.”

The Book 1 vibe that is my taste but I forgive because I love this trilogy.
* Connor kidnaps Nevada in the first book. Kidnapping is not endearing. I forgive him but I do not like this.

This Book Reminded Me of:

• Veronica Mars
  
• {Kate Daniels by Ilona Andrews} – same authors w/ similar action packed serial romance vibes.
  
  

Who should read this book?

I think most romance fans who like contemporary sci-fi/fantasy settings with lots of action will love this trilogy.

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Lord, thank you for giving me time to rest, worship you, and spend time with loved ones. Please give me your strength and wisdom as I continue to be the best husband and father you and St. Joseph want me to be. Amen.

#God #sunday #rest