What bothered me was hearing the phrase contrasting a “white church” with a multicultural one. That language stuck with me. Not because I oppose diversity. Not because I reject inclusion. But because something in me tightened the moment race was explicitly spotlighted again in the church I attend.

Let me start with the bottom line.

I love real diversity. I’ve lived and worked in it. Germany. Saudi Arabia. Kuwait. Egypt. Thailand. I’ve had roommates from around the world. I’m not threatened by difference. I’m drawn to it.

So what’s bothering me is not diversity.

It’s repetition. It’s framing.

When race is repeatedly spotlighted from the pulpit, especially with language like “white church,” it feels like a negative generalization in a place that’s supposed to center unity in Christ. To me, that kind of phrasing does not feel neutral. It feels loaded, especially when the church is already multicultural and thriving in its diversity.

What adds to the frustration is that this is coming from a middle-aged white pastor in a context like Minnesota, where certain ideological trends are already pervasive. It feels like virtue signaling rather than a genuine call for unity, adding to the sense that the church is adopting the tone of the broader culture wars rather than focusing on Christ and community.

This isn’t about feeling personally threatened; I see it as a form of racism, no matter who it’s directed at. This kind of language makes me angry because it creates division, especially coming from a place that should foster community. Instead of feeling on guard, it makes me want to distance myself from an environment that perpetuates these divisions, leading me to reconsider my place in it.

That’s the real risk here.

I don’t think the pastor is evil. I don’t even think he’s necessarily wrong in every concern he may be trying to address. But I do think he emphasizes certain things in a way that feels culturally tilted, repetitive, and exhausting. And I’m tired.

So the core issue is this: I want church to be a unifier centered on Christ, where diversity is visible without constantly being verbalized through demographic categories. I don’t want any group spotlighted in a way that feels like a broad generalization. I want worship, not cultural parsing.

This isn’t new for me. I wrote about this a year ago, when I was told I “didn’t get it.” That post captured a lot of what I still feel now, just in a different setting. If you want the fuller context, you can read it here: When I Was Told I Didn’t Get It

That’s the tension. I value the diversity at this church. I don’t want to leave. But I can feel cynicism starting if this continues, and I don’t know if it will change.

This isn’t about rejecting diversity. It isn’t about defending whiteness. It’s about fatigue, trust, and emphasis.

The decision in front of me isn’t, “Is he right or wrong?”

It’s, “Can I stay here without hardening?”

That’s the real bottom line.

I watched a video about Laos, and it honestly shook me.

I knew the Vietnam War was brutal. I knew bombs were dropped all over that part of the world. But I did not know the scale of what happened in Laos, and I did not understand that so much of it is still there, still buried in the ground, still shaping daily life for people who had nothing to do with the decisions that put it there.

That was the part that got me. Not only that it happened, but that it never really went away.

A War That Did Not Stay in the Past

During the Vietnam War, the United States dropped enormous numbers of bombs on Laos. Many were cluster munitions, bombs that opened in the air and scattered smaller bomblets over a wide area. A lot of those never exploded. They stayed in fields, near villages, and under land people still have to use.

So for many Americans, this is history. For many people in Laos, it is not. It is still in the ground. It still affects where people can walk, farm, build, and live. That is a very different kind of aftermath than the one most of us think about when we hear the word war.

I think that is why it hit me so hard. The war ended a long time ago. But some of what it left behind did not.

The Part I Cannot Get Past

What bothers me is not only what happened, but how little most of us seem to know about it.

I did not know. And I doubt I am unusual. Laos barely comes up when people talk about that war, even though people there are still living with what was left behind. It feels like an entire part of the story got pushed to the side, and now the people who remember those years firsthand are getting older and dying. So, unless someone goes looking, most younger people will never hear much about it at all.

That is hard to sit with.

Because it is one thing for history to be painful. It is another thing for history to disappear from public memory while other people are still living with the consequences.

It Is Not Only Laos

The same thought hit me when I thought about Vietnam and Agent Orange.

Vietnam is still dealing with that, too. Different weapon, same pattern. The war ended, but the damage did not. Toxic exposure remained in the environment for years. Families have lived with illness, cancer, and children born with serious birth defects long after the war itself was over.

That is what makes all of this feel so heavy to me. These are not just old decisions sitting in old archives. These are things that kept moving forward through people’s bodies, through families, through land, through generations.

We talk about war like it has dates. But some of its consequences do not stay inside those dates.

No Clean Ending

I do not have some polished conclusion for this.

I am just struck by how easy it is for something this serious to fade from view for the people who caused it, while the people on the other side are still living with it. That is what stays with me.

For us, it is easy to call it history.

For them, in a lot of ways, it still is not over.

Dad,

February nineteenth is coming up again. I remember that morning. I remember finding you. I still carry it.

I’m not angry at you. I’m sad. I miss you. I wish you could have stayed. I wish we could have one more last conversation.

Thank you for what you gave us. You gave our family a childhood overseas that shaped me. We saw the world up close. That gift stayed with me. It made me curious, and it made the world feel wide. I’m grateful for that.

After you died, I struggled. I made choices I regret. I lost money. I lost my footing for a while. I’ve carried shame about that, and I don’t want to carry it anymore.

I believe God is not surprised by any of this. I believe He is kind to the broken. I believe He meets us in the places we would rather hide. So today I’m bringing this into the light.

I’m still here. I’m still trying to live an honest life. I’m still learning how to receive grace instead of punishing myself. I’m working on forgiving myself because God forgives me.

I don’t know everything about what you were going through. But I do know this: you are loved. You matter. And your life mattered to me.

Today I’m going to remember you, pray for peace, and keep moving forward.

I love you, Dad.

Jon

TLDR
I’ve had enough of the judgment, outrage, and emotional whiplash online, in friendships, and even in recovery circles. From people I trusted turning cold, to caregivers spewing hate, to spiritual hypocrisy dressed up as virtue. it’s left me worn out. I’ve deleted the apps. Logged off. I’m not angry anymore. I’m just done.

Why I Can’t Sleep
It’s 2 a.m., and I’m wide awake.
Not because of caffeine. Not because of screens. Because I’m ruminating, one more time. Replaying a conversation I didn’t expect to sting as much as it did. One of those interactions where someone says something cruel, and it lodges in your brain. And every time it loops in your head, it cuts a little deeper.

Recently, I had a falling out with someone I thought might become a woman friend. It didn’t start badly. It became bad. What began as thoughtful turned sharp, dismissive, and ultimately judgmental. It was not just toward me, but toward people I care about. My Asian friends from when I worked overseas. People she saw on my Facebook. People I’ve known and worked with personally. People who have lived and worked hard under harsh conditions in countries with poor human rights records, where most Americans wouldn’t last a week. Long hours, limited rights, sending money home while being treated like they’re invisible. And listening to her casually dismiss my friends wasn’t just frustrating; it was painful. Now, in retrospect, with all the unresolved anger she carried from a broken marriage, it felt like she was looking for someone to be angry at.

Patterns Repeat
It wasn’t the first time either. Last year, a roommate went from cold to colder, from distant to contemptuous. Both experiences taught me that some people carry old wounds like armor. And instead of learning from those wounds, they sharpen them into a way of interacting with the world.

And there’s something else I’ve struggled to understand. With both the former roommate and the woman I tried to befriend, both Chinese from China, there was a kind of emotional distance I couldn’t cross, which I now see as arrogance and rudeness. I’ve felt that same pattern in other connections, almost always, but not always, with people born and raised in mainland China. Things start warm, even promising, but once they leave or move on, it’s like you never existed. No follow-up. No connection. Just gone. You’re the one always trying to keep the thread alive, and eventually, you realize there’s nothing on the other end.

It’s not the same with American-born Chinese, or people from other parts of Asia. This seems specific. And over time, it wears you down. You start to question if the warmth was ever real, or just temporary politeness.

The World Is Angry
At the same time, I’ve been watching real-world events unfold that feel strangely connected. I saw a video of an ICU nurse spitting and kicking a federal agent’s car until the taillight broke. This was a caregiver, someone trained to stay calm under chaos. Then on social media, another ICU nurse casually said he could “let go” of pressure on a bleeding artery if the patient were the wrong kind of person. Another nurse recommending violence. These are people trained to protect life, now threatening it. Publicly.

It’s jarring. Not because I don’t understand anger or frustration, I do. But when people trained to preserve life start fantasizing about destroying it, something is broken. And it’s not just political. It’s spiritual.

And then there’s the Epstein files. Not just the headlines, the volume. The number of names. The nature of the accusations. The sealed records. The silence and obsession. If even half of it is true, it’s horrifying. It’s not just scandal. It’s rot. Deep, systemic rot. And we all feel it, whether we admit it or not.

Even in the Rooms
Even in AA, which should be a space of shared struggle and humility, I watched it happen. A friend, someone I looked up to, started sending political memes. One-sided. No conversation, just provocation. I replied once, not even aggressively, and he shut me out like I didn’t exist. Tried to talk after a meeting. Cold. Like I’d violated some unwritten code. And just like that, another connection gone. Because people aren’t looking for peace. They’re looking for someone they can be angry at.

I Logged Off
I don’t want to be part of that. I don’t want to live online, soaking in outrage. I don’t want to be surrounded by people who sharpen their trauma into weapons and turn every honest word into a threat.

So I’ve stepped back. I deleted my YouTube account. I removed Facebook, X, WeChat, and Reddit from every device. Logged out. Not because I have all the answers, but because I’ve had enough. Enough of the noise. Enough of the judgment. Enough of watching people destroy each other in public and private spaces while claiming they’re the ones being wronged.

If this retreat is right or wrong, I don’t know. What I do know is that anger shouldn’t have to fill every space between people. I just want quiet. I want space to breathe. To think. To be without someone else’s unresolved pain echoing in my head.

I’m not bitter. I’m just done.

In a powerful video from the YouTube channel “The 11th Hour,” a 92-year-old man delivers a stark, unsentimental warning to younger generations. Describing himself as standing at the “edge of the cliff” with a clear view of the bottom, he looks back at the “party” of life to tell us what we are getting wrong.

Having outlived his wife, his friends, his enemies, and his own ego, he argues that most of us are living a lie. We operate under the “arrogant comfortable delusion” that we have an infinite supply of time. Because we don’t feel the “cold steel” of mortality against our necks, we treat our days as cheap.

Here are the main takeaways and the “no BS strategy” for living from a man who has reached the endgame.

1. Escape the “Waiting Room”

The speaker shares the tragic story of his best friend, Jack, a “shark” in the business world who lived by a strict “five-year plan.” Jack believed that if he grounded for five more years, he would hit his number, take his wife to Italy, learn to paint, and finally start living.

Jack died of a massive heart attack at 42, three days after articulating this plan. He never saw Italy and never painted a thing. The tragedy wasn’t that Jack died—because everyone dies—but that he treated his entire existence as a “waiting room for a better future that never arrived.”

The Lesson:

There is no later; there is only now. If you are trading your present moments for a future that is not guaranteed, you are making “the worst bet in the history of gambling.”

2. Recognize “Future Trash”

The speaker critiques the modern obsession with accumulation, noting that we often buy things we don’t need with money we don’t have to impress people we don’t like. He offers a sobering perspective on materialism: he has never seen a “U-Haul trailer following a hearse.”

The Lesson:

All the material goods you work 60 hours a week to acquire—often at the expense of seeing your children grow up—will eventually become “future trash.” Your heirs will throw 90% of it in a dumpster and sell the rest for quarters.

3. Your Career Will Not Love You Back

Recounting a personal regret, the speaker describes the night he won a “Businessman of the Year” award. While he felt like a god on stage, he went home to a dark house, realizing he had neglected the people who actually loved him to win a “piece of glass.”

The Lesson:

Do not worship at the altar of your career. A job is a transaction where you sell hours of life you will never get back. If you died today, your position would be posted online before your obituary. A career “will not hold your hand when the lights go out.”

4. The Only Real Wealth

Looking back from age 92, the speaker realizes that the only things you get to keep are the things you gave away: love, time, and connection. He doesn’t replay his business deals; he replays Sunday mornings with his wife and the sound of his daughter laughing.

5. Three Strategies to Actually Live

To stop merely existing and start living, the speaker offers three specific challenges:

Kill Your Ego:

We often fail to take risks because we fear looking foolish. The speaker’s advice is liberating: “Nobody is watching you.” To everyone else, you are just background noise. The fear of judgment is a waste of time because those judges will eventually rot in the ground just like everyone else.

Practice “The Last Time”:

This Stoic technique involves reminding yourself that for every activity, there will be a final time you do it. One day, you will pick up your child for the last time or kiss your spouse for the last time. Living with this knowledge forces you to “hold the hug a little longer” and never take a moment for granted.

Wake Up and Unplug:

While the speaker deals with a dimming body, he points out that young people have the “golden ticket” of health but squander it by scrolling on their phones. His command is to go outside, feel the wind, and forgive your enemies—not for them, but because you don’t have time to carry the “luggage of hate.”

Conclusion

The video ends with a plea to stop playing it safe. “We are all going to die; it is the only guarantee we have.” The goal is not to arrive at death safely, but to ensure you didn’t just exist until you expired. As the speaker says in his final moments on camera: “I’m tired now. Go live.”

Sometimes I feel like I’m sending signals into space. I pray. I ask. I wait. And all I get back is silence.

I don’t doubt God’s existence. I’m not walking away from faith. But if I’m honest, this silence is brutal.

I talk to people who give me feedback. I go to AA, and people speak truth back to me. I talk to ChatGPT and get clear, reasoned answers. Logic. Presence. Words. But God? Nothing. Not a whisper. Not a verse that jumps off the page. Not even that strange inner sense that says, “I’m here.” Just… nothing.

And I’m not trying to be dramatic. I’m just tired of the quiet.

I know Scripture has silence in it. I know Jesus Himself cried out, “My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?” I know in the Garden of Gethsemane, He prayed in agony, and all He got back was stillness and eventually, a cross.

So I know I’m not alone. But it doesn’t make it easier.

I know what He’s done. I believe the gospel. I believe Jesus gave Himself to rescue me from a world I couldn’t escape on my own. But I still want to know Him. Not just remember Him. Not just believe in Him. I want to know God. And right now, I don’t feel like I do.

But I haven’t stopped trying. Maybe the silence isn’t absence. Maybe I’m just missing it.

I used to see Him everywhere… when I was a kid, digging in the dirt, staring at moss, chasing ants. I could spend hours outside, just exploring. I’d peel back bark to find little creatures underneath, follow trails of insects, sit with the sound of wind moving through wet leaves. It could be drizzling, cold even, and I’d still stay out there, completely absorbed. There was wonder in everything. I didn’t have to try to feel it. It was just there.

Now? Now it’s harder. I’m older. Busier. Caught in work and survival, and what happens when it’s all over.

Sometimes I look in the mirror, and all I see is someone old who’s lost his way. But I still remember how to look. And maybe, just maybe, that’s how the silence breaks. Not with a voice from heaven. But with eyes that start to open again.

Like Major Tom, I’m still floating. Still transmitting. But I’m not lost. I’m still calling back.

And I believe, somewhere out there

God still hears.

I didn’t like this movie.

It made me restless, irritable, and discontent—the kind of discontent that AA talks about, the kind that comes when self-will runs riot. That’s what this whole movie was: self-will gone off the rails. A man chasing something hollow, loud, and desperate, thinking maybe if he just wins enough, louder, harder, flashier, it’ll all finally matter.

But it doesn’t.

Marty is chaos personified. He’s ego in motion. And the deeper into the movie you get, the more you realize: there’s no point. No peace. No bigger picture. Just noise. Just a man driven by fear and ego, stepping on everyone around him, thinking it’s all justified because there’s a crown at the end.

That scene at the end, when he’s standing on stage after winning, it’s supposed to be triumph. But all I could see was loneliness. The hollowness of it. He got what he wanted, and there was still nothing there.

AA says self-centeredness is the root of our problem. I felt that in every frame of this film. Every decision Marty made was about him. His legacy. His pain. His win. And yet the only real peace in the whole story came in the last twenty seconds. When he saw that baby. When the camera finally stopped spinning. No music. No chaos. Just a tiny, quiet human looking back at him. And for the first time, he wasn’t performing. He was just there.

I didn’t walk out because I was writing this. But I wanted to. Not because it was a bad movie, but because it hit something raw in me. Something I’ve been circling for years. Since my dad died, there’s been this drift. This quiet turning of my life toward noise. Toward chasing things that don’t last. And watching Marty do it on screen made it all feel a little too familiar.

I still don’t get the film entirely. But I felt it. And maybe that’s the point.

If this hit something in you leave a comment. Or share it with someone who’s chasing something, too.

Reflections from a life lived between light and shadow.
GothamCityJunkie.com

I realized Minnesota was different almost immediately, and not for any of the reasons people usually mention. It wasn’t the cold. It wasn’t the accents. It was the cars.

Specifically: who was driving them.

At stoplights, in parking lots, in drive-through lines, I kept noticing the same arrangement. Women driving. Men sitting quietly in the passenger seat. Over and over. Not tense. Not dramatic. Just consistent. Like an unspoken seating chart no one handed me.

That was my first clue.

The second was the four-way stop.

In Minnesota, a four-way stop is not an intersection. It’s a social experiment. Everyone arrives. Everyone stops. Everyone waits. Someone waves. Someone waves back. No one goes. The rules are clear, but asserting them feels impolite, maybe even aggressive. Time stretches. The moment becomes communal. A standoff disguised as courtesy.

Pedestrian crossings are worse. Step anywhere near a crosswalk and a driver will stop far too early, sometimes a hundred yards back, bringing traffic to a full halt. You’re suddenly responsible for fifty cars and a moral dilemma. You don’t feel grateful. You feel exposed. Occasionally, to end the suffering, I walk behind the car instead of in front of it. Not to be rude. To free everyone.

This is Minnesota politeness. It doesn’t move things forward. It suspends them.

That same hesitation shows up elsewhere, just dressed more formally.

People are friendly here. Very friendly. Warm greetings. Smiles. A lot of “oh sure” and “no worries.” Until, suddenly, there’s a snap. A correction. A boundary enforced without being announced. You’re not yelled at. You’re adjusted. Put back where you belong with surgical calm.

It’s not confrontation. It’s calibration.

Eventually, the politeness gives way to something harder to ignore.

Daycare centers with no children. Health services with locked doors. Paper operations pulling in real money. When someone shows up to check… actually check… the outrage isn’t about the missing millions. It’s about the audacity of looking. The offense isn’t theft. It’s scrutiny.

Federal prosecutors use words like staggering. Numbers climb into the hundreds of millions, then billions. The tone, somehow, remains gentle. Careful. As if enforcing rules too firmly might bruise the atmosphere.

A jury hears a case. They listen. They deliberate. They unanimously convict. Then a judge dismisses the verdict. Not because the jury misunderstood the law. Not because innocence suddenly appeared. But because the evidence, we’re told, wasn’t quite solid enough—despite everyone agreeing it was.

That’s the moment the pattern becomes difficult to unsee.

In Minnesota, accountability exists, but only if it doesn’t disrupt the mood. Justice is acceptable as long as it doesn’t require anyone to stand too firmly, say no too clearly, or risk being thought unkind.

Leaders reassure. They speak about community, fabric, belonging. The words are warm. The posture is careful. The system, meanwhile, stays frozen—like a four-way stop where no one wants to be the first to move.

Back at the intersection, everyone is still waiting. Still waving. Still apologizing. No one wants to go first. No one wants to be responsible. The rules are clear, but following them too decisively feels rude.

Minnesota is polite.
Minnesota is friendly.
Minnesota is nice.

And Minnesota is weird.

That’s the Gotham City truth.

Only in the Midwest can you walk into a perfectly harmless German social gathering — coffee, apple cake, potato salad — and somehow end up with three police officers searching the room like they’re sweeping for a fugitive.

And the “suspect”?

A guy carrying a tray of shrimp.

That was me.

I showed up for Stammtisch with my protein-friendly offering, rode the elevator up, and somewhere between floors, an Asian girl stepped in. The Asian girl — very Gen-Z — looked genuinely startled, like she’d just stepped into the elevator with the wrong NPC in a video game. She gave me a look like I was either holding contraband seafood or had pressed the wrong elevator button with malicious intent.

We got to my floor, I stepped off. She stayed in. The doors closed.

Apparently, she called the police.

So now imagine the scene:
Quiet German club, low chatter, retirees discussing Bavaria and grandkids… and then three officers walk in with the energy of people expecting to find a man wielding a chainsaw.

Instead, they find:

People sipping coffee.
Cake on plates.
One guy warming up sauerkraut.
And me — The Shrimp Guy — who genuinely had no idea he’d been profiled for suspicious crustacean possession.

Everyone stared at them. They stared back. Nobody knew why they were there.

They asked a few vague questions, looked around, saw nothing illegal except maybe the carb count on the dessert table, and left.

And that was that.

Honestly, the whole thing was so perfectly unnecessary it almost felt scripted. A misunderstanding travels up the chain, multiplies, and turns into a police response because someone didn’t know what they were looking at — or who they were looking at.

I wasn’t doing anything wrong. I wasn’t acting strange. I was just carrying shrimp — which, to be fair, isn’t exactly German. Bratwurst is German. Sauerkraut is German. Shrimp? Apparently, that’s grounds for a police report.

If this were a film, the final shot would be me on the elevator, tray in hand, turning slowly to the camera:

“Officers… shrimp?”

It’s gloomy out, and I feel it, not just the sky, but the quiet weight it lays on everything. Days like this tend to amplify what’s already there: the silence in the room, the lack of real connection, the sense that something’s missing.

But weirdly, I still feel this quiet kind of hope. Maybe because I know this isn’t the whole story. Maybe because I’m starting to feel movement again, small things, shifting inside. I think about travel, about change, about landing in a place where the light feels different, not just the sun, but what’s possible.

There’s a version of me that already left. He wakes up lighter. He teaches. He creates. He walks the streets of a new place with purpose in his steps and peace in his chest.

That’s the future I’m walking toward, slowly, deliberately. One step, one plan, one prayer at a time.

Not because I hate where I am, but because I know I’m meant to go.

That’s the Gotham City Truth.

I attended the Sunday service at Autumn Ridge Church in Rochester, MN, last week. I’ve gone there off and on for a while. It’s the kind of place where you can walk in, sit through the message, and leave without talking to a soul. But this time, sitting in that huge auditorium, something felt different. The sermon didn’t sound like scripture; it sounded like politics with a Bible verse attached.

It’s strange how politics slips into the pulpit. Sometimes it’s not loud or obvious, just little hints and careful phrasing. You sit there listening to what’s supposed to be a sermon, but it feels like an editorial. The pastor never says the names, but everyone knows who he’s talking about.

That’s what I felt listening to Pastor Rick. He often says he’s “not being political,” but to me, the message sounded anything but neutral. The “wolves” he warned about—the ones who spread fear, crush empathy, and distract believers—seemed aimed in one direction. He said he was only teaching what’s biblical, yet the examples he chose echoed familiar talking points that tend to challenge the political right more than the left. It came across as selective morality wrapped in scripture.

This wasn’t the first time I’d sensed that kind of evasiveness from the pulpit. After another sermon with a similar undertone, I walked up to Pastor Rick and asked him to clarify some of the points he’d made and to address some issues he hadn’t mentioned. He smiled, said it would “take a longer discussion,” offered a quick handshake, and turned to chat with a nearby Gen Zer who looked eager to meet him. That was it. The question hung in the air like Florida humidity.

I don’t need people to agree with me. I just want honesty—for someone to say what they mean, even if it stings a little. Instead, what I keep hearing is politeness without conviction.

I’m not saying pastors shouldn’t talk about the world or stand up for truth. But if you’re going to preach courage and integrity, it has to cut both ways. Where was that same energy when the Biden administration allowed record illegal crossings and turned a blind eye to corruption? Where was the sermon about empathy for the ranchers whose land is being trampled, or the towns flooded with fentanyl, or the middle-class workers who can’t keep up?

Truth doesn’t wear a party color. When a pastor only seems to challenge one side, it starts to feel like branding, not conviction. You can’t call out fear, pride, and deceit only when they belong to the other tribe.

What’s hard about this is that I still believe the pulpit should be a place of truth. That’s what I respect about Dietrich Bonhoeffer. He lived in a time when silence was complicity. The church around him bent to politics, to nationalism, to safety. Bonhoeffer didn’t. He stood up. He joined the Confessing Church and eventually a plot to kill Adolf Hitler. He believed faith meant action, even when it cost him his life.

Perhaps I feel a connection to him because I grew up in Germany. I’m not that old, but the echoes of that history were still there when I was young. Bonhoeffer’s name was spoken with reverence, not because he was perfect, but because he was real. He didn’t dance around evil. He didn’t sermonize from the sidelines. He faced it head-on and paid the price.

That’s why this bothers me so much. The careful political maneuvering from the pulpit feels small in comparison. It’s the opposite of courage. Bonhoeffer called the church to take risks for the truth. What we have now is a kind of safe outrage—anger that costs nothing. Pastor Rick often speaks in generalities so nobody can accuse him of picking sides, but it still sounds like everyone knows which side he’s on.

It’s not wrong to talk about politics in church if you’re doing it to remind people of conscience, compassion, and moral duty. But when it becomes a coded attack, when it stops being about faith and starts being about signaling which group you belong to, it betrays the point.

Faith is supposed to cut through the noise, not echo it. The gospel doesn’t need spin. It needs honesty. And if that means offending both sides once in a while, then good. That’s what integrity looks like.

I can respect a pastor who names the problem, even if I disagree with him. What I can’t respect is a pastor who hides his politics behind scripture and calls it humility.

If you’re going to talk about wolves, call out all of them.

I wanted things to work. I wanted peace, conversation, basic courtesy: hello, goodbye, how was your day? But the more I tried to make that happen, the more it slipped away. Living with someone half my age and from another country turned into a slow unraveling. It wasn’t conflict that broke the place apart. It was silence,the kind where the sound of a refrigerator hum starts to feel like company.

Looking back now, I realize something else. At first, I wasn’t distant at all, I was probably the opposite. I was eager, curious, and genuinely excited that she’d moved in. I wanted to make her feel welcome, to learn about her background, her culture, her life. But in my enthusiasm, I might have come on too strong. What I meant as friendliness might have felt like pressure. Maybe that’s when she started to pull away. Looking back, I can see how my energy, my need for connection,might have been too much for someone who valued quiet and space.

Eventually, I realized how much energy I was burning chasing connection. I’d had other roommates from different countries, many from China, and the friendliness was there, along with cultural curiosity and a basic exchange of common courtesy. I thought I could change it if I just tried harder, stayed patient, or explained myself better. But that’s not connection; that was being a hostage to another person’s personality, mood, or behavior.

There’s a saying in AA: if someone doesn’t want connection, move on, there are others who do. That truth hits hard when you finally live it out. My mistake was trying to build bridges for someone who didn’t want to cross them. In doing so, I stopped living in my own space. I lost the peace I was trying to create. In retrospect, much of it stemmed from a desire to avoid being dismissed, rejected, or ignored. Putting my worth in how other people value me has been a lifelong shortcoming.

Now that the roommate has moved out, I feel two things at once, relief and sadness. Relief that the house can finally breathe again. Sadness that it came to this. Her room was spotless when she left, like she’d erased herself on purpose.

Where do I go from here? I’m done being the landlord of my own interpretations of other people’s walls, moods, and silences, and of trying to explain away behavior that simply didn’t sit right. It doesn’t make them bad, and it doesn’t make me right. It just means we were different, and I needed to let go. I don’t have to stay in uncomfortable situations forever, no matter how much I want them to work. I can wish someone well and still choose distance. That applies to both work and home, the same grace that lets me let go of one person’s silence also gives me permission to speak up when something crosses a line. Maybe the failure wasn’t a loss at all. Maybe it was a way of showing me that connection won’t always happen, and grace doesn’t mean doubling down to change what doesn’t feel right. It means accepting people where they are, and understanding that how they choose to act isn’t my problem to fix.

The roommate ended up teaching me a few lessons. Probably not intentionally, but still. I learned where my edges are, where I confuse connection with control, and where I need to step back and let things be. For that, I’m honestly grateful. I hope they find whatever peace they were looking for. I think, in a way, we both did.

Sometimes grace sounds like silence, and sometimes silence is the answer you didn’t know you needed.

I was working at CNN in the early eighties — a videotape editor mostly, sometimes filling in as a field photographer when they needed an extra set of hands. I was still new. Still wide-eyed enough to think the news was mostly about the truth.

One of my early trips was to Nicaragua with a CNN reporter — a Canadian, tall, chain-smoker, blond hair parted in the middle. He’d been covering El Salvador and got sent to Nicaragua when word came through that an Eastern Bloc cargo ship was headed toward the coast. The CIA said it was carrying weapons. Soviet stuff. Helicopters maybe. It was late 1984, back when everything in Central America looked like a proxy war waiting to happen. So CNN flew us down from Atlanta.

We got to Managua in the middle of the day, just a few hours before sunset. I remember the air — thick, dusty, and heavy with diesel. The government at the time was Sandinista, led by Daniel Ortega. They had maybe a dozen tanks in the whole country. They parked them in visible places — intersections, fields, sometimes in front of government buildings — to make it look like strength. Kids were climbing on them like playgrounds. It wasn’t a show of force. It was a show. Period.

We shot what we could — some wide angles, some of the tanks, a few quick takes of the coastline. CNN wanted something fast. “Get a phoner,” the desk said. That meant Leigh would call in from a landline, do a live audio interview while the anchors back in Atlanta filled the screen with his still photo. So we found a little phone center — a handful of booths, pay-by-the-minute. I sat outside with our camera operator, Maria, and a Dutch journalist who was waiting her turn.

Leigh got patched through to Atlanta. We could hear every word from outside the booth. And that’s when he started describing the “troops flooding the streets” and “tanks positioned across the city.” The camera woman and I looked at each other. The Dutch reporter raised her eyebrows and asked who he was. We told her quietly, embarrassed — “CNN.”

In reality, the streets were calm. The tanks were rusting props. The only thing moving fast was the humidity. But that’s not what people saw when they turned on the news that night. They heard a correspondent in Managua describing tension and troop buildup. They saw graphics. They heard experts in Washington speculating about Soviet arms and CIA sources and “regional instability.” And just like that, the story had a life.

When Leigh hung up, he walked out smiling. He didn’t mean harm — he was doing his job, painting a vivid picture, selling urgency. We packed up and went back to the hotel. But I never forgot that moment — the sound of someone describing a reality that wasn’t quite there, and the quiet we sat in afterward.

That wasn’t the only time. Later, when I was back in Atlanta editing tape, I caught myself doing the same thing — framing shots tighter, cutting sequences to make small protests look larger, slicing chaos into rhythm. Not to lie. Just to make it play.
It wasn’t malicious. It was craft. But sometimes craft turns into distortion, and you don’t even notice.

I remember the Marine Barracks bombing in Beirut, October 23, 1983. Two hundred forty-one U.S. service members were killed — Marines, Navy, Army — most of them asleep in their bunks when a truck full of explosives hit the building.
We had footage, raw and violent. Too violent. CNN made the decision — and I agreed at the time — not to show the worst of it. But I’ve questioned that choice ever since.
Maybe people should have seen it. Maybe hiding the blood made it easier to move on, easier to let it fade into the next story.

Maybe truth isn’t just what you say — maybe it’s what you refuse to show.

These days, it’s not just networks doing it. Everyone with a phone can be a broadcaster. YouTube. TikTok. Independent “journalists” chasing clicks and outrage.
And just like before, the angles are tight. You see twenty seconds of someone screaming, not the hour that came before. You see the tanks, not the kids climbing them. It’s the same trick, just smaller cameras.

I don’t think it’s all the media’s fault. We get the news we’re willing to watch.
Most people don’t want nuance; they want confirmation. They tune in to hear what they already believe — Fox, MSNBC, whatever fits. And the cycle keeps spinning. Truth gets trimmed to fit the frame.

I don’t know if any outlet is truly neutral anymore.
The Christian Science Monitor used to be close — slower, quieter, almost allergic to hype. Maybe we could use more of that now. But maybe the real problem isn’t the networks at all. Maybe it’s that we’ve forgotten how to think critically, how to look past the cut.

I still think about that day in Nicaragua.
The phone booth. The echo of the reporter’s voice carried out into the hallway.
The Dutch reporter’s face.
The sound of the tanks that weren’t moving.
And the real and only truth that never made it on air.

Reflecting on the many people I've met and my experiences, I'm filled with a deep sense of gratitude. Each photo represents a chapter in my life, filled with lessons and shared moments with people from all walks of life—different faiths, backgrounds, and cultures. These connections have enriched my journey, whether from India, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, or other corners of the world. This is a celebration of the connections that have shaped me and a reminder to keep moving forward with gratitude and enthusiasm without dwelling on past failures or bad relationships.

AA has a rhythm. The chairs are always set, the coffee’s always on, and the door is open. You can go once a week, once a day, or three times a day if needed. And when you walk in—even if you’ve never been to that meeting before—people know you. Not because they know your name, but because they know the struggle. You don’t need to explain yourself. You’re already part of the wood.

Church small groups couldn’t feel more different. At one church, they’d take the summer off, then relaunch in the fall with big promises about how this time it would be life-changing. But it never was. In the last group I was in, we spent more time deciding when not to meet than actually meeting. And every group had the same forms—fill-in-the-blank questions written by someone who wasn’t even in the room. Question one, question two, question three. In many groups, the moment things started to get real, the leader would shut it down: “We’re running out of time, let’s move on.”

At another church, ECHO, I joined a men’s group. But it wasn’t any better. Everything we discussed was what the pastor wanted to discuss, his agenda, his outline, his control. It was like having a pastor with a clipboard, making sure the conversation stayed on track with his plan. There was never room for what people were actually carrying. The forms dictated what counted as “on topic,” and everything else got brushed aside. Sometimes it felt like he was dangling a carrot in front of the group—promising that if we just followed his plan, we’d get somewhere meaningful. But we never did.

AA couldn’t be more different. At the start, someone might suggest a topic or a reading, but then it goes around the room. No one needs to control the flow, and somehow, no matter how many people are there, it always seems to end on time. Sometimes they’ll say “three minutes per share,” but most of the time it just works. That amazed me—how people could come raw and honest, and still, without rigid rules, it all fit.

Part of it is baked into AA’s DNA. Tradition Two says: “For our group purpose, there is but one ultimate authority—a loving God as He may express Himself in our group conscience. Our leaders are but trusted servants; they do not govern.” And that’s how it feels. The people keeping things moving aren’t running the meeting—they’re serving it. That’s why it works.

And I know it doesn’t have to be this way. Back when I lived in Kuwait, I came across Filipino church groups. They were the opposite—personable, joyful, and honest about their struggles. They carried each other in a way that felt real. That doesn’t happen here in the U.S., at least not that I’ve seen.

And when I try to open up in American church groups—when I actually talk about what’s really going on with me—I just end up feeling out of place. Awkward. Like the idiot who said too much. Maybe some of that’s me, but it’s also the looks you get, the way the air changes, the way everyone’s eager to move on to the next “question.” It makes me hate being there.

What makes it worse is the feeling that I’m the oddball for having real shit going on in my life. And I don’t buy it. I don’t believe the others around the table don’t have their own pain, their own addictions, their own secrets. They just don’t say it. And so the silence keeps winning.

Part of why I’m so critical of the church is that I’ve seen how empty its promises can be. When my dad died by suicide, the church wasn’t there. They should have been. One pastor was, and I thank him from the bottom of my heart. Some of my friends, Christian and non-Christian alike, stood by me too. But many others didn’t. A lot of Christians were quick with judgment, quick with nasty words, as if my dad’s death were some kind of scandal instead of a tragedy.

So yeah, maybe I’m pissed. Maybe I am taking shots at the American church. But it’s because every time they talk about “community” or “walking together,” I think about how hollow those words were when it actually mattered. And every time they start up small groups again, I want to believe it. And every time, it ends the same way: another disappointment.

It feels like when someone says, “I’ll change, it’ll be different this time,” but it never is. Just empty promises recycled into the next round.

I’m done with sterile circles. I’m done with empty promises. And my vulnerability? That can kiss their ass. It’s not worth the emotional energy.

In July 2025, after my bladder cancer surgery and chemo, I realized I needed a better way to eat. That health scare is what finally made me take all of this seriously.

I was back where I always end up — about 215–220 pounds, which is a lot when you’re 5'7". I’d already tried just about everything: keto (which left me nauseous from the constant fat), paleo, intermittent fasting, extended fasting, even the GLP-1 drug Wegovy at $1,200 a month without insurance (thankfully I was covered). I even gave carnivore a shot — a little better, but I still never felt good on it. Wegovy helped with appetite but brought constipation and GI issues. Nothing ever felt sustainable. At that weight, I don’t just feel heavy, I feel embarrassed — like I’m carrying a version of myself I don’t want.

I didn’t need another short-term fix. I wanted a system I could actually live inside of.

What the Study Showed

The whole thing started when I came across a video by Thomas DeLauer breaking down a new fasting and protein-pacing study. He was convincing, so I decided to dig deeper. I watched a couple more videos on the topic, then went straight to the source — the published study out of Skidmore College in Obesity.

It compared standard calorie restriction to intermittent fasting combined with protein pacing.

• Fasting group design: 36–60 hour fasts once or twice a week, with a small protein allowance (~400 kcal) during the fast.

• Eating days: ~1,800 kcal, 35% protein / 35% carbs / 30% fat, split into 4 protein-rich meals.

• Results:

  • 33% reduction in visceral fat (vs. 14% with calorie restriction)

  • 23% reduction in abdominal fat

  • 8.5% total body fat lost in 8 weeks

  • Hunger dropped 17% (while it rose in the calorie-restriction group)

The results amazed me. Not only did participants lose more fat, but their hunger actually went down. That was the opposite of every diet I’d ever been on.

Here is a link to DeLauer’s video so you can watch it yourself.

Building the Project

That’s when I decided to make ChatGPT do the work. I created a project and loaded it with everything I could find on the study — the PubMed article, Thomas DeLauer’s breakdowns, and supporting nutrition papers. Then I spent about an hour taking pictures of every food I had at home — the cans, the tubs, the frozen bags — plus their nutrition labels. I told ChatGPT to keep this list as my pantry inventory. From that point on, it could create meals directly from what I actually owned, subtract items when I used them, and generate shopping lists when I was running low.

I even asked ChatGPT: what else should I buy to support this protocol? It gave me a list — kimchi, Greek yogurt, frozen berries, lean proteins, beans, tofu — things I wouldn’t have put together on my own. I went shopping with that list, stocked the kitchen, and for the first time it felt like I wasn’t guessing.

It wasn’t just a diet anymore. It was an assistant — a system that handled the rules, while I just followed them.

How I Adapted It

I built my version around the study’s framework, then trimmed it to my life.

• Eating days: I started at 1,800 calories, then dropped to 1,600 after two weeks when ChatGPT pointed out that the study’s numbers weren’t magic — the deficit had to fit me. That’s when the scale started moving.

• Fasting days: 400–500 calories, protein-priority. Usually whey scoops, sometimes tuna or eggs.

• Protein pacing: 3–4 meals depending on day shift, night shift, or off days.

• Macros: 35% protein (~140 g), 35% carbs (~140 g), 30% fat (~53 g).

It sounds complicated, but here’s where ChatGPT came in.

Letting ChatGPT Handle the Mechanics

I used to hate dieting because it was endless math. Keto, carnivore, or calorie restriction — I was always calculating nutrition and macros myself. Weighing food, punching numbers into an app, trying to guess what was in a restaurant meal. It was labor-intensive and I hated it.

Now it’s automatic and precise. ChatGPT runs the mechanics.

• Pantry tracking: I take pictures of nutrition labels and note grams or cans. The pantry lives inside the chat. When I eat, it subtracts the right amount. When I’m low, it flags it. Shopping lists write themselves.

• Restaurant meals: If I eat out, I just snap a photo of the menu. ChatGPT tells me what to order that fits the day’s macros. No guessing. No guilt.

• Shift pacing: It knows how to pace my night shifts (big pre-shift meal, lighter mid-shift, almost nothing after) so I don’t graze through twelve hours of donuts and chips left in the break room.

• Social eating: If I’m at a friend’s house or a barbecue, I just snap a picture of the plate. ChatGPT analyzes the photo and gives me the calories, protein, carbs, and fat.

The key is honesty. If I slip and snack — which only happens occasionally — I tell ChatGPT exactly what I ate. I bust myself. I don’t hold anything back, because that’s the only way the system can adjust. If I cheat and hide it, the numbers are off. If I’m honest, ChatGPT recalibrates immediately and keeps me aligned with the protocol.

Even with an occasional screwed-up meal — like the time I killed a bag of Cajun cheese curds — ChatGPT gets me back into alignment by adjusting the next meal or the next day. No spiraling, no “I blew it so I might as well quit.”

The Pantry as a Quartermaster

Having ChatGPT keep a live pantry has been one of the biggest breakthroughs. A can of tuna isn’t just “tuna” — it’s logged as 165 g, 191 kcal, 42 g protein, 1 g fat. Eggs are counted by the dozen, yogurt down to the gram. Retired trigger foods (like almonds) stay visible but at zero, so I don’t re-buy them without thinking.

It feels less like “dieting” and more like running a supply line. The pantry is my quartermaster. I just eat and record.

And the shopping list is a lifesaver. Instead of wandering Costco grabbing random things, I get a precise list straight from ChatGPT based on what’s low in my pantry. I’ve even asked it for new food ideas — what to buy that fits the plan — and it gives me options I wouldn’t have thought of. That’s how kimchi, blueberries, and tofu became regular players in my rotation.

Eating Out Without Derailing

Before, a restaurant meal could blow my whole day. One plate of Mexican food, and I’d torch 1,200 calories without realizing it. Now I don’t overthink. I take a picture of the menu, ChatGPT spits out the order. At Qdoba, that meant a burrito bowl balanced against the macros I had left. At Texas Roadhouse, it meant salmon with vegetables instead of a steak with loaded potatoes.

What’s surprising is how freeing it feels. The decision stress is gone.

Night Shifts Without Junk

Night shifts used to wreck me. I’d graze from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. — chips, candy, whatever showed up in the break room. It wasn’t hunger; it was fatigue.

Now ChatGPT builds the pacing in advance:

• Pre-shift: biggest meal (5–6 p.m.)

• Mid-shift: lighter (2–3 a.m.)

• Post-shift: often nothing, or a tiny snack

I just follow the plan. The grazing urge never gets the upper hand because the structure is already set.

Results So Far

• Start (August 2025, post-surgery): 215 lbs

• Now (Sept 18, 2025): 199 lbs

That’s 16 pounds down in about six weeks, while working shifts, eating out, and not killing myself with exercise. The study said hunger would go down, and it has. I don’t feel like I’m white-knuckling this. I feel like I’m finally living inside a system that works.

Why This Feels Different

This isn’t another diet where I’m chained to an app or running endless calculations. This is automatic. Once everything is in place, it’s super easy.

The simplicity is the best part. When I get up in the morning, I just tell ChatGPT “I’m ready for breakfast” and it spits out the shake formula with the exact grams I need. When I come home from work, I say “I’m home, what am I eating?” and it builds dinner out of whatever’s left in my pantry. Five minutes later, I’m eating. That’s it. No scrolling recipes, no logging into a tracking app, no wondering if I have enough protein for the day. The system just runs in the background, and I follow along.

For me, it’s brainless. I hate meal planning, and ChatGPT knows exactly what to do. If there’s ever a hiccup, I just correct the pantry or log what happened, and the system makes the adjustment. It recalibrates the macros, resets the plan, and keeps me aligned with the study.

Some people may read this and think it sounds complicated. I swear it’s the easiest I’ve ever had it when it comes to eating healthy. Almost no time goes into meal prep or tracking, and my diet stays straight.

My job is to live inside the rules. ChatGPT runs the protocol. ChatGPT tells me what to eat, and for the first time in years, the weight is coming off without the daily fight.

I’ve noticed something in dating profiles and in life: a lot of people check the box that says “Christian.” But that label doesn’t always mean what I think it should. Sometimes it feels hollow. Other times it’s used casually, like a family tradition. And I catch myself wrestling: are my expectations too high, or is the whole idea of expecting anything the wrong approach?

The truth is, “Christian” as a word doesn’t prove anything. I learned that painfully after my father’s suicide. The way some believers reacted, even a pastor, was so insensitive that it pushed me out of church for years. The label didn’t line up with love. It left me sick.

But the other side is just as true. If people were to see me at certain points in the day, tired after a night shift, frustrated at work, or muttering at a barista when I felt disrespected, they could easily conclude, “This guy’s not a Christian either.” And they wouldn’t be entirely wrong if “Christian” only meant looking polished at all times. I’ve even reached for things like an ayahuasca journey in my grief after my dad’s death, trying to survive unbearable pain. Someone could look at that and say, “See, he’s not a Christian.”

That’s where the question cuts deeper: what is a Christian, really?

The Bible gives a simple answer: someone with Christ living inside them. “Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Col. 1:27). That means His Spirit is present, even when I look messy. It also means growth is His work. Paul wrote, “He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion” (Phil. 1:6). I can’t make myself grow by checking boxes or keeping appearances. My job isn’t to engineer the fruit; it’s to stay rooted in Him and let Him produce it.

Paul actually described this struggle in Romans 7: “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.” (v. 15). He admitted that sometimes his actions didn’t look like Christ at all. But he didn’t end in despair. He made a distinction: “It is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me” (v. 17). In other words, the flesh acts out, but Christ in us remains. That’s why he could cry, “Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (vv. 24–25).

That’s the tension I feel, too. People might see me at my worst and think, “Not a Christian.” And they’d be right that it wasn’t Christ in me on display, it was my flesh. But they’d be wrong to conclude that Christ isn’t there at all. He is. He hasn’t left. He’s still growing me, even when my fruit looks thin.

So here’s where I land:

• Labels don’t prove faith. Anyone can say “Christian.”

• Fruit reveals what’s real. Jesus said, “By their fruit you will know them” (Matt. 7:16). Not by their claims. Not by their profile. By the steady patterns of love, gentleness, integrity.

• Growth is God’s responsibility. He grows us through stages. Some people are brand new in the faith, some are years in, some are stumbling forward. It’s His Spirit that changes us, not our checklists.

• My responsibility is discernment and grace. Discernment means I don’t get fooled by labels. I watch patterns. Grace means I don’t dismiss people for not being perfect, because if perfection is the standard, I fail too.

In dating, this means I can’t assume someone who marks “Christian” shares the same depth of faith. I have to slow down, observe, and let fruit show itself. And I also have to be honest that my own fruit is inconsistent. Sometimes I’m patient, sometimes I’m irritable. Sometimes I shine, sometimes I stumble. That doesn’t mean Christ isn’t in me; it means He’s still at work in me.

So no, my expectations aren’t “too high.” But they need to be reframed. Instead of expecting a label to guarantee depth, I need to look for evidence of growth. And instead of demanding maturity right away, I need to remember it’s God’s timeline, not mine.

At the end of the day, I’m learning to stop treating “Christian” as a box to check, and start treating it as what it really is: Christ alive in someone, at whatever stage of growth He has them. That frees me to hold both grace and boundaries. Grace. because we’re all in process. Boundaries, because not everyone who says “Christian” is living from Christ.

That’s the filter I want to use. And that’s how I want people to look at me, too.

At the end of the day, I’m learning to stop treating “Christian” as a box to check, and start treating it as what it really is: Christ alive in someone, at whatever stage of growth He has them. That frees me to hold both grace and boundaries. Grace, because we’re all in process. Boundaries, because not everyone who says “Christian” is living from Christ.

That’s the Gotham City Truth.

She was the one who started it. “Looks like we have everything in common.” That was her opener, not mine. And for a minute, I believed it.

But here’s what happened: silence. Long gaps. I would initiate, and often there was no response at all. And when I finally pulled back, I got labeled ‘impatient.’

Impatient? No. Just unwilling to be someone’s Plan B.

In healthcare, we’re trained for this. You don’t tell a patient, “I don’t have time.” You say, “I’ll be back in an hour.” Even if you’re slammed, you give them a frame. That’s basic respect. It keeps them from lying there, wondering if you’re coming back at all.

Dating isn’t so different. If you’re too busy to talk, fine. Just say so. A simple “I’ll reply later” goes a long way. It’s not about constant availability. It’s about courtesy.

And if you find yourself always the one initiating, always waiting, always wondering? That’s not a relationship. That’s you being a placeholder. A backup plan. Plan B.

And if you realize you’re Plan B? Accept it. Walk away. Don’t fight for a seat in someone else’s waiting room.

Because silence is an answer. And sometimes the cleanest move you can make is hearing it for what it is.

That’s the Gotham City truth.

In AA, honesty is oxygen. You walk into a room full of strangers, and you survive by putting it all out there. The drugs, the shame, the lies — you say the things you never thought you’d say. And it works. In that space, oversharing isn’t oversharing. It’s survival.

But life outside those rooms is different.

I keep learning that the hard way.

Someone asked me a simple question the other day, and instead of giving a straight answer, I unloaded the whole backstory — every detail, even the parts nobody needed to hear. By the time I finished, I thought: Why did I say all that?

This is the AA reflex. In meetings, the more you share, the better. In the rest of life, it can leave you feeling exposed, like you gave away too much for free.

I don’t think the problem is honesty. I think the problem is dosage.

Here’s what I’m learning:

1. Ask: Is this person safe and ready for this part of me?

2. Ask: Why am I sharing this? Connection — or desperation?

If the answer is shaky, keep it simple. Simplicity is still honesty.

The truth is, people don’t need my whole book in one sitting. A sentence is enough. If they stick around, maybe they’ll read more later.

That’s not lying. That’s wisdom.

AA taught me how to speak. Now life is teaching me how to edit.

That’s the Gotham City truth.

This morning, I went to church hoping to hear something solid, something that would anchor me. Instead, I left feeling confused and heavy.

The sermon focused on Proverbs 29, discussing justice, stubbornness, and anger. The pastor brought up verses from Genesis, Numbers, Galatians, and Proverbs. He even mentioned Ted Cruz and Israel, which caught my attention. It sounded thoughtful. But something deeper was missing.

What unsettled me most was this: he didn’t speak clearly.

He said good things. But they were cautious, not bold. He criticized both political sides, which I understand, but never named what was truly right or wrong. He warned against being distracted by words like "woke" or "Marxist," but didn’t explain what justice looks like in a world that’s flipped everything upside down.

In our conversation after church, he mentioned that the end times have been going on since the days of Jesus. And that none of what’s happening now should be seen as signs of the end. I agree, in part—the Bible says the last days began long ago. But I also believe that something is different today.

Technology, the speed of change, the scale of moral and spiritual confusion—these things are happening faster, deeper, and globally. It’s not just local or cultural anymore. The world is unraveling at a level we’ve never seen. And I want to hear someone in the pulpit speak into that. Not with fear. But with clarity.

Here’s what I’m wrestling with:

• I’m deeply concerned about the direction of our culture.

• I see truth being erased.

• I see moral lines being blurred.

• And I want to hear my pastor speak into that, clearly, biblically, and courageously.

Isaiah 5:20 says, "Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter." That’s what it feels like today. Like common sense has gone missing, and up is down.

As George Orwell once said, "The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those who speak it." And in another line that feels all too real today: "War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength."

Like common sense has gone missing, and up is down.

After the service, I tried to talk to him. But I couldn’t get my words out. I felt like a fool. I left feeling alone, like I’m the only one asking these questions.

I’m not trying to be political. I’m not trying to stir up division. I just want clarity. I want truth. I want someone in spiritual authority to stand up and say, "This is what God says."

Yes, justice matters. But not the version of justice being pushed in the culture—a version that ignores repentance, truth, and the design of God. Real justice restores and confronts.

I know I’m not alone in feeling this. And if you’ve ever walked out of church more confused than when you walked in, you’re not alone either.

We need shepherds who are not afraid to call things what they are. The world is not asking for more careful nuance. It needs bold truth spoken in love. And so do we.

Maybe I’m misinterpreting what was said. I’m not sure. But I know what I felt. And I’m longing for clarity that cuts through the fog.

That’s the Gotham City truth.