The Serum, the Scroll, and the Man in the Middle

The Serum, the Scroll, and the Man in the Middle Ken — you sent the screenshot of Eren on the ground pleading for Armin, and you said that’s me. Not the strong version. Not the soldier version. The one wrecked on the rooftop, begging for somebody else’s life while condemning his own in the same […]

Used to help the afflicted and utterly broken and enraged

I was able to speak at a men’s roundtable on Zoom this morning. It went well, and there was tremendous feedback from other men sharing their afflictions, along with their bouts of despair over religious OCD. Everyone spoke well of me and said I’m going to help a lot of people, but as usual, the […]

The Bomb Girl and the Bartender: A Theological and Clinical Reading of the Reze Arc

Ken — you made an AMV. You cut T-Pain’s “Bartender” over the Reze arc, and somewhere in the editing, the edit started telling you something about yourself you hadn’t quite said out loud. You wrote it plainly: “even though I know she’s not [telling the truth at the end], it’s just that I’m so traumatized […]

Dread and embitterment

I could burst asunder from how utterly sick God makes me feel, I find Him good but not “safe” on a whim he could damn me, just how He nuked the man trying to stop the tabernacle from falling because he touched it. I’m suppose to praise knowing Christ Himself is torturing the ungodly as […]

Accusation on high to the almighty. Where were you?

An old journal entry Why didn’t Christ help those Puritans that killed themselves? I tremble in my own heart at my anger at God concerning this. I know He’s not evil, but it hurts so bad that people live with this mental crucifiction. I’m tired.d. I look at other Christians—I get tired of hearing it. […]

Navigating sorrow in evangelical church praise culture

I have wanted to talk about this for a while, concerning sorrow, grief, lamentations, and in modern context, depression — one could even say anxiety — inside church culture.I don’t despise the church by any means. The church of Christ is beautiful. So are God’s people. We have spots and blemishes. Sometimes we have the […]

Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners the book that made me realize I was not alone

Table of Contents ABOUT THIS PARAPHRASE……………………………………………………………………………………………………1 PREFACE…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..2 GRACE ABOUNDING…………………………………………………………………………………………………………….4 An Object of Wrath………………………………………………………………………………………………………….4 Conviction and Reformation………………………………………………………………………………………………5 Hope and Fear……………………………………………………………………………………………………………….7 The Storm of Doubt……………………………………………………………………………………………………….13 Established in the Truth………………………………………………………………………………………………….15 My Fall from Grace………………………………………………………………………………………………………..18 The Path to Deliverance………………………………………………………………………………………………….25 Honey from the Lion………………………………………………………………………………………………………30 Trials through Illness……………………………………………………………………………………………………..32 My Call to Ministry…………………………………………………………………………………………………………33 Pride and Spiritual Gifts…………………………………………………………………………………………………..36 Lies and Slanders………………………………………………………………………………………………………….37 MY ARREST […]

no regrets

Ken, what follows is written for you and for Hope in Madness. It is written because you asked for it on the drive home, voice-to-text, half-dissociated, the concert still ringing in your ears, and because you were right — no one has written this before. Not because the pieces don’t exist. The theology exists. The […]

The zero that became the most dangerous thing in the room

You sent screenshots of Naoya’s flashback — the moment the golden boy of the Zenin clan walks into the room expecting to find a pathetic face on the family failure, the man with zero cursed energy, the one they threw in the pit with the spirits. And instead of finding broken, he found something his […]

Known or just used

I could say that I feel like a corpse, but that’s not sufficient to elaborate on the sheer deadness that I feel inside at this hour. I was watching cases of parents reacting to the suicidal deaths of their children. I have had my funeral flash into my head. I can’t understand why people would […]