a series on keeping your peace in what can appear to be a tumultuous world.

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If you’re feeling some kind of cultural whiplash right now, you’re not alone.

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TBD | by Logan Nakyanzi Pollard | September 17, 2025

“Just because the reaction was quiet, doesn’t mean the impact was not felt. Something important happened. And I don’t think we’re really aware of how profound it was because we’re inside the moment.”

rock

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The most profound changes are often very subtle. You might not notice them.

But that doesn’t mean they didn’t happen.

There was in fact an earthquake in Utah the night Charlie was killed.

(and I seem to remember another earthquake when another innocent man was killed.)

I already feel in myself a new steadiness: some things I’m just not going to entertain anymore— a certain lack of concern about some items that mattered before, and now, a freedom to not care about what doesn’t mean a thing.

Remember:

24 Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock:

25 And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock.

Matthew 7

That’s where the steadiness came from.

It’s as if a kind of monster was finally unmasked: like when you finally see what someone is made of. It’s very troubling. But then you’re like: okay. Good to know.

And these are some of the things that you’ll start seeing:

Not protests or grand gestures— but the product of people doing the internal work of examining their consciences, and deciding:

• to stop saying yes to everything because everyone thinks it’s a great idea;

• living with purpose, and realizing their lives are important and reflecting on how to be a better person;

• quietly no longer going back to that situation;

• taking another way home to avoid the thing that they know they can’t do anymore;

• interrogating their previous ideas of “morality” and “courage,” and so on.

And foundationally, God will move in ways that only He knows.

And we know this already because the church is now EVEN MORE awake and aware of the hour: because someone harmless and innocent was killed for sharing what are essentially both Christian and American beliefs.

These are not big pronouncements— but these things change everything.

Mourning is an interesting time. When my Dad died, it was like I had this newfound clarity: I realized that I was unconsciously trying to prove myself—even though I knew that he loved me. He was really the only one I was trying to impress, and then when he was gone, I had to live, in a new way, and there was freedom in that because I was also free of a certain kind of lie.

This is that moment. The lie was:

Everyone is getting along great. Some people are really mad, but they’re just upset and no harm will come of it.

Harm did come of it: because people have forgotten these facts:

America is a unique and special project: where we are foundationally:

1. A Christian nation: like it or not, your dollar says “In God We Trust” for a reason.
2. Committed to free speech.
3. Respectfully allow dissent, freedom of religion (and this paradox works because Christianity is a religion of tolerance and our laws—and those of Western civilization in fact— are based on its principles); the pursuit of happiness.

We owe a debt of gratitude for these amazing gifts to our Constitution and Bill of Rights because they created a culture specifically built to support the exchange of ideas. We all grew up being taught these things in school.

And yet somehow, somehow . . . we’ve allowed these fundamentals to be eroded, the culmination of which was the assault on Charlie.

But good people are aware of what has happened.

This is a time of grief, of realizing something is wrong. Something was broken, and we can’t just pretend everything’s okay.

People of all backgrounds are realizing they need to examine how dangerous the waters we have culturally waded into.

And not to curb free speech— which is idiotic, and counter to the fabric of this country. But to examine how and why we need to be debating each other, talking with another and not sitting in silos of enablers who never challenge our ideas.

Yes, some people keep their heads in the sand. And that’s why there are those who do not really heal, learn or grow.

And then there are others who look into the darkness, turn on their flashlights. And fix the broken water heater.

Which one are you?

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outtakes:

that’s great artist-lady, but now what?

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Be present with yourself (what’s going on?) not to dwell on it (your fears, neurosis, pain) but to acknowledge and figure out what it means to you (in your life).

What I find helpful in my process as a creative— and this is for life as well as work, particularly with ‘problems’ that are complicated, traumatic, or need time to work through:

work on multiple projects at once, and ideally, a hard one and an easy one. pray.

In my process: This enables me to stop and go, and pick things up, or rather move things forward at the same time. I might for example be reorganizing some part of my house, and also writing an article. The task relaxes my mind. But if the idea comes, well— I write it.

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conversation:

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