a series on keeping your peace in what can appear to be a tumultuous world.
a poem for today: the trouble with “achievement”
JESUS | by Logan Nakyanzi Pollard | July 15, 2025
“We all know that person driven in a way that indicates an unhealthy balance– like somehow doing this or that is going to make up for all the damage of the past. It doesn’t. And there really isn’t a way to talk sense into people like this (particularly since they often can get a lot of satisfaction from this way of being.) I should know: I was one of them. Nonetheless, I have learned, and you can too, to find another path– one that integrates all aspects of who you are.”
sky over water
It came to mind
today to mention
that silence is the absence of noise.
what comfort:
to not always fill space with
things that don’t matter at all.
and yet finally God told me:
Get up.
By some way of explanation (perhaps)
like coming up from a pool of clear water,
let’s
discuss one thing:
And I want to say to survivors:
the ones who did not die
the ones who made it through a crucible
like iron turned to gold
or like magma and glass
listen:
thing(s) that
make(s)
overachieving
only you know them.
the secret troubles
even though
you’re not enough
you really are.
Hey kid!
find joy
without
affirmation.
God
loved you before
you
decided to be
someone.
else.
who you are
is
terrific.
Be comforted:
the wind is changing,
the light has already come!
Can you see
that windsurfer over the water?
you cannot reach him,
but that’s you:
hold on
and one day
no longer tethered to
whatever it was that was fake
you will run, dance, sing, and weep
and not feel bad at all
about it
not in the least because you are alive
and because you are free
in the way(s) that matter.
In the meantime:
feel
to feel is good.
and do not
do not
hold
on to things that
are no longer
real or true.
why?
Because they are beneath
but what God made you to be
is above.
and
at peace
and in peace
and embodying peace
and emanating peace.
One day or maybe today the ripples in the sea
and in the air
you will not just see them but be in them
floating on a wave in undulating water
this is the oneness of all creation
and your perfect place in it.
This peace was always yours.