The Journal

A magazine on current events and culture from a Christian perspective.

The Journal is one essay or work on culture, drawing from disparate areas and unified by a single theme, and that theme is always broadly the goodness of God.

---

---

---

The Journal:

thoughts on creativity + process. We are the work of a creative God. The October 2026 issue.

vol. 7 | by Logan Nakyanzi Pollard | October 2026

---

A note from the editor: 

Like many people, I felt like I didn’t have much of a summer, well except for enjoying the World Cup. We never went to the beach; there was that weird fire in Canada that made us stay indoors, even though we were in NYC. On top of that, the world seemed to be suffering so much.

I retreated into my work, and forgot to rest.

This was also the summer that I wrote and published -3- books.

And so of course, it couldn’t have happened any other way.

---

contents:

ART TALKS | an essay on creativity + process

– The focus of this issue is creativity and when we force certain processes. And when we have to learn to relent.

pencils

Things take longer.

Until they don’t.

People like rules, but not God’s. (God requires human humility, which people don’t like.)

Sometimes when I paint, the part that is most beautiful is exactly the one where I made a mistake. Maybe the ink spilled. Maybe I thought it was ruined, so I just threw the thing away in frustration, or dumped a bunch of paint on it— and then later, for some reason, went back to try to fix it, and in the work of messing around with it, did it become beautiful.

When I was younger, I grew frustrated by these detours.

Below, an example of one such detour; this is part of a larger painting, but this part was the mistake, and is actually my favorite section:

Untitled

Now I realize these annoyances, disruptions, etc. are divine.

This is because insight (which is necessary for all good creativity) takes time, wisdom, and discomfort.

Insight, for example, from ________ is not insight, it’s crowdsourced information. It’s the creative equivalent of gossip.

People don’t realize finishing the race isn’t always the point, it’s the road it takes to get there— to get to the destination, which will happen, and at the right time.

And, how the road changes you as well.

I was writing one book for 20+ years.

This one:

I wrote and/or published it and 5 others in 2 years. (More on all that at the section break.)

Make that make sense.

Only God can make these things happen.

Things take what they take.

And, we do get better with age, if we submit to God’s process on us.

on learning to be the real you

When we talk about being the REAL you on this site, we’re not talking about some confection: no, it’s the parts that have broken off, that have been reconnected, restored, healed, all of it. And it’s not perfect, but it is true. And it’s a you that is ever-in-process, because we are the work of a creative God.

“My” summer got away from me.

But in retrospect, these were exactly the conditions for me to get the work done that God had for me to do.

This is life.

We don’t always choose our seasons.

But they are all made beautiful by God.

---

conversation:

Have thoughts? Was there a time in your life where you were enormously productive, and yet it felt out of sync with what you’d expected, or your desire for that time-? Subscribe and you may like, share and post comments via our ‘hello again’ newsletter and the comments section– dated October 26, 2026.

---

---

copyright © 2026 by Logan Nakyanzi Pollard.

This publication is one essay or work on culture, drawing from disparate areas and unified by a single theme. The Journal is a quarterly magazine, discussing Christianity’s intersections with media, wellness, and style.

All photographs copyright Logan Nakyanzi Pollard, unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved. No part of this work may be used or reproduced without written permission from the author. All images were captured by a human and inspired by God.

The Journal
thoughts on creativity + process. We are the work of a creative God. The October 2026 issue. Vol. 7, October 2026

Published October 26, 2026. updated with links, etc.

Subscribe to follow The Journal:

Join the conversation.