There. I said it.

Not because the people in those seats are bad people.

Not because the music isn’t moving or the preacher isn’t sincere.

But because somewhere in the last century, we traded the ancient, healing liturgy of the Church for a concert and a motivational talk, and called it an upgrade.

I know because I made that trade too. For years.

The Problem Nobody Wants to Name

Walk into most American churches on a Sunday morning and you’ll find lights designed for a stage, instruments that weren’t there 2000 years ago, a setlist curated for emotional peak, a sermon built around a theme, and an exit that feels a lot like leaving a good event.

And I get it. It feels worshipful. The music swells. People raise their hands. There are tears. There is energy.

But here is the question nobody is asking: Is God actually doing something to you, or are you doing something to yourself?

That is everything.

I spent decades in corporate boardrooms turning around struggling organizations. I know what it looks like when a system feels productive but produces nothing lasting. And I watched the same pattern in my spiritual life before I found what the Church has always known.

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What Worship Actually Is

Real worship is not me expressing myself to God and hoping He notices.

Real worship is God drawing near to heal His people, and a people learning how to answer Him.

The Scriptures already gave us the shape. The Eastern Orthodox Church kept it.

Let us enter a Divine Liturgy anywhere in the world for the last few millennia:

The Psalms are the school, not inspiration. Prayers. Joy, despair, repentance, praise, complaint, hope. Every condition of the human soul is already in the Psalter. When you step into the Divine Liturgy, you can hear the Psalms braided through everything. They teach your heart to speak truthfully to God instead of to your appetites.

St. Athanasius wrote to his friend Marcellinus in the fourth century that the Psalms are unique among Scripture because you do not merely read them. You pray them. They become your words. The man who sings, “Out of the depths I have cried to You, O Lord,” during the darkest season of his life is not performing. He is being held by a prayer older than his grief.

Worship begins in repentance. Not in hype. The first instinct in the Liturgy is “Lord, have mercy.” You bring sins, sorrow, and need. You do not bring a performance.

Holy, Holy, Holy

There is a moment in every Divine Liturgy where the congregation sings the Trisagion Hymn, the same song Isaiah heard when the seraphim covered their faces before the throne:

“Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord of Sabaoth. Heaven and earth are full of Your glory.”

This is the turning point.

Modern worship has largely lost the category of holiness. God has become our life coach, our good vibe, our cosmic friend who validates our journey. That is not the God of Scripture. It is not the God the early Church Fathers knew.

And yet. The Holy One reveals Himself as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Trinity is not a puzzle to be solved in private. It is a life you are taken up into publicly. We worship the Father, through the Son, in the Holy Spirit, and that prayer remakes the man praying it.

Then the Creed. Not as a slogan or branding. It is a boundary of love. The ancient Christian Creed begins “I believe” and is recited in community, in a real place, out loud, with a real body, staking everything in a real God who entered real history.

The Medicine of Immortality

At the heart of all Christian worship stands thanksgiving.

Eucharist means thanksgiving.

We bring bread and wine, the work of human hands, and we confess that every good thing already came from Him. “Thine own of Thine own we offer unto Thee.” We give what He gave. And in His grace, He returns more than we gave. He returns Himself.

This is not a metaphor. St. Paul is not speaking metaphorically when he writes:

“The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a communion in the Blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a communion in the Body of Christ?” (1 Cor. 10:16)

St. Ignatius of Antioch, writing in the first century while walking toward his own martyrdom, called the Eucharist “the medicine of immortality.” Not a symbol. Not a memorial snack. Medicine.

Now I come as a beggar who found a hospital. So can you!

The Form Is the Freedom

Here is the objection I hear most often from good Christians:

“But doesn’t all that structure kill the Spirit? Shouldn’t worship be free?”

I used to think so. Then I started watching what “free” worship actually produces over time.

It produces worship shaped by the pastor’s personality. By the music team’s preferences. By what generated the most emotional response last Sunday. By trends. By the market. By the world.

The form protects you from this dangerous path. The ancient Liturgy keeps the worship about God and not about mankind. It protects the poor man from the tastes of the rich. It gives children the same prayers of the parents pray. It gives the dying the same words the saints prayed for fifteen centuries.

The same Liturgy that fed a prisoner in a Soviet labor camp feeds a man on his knees in Beckley, West Virginia on a cold Sunday morning. God is no respecter of trends.

St. Basil the Great, writing in the fourth century, argued that even the posture of worship, how we stand, how we face east, how we cross ourselves, belongs to the apostolic inheritance. Not because God is fussy about choreography, but because the body is not separate from the soul. What we do with our bodies trains what we love with our hearts.

Aristotle understood this. Today, modern psychology calls this embodied cognition. Scripture called it sanctification. The Eastern Orthodox Church built a whole liturgy around it that modern churches have forgotten.

Everything Preaches

Icons confess the Incarnation in color. We can paint what we have seen, because we have seen the face of God. He became man and dwelled among us.

Incense confesses that we are not bodies only. Our prayer rises.

Posture confesses humility as we bow before the throne.

Crossing ourselves confesses our baptism into His death and resurrection.

Nothing is filler. Nothing is mood lighting. Everything is theology.

St. Justin Martyr described the same pattern to Roman pagans in the second century: readings, sermon, prayers, the kiss of peace, bread and wine offered with thanksgiving, communion carried to the absent. The pattern is not a tradition we invented. It is a pattern we received.

The Liturgy is participation in the one eternal Liturgy that Christ leads as High Priest. Heaven and earth overlap at the altar. The veil is thin.

I have stood in this worship from St. John’s in San Francisco to kneeling before the cross at the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem. From venerating St. Mark in Venice to the underground crypt of St. Reparata beneath Brunelleschi’s Duomo. The grammar is the same. Scripture sung. Holy, Holy, Holy. The Creed. Thine own of Thine own. One is Holy. The Cup. Thanksgiving. Mercy. Mission.

The pattern is older than your objections and kinder than your fears.

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Why It Heals

Worship trains love.

Modern psychology (and Aristotle) tells you that repeated practices rewire the heart and redirect attention. Neuroplasticity. Habit formation. Behavioral reinforcement. Scripture told us this first.

“Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.” (Psalm 96:9)

Do this every week, year after year, decade after decade, and your desires are re-educated.

The passions are not flattered. They are calmed.

The mind is not hyped. It is illumined.

The Psalms pull me out of self-talk.

The Gospel interrupts me.

The Creed guards me.

The Eucharist unites me.

This is healing.

As a CFO I spent my career measuring outcomes. I know the difference between a program that feels good and one that actually produces transformation. The ancient Liturgy produces transformation. I have watched it happen in my own life, in my own home, in men who walked in scattered and walked out anchored.

The Uncomfortable Mirror

Here is where I turn this on those of us who call ourselves Christians.

If your worship primarily aims to make you feel something, generate an emotional experience, attract, and entertain, then ask yourself honestly:

Who is that worship actually for?

The Church Fathers were blunt about this. Flattering the passions does not heal them. Entertainment does not form the soul. A congregation of consumers is not a Body of Christ.

We cannot build families, raise sons, steward wealth, and fight the principalities of this age on the strength of a weekly emotional peak. We need something stronger than a good set list. We need medicine.

Come and See

I went looking for authenticity and nearly missed the Truth.

Real worship is not me being “real.” It is God being present, and me learning to give thanks.

He gives more than I bring. He gives Himself.

That is why I come hungry and leave alive.

If you want to know what real Christian worship looks like, you do not need to take my word for it. Walk into any Orthodox Church anywhere in the world. Stand in the prayers. Let the Psalms borrow your voice. Hear “Holy, Holy, Holy” with your own ears. Watch the people come forward as beggars and leave as sons and daughters.

Ask yourself if this is not what the Scriptures prepared you to expect.

This is how you build something that outlives you. Not just a legacy of wealth or influence, but a legacy of souls who knew how to stand before God.

The Church is still here. The Liturgy is still being prayed. The medicine is still being offered.

Come and see.

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The Eastern Orthodox Church is the fullness of the faith once for all delivered to the saints.

Not a brand. Not a denominational flavor. The Church. Visible. Sacramental. Apostolic. Handed down as the same life, the same worship, the same medicine the apostles received from Christ and gave to the world.

I know the objections. I made many of them myself. So let me speak plainly, without scandal, but with the urgency of a man who has finally found water in a desert.

As I have shown before, the Church in Acts is visible, ordered, and sacramental. Acts does not sketch an invisible association of like-minded readers. It reveals a body with bones.

• Bishops who shepherd a real flock. (Acts 20:28)

• Elders appointed in real cities. (Titus 1:5)

• Tradition handed down through persons. (2 Timothy 2:2)

• One pattern of life: “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of the bread, and the prayers.” (Acts 2:42)

• A council that binds, not a conversation where the loudest voice wins. (Acts 15)

This is the frame Orthodoxy has never set down: Eucharistic unity under a bishop in historic succession, holiness pursued as real therapy for the soul, catholicity as the same faith through places and centuries, and apostolicity as living continuity, not a slogan.

If you want the four marks of the Ancient Faith, one, holy, catholic, apostolic, you have to be able to point to them.

Orthodoxy can be found, joined, obeyed, and in it, by grace, you can be healed.

The Scripture presumes the Trinity, and Orthodoxy prays the Trinity.

The Church’s life flows from one God in three Persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, co-eternal, co-equal, one essence. (Deuteronomy 6:4; John 1:1–14; Matthew 28:19; 2 Corinthians 13:14; Acts 5:3–4)

In Orthodoxy, the Trinity is the air you breathe. Every service begins, moves, and ends in that Name. You become like what you adore. Worship the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit, and Love Himself remakes you.

A church that prays the Trinity is different from a church that merely affirms the Trinity. One is participation. The other is a legal document.

The Incarnation anchors everything. What God assumes, He heals.

If the Son truly became man, then matter matters. Water can be a tomb and a womb. (John 3:5; Romans 6:3–4; 1 Peter 3:21) Bread and wine can become communion in His Body and Blood. (John 6; 1 Corinthians 10:16–17) Repentance can become audible mercy breathed through the apostles. (John 20:22–23; James 5:16)

My tidy categories collapsed in front of three doors:

• Confession: the Physician’s touch on named wounds, not private coping.

• Baptism: a new birth God gives me, not a symbol.

• Communion: the medicine of immortality, not a memorial tea party.

When my wife, daughters, and I stepped through those doors together, confessed, were baptized into the Kingdom, and came to the holy table, something happened that argument alone could never do. The Church became a home, not a hypothesis.

Scripture and Tradition are one river.

If your traditions do not trace back as far as your Scripture, there is a problem.

Scripture is the voice of the Shepherd.

Holy Tradition is the Church’s living memory of how to hear Him.

The apostles handed down both what to believe and how to worship. (2 Thessalonians 2:15) The Fathers guarded that deposit in councils, preaching, and prayer until it became the reflexes of the Body.

• St. Irenaeus called this the Rule of Faith, the same Gospel recognized everywhere the apostles planted it.

• St. Vincent of Lérins named its shape: what has been believed everywhere, always, by all.

• St. Basil the Great noted that even the way we make the sign of the cross and face east at prayer is part of that apostolic inheritance.

Orthodoxy never needed to reinvent Christianity because it never unlearned it. It remembers the feel of the yoke Christ placed on His Church and refuses to trade it for novelty, even eloquent novelty.

The saints and their worship show the same face in every century. If you want to know the Church, watch how she prays.

• Isaiah 6 and Revelation 4–5: “Holy, Holy, Holy,” incense rising, elders gathered, a Lamb upon the throne.

• Luke 24: Christ known “in the breaking of the bread.”

• Acts 2: Apostolic teaching, the prayers, the table, all public, ordered, communal.

Now walk into an Orthodox temple anywhere in the world. I have from the West Coast to the East, Israel to Italy. You will find the same grammar of heaven and earth: Scripture chanted, psalms prayed, icons confessing the Incarnation in color, the faithful crossing themselves, bowing, standing, receiving rather than inventing.

St. John Chrysostom’s Liturgy is participation in the one, eternal Liturgy Christ leads as High Priest.

This is real Christian worship, not a concert plus a talk. The people of God ascend to the heavenly altar while heaven descends to feed them. I’ll go deeper on this in the next piece, but hear the headline now: worship is not chiefly self-expression; it is communion in the Life of God.

The 2,000-year history of Orthodoxy is Lindy because Christ is alive. The things that last tend to be truer than the things that trend. The Orthodox Church has prayed the same prayers, kept the same sacraments, proclaimed the same Christ, and formed the same sort of people for two millennia, because the medicine works.

I read the philosophers who hint at the Logos, and I thank God for them. I stood in the pit beneath Caiaphas’ house, whispering Psalm 88 with tears, and thanked God for His descent. I watched modern “worship” turn sacred things into stage props and felt my stomach drop. I tried to make an “invisible church” feed a very visible family and failed.

When I finally stopped explaining away the plain sense of Scripture, stopped treating history like a buffet, and stopped pretending matter cannot carry grace, I found the Church that had been hiding in plain sight: the one you can find, join, obey, and be healed by.

The Orthodox Church was there in Dostoyevsky, there in Taleb’s writings, hidden behind Islamic oppression and an Iron Curtain, and then in miraculous form there it was in Beckley, West Virginia, at St. Nicholas.

I honor every grace I received in my Protestant upbringing: love for Scripture, zeal for mission, the welcome that met me, and more. I am not mocking the various Protestant houses. I am telling you in truth where the road from your best instincts actually leads.

Your love for the Bible points to the Church that canonized it and prays it whole, not redacted.

Your longing for holiness points to a hospital with time-tested therapies for the soul’s diseases.

Your hunger for communion points to a chalice that is not symbolically pretend.

If you disagree, do not argue with me first.

Come and see.

Stand in the Liturgy.

Hear the Gospel sung.

Watch the faithful approach the Cup with fear and love.

In faith and prayer, ask whether what you meet is older than your objections and kinder than your fears?

Truth has a face and a Body.

He did not leave us orphans.

He gave us His Church, His Body.

If you are tired of the cave-shadows and the flicker of your phone, if you have tasted every novelty and remain unfed, if you sense that worship should feel less like a show and more like stepping into a holy fire, then hear me:

Seek the Kingdom where it can be found, in the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church.

I found it with my wife and daughters at my side: confession for our wounds, baptism into His death and rising, and the Eucharist for our life. The doors were not ideas. They were wood, water, oil, bread, wine, and a word of mercy.

This is how you build something that outlives you.

You stop chasing the next new thing and root yourself in the ancient faith that has formed saints for twenty centuries. You guard your heart and your household. You lead as a man of faith, not as a consumer of spiritual trends. You steward your time, your attention, and your resources for the Kingdom that cannot be shaken.

The world does not need more entertained Christians.

It needs rooted, faithful patriarchs who build legacy on the Rock.

Come and see. The table is set. The Physician waits. The doors are open.

Glory to God for all things!

If this stirs something in you, if you sense the pull toward the fullness of the faith, subscribe today. We are here for the ancient paths that actually work for faith, family, finance, leadership, and legacy that endures.

Let us build together.

Next: Real Christian Worship, what it looks like, why it heals, and how heaven teaches earth to sing.

Yet the one door I kept passing by was not an idea at all.

It was a table.

My family and I were starving in a house with a full pantry. We had shelves of good theology, but our souls went hungry. Then one day the risen Christ opened my eyes exactly where He opened the eyes of the disciples on the road to Emmaus, in the breaking of the bread.

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Most people today treat faith like a playlist of beliefs they can shuffle. Pick what feels right. Skip what feels heavy. Post a verse, argue online, and call it devotion. I get it. I did the same for a long time. I explained away the hard words of Scripture because they did not fit my categories.

But the words would not stay explained away.

“My flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink,” Jesus said plainly in John 6:55. St. Ignatius of Antioch, writing while the apostles’ voices still echoed, called the Eucharist “the medicine of immortality.”

If this meal is medicine, then I am a sick man who desperately needs the Physician.

I feel bad for the sincere believer who has never tasted this reality. They stand outside the house, hungry, while the family meal waits inside. They have the map, but have never walked through the front door.

I am just a father and a businessman who follows Christ. I have spent decades in the trenches of healthcare finance, turning around organizations and stewarding resources for the good of families and communities. I know what it means to build something real. And I know what it means to realize you have been building on the wrong foundation.

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The early Church knew better. Acts 2:42 shows us the pattern: “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.” This is not an optional add-on. This is the heartbeat of the Church.

I had treated baptism like a public symbol, something I did more than once to show my sincerity. Yet Scripture kept pressing in.

“Unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God,” Jesus told Nicodemus in John 3:5. Peter wrote that “baptism now saves you” through the resurrection of Christ, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a clear conscience (1 Peter 3:21). Paul said we were buried with Christ in baptism so that we might walk in newness of life (Romans 6:3-4).

The baptismal font is both tomb and womb. You die there. You rise there. It is not theater. It is reality.

And confession? I had kept it private, as if shame could be managed alone. James 5:16 cuts through that illusion: “Confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed.”

When the risen Lord breathed on the apostles, He did not say “feel forgiven.” He gave authority: “Whose sins you forgive are forgiven” (John 20:22-23).

Hidden sin ferments. Spoken sin meets the hand of mercy. Aristotle understood that habits shape the soul. The Church Fathers knew the body’s practices tutor the heart. Confession is not humiliation. It is healing.

One of the final straws for me came when I watched a preacher on a stage laugh while ripping apart a loaf of grocery-store bread and trampling the crumbs underfoot. That moment broke something in me. I was done with pretend communion. My soul needed the real thing.

So my wife and our daughters and I took the step together. We confessed our sins openly before a priest. We were baptized into the death and resurrection of Christ. And then we came to the holy table as a family, receiving the Body and Blood of our Lord.

It was not dramatic fireworks.

It was quiet obedience. And in that obedience I found the One True Church. Not as an abstract idea, but as a living, breathing reality that carries a man mind, heart, and bones into the life of Christ.

I am not here to shame anyone. Many of you reading this love Jesus with all your heart. You read your Bible. You pray. You try to live honorably. I honor that. I was once right where you are.

But I also know the quiet ache that comes when explanations no longer satisfy and the soul still hungers.

The world does not need more clever arguments or polished performances. It needs men and women who will stop walking past the table, enter the house, and sit down to the meal Christ Himself prepared.

This is how you guard your heart in an age of distraction.

This is how you lead your family with authority that comes from heaven, not from trending opinions.

This is how you build a legacy that outlives you, because you are no longer feeding your household scraps of symbolism while the true Bread of Life waits on the altar.

If this stirs something in you, do not rush to debate. Take it to prayer. Ask the Holy Spirit to show you the next step. He is gentle, but He is not vague.

And if you are ready to stop wandering and start living inside the fullness of what Christ gave His Church, I invite you to explore the ancient path with me. The same path that strengthened my marriage, anchored my children, and gave me peace after years of intellectual chase.

The door is open. The table is set. Come and see.

Pray for those still standing outside. And if you are one of them, know this: the Physician is waiting. The family is waiting. Your real life in Christ is waiting.

Let us build something eternal together.

As a business leader who has spent decades turning around organizations, hiring good people, and stewarding tight budgets, I do not chase feelings or slogans. I chase what works in real life. And when I looked back through Scripture and history for the faith that could anchor my marriage, raise my children, and leave a legacy worth passing down, I found clear clues.

Christ at the head. Mary honored. A Kingdom you experience here and now, not just hope for later.

In Acts, I found a shaped concreteness:

• One: Eucharistic unity under a bishop/overseer in historic succession (Acts 20:28).

• Holy: a community that actually calls to repentance and forms saints (Acts 2:37–47).

• Catholic (according to the whole): the same faith across places and centuries, tested in council (Acts 15).

• Apostolic: hands laid, a lineage you can trace, and doctrine kept in the Rule of Faith (cf. 1 Tim 4:14 echoed in Acts’ pattern).

Through travels and studies, I knew there must be tangible signs: Baptism in water; the Eucharist confessed as Christ’s Body and Blood; clergy you can name and meet; a public, ordered liturgy; instruction and discipline; visible almsgiving and service.

The apostles never preached spirit instead of body. They preached Spirit birthing baptized bodies, shared tables, councils, journeys, and martyrs. A Church you can find, join, and obey.

That is the concrete Church I was hunting.

Modern Christianity often feels fractured and thin.

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There are now over 40,000+ denominations worldwide. Mainline groups that once filled cathedrals have watched membership drop by millions and attendance fall sharply in recent decades. Slogans replace substance. Communion sometimes feels like a tea party. Doctrine shifts with the mood of the age.

I feel bad for the sincere believers caught in the middle. They love the Lord. They want truth. Yet the structures around them keep splitting or softening until the fire cools into marketing.

I am just a regular father and businessman following Christ the best I know how. Nothing fancy. I have helped build a multi-million organization from the trenches, backpacked rugged trails, swung kettlebells to discipline my body as St. Paul commanded, and learned the hard way that stewardship touches every part of life.

My faith is not Sunday only. It is the compass for family, work, and legacy.

The search took me on a journey I will never forget.

My journey started where many good modern men begin, as a Methodist. John Wesley startled me. He never wanted a new church. He stayed an Anglican priest to the end. He called people back to the means of grace: Baptism, Eucharist, fasting, confession, Scripture, and works of mercy. He urged constant communion, not occasional. He read the Church Fathers and preached holiness of heart and life as real training, not vapor. In Wesley I heard Acts 2:42 again: the apostles’ teaching, fellowship, breaking of bread, and prayers.

Yet the more I read, the more I saw the fracture. Most of what flies under the Methodist name today does not match Wesley. He assumed bishops, sacraments, and ordered life. He spoke of perfection as love burning through passions. I saw therapeutic slogans instead. The fire he tended had cooled.

I stepped back further to the Church of England. Beautiful cathedrals. Prayer Book cadences. Martyrs and missionaries I still respect. Yet I could not shake the scaffolding: a crown over the altar, Parliament over council. One parish whispers Real Presence; another denies it. Articles aimed for breadth but dissolved into ambiguity. Acts 15 shows a council speaking with one voice. The Anglican chorus sounded like overlapping solos, none binding the whole. Where was the abiding, concrete unity in the bones, not just the brochures?

Then I turned to Rome. Here was fierce, unembarrassed insistence on the visible Church, a priesthood you could name, saints who bled, and a Eucharist confessed as the true Body and Blood. The martyrs’ courage and the saints’ charity humbled me. Rome kept many of the signs I had been hunting.

But the texts of Acts and the habits of the earliest centuries pressed me harder. Did Peter’s primacy in love and service become jurisdiction without limits? When did first-among-brethren become last-word-over-brethren? The Creed was received and sealed in council. Could later dogmas rest on the Church’s shared memory, or were they declared from one chair and required of the whole? I was desperate for rightly ordered authority that sounds like Pentecost and looks like the Apostles.

At each stop I learned something priceless.

Wesley’s fire. England’s beauty. Rome’s solidity. All tutored me. Christ was leading me to what Acts described: a Church you can find, join, obey, and be healed by. A people gathered around a real altar, under a real bishop, speaking with the mind of Christ, not the mood of the age.

I was close enough to feel the heat of something ancient, something you can touch, taste, smell, and see. It was not Protestant division, crown over altar, or even Roman developments. It was the ancient Church Christ founded overlooking the Gates of Hell in Caesarea Philippi.

St. Ignatius of Antioch, appointed Bishop by St. Peter, writing around the year 110, put it plainly: “Wherever the bishop shall appear, there let the multitude of the people also be, even as wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church.”

St. Irenaeus, battling heresies in the second century, showed how apostolic succession guards the truth: the tradition of the apostles is manifested throughout the whole world and preserved by bishops in succession from the apostles themselves. You can see it. You can trace it.

This is the Church of Acts, where the Holy Spirit makes men overseers to shepherd the flock Christ purchased with His own blood. This is the pillar and foundation of the truth. I had found the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church. It is focused on the Right Belief, not modern inventions. In modern terms, it is known as the Eastern Orthodox Church.

I finally boarded the ark.

Now my life looks different. Instead of chasing the next new teaching or scrolling for inspiration, I stand in the ancient liturgy with my wife and children. We guard our hearts. We raise our kids in a community that calls to repentance and forms saints. The Eucharist is not symbolic tea. It is the medicine of immortality. Confession is not optional therapy. It is healing.

As a leader in my home, I no longer wonder what foundation to build on. I steward time, money, and attention like the treasures they are. My body is disciplined. My mind is guarded. My family sees a faith that outlives trends.

Some of you may feel the same emotional pull and push.

You sense the thinness. You love your family too much to hand them fragments. You want to protect what matters most. That discomfort is the Holy Spirit at work.

Pray for those still searching. The Spirit does the heavy lifting. But do not stay on the shore. Board the ark before the storm. Find the visible Church that never had to be reinvented because it was never broken.

This is how you build something that outlives you.

A faith rooted in the Body of Christ. A family anchored in the altar. A legacy of stewardship that honors God instead of debt or distraction.

If you are ready to build with integrity, to lead your household like the patriarch God calls you to be, and to pass down tools that actually work, join me at Truth & Prosperity.

Subscribe now. Let us walk this ancient path together, one faithful step at a time. Your wiser tomorrow, and your children’s tomorrow after that, starts here.

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The ancient Church is still standing. The question is whether you will step into it.

He opened my eyes to the real world and exposed the hollow promises of the materialist one. He reveals my sins to me so that I can repent and seek His kingdom. This awakening was only the beginning.

Once my eyes were open, I saw the fallen world clearly. I realized my desperate need for the Kingdom of God. I was in the wilderness. A stranger in a strange land. Surrounded by noise. Surrounded by the passions that promise everything and deliver nothing but chains.

Christ called me to follow Him. To repent. To seek first His Kingdom.

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I had trusted in “faith alone” and bought the great lie of “once saved, always saved.” Life rolled on. Family grew. Work demanded. The world crowded in. We tested churches here and there, hoping for solid ground. What we found instead was often lacking::

• Loveless communities.

• Sunday service only, communities.

• Churches that barely knew the Bible.

• Communities that focus on appearance.

• Fire and brimstone; don’t drink, don’t dance, don’t have a life.

• Churches that couldn’t help with work, life, or much of anything.

• Communities that weren’t even clear about knowing when life begins.

• Sermons that felt like motivational speakers surrounded by pop bands.

• Houses of “worship” that couldn’t tell the difference between a man or a woman.

We got occasional baby’s milk. Prayers in times of pain. Guidance from “Our Daily Bread.” But I was starving in the wilderness, and church felt as noisy as the world outside.

The worst advice I ever heard, and to my shame, repeated to my own wife when she rightly questioned the lack of spiritual nourishment, was this: “Stop going to church looking to be fed.”

I told her, as so many “good Christians” do, that our job is to support the church. How backwards. How out of order. We don’t exist for the church; the Church exists to feed, clothe, heal, and shepherd mankind with the life of Christ. We are first called to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling, then to care for our families.

In my blindness, I missed my wife’s hunger and my own. We kept searching for a hospital for sinners, but found few shepherds truly called to “feed Christ’s flock” as the Lord commanded Peter, and was passed down through the ages, with nothing less than Christ’s own Blood and life.

No wonder this generation rejects the church. In America, there’s a different one on every street corner, yet most are:

Not unified through time.

   Not shepherding people to holiness.

      Not universally joined, militant and victorious.

         Not bearing the physical and spiritual apostolic faith.

The data backs up the despair many feel. Church attendance has dropped sharply: down to weekly attendance in the 20% range today. Among young adults, the drop-out is stark. Reasons pile up: judgmental hypocrisy, lack of connection, disagreement on social issues, shallow experiences, churches seeming overprotective or antagonistic to reality. Young women especially are walking away in unprecedented numbers. The modern church often feeds performance, not souls.

Though I kept stumbling, I kept seeking the one, holy, universal (catholic), and apostolic Church: unified through time, shepherding toward holiness, militant and victorious, rooted in apostolic faith and practice.

I kept getting back up.

I know it’s tough. Our time in the wilderness is matters. We all should struggle as we seek first the Kigdom of God and His righteousness.

We will be tested. Offered the world, its pleasures, distractions, noise to drown out our sorrows. We will stumble. We will fall. Only Christ was able to struggle in the wilderness without falling.

Here is the lesson: God is producing an eternal weight of glory in you (2 Corinthians 4:17), but only if you endure to the end. Keep getting back up. When you stumble, when you fall, get back up.

Seek first His Kingdom. Look for those called to feed His sheep with truth, not trends. Find a hospital for sinners that turns them into saints through the sacraments, the fathers, the ancient disciplines. There you will find the Kingdom taking shape, not in noise, but in quiet, enduring presence.

This is how you build something that outlives you: by rooting yourself in the ancient faith that has fed souls for thousands of years. By leading your family to the true hospital. By becoming the man who guards his heart and stewards his household toward eternity.

Some of you feel the ache right now. That’s good. It means you’re alive to the hunger. Pray for those still lost in the noise. Pray for the shepherds who have forgotten how to feed. The Holy Spirit does the real work.

If you’re ready to stop wandering and start building on solid ground, join me at Truth & Prosperity. We walk this path together; faith that feeds, family that thrives, legacy that endures.

Let’s rise. Christ is shining.

Thanks for reading this installment in my journey home. Tell me about your struggles seeking the Kingdom, like, and share this article.

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Next: What is the shape of the kingdom?

The Kingdom of God is not some invisible ghost waiting in the clouds.

It is physical.

It is here.

It is now.

I call this truth the Paradigm of Being: we comprise body, mind, heart, and spirit. God formed us this way on purpose. He did not create disembodied souls trapped in meat suits. He formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed life into him. That is not poetry. That is the starting point of everything real.

Modern faith feels off because it has gone gnostic without admitting it.

You see it everywhere. People say they are spiritual but not religious. They chase feelings, podcasts, and online inspiration while their bodies sit idle and their families drift. Pew Research shows the majority of Americans believe we have a soul or spirit beyond the physical body. Yet organized faith keeps dropping, and many settle for a private, bodiless spirituality that never touches ground. It feels safe. It costs nothing. And it delivers exactly what you would expect. Nothing lasting.

I actually feel bad for those living in that fog. They hunger for connection with God but keep Him at arm’s length. They treat faith like a mental exercise or emotional high instead of the full incarnational reality Christ brought into the world.

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I am just a regular guy who follows Christ.

A father, a businessman who spent decades turning around organizations, and seeking the Kingdom of God. I am not a theologian or a monk. I am a guy who has walked the trenches of real life, budgets, family storms, and the daily grind. Scripture and the Church Fathers became my compass because theory alone never paid the bills or held a marriage together.

Scripture and Tradition Are the Anchor

Scripture tells us God formed man from dust and breathed life into him. St. John declares the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. Tradition puts it plainly: God became man so that man might become like Him by grace. And the tradition drove it home against the gnostics in the ancient Church: He who was the Son of God became the Son of man that man might become the son of God.

The glory of God is man fully alive. Not a soul floating free. A whole person. Body included.

Most of us do the opposite of what Christ modeled.

We scroll spiritual quotes while our bodies weaken.

We treat baptism like a symbol instead of real water that buries the old man.

We receive the Eucharist like a memory instead of the actual Body and Blood that transfigures us.

We talk about an invisible Church while the Apostles appointed real elders in real cities and made public decisions in Acts. That is not ancient history. That is the pattern.

Even serious Christians fall into the trap.

I know because I lived it. I kept faith in one box and daily life in another. Sunday spiritual moment followed by Monday physical grind. My body paid the price. My leadership felt fragmented. My home missed the full presence God intended.

How many heads of household are doing the same right now? Treating the temple of the Holy Spirit like an afterthought while chasing success that never satisfies?

Here is what changed when I started living the Paradigm of Being.

I saw every part of life as connected. I swing kettlebells and hit the trails not just for fitness but as discipline for the body God gave me. I show up fully at work, stewarding resources with integrity because money is not separate from soul work. At home, we gather for real prayer, shared meals, and hands laid in blessing. My wife and I have watched our children and soon grandchildren experience faith you can taste, touch, and pass on. The fruit is peace that actually lasts. Leadership that feels solid. Legacy that does not evaporate when the screen goes dark.

This is not theory. This is how you build something that outlives you.

The world does not need more disembodied believers.

It needs rooted men who guard their hearts, lead their households, and steward every part of their being for the Kingdom that is both spiritual and physical.

The Holy Spirit does the heavy lifting.

Our job is to wake up, seek first the Kingdom in the flesh, and stop settling for half a faith.

If this stirs something in you, if you are tired of fragmented living and ready to build an embodied faith that strengthens your marriage, raises your children in truth, grows your stewardship, and creates a legacy your grandchildren will thank God for, then come walk us; say hello in the Truth & Prosperity Substack chat, share this article, like, and comment so we can spread the faith.

Subscribe to Truth & Prosperity. Join a community refusing to live split lives. Let us seek the real Kingdom together. Body, mind, heart, and spirit. The way God designed it from the very beginning.

One time I stood in front of a little Methodist Church right here in West Virginia and told the entire story of the Old Testament in a three-part series. I eventually recorded it for YouTube. It was the best I could do at the time. I framed it as a ledger of promises and morals where God acts, people fail, God redeems, and they try harder. God as the main character. Sin as the conflict. Redemption as the theme.

It was useful. But something felt missing.

Seeking the Kingdom of God

Once I realized what was missing, it was as if the Old Testament, the story I had been telling for years, was lit with a second lamp and the fullness of the faith became clear. The clues were always there from the very first pages.

I have read Genesis 3:15 a hundred times. God tells the serpent, I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed.

Her seed. Not Adam’s line alone. The victory over evil would come through a mother’s child. The battle line runs straight through a Mother.

Kingdoms rise and fall. The promise narrows to David’s house. In 2 Samuel 7 God says of the coming king, I will be his Father, and he shall be My son. I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.

Forever. Mortal kings die. This language points beyond politics to a Son in a relationship with the Father that changes everything.

The prophets take it further. Zechariah announces, I am coming and I will dwell in your midst. Not sending an agent. God Himself coming to live among us.

Ezekiel sees the eastern gate of the sanctuary: This gate shall remain shut because the LORD, the God of Israel, entered by it. A holy entry that leaves the passage sealed forever.

Back in the Torah the Ark of the Covenant sits at the center of everything. It holds the Word on stone, the manna from heaven, and Aaron’s rod that budded with life from dead wood. If the Lord is truly coming to dwell, there must be a new, living Ark. Something capable of bearing the living Word, the true Bread, and the Priest who conquers death.

Isaiah speaks of a Child called Mighty God born through the virgin daughter of Zion.

Proverbs, Sirach, and Wisdom literature show Divine Wisdom walking the world, seeking a home to tabernacle with men.

Every time I read those chapters I felt the same pull in my chest. The Scriptures were asking, Where will God’s Wisdom rest?

The Womb of a Mother

The Old Testament, on its own terms, demanded a real Woman.

God would come personally. Not by proxy.

He would come through a Woman’s Yes.

The war with the serpent would run through the Mother.

The throne of David would find its forever King in a Son God calls His own.

The Dweller would enter by a sanctified Gate of Virginity.

The Ark would become flesh.

You can arrive at this truth staying right in the Hebrew Scriptures. The text itself insists on it. Mary’s Yes brings the completion Christ spoke of in Matthew 5:17. He came not to abolish the Law and the Prophets but to fulfill them.

This word, fulfill is complete, to fill them full.

There is no more left to complete, it is like cramming in every last bit a fullness.

The story stops being scattered history lessons and becomes one beautiful procession. The Ark going before. A sealed gate. Wisdom finding rest. The Kingdom rejoicing.

The early Church simply followed where the text led. The ark is verily the holy Virgin, gilded within and without, who received the treasure of universal sanctification. An ark wrought with gold both within and without that has received the whole treasury of the sanctuary.

I feel for the man I used to be.

And I feel for many good men today still reading the Old Testament the way I once did. The stories move us. The lessons stick. Yet something in the soul knows it is reaching for more. I understand the restlessness. I lived it while grinding through long days in healthcare leadership, raising a family, and trying to lead well.

This truth turned the mirror on me.

Was I guarding my heart as Proverbs commands? Or settling for partial truth?

I had to ask the hard question. Am I letting Scripture speak its full witness?

The fruit shows up in real life.

The Old Testament now feels alive. I traced how every promise builds to the Mother and the Son. What once felt abstract now equips us for real battles. My wife and I talked through it with our children as we sought the Kingdom of God. The grandkids will grow up with the complete story.

As a man who spent decades turning around organizations and stewarding millions, I see this as true legacy building. You protect what matters most. You pass down tools that actually work. Partial truth leaves gaps. The full deposit fills them.

This insight was a major step in my journey into the ancient Christian faith. I was time traveling. The pieces fit. The wisdom of guarding the heart would become a daily practice.

This is how you build something that outlives you.

The world does not need more men with half the map. It needs fathers and grandfathers rooted in the fullness of the faith once delivered. Men who see the patterns God wrote into history. Men who honor the path He chose through the Theotokos.

Pray for the Holy Spirit to light that second lamp on the pages you know so well. Ask for eyes to see the procession. He does the heavy lifting. Live it. Love the people around you. Let the truth do its work.

This is the eighth article in my series on awakening to the ancient Christian faith, which started with God.

If you are a father or grandfather ready to build something that lasts, join me at Truth & Prosperity. We share practical wisdom for faith, family leadership, and legacy the wise way.

The full three-part series I recorded on the story of the Old Testament lives on The Assent Podcast below. It is my three-part series telling the story of the Old Testament. It is incomplete but is an important reference on my journey into traditionally established doctrines of the Body of Christ (Orthodoxy). Give it a listen with fresh ears. See if the thread begins to appear for you. The text has been pointing all along.

Share this piece with a brother who needs it. Let us awaken together and build the rooted life that truly lasts.

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In Christ,

Christopher Clay

P.S. Subscribe below for the rest of this journey plus tools and community that strengthen your faith, your family, and the legacy you leave behind. Your wiser tomorrow starts here. Glory to God.

Imagine the Legacy You Actually Want
Picture your family legacy standing firm when the world spins into chaos.

Picture your wife and kids gathered around the table, not glued to screens, but rooted in wisdom that has survived empires, wars, and every cultural storm. Your grandchildren growing up with a faith that gains strength from disorder instead of crumbling under it.

This is not fantasy. It is the higher life waiting when you stop chasing the new and start time traveling to what lasts.

The Empty Search That Almost Broke Me
I lived the opposite for years. As an agnostic atheist, I wrestled hard to find the Kingdom of God.

It felt hidden, almost invisible.

Modern answers left me empty.

Then my best friend handed me Nassim Taleb’s book Antifragile. He pointed me to the Lindy concept: A thing that has lasted a thousand years will likely last another thousand. Newspapers die in a day. Books that survived fifty years earn respect for another fifty. Ideas that endured two thousand years or more carry real weight. That single insight flipped a switch in my soul.

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Why I Started Time Traveling

I went back to Plato’s cave, Aristotle’s prudence, and the Stoics like Epictetus in the Enchiridion. Those men taught me to guard my reactions, assent only to what is true, and focus on what I can control. They offered practical steps for living with virtue instead of chasing feelings.

These lessons ran deep because they had already proven themselves across centuries. Modern slogans about following your passions or treating individualism as the highest good looked fragile by comparison. Most of those ideas barely survived a generation.

The Challenge That Took Me Deeper
My father pushed me further. He challenged me to take the same honest look at the Bible.

I dove in for years.

Then we traveled together to Israel.

Suddenly the Kingdom stopped feeling theoretical. God had laid a physical foundation in the world through real people, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, the twelve tribes, David, Mary, and the twelve Apostles. Luke records it with street-level detail, from the hills of Judea to the little town of Bethlehem and outward from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth. These were not invisible ideas. They happened in dirt and stone.

The Evening That Made It Real
The turning point came in the cool, damp pit beneath the Church of St. Peter in Gallicantu. Tradition holds this is where Jesus spent the night after His arrest, thrown down to wait for dawn and Pilate. We opened the Psalms and read Psalm 87 in the Septuagint (Psalm 88 in modern texts). The words hit like a hammer:

“O Father, God of My salvation in the night I cry out before You, hear Me.

My soul is filled with sorrow, My life draws near to the grave.

I am counted among those in the pit, a man without strength,

a slain one, laid in the tomb who You remember no more.

Cast into the depths, into the darkest pit, Your waves of wrath press upon Me.

The weight of the sins of mankind are heavy.

You have removed My companions from Me, those I loved have fled.

I cannot escape.

My eyes grow dim from grief, the terrors of death surround Me,

darkness is My only companion…”

There in that cool, damp pit, I sobbed for it was my sins that were heavy, it was the pit prepared for me that He descended into, and it is me who constantly abandon’s the One who loves me most.

In that moment the Kingdom became tangibly real. Eternally spiritual. Physically present. Manifest in the hearts of God’s children.

Confirmed by Scripture and the Church
Scripture anchored it all first.

The prophet Jeremiah put it plainly centuries earlier: “Stand at the crossroads and look. Ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls.”

Modern evidence simply confirms what God already said.

The Lindy principle is observable reality, “walk in the ancient paths.”

What survives time and pressure gains strength.

The Church saw the same pattern.

St. Justin Martyr called the truths in Greek philosophy “seeds of the Word,” preparing the world for Christ.

St. Basil the Great advised young men to take the good nectar from ancient writings like bees from flowers, leaving the rest behind.

These men built on rock.

The Exact Framework I Follow Every Day
Here is the simple framework I now follow, and you can copy:

1. Audit your inputs. Cut the fragile noise, the daily headlines and viral trends that will be forgotten next week.

2. Time travel daily. Spend time with Scripture and the Fathers before anything else. Read what has already lasted two thousand years.

3. Guard your heart. Proverbs 4:23 tells us, “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.” Apply the Stoic lesson of assenting only to truth, now fulfilled in Christ.

4. Make it physical. Go to Church, make your home holy, light a candle, burn incense, bow before Christ, and pray aloud. Watch abstract truth turn into lived reality the way I did in that Jerusalem pit.

The Fruit That Proves It Works
The fruit speaks for itself. My faith is no longer shaky. My marriage grew stronger. Our four children saw a father who leads with conviction instead of confusion. Now in this season as a new grandfather, I see the legacy compounding.

The same principles that helped me turn around struggling healthcare organizations, build teams, and steward millions now protect my family’s future from debt traps and distraction traps.

Time is the ultimate treasure.

Where you place your attention, there your life and eternity form.

The Modern Trap
I get the pull of modern life. I once chased it too.

The scrolling, the endless new philosophies, the promise that this gadget or trend will finally satisfy.

How tragic so many good men stay trapped there, anxious and scattered. The path out carries grace for every misstep. God meets the humble seeker right where he is.

The World Needs Men Who Control Their Minds
The world does not need more entertained, fragile people.

It needs rooted fathers and future patriarchs who control their consciousness instead of letting it control them. Burn the consultants of fleeting culture, walk on the ancient paths. This is how you protect what matters most.

Your Next Step Starts Here
If you are ready to time travel with me, subscribe to Truth & Prosperity right now.

Next week, we go deeper into the Old Testament. You will get the exact tools I use: Scripture anchored, patristic wisdom applied, and practical steps for faith, family, stewardship, and legacy that actually outlive you.

Share this thread and invite your friends and family along this ancient path.

Comment and let me know how you protect what matters most.

The Kingdom is now. The ancient paths still work. Walk in them and find rest for your soul.

Let’s build something that lasts.

Imagine waking up each day knowing your work doesn’t just balance books or build systems, it saves lives, strengthens families, and honors God’s call to serve the least among us. That’s the life I’ve built over decades in rural West Virginia health care, and now, with this 2026 induction into the West Virginia Executive Health Care Hall of Fame, it’s a humbling reminder that true success comes from stewarding what God entrusts to us with purpose and discipline. For this, I give all glory to God.

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From Accounting Ledgers to Leadership

I didn’t set out to chase awards or accolades. Born and raised in the hills of West Virginia, with roots tracing back to my sixth great-grandparents who settled Mercer County in 1775, I started my career doing straightforward accounting work. Life pulled me back through financial sales, consulting, internet ventures, and telecommunications. But everything changed when I stepped into the role of Chief Financial Officer at Rainelle Medical Center in 2007.

Back then, RMC was a small community health center with just over 50 employees, fighting to survive in a region battered by economic hardship and the opioid crisis. We faced broken banking relationships, outdated systems, and the constant temptation to cut corners just to keep the doors open. I remember the early days, wrestling with budgets that treated people like line items instead of image-bearers of God. It was a rock-bottom moment professionally, realizing that GAAP and regulations alone couldn’t value human dignity.

But God had other plans. Partnering with our CEO, Kristi Atha-Rader, a dedicated board, and an incredible team, we turned things around. Today, RMC spans over 30 sites, employs more than 250 people, and generates over $35 million in annual revenue. We’ve expanded services to include dental care, adult behavioral health, psychiatry, and substance use disorder treatment, all while delivering high-quality, sustainable care to southern West Virginia’s underserved communities.

This growth wasn’t luck. It was rooted in faith, family, and the wisdom of those who’ve gone before me, like my parents Paul and Linda, who modeled self-sacrificing love, and my wife Stephanie, a national champion in skilled nursing who’s been my rock through all our trials as we worked and raised our four children and now look forward to grandchildren.

Where Is Your Treasure?

Jesus teaches, “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be.” This isn’t just poetry; it’s a blueprint for life. Blend it with modern insights on focus and productivity, and you see that what we invest in shapes our eternity. In healthcare, that means resisting the system’s pull to commodify people and instead building organizations that honor bodies, minds, hearts, and spirits.

My priest, Father Samuel, is always saying our wealth isn’t for indulgence but for distributing to those in need. When we look at where we spend our money nationally, this is a frightful thing. May the Lord be merciful.

From a business perspective, add a little prudence, or practical wisdom, as the virtue guiding ethical decisions, and this becomes principles that transform challenges into opportunities to lead with integrity.

The Five Principles for Meaningful Impact

Through my book, Five Principles for a Meaningful, Fruitful Life, I’ve distilled what worked at RMC into a framework anyone can apply. These aren’t abstract ideas; they’re battle-tested in the trenches of rural healthcare, where West Virginia’s overdose death rate peaked at 1,537 in 2021 and are combined with countless other challenges. Here’s how to live them out:

1. Live with Purpose: Start with strategic guidance rooted in your God-given mission. At RMC, this meant aligning our vision to become West Virginia’s best community health center. As we asked, what legacy am I building?

2. Develop Skills: We’ve worked hard to hone technical expertise in healthcare operations, finance, IT, and more. I overhauled our ERP system and modernized IT for 4-5x growth potential. Invest in training; it’s stewardship of your mind.

3. Build Relationships: Recruit, retain, and coach staff while fostering partnerships. I’ve mentored accountants into world-class leaders and treasure godparenting in my Orthodox faith community. The body grows when each part works properly.

4. Add Value: Analyze resources to serve communities better. We expanded dental services, mental health, nutrition, psychiatry, and substance abuse programs throughout the communities we serve to add value everyday.

5. Be Disciplined: Manage resources wisely. From clean audits to grant successes, discipline turns vision into reality.

Peter Drucker nailed it: “Management is doing things right. Leadership is doing the right things.”

I’m always trying to do the next right thing.

Are you or your organization doing the right things?

Real-Life Proof: From Survival to Hall of Fame

The fruit? RMC’s transformation created jobs and added services like integrated care in Rainelle and Maxwelton. Today, we’re continuing to grow and expand. We are looking toward the future. Seeking to be good partners to recovery homes, hospitals, skilled nursing facilities , and communities struggling.

Personally, my greatest success is my family: my wonderful marriage, four thriving kids, and grandchild on the way, who will sharpen my focus on legacy.

This Hall of Fame induction honors the team effort. We’ve trained up generations in purposeful living. We’re changing lives. Building the future generation. Serving our neighbors. Continuing to grow. I know national savings would reach billions if more followed our model, but locally, we have cut waste and continue to build sustainability.

Common Pitfalls and the Grace to Overcome

Healthcare tempts us to reduce people to expenses, especially in crises like the opioids devouring billions in West Virginia’s GDP or nationally during the COVID pandemic. I get the despair; I’ve felt the rage at broken systems. But we have to guard our hearts and turn anxiety into mastery through discipline. Grace abounds when we face those difficult and dark things.

Acknowledge struggles; seek patristic encouragement. Look for ways to channel energy into building, not bitterness.

Control Your Stewardship, Shape Your Legacy

The world needs men and women who steward their minds and resources for Christ, not chaos. In a spiritual battle against waste and deception, fight by building parallel economies of care. Burn the shortcuts; protect the innocent. Challenge corrupt rulers, expose darkness by shining light through action.

Physically, it means concrete steps: daily routines, deep work blocks, family dinners over screens.

Emotionally, protective love trumps anger.

Logically, cause-effect proves valuing people yields sustainability.

Join the Journey: Build with Truth & Prosperity

If this resonates, you’re not alone. Some feel triggered; that’s the spark of change.

The world doesn’t need more distracted leaders; it needs rooted, faithful stewards.

My book, Five Principles, maps out how to be more intentional in your life, relationships, and work. It’s a challenging resource for those willing to do the hard work.

Let’s build lasting legacies together. What step are you taking today to build a legacy? Share in the comments.

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It’s not because those paths lack earnest people.
It’s not because they miss every scrap of truth.
It’s not because they fail to offer community or comfort.

No. They fail because they shrink the living God into something flatter, easier, and smaller than Love Himself.

I am a husband, father of 4, proud grandpa, and successful businessman with real budgets, real teams, and real consequences. I have stared down financial cliffs and family storms, and I have learned one thing above all: what lasts is built on what is true.

When I first set out to find the Kingdom, I was wide open. I studied the Qur’an. Read the Book of Mormon. Sat on my front porch with LDS missionaries, even invited them in, genuinely trying to understand. I wanted God. I wanted reality. But every time I held those claims up to Scripture and plain reason, the seams showed.

Once you see what the Trinity actually is, you cannot unsee the counterfeits.

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God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit

Scripture does not hand us a math problem. It hands us a relationship.

• “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.” (Deuteronomy 6:4)

• “In the beginning was the Word… and the Word was God… and the Word became flesh.” (John 1:1, 14)

• Thomas falls before the risen Jesus: “My Lord and my God!” (John 20:28)

• Ananias lies to the Holy Spirit — Peter says he lied to God. (Acts 5:3-4)

• One divine Name for Three: “baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” (Matthew 28:19)

The earliest Christians lived this without apology. St. Athanasius put it like lightning: “The Son of God became man so that we might become like Him.” Not second-tier gods. Partakers of the divine nature by grace.

If the Son is a creature, He can’t deify you.
If the Spirit is a force, He can’t make you sons and daughters.
If the Father was once what you are, He cannot be the uncreated Fountain of life.

The Trinity is the only foundation that makes the Incarnation and the Cross actually save.

Tonight, across this country, sincere people are doing the same thing I once did. They scroll faith feeds looking for something that feels relevant. They open mindfulness apps for quick inspiration. They gather the family for a faith that promises eternal families without the eternal God who is Family from before time. They feel the warmth. They sense the structure. They ignore the Truth.

How tragic.

They trade the blazing center, one God in three Persons, co-eternal, co-equal, never confused, never divided, for a solitary will that cannot truly condescend, or three separate beings united only in purpose, or a God who was once like us and calls us to climb the same ladder. They walk away with a smaller story. A manageable deity. A gospel that collapses the moment you press on it.

You feel that pull, don’t you?

The dad who just wants solid ground for his kids. The husband tired of shallow answers that never touch the ache in his marriage. The leader, like me, with all the worldly success and knew something was missing until the ancient faith filled the hole. You sense the seams when a system claims to be “restored” yet quietly removes the mystery that makes salvation possible.

I get it. I was there.

It’s About Worship and Salvation

• Worship: You become like what you adore. If you worship a solitary will, you will become hard. If you worship self-ascent, you will become proud. If you worship the Father, through the Son, in the Holy Spirit, you will be drawn into self-giving love.

• Salvation: Only the God-Man heals what is human. “What is not assumed is not healed.” (St. Gregory the Theologian) If Jesus is less than God, He can’t unite us to God. If He is less than man, He can’t heal us. The Trinity is the only reality where the Incarnation and Cross save.

Here is the governing principle that ties it all together: Where you place your worship, there your heart, and your eternity, will be formed.

Some of you feel that quiet trigger right now. Good. It means your soul is still alive and hungry. I was not condemning the people on those porches, many are sincere. I am warning the men and women who wants to build something which touches eternity.

The world does not need more entertained believers with diagrams that fit on a napkin or fancy PowerPoint presentation. It needs rooted, faithful heads of household who guard the ancient deposit, who protect the innocent by teaching truth, who steward their time and treasure like they are preparing for an eternal reality. Men and women who fight the real spiritual battle, not with anger, but with ordered loves and disciplined presence. Leaders who stand up against every principality that wants to shrink God.

This is the line in the sand.

Do not trade the living God for a simpler story. The Trinity is not optional doctrine. It is the door to the Kingdom I was seeking all along. It is the communion that makes worship sacred, prayer powerful, almsgiving an act of stewardship, and every act of fatherly leadership an icon of the Father’s love.

Hold fast to the Holy Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

And if you worship the Triune God comment and share this article. Let’s spread the truth so that we can grow our eternal families.

This is article #6 in the series on my journey into the ancient Christian faith.

Subscribe today. Let us build something that outlives us — together.

Next: Time, trial, and why the things that survive centuries are safer guides than our momentary enthusiasms.

The Culturist

Can Beauty Really Save the World?

If your social media feeds are anything like mine, you see this phrase at regular intervals, lifted from Dostoevsky’s The Idiot…

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2 months ago · 386 likes · 5 comments · The Culturist

Hans Holbein’s The Body of the Dead Christ in the Tomb shows a gray, decaying corpse, mouth open, no hint of glory. Dostoevsky stood paralyzed before it in Basel in 1867. His wife had to pull him away. In The Idiot the painting nearly wrecks faith.

The Culturist is right. Dostoevsky forces us to confront the darkness and still choose love. Beauty will save the world, but only if we have the eyes to see it through the grave.

Yet there is more. Much more. And it changed how I see everything.

I am Christopher Clay, husband, father of four grown kids, proud grandpa now, and hall of fame business leader. My faith is Eastern Orthodox to the bone, shaped at St. Nicholas Church where the Fathers still speak. When The Culturist’s post landed, my short reply came straight from the gut.

“The Idiot hit home for me, but I didn’t know this. Dostoevsky was Orthodox to the bone. In the Eastern icon of the Crucifixion, Christ holds up the Cross. He isn’t ever depicted as suffering or decaying but victorious. The Cross does not hold Him like a corpse, neither did the grave. I think that is why Holbein’s dead Christ nearly broke Dostoevsky: it shows no triumph and in the Eastern tradition this was Christ’s victory. ICXC NIKA.”

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Once you see the difference between a defeated body and a conquering King, your eyes are opened forever.

Hebrews 12:2 sets the anchor, “Fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”

St. John of Damascus drove it home centuries earlier. Because the Word became flesh, we may depict Him. The honor passes to Christ Himself. Icons are not decoration. They are soul windows that train us to see victory where the world sees only decay.

Look at Holbein’s Christ. Profile view. Decay setting in. No halo. No hope.

Now look at the Orthodox Crucifixion icon.

Christ calm. Eyes closed in peace. Halo radiant. He doesn’t sag; it is as if He holds up The Cross. The Cross is His instrument of triumph, not His defeat.

And the Resurrection icon? Christ stands victorious, smashing the gates of Hades, reaching down to raise Adam and Eve by the wrist.

That is the full Gospel. Suffering is real. Victory is greater.

Here is what becomes possible when you choose this path.

Evening falls in our West Virginia home. We gather around our icon corner. Soon, we’ll have the grandbabies toddle in. We gather in the icon corner, lamps glowing soft.

Like we taught our kids, we’ll teach our grandbabies to point and say, “King Jesus won.” No despair. No anxiety leaking into their hearts. Just quiet confidence that the same Lord who conquered the grave walks with them through every trial. This is legacy in real time.

The governing principle is clear and quotable.

Fix your eyes on the victorious Christ, and beauty will not only save the world. It will save your household.

Your attention is your consent. Your time is your treasure. Where your treasure is, there your heart, your family, and your eternity will be formed. Matthew 6:21.

Step-by-step, anyone can do this.

1. Anchor every day in prayer.

2. Read scripture and the lives of the saints regularly.

3. Make a corner of your home holy. Create a simple family prayer corner. One shelf, a lamp, a cross.

4. Bring a good icon into your home. Start with the Crucifixion or Resurrection. Venerate it for it is a sign of Christ’s victory. Teach the little ones to kiss it and say, “Christ is risen.”

5. When culture pushes suffering without triumph, name it. “That shows half the story. Here is the rest.”

6. Guard the eyes of your household like the treasure they are.

Common struggles come. Grace meets them.

Some days the darkness feels heavy. The news, the screens, the despair. The Fathers knew this. They called it spiritual warfare. Keep fixing your eyes. The victory is already won. Keep showing the icons. Truth, the little ones will carry it farther than you can.

The world does not need more people staring at corpses of faith.

It needs fathers who stand as heads of their households, leadership who influence their communities, and future patriarchs who teach their children to see through the tomb to the triumph.

This is how you build something that outlives you.

If The Culturist’s challenge stirred something in you, and my Orthodox addition lands, join the rest of us at Truth & Prosperity.

Every week, on Sunday evening, I share my journey in the ancient Christian faith, battle-tested steps that turn conviction into daily discipline for faith, family, finance, leadership, and legacy. No hype. Just tools that work for real men building real futures.

The Cross does not hold Him.

He holds the Cross.

And that changes everything.

ICXC NIKA.

No, it’s not “my truth.”

No, it’s not whatever the lab or the algorithm spits out.

And no, it’s not the quiet shame that keeps grown men from even asking the God question.

I spent years in that foggy place between belief and unbelief, the place most men call “open-minded” but is really just cowardice dressed up as thought. I read the philosophers, watched the culture, raised a family, and paid the bills. What I saw was simple: the material-only story leaves people hollow, anxious, and defensive. That’s why I’m qualified to say what a lot of folks sense but won’t admit: something massive is missing.

Once you understand Truth is not a concept but a Person, you can’t unsee it. Everything else starts looking like a cheap substitute.

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THE TRUTH IS A PERSON

Epictetus nailed the ancient pattern two thousand years ago: all things are under divine supervision, but not everything is under our control, so seek truth, because only those who find it have a defense. The Judean people had the burning bush and the temple; the Greeks had the Forms and the Logos. Both streams were heading the same direction, preparing the ground for the moment the eternal stepped into time.

Look around.

Kids in school are told the cosmos has no origin story worth discussing.

College kids get shouted down for mentioning God.

Dads scroll past another debate on “my truth” while their marriages fray and their kids drift.

The same culture that mocks faith sells therapy and pills to fix the emptiness it created.

How normal this has become.

How tragic.

MODERN MAN DOESN’T KNOW TRUTH

Are you the guy lying awake wondering why life feels like it’s missing a foundation?

Are you the mom biting her tongue at the dinner table because “faith talk” might start an argument?

Are you the one who once asked the big questions and then quietly buried them because it was easier to stay quiet?

I get it. I lived it.

What changed everything for me is facing the philosophy straight on, no fluff.

People still ask, “Why does truth have to be a Person? Couldn’t it just be some abstract order or impersonal ground of being?”

Here’s the bold, practical answer that shuts that down: impersonal truth can’t explain why truth even matters to you. It can’t bind your conscience when you cut corners. It can’t let you actually commune with it. Impersonal rules don’t intend anything. They don’t create. They don’t speak. But real truth speaks. It reveals. It grabs a man by the soul and won’t let go. That kind of encounter only works if the ground of reality isn’t just order, but Mind and not just Mind, but Person.

Your own ability to think, reason, and love truth is the dead giveaway. The human mind is no accident. That capacity itself screams that the foundation of everything is personal, and not just personal, but self-giving. The Church Fathers saw it clear: the Logos who ordered the cosmos isn’t a cold, static principle. He’s the living Word who became flesh.

Truth is not merely what is. Truth is Who is. And that Who stepped into time and space so we could do more than know facts, we could love Him and actually be changed by Him.

God is beyond being, yes. But He also contains being, or nothing around us would be real. Think about dimensions the same way we do math: we can draw a line, build a square, picture a cube, even wrap our heads around a hypercube. We grasp higher realities in our minds even if we can’t live in them. So there has to be something outside time and space that makes our three-dimensional world possible in the first place.

The proof shows up inside history, not outside it.

Look at the interactions: God walking with Adam and Eve in the garden, guiding Noah through the flood, sitting down with Abraham, speaking face to face with Moses. Then the ultimate move: full Incarnation! The Greek and Roman mind already understood gods walking among men. The Old Testament showed the pattern for centuries: constant interaction, sacrifices that blended sacred and everyday, the holy invading the ordinary. Plato’s Forms were hinting at the real Form stepping into the shadows. Aristotle’s potentiality and actuality gave us the exact language to say divine and human natures united without mixing or confusion. And my favorite, Epictetus, he taught that the Logos’s rational order fills the universe and we should live in harmony with the Divine. He was right about the goal. He just didn’t have the power to reach it.

Then St. Athanasius ties the whole thing together in “On the Incarnation.” Where Plato saw eternal Forms and flickering shadows, Athanasius says the true Form, the Logos Himself, walked into our world. The Unmoved Mover moved into flesh, history, and suffering. Not because He needed to. Because we need Him! He took Aristotle’s transcendent reality and raised it higher. Where Epictetus said we must conform ourselves to the Logos, Athanasius announces the Logos has conformed Himself to us. By grace, what Epictetus could only strive for is now possible.

This isn’t some pagan god pretending to be human, trapped in a temple, or a weak god who can’t stoop to His own creation. This is the one God of all reality, Jesus Christ, transcendent in His Godhood, fully visible in His human personhood. There is only one realistic move left for any thinking man: assent to Truth. Believe in Jesus Christ.

THE WAY OF TRUTH

That’s the concrete path I walk now; Truth by my side. I sit at my study reading the lives of the saints, people changed by meeting Truth, not an abstract idea. The Bible introduces me to this person and helps me talk straight with my wife and kids, pray like a man who expects answers, do my work like it matters to eternity, and own my failures without excuses. No more hiding in abstraction. Just daily assent to Truth.

The governing principle that locks faith, family, finances, leadership, and legacy together is this: Truth is a Person, and your belief in Him is where your life finally gets its real orders. Where your treasure is, there your heart will be as well.

Some of you are feeling that little kick in the chest right now. Good. That’s not shame; that’s the first honest moment you’ve had in a while. The world doesn’t need more entertained, medicated, “spiritual but not religious” people. It needs fathers, mothers, workers, and neighbors who are rooted, clear-eyed, and unashamedly assenting to the real Truth: Jesus Christ, God Incarnate.

If that’s the kind of life you’re ready to build, one where faith and reason finally stop fighting and start working together, come walk with us. Subscribe to Truth and Prosperity. If you’re already following this path, let me know in the comments. If you want to introduce others to Truth, share this article.

The door’s open. The choice is yours. But once you see it, you really can’t unsee it.

-Christopher

Our “modern” world of 24-hour news cycles, fake social media propaganda, political theater, and empty entertainment are just apparitions distracting us from our imminent graves. These ghosts have us by our throats. (Prison by Wolves at the Gate) This “world” is not all we can know of life, hope, and light.

We have forgotten the lessons Plato taught the world thousands of years ago. I once believed the lies, too.

In my youth, I rejected these stories of a higher reality, of God and sin. With man as the highest reality, I went down a darker path of Eastern mysticism, transcendental meditation, drugs, and other dark places that led me straight into a plane of reality different than our material world. The lie that has been told that science or materialism is the highest form of reality is the most dangerous lie anyone could tell. It rejects the larger reality. Blinds. Deafens.

Imagine driving cross-country at 80mph, through winding roads and crowded cities, while looking through a straw. What happens? You crash. This happened to me. I came face-to-face with the world beyond, unequipped to deal with it. Sadly, this is the entire “modern” world. Walking blind to the lesson of Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, crashing into cosmic, spiritual entities that desecrate souls.

War, murder on a bus, and rioters shot down by federal agents all streamed in slow motion, frame-by-frame analysis. Fast food billboards. Sex flooding our TVs. Lifestyles of the rich and famous. Gambling on everything. The stakes have never been higher, yet we’re all living with PTSD.

Think of your ancestors before the TV, how many murders did they see in their lifetime? If they didn’t go to war most likely zero, and if they saw one it would be horrible. Compare this to how many people watched John Wick, in high definition, brutally kill 77 people in the first John Wick film.

We consume these shadow puppets of violence, sex, greed, gluttony, and pride as we consume advertiser sponsored news (real and fake) and entertainment in vast quantities. Yet, we allow our schools and universities to teach the material world is all there is. Plato would be outraged.

The more I studied the ancient philosophers the more I realized the truth: There is a higher reality. I began to seek understanding of this higher reality, but it took a long time for me to find the Truth.

If you want to survive, you must turn from the shadows on the wall, the lies on your screens, and seek out the light, the higher reality. It is the only defense against the desecration of your soul.

Plato saw its outline, but didn’t know the source for in his time the higher reality had not yet condescended into our reality. Put another way, God had not taken upon Himself the human limitations of our reality in order that we may know Him.

Now, the light and life of the world has come into the world, showing us the path of humility, obedience, and repentance. This light is Jesus Christ, who swallows up the night and grants us spiritual ears to hear and eyes to see.

What is more, He doesn’t just show the way, He is the Way. He stepped into the cave of death and shadows and trampled them. He is calling all to follow Him into the eternal day.

Awake O Sleeper.

     Put down your phone.

          Turn from the flickering shadows.

Step into the light.

     Behold the face of the Son.

He is the only reality that will never pass away.

This is the 4th article in a series of testimonials of my journey into the ancient Christian faith. The others are linked in the article, but you can start here at the beginning.

Dostoevsky didn’t write fiction, he wrote confession. He held up a mirror, and for the first time, I saw the truth. Not just about humanity, but about me. My pride. My arrogance. My delusions. I remember the moment vividly. I was sitting on the steps outside my graduate work-program, no one had shown up. So, I was reading and weeping. Deep, aching tears because I finally saw what I’d been blind to for so long: My sins were real. Not metaphorical. Not general. Mine. Faith alone, belief alone was not enough for the demons believe and are not saved.

Leaving those steps, I went behind some bushes, bent my knee to the ground and in tears I repented. I asked for forgiveness, not in abstraction, but with real tears, real sorrow, and real hunger for mercy.

“Above all, don’t lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself… loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love.” — Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

This was the beginning of something new in me, God making room for His Spirit inside my heart. Not just a belief in God, but a broken and contrite heart (Psalm 51:17). And that’s the heart God does not despise.

We often speak of God’s grace, but do we know what it means to fall into the arms of mercy with the full weight of our guilt? Have you ever seen your own sin? Really seen it, understood it?

If you haven’t yet, pray for the grace to see. It may undo you; but it will also remake you and help you to wake up.

This is the 3rd in a series of articles on my journey into the ancient Christian faith. The other articles are linked in the above content subscribe to receive a new article every Sunday at 5PM.

Yes, it’s a religion; built on faith in materialism, on sermons from dead men who never rose again. It is the most religious of all the religions.

But I wasn’t even a brave atheist. I chose the softer route: agnosticism. I told myself I was being rational, open-minded, and careful.

But deep down, I knew the truth: I was afraid.

Agnosticism gave me permission to delay the decision. It let me pretend that indecision wasn’t already a decision. Atheists, at least, have the courage to take a stand, wrong as it may be. But agnosticism? It’s an intellectual hiding place; I used it to avoid surrendering. To avoid risk. To avoid God.

Then someone called me out. They didn’t argue. They just told me the truth, “You’re being a coward. You’re hiding behind uncertainty because you’re afraid of what belief will require of you.”

Although that moment was a lifetime ago, it was rough. And in the silence that followed, I did something terrifying: I prayed. Not casually. Not out of boredom or social pressure.

I seriously prayed. I stepped forward in faith; not because I had all the answers, but because I finally admitted which direction the evidence pointed. In that moment, God answered that prayer in wind and fire. God answered my prayer of submission and told me to have courage and to follow Him.

And I’ve been stumbling forward ever since. Following Christ. Learning. Stumbling. Repenting. Rising. Praying.

This was the first step on the path that eventually led me to the Ancient Faith of Christianity, but it began with this: the courage to stop pretending, and to actually pray.

The hour is later than you think, my dear ones. Sleepers, it is time to wake up.

Take courage and pray. Really pray. Ask God to open your eyes, to wake up your heart, to make space for Himself in your life. Don’t be afraid of really meeting God, the kind of encounter that shakes you to your bones and shows you how small you are.

Be afraid of never meeting Him. Be terrified of drifting through a whole life hiding behind “weakness” and cowardice, never tasting the real thing.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. The fear of missing Him is the beginning of regret. Proverbs 9:10

I hope you will continue this journey with me through modern distractions, secular society, philosophy, and my search for the Kingdom of God on earth, in hearts, and being spread throughout the world.

Come walk with me. There’s light on the path ahead.

This article is #2 of a continuation of my testimony and religious thoughts on my journey to the ancient faith of Christianity. Read article #1 “In the beginning, God…”

What do we mean when we say God?

These aren’t soft words, floating in the mist of feeling or modern thought. They are older than language. Older than time. These words point beyond us. They point to Truth Himself.

“In the beginning, God…” (Genesis 1:1)

Before time ticked its first second, He was. Philosophers call Him the Unmoved Mover. Physicists speak of singularities and a designer. Christians call Him Father. But even that is not enough, because it puts the uncontainable in a cage of words. And God is not tame. He is not safe, but He is good and full of grace.

Have you ever met someone famous and only later realized who they were? That strange moment of awe in hindsight as you think, “I was in the presence of someone great, and I didn’t even know it.”

God is like this. He slips into our lives not with fanfare, but with quiet power. A word from a conversation growing like a seed. A tear at the right time to open the heart. A sunrise that stops you in your tracks. A child’s laugh that echoes in your mind. A sudden ache in the heart that says, “Something more.”

And yet, we often miss Him. I missed Him for years. Obstinate. Distracted. Addicted to my own questions and impressed with my own answers. I wanted wisdom, but not Truth. I sought meaning, but not God.

Why? Because meeting God changes everything. You don’t meet fire and stay the same. You don’t come into the presence of the Holy and walk away unburnt.

But if you seek, truly seek, you will find. Not a fairytale. Not a feeling. But a presence. A person. The uncreated Creator. And then you realize: God is not merely “up there.” He is here. Now. Acting. Speaking. Pouring out grace into a world that hardly notices. But this world is not without witness. The saints knew Him. The Scriptures reveal Him. The Church sings of Him.

And He is calling you. Even now.

This project, this path, it’s not mine. I’m just someone who was awakened. Someone who is trying to see. Someone who fumbled through the dark until light cracked through the curtain. You are not alone. You were not made for aimlessness. You were not born to drift. Start with God. You don’t need all the answers. You don’t need to clean yourself up first. You just need to ask:

“Where is the Kingdom of God?” Let’s walk that path together. Awake, O Sleeper.

This Substack is one way of honoring this call. It isn’t anonymous, and I’m not going to follow the rules of the system here. No niche content. I’m going to write all over the place—faith, family, finance, fatherly wisdom, and maybe even some fiction. I’m not going to fret over perfect editing or worry about monetizing everything. Any earnings from my writing (see: thefiveprinciples.com) have all been donated to addiction recovery homes, and that will continue.

What I am going to do is hit that publish button regularly on Sunday evenings at 5 PM. I will write content that confronts the rulers, councils, and hostile crowds of people to proclaim Christ crucified and to bear witness to the living God. I will encourage strong families and meaningful friendships. I will offer financial and business guidance, not get-rich-quick smoke and mirrors. I will share fatherly wisdom. Maybe even some fun fiction.

Why Father’s Wisdom? Because I follow the Father above, respect the wisdom of my father and grandfathers, try to be obedient to my spiritual father, am a father, grandfather, and godfather. I want to honor all this. I believe a father’s wisdom is something the world doesn’t like, and I’m a rebel.

A little about me, just so you know what you’re getting into here:

• I’m an ex-hellraising agnostic atheist turned Ancient Faith Christian.

• I went from waiting tables to leading finance for multimillion-dollar companies.

• I’m a tech nerd building a family legacy of faith, love, and wealth.

• I’m a student of philosophy who likes to shred mountains on bikes and boards.

• I’m a heavy metal fan brought to tears by Divine Liturgy.

What do all of these things have to do with one another? I don’t know. But it’s me, and that’s what you’ll get.

Also, I like graphics and pictures, so you can expect some of those too. Here are some pictures I took of beautiful churches I’ve visited, along with a quote from an author I really like:

If you love beauty, are a rebel, or like reading the musings of a rebel, hit the subscribe button below.