j / j is on Nostr

the First Turning is here.

Last Notes

2026-09-12 12:02:29 UTC

There’s a strange thing about freedom.
Everybody wants more of it until they discover that freedom comes with chores.
Nobody can confiscate your Bitcoin if you hold the keys.
Beautiful.
Now you have to secure the keys.
Nobody gets to decide whether you’re allowed to transact.
Beautiful.
Now you have to take responsibility for your transactions.
Nobody gets to tell you what your convictions must be.
Beautiful.
Now you have to live with them.
I think this is part of what Jesus was getting at when he talked about counting the cost.
We like the crown.
We don't talk much about carrying it.
Freedom is a gift, but it is also a weight.
And perhaps the mature question isn't:
“How much can I get away from?”
It is:
“What am I willing to become responsible for?”
That question will take a man further than another thousand arguments on the internet.
And probably make him a hell of a lot harder to fool.
https://blossom.primal.net/31a489cf4ef50d678dd93129f8f6e694ca6bca0e5fd92c3ef9fb87baead6f806.png

2026-07-28 20:27:18 UTC

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the First Turning is waiting...
#nevent1q…h02s

2026-07-20 20:40:52 UTC

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May you receive your reward.

2026-07-18 15:50:58 UTC

You argue over what the coin should become, but first ask what you have become because of the coin.
If you desire that it rise only so that you may become richer, then you have already received your reward.
But if you labor so that your neighbor may trade honestly, save faithfully, and reap the fruit of his own work without theft or corruption, then your labor serves something greater than yourself.
A lamp is not lit to be hidden under a basket. If what you have built is good, let it be used. Bread is baked to be eaten. Wells are dug to give water. A measure is made to measure. Money is made to serve exchange among people.
Do not boast that you have found a treasure if you refuse to let it do the work for which it was made.
Yet neither despise those who are cautious. Many fear that what they love will be broken if it is used. They guard it because they believe it is precious.
But there is a time to preserve, and there is a time to sow. The farmer who stores every seed because the seed is valuable will harvest nothing.
If Bitcoin is only something to admire, it will remain an idol in the minds of many. But if it becomes a faithful servant in the marketplace—rewarding honest weights, voluntary exchange, and the labor of ordinary people—then its purpose will be fulfilled.
So do not ask only, 'How high will its price go?' Ask instead, 'How many people has it set free to work, trade, save, and give without fear?'
For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

2026-07-17 11:56:44 UTC

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many folks are (re)discovering this in the First Turning
#nevent1q…67qe

2026-07-15 23:24:45 UTC

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the First Turning is here
#nevent1q…ex6d

2026-07-15 22:31:02 UTC

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the First Turning is here.
#nevent1q…3rnp

2026-07-15 18:08:31 UTC

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wise words from brother jung.
#nevent1q…cwma

2026-07-06 00:36:31 UTC

I'm giving you something this world can't manufacture and can't take away: a deep, settled peace.
Not the kind that depends on your bank account, your health, your reputation, election results, or whether the headlines finally calm down. Not the kind that disappears the moment life goes sideways.
I'm talking about the kind of peace that can sit beside a hospital bed, walk through a disaster, bury a friend, or face an uncertain future without losing itself.
So don't let your heart be ruled by fear. Don't hand the steering wheel over to anxiety. There will be reasons to panic. Every generation has them. You don't have to give them the final word.
Stay close to me. Remember what I've shown you. Let my way become your way. The more your life is rooted in me, the less the chaos around you gets to decide what's happening inside you.
You can't always choose what comes at you.
You can choose where you stand when it arrives.
My peace is the strength to remain fully present inside reality.
Carry that peace into every room you enter. Let it interrupt arguments. Let it outlast outrage. Let it make strangers feel seen, enemies feel disarmed, and the weary feel like they've found shelter.
That's the gift I'm leaving with you. Hold on to it. Give it away freely. You'll never run out.
https://blossom.primal.net/b72aa7ba22c6c89c9ef153d7e77e33a552533a7edbd65fdba992ba3c4c630d41.png

2026-06-30 15:56:37 UTC

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Well said Helen.
#nevent1q…mdl3

2026-06-26 16:38:31 UTC

I'd been walking the shoulder of I-94 maybe forty minutes before I hit the exit. Trucks going past, that wall of air every time. You learn to read exits. This one had a certain quality. The kind of stop where people pull off without quite deciding to, where they're in between things. That's my territory.
Big place. Six diesel lanes. A Subway nobody was using. The light inside the color of a headache.
She was at the register. I knew her before I touched the door. Deborah. Deb. Forty-three years of running from something that wasn't even behind her anymore, which is the hardest kind of running to stop.
I asked about the wifi. She didn't look up. Told me I had to buy something first.
I said I wanted to ask her something.
I said — and I know how this sounds — "if you knew who you were talking to, you'd be asking me."
She thought that was strange. It is strange. I've had two thousand years with that line and it still doesn't land clean. But I said what I came to say. The three marriages. The man she was with now. I wasn't trying to humiliate her. I wanted her to understand that I already knew all of it and had walked through that door anyway. People think the knowing is the bad part. It isn't. The knowing is the whole point.
She went still. I've watched people go still like that more times than I can count. It's when the performance stops. When someone's been actually seen and they don't know yet whether that's safe.
She asked how I knew.
I let it go. The how doesn't matter.
Then she did the thing people do. She went theological on me. Started in about the right church, the right mountain, who's doing it correctly. It's not deflection exactly — or it is, but I don't hold it against anyone. Things get too close, you talk about doctrine. I've seen it a thousand times. I follow people into it. I don't mind.
I told her what I've always told people. The Father isn't running a bureaucracy. He's not checking credentials at a door. What he wants is just honesty. Actual honesty, from the inside. One person who stops pretending for five minutes, especially to themselves.
She went quiet again.
Then: "I've done a lot of things."
I said yes.
"Bad things."
Yes.
And then the question. The one that gets me every time, I don't care how many times I've heard it. She said: "so that's just... okay?"
The way she said it. The wanting in it. How badly people need someone to say yes, and how many people have told them yes in a way that meant nothing, and how many other people have handed them a pamphlet instead.
I didn't say yes. I told her it wasn't okay. Don't let anybody tell you the thing you did was fine, actually — that's not the offer. The offer is that it's forgivable. Those aren't the same word. One of them is a shrug. The other one cost something.
She looked at her wrist. Old tattoo. A cross. From a version of herself she'd written off.
She still had a shift to finish. I wasn't going to ask her to walk out. I don't blow up people's Tuesdays any more than necessary.
She asked what she was supposed to do now.
I thought about it. There's never just one answer. But there's usually one door.
"Call your sister," I said. "That's enough for now."
Then I left.
You say the thing and then you clear out. Give it room. That's something I've learned.
She called. Twelve missed calls she hadn't picked up. Her sister, who had not stopped trying. I put people like that everywhere. Ones who keep calling. Most people don't notice them.
She noticed.
That's all it ever takes. Just — notice.
The parking lot was bright and enormous and I had other exits to get to, other people pulled off in between things, and there was still a lot of afternoon left.
https://blossom.primal.net/35e40a46f52eb06fee9449772d2266800a2cf0ea5c98910e21fe9e901f749861.png

2026-06-25 19:55:58 UTC

The Kingdom of Heaven is like a community potluck.
Nobody can tell exactly who organized it.
There are no tickets.
The people with plenty bring plenty.
The people with little bring little.
The hungry eat first.
The children run around like they own the place.
The old folks sit in lawn chairs and tell stories.
Somehow there is enough food.
Somehow the dishes get washed.
Somehow everybody leaves richer than when they arrived.
The Kingdom is already breaking into the world wherever people learn to live like that.
https://blossom.primal.net/609d04c16b8fe1a8e2f57341decd5a06b1d117f7e2345d684fec77c33aa923d8.jpg

2026-06-25 12:16:13 UTC

It's easy to point out flaws in strangers. Start with your own.
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