Ann Vertel, Ph.D.

This piece may be the most beautiful Infinity Cross that I’ve made yet. It’s made from dogwood, which, legend says, is the wood that was used for the cross on which Jesus was crucified. Special thanks to @Grizzly as always.

"Knights ought to be humble among their friends, proud and bold against their foes, tender and merciful towards those who need assistance, cruel avengers against their enemies, and pleasant and amiable with all others." - Geoffroi de Charny Seems like a pretty good code for any man.

When you’re under attack, ask the question that cuts through the noise: *If I were the devil, how would I take me out?* Then look where it hurts. Your old wounds. The secrets you still hide. The insecurities you dress up as personality. The fears you pretend you’ve already beaten. Those are the places he’ll press first. Shame is his finest weapon. Not accusation alone -shame. The quiet, corrosive lie that you are too stained, too late, too ruined to be used. That God would have to look away. But God has never waited for clean hands. He has always reached for the cracked vessel, the stained history, the person who still flinches at their own name. Here is the mercy that undoes the whole strategy: You are not the exception. We are all dirty. We are all unworthy. We are all broken. And that is exactly who He keeps choosing. The more good you do in the world, the brighter you'll shine in the darkness, and the more you'll be attacked. Goodness makes demons howl. “I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.” – Psalm 139:14

I have personally witnessed and experienced every word spoken in this video. Do not give up. God will give you every battle, every test on your way to the top of the mountain. It is a privilege and an honor to walk in his glory, and to overcome.

Heard this the other day and man, it hit hard… When God wanted to make David king, he didn’t send him a crown. He sent him Goliath.

McDonald's is spending 8.5 billion dollars to find out why families stopped coming. I can save them the 8.5 billion. They took out the playground. The plan, announced Wednesday at investor day. Better food, faster service, new equipment, AI tools, hospitality training, and a bigger push into chicken and beverages. They call it Next. The goal, they say, is making customers feel more comfortable. Wall Street loved it so much the stock fell 5 percent to its lowest since 2022. Over five years McDonald's shares are down 3 percent. Burger King's parent is up 14. The owner of Taco Bell and KFC is up 13. This is not a hamburger problem. This is a McDonald's problem. So let us talk about who used to eat there. Parents. That was the whole business. Parents at 5:40 on a Tuesday with three kids in the back and nothing thawed at home. You did not go for the burger. You went because your kids could run screaming through a plastic tube for 40 minutes while you sat with a coffee and experienced silence. That was the product. The food was the cover charge. The first PlayPlace opened in 1971 in Birmingham, Alabama, and for fifty years it did one job. It made small children demand to go to McDonald's. Then 2020 arrived, every play area in the country closed, and a great many never came back. The equipment came out during a remodeling program named Experience of the Future. The Experience of the Future turned out to be a touchscreen. Their own chief executive said he did not know if ball pits were in their future. Sir, you were not selling ball pits. You were selling forty minutes. So now there is no counter, no playground, and no reason for a seven year old to want to go. A screen, a window, and a bag. And for that we pay prices that require a moment of reflection in the parking lot. For thin, overcooked, oddly uniform pucks that taste like a memory of beef. I did not love them because they were good. I loved them because I was eight and there was a slide. And have you seen the new buildings. The old ones were unmistakable. Red roof, yellow arches, legible from a highway at 70 to a child who could not yet read. The new ones are a flat gray box with a small logo and a drive through wrapped around it. A regional claims office with a fryer. They removed the color, the characters, the counter, and the playground, and then hired consultants to find out why it no longer feels like anywhere. Which is why, when I have to eat fast food, I go to Chick-fil-A. Not for the politics. For the competence. They have led the customer satisfaction index for fast food eleven years running, and average 8.5 million dollars per location against McDonald's 4 million. More than double, while closed on Sundays. Fifty two days a year with the lights off, and still double. A seventeen year old hands you a bag and says my pleasure and means it about 70 percent, which is 70 percent more than a touchscreen has managed. McDonald's is spending 8.5 billion on hospitality training. Chick-fil-A earns 8.5 million per restaurant by just having some. So here is my consulting proposal, free of charge, on behalf of mothers everywhere. Put the playgrounds back. Not a nostalgia campaign. Not a retro cup. The structure. Tubes, slides, a door the kids cannot open from the inside, and a bench where a tired woman can sit. And understand what you are buying, because it is not lunch. A six year old does not know your food is bad. He has no basis for comparison and no functioning palate. He thinks the burger is incredible because he is standing in a castle made of tubes. That is the window. That is the only window you get. You catch them before the taste buds arrive, and thirty years later they drive past your sign, feel something they cannot explain, and pull in anyway. That is not a menu strategy. That is imprinting, and you shut it down in 2020 to save on cleaning. Eight and a half billion dollars for AI tools and hospitality training. Or a slide. 🦋

how can you not believe in God when octopuses DREAM and otters have a favorite rock they carry around in a little SKIN POCKET and cows have BEST FRIENDS and bees are out there communicating the coordinates of flowers through INTERPRETIVE DANCE and they have REGIONAL DIALECTS?? cats are PURRING at frequencies associated with bone healing??? forests get absolutely incinerated and respond by growing FLOWERS??? dolphins literally invent NAMES for themselves and yell them across the ocean??? penguins are waddling around Antarctica looking for the PERFECT LITTLE ROCK to give their beloved??? CROWS REMEMBER YOUR FACE. THEY TELL OTHER CROWS ABOUT YOU. THEY TELL THEIR CHILDREN ABOUT YOU. YOU CAN HAVE GENERATIONAL BEEF WITH A BIRD. goats have ACCENTS. rats GIGGLE when you tickle them. elephants mourn their dead. whales make SONGS and then OTHER WHALES LEARN THE SONG and suddenly everybody across the ocean is singing the new hit single. monarch butterflies are born knowing how to fly thousands of miles to a place THEY HAVE NEVER BEEN. sea turtles hatch out of an egg, immediately sprint toward an OCEAN they have never seen, disappear into it for like THIRTY YEARS and then somehow come back to THE SAME BEACH??? birds can see COLORS THAT WE CANNOT SEE. there are colors happening RIGHT NOW that we don’t even get to know about. there are sea slugs that eat algae and STEAL ITS CHLOROPLASTS and then are just like great thanks I’ll be PHOTOSYNTHESIZING NOW. there are mushrooms communicating underground. there are seeds sitting in the dirt for DECADES like no actually I will wait. squirrels plant MILLIONS OF TREES because they simply cannot remember where they put their snacks. A CATERPILLAR GOES INTO A LITTLE BAG, DISSOLVES MOST OF ITS BODY INTO ORGANIC SOUP, REARRANGES ITSELF, GROWS WINGS AND LEAVES. and you’re telling me a tiny acorn knows how to become a 70-foot oak tree??? nobody tells it what to do??? it just has TREE INSTRUCTIONS INSIDE IT??? your body started as ONE CELL. ONE. and that cell divided itself into a brain that can think about its own existence and eyes that can look at stars and hands that can hold somebody else’s hands and a heart that runs on ELECTRICITY without you even asking it to??? the iron in your BLOOD was made inside a STAR. I’M SORRY????? we are walking around on a wet rock covered in bioluminescent oceans and singing whales and laughing rats and birds holding lifelong grudges and flowers exploding out of FIRE and somehow we’re supposed to act like this is a normal place to live?????????

Western Civilisation did not run out of men. It ran out of a code. I don’t want to give you another pep talk about standards or being honourable. Those are givens at this point. I want to answer a question: Why a civilisation that once taught boys how to be strong, yet restrained, now produces men who are either soft, loud, or both - and how did the old chivalric codes prevent this? My latest article is out now, link in the first comment.

For a long time, I considered myself agnostic. Faith came later, over the past several years, and for that I am profoundly grateful. But even saying I “found” my faith doesn’t feel quite right anymore. Looking back, God was present in places I couldn’t recognize Him at the time, patiently revealing Himself until I was finally willing to see. I didn’t find the Light. The Light found me. And once you’ve seen it, it becomes increasingly difficult not to recognize the darkness for what it is. ✝️