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Confession

Posted by Barney Ogden | Oct 1, 2026 | Featured, Perspectives | 0 |

Confession

Outer values spin off me like dust devils. I’ve chased them, lost them, rebuilt them, and watched them scatter again. They mostly show up as slogans on coffee mugs.

Plans? They die the moment they’re spoken. The world shifts while you’re still drawing the map. By the time you finish, someone’s already selling your map as a self-help course.

What lasts grows inside — slow, stubborn, and honest. That quiet surge that reminds you you’re still alive when the stakes are high and everyone around you is pretending they’re descended from warriors.

I haven’t walked through hell, but I’ve stood in its shade long enough to feel the temperature change. Long enough to hear people say “everything happens for a reason” while Cerberus sniffed their pants leg. Down there, ego is a toy. Boundaries are chalk lines waiting for the next hard rain. And everyone swears they’re “doing the work” while holding the same shovel that buried them.

 I spent years wanting applause from people who weren’t even listening. But once you’ve leaned over the rim — really leaned — the daily posturing of men sounds like kids practicing adulthood in the mirror. This isn’t wisdom. It’s just what’s left when the noise burns off. 

And the miracles say, “We were here the whole time. We stood right in front of you and you stepped around us.”

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About The Author

Barney Ogden

Barney Ogden

Barney Ogden, 76, is a retired adventurer from Allerton, Iowa. He writes from the quiet of a front porch at dusk, where memory, gratitude, and the smell of earth meet.

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The Braided Way

The Braided Way is a framework to see every faith tradition as a strand, braided into a larger whole of spiritual awareness. In the Braided Way, combining spiritual practice from various faiths allow us to explore sacred experience and wonder in forms that resonate with our personal spiritual needs and sacred intuitions. In today’s culture, many people shun religious dogma, but yearn for spiritual connection. The Braided Way allows the ceremonies and practices of multiple faiths to be available without the confinements of cultural dogma.

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