From Promises to Permanent Change by Ajani (aka ZenMystic) Every January, the world fills with promises. Promises written in notebooks. Spoken softly to mirrors. Declared boldly through gym memberships, calendars, and good intentions. We resolve to change. To do better. To finally become the version of ourselves we imagine waiting just beyond reach. And yet, by February, many of these promises quietly dissolve. Not because we are lazy. Not because we lack discipline (well, maybe for some)....

**Was Jesus Palestinian?** People ask the question as if identity were a single, unmoving stone — something that can be lifted, weighed, set neatly on a shelf. But the truth is softer, older, more fluid than that. Jesus was indeed a Jew of the first century, a child of dusty roads and crowded synagogues, a son of Judea’s hills and Galilee’s wide, whispering fields. He spoke the language of his people, prayed their prayers, carried their stories the way one carries a flame cupped in both...

There is a strange myth in our culture that compassion is a fragile thing—soft, yielding, almost naïve. As if to care is to be somehow unguarded, exposed, soft, or easily swayed. But anyone who has ever tried to meet the world with an open heart knows the truth: compassion is not the path of the weak. It is the daily practice of the courageous. Compassion asks us to stay present when it would be easier to turn away. It requires us to hold our ground—not in dominance, but in understanding. To...