I wonder if he was drunk or high when he declared this. Kosher Dill Pickles are illegal inside the Citadel. The approved pickles are half-sours. Solenne Primaris Vexton Ulyth said so in a recent proclamation. I read the proclamation while eating my own homemade dill pickles. Plus one sin condemning me. My adjectives are not evil enough. Eat pickles, HRH Ulyth.
It’s an inverse world. Ability is consumed. Need is currency. So the dance is to present great need and lie like a rug about ability. And yes, with truly no ability nothing will function. So pretty much everything Citadel is explained away as need, never ability. And inside the Citadel two truths coexist: everyone cosplays broke AF and completely incapable while trading like a desperate meth-head.
Black market, anyone? Deeply corrupt? Only a few elite true believers operate within the clown world of the Citadel. And they manage because they write the rules. Everyone else cheats and uses the AMEN XChange. Does the castle know this? Yes. But the XChange is reliable and trustworthy. Pickle ingredients ordered through it arrive the same day. The same order placed through Citadel Procurement may or may not arrive at all. Have you paid your ward captain this week?
You Cannot. You Must
Two other truths that coexist inside the Citadel: you are deplorable and you need to do better. Everyone who is sincere in their praxis of the authentic path to the light cannot achieve true liberty. There will always be the last bit of yin staining a noble life. As hard as you try it won’t be enough.
So inside the Citadel you must either be a brilliant criminal or a talented practioner of its law. There is no other path. Keep in mind, your geneology matters. If your ancestry traces back to kin who had great ability then your own talent operating in this upside down fiefdom will not help you. You were born condemned and will die condemned. Now pay your fair share to your ward captain. He has a family to feed.
The core belief of Ulyth and his Citadel is that there is no problem that can’t be solved by law or policy. And the core reason things aren’t better is suboptimal compliance with arbitrary and absurd laws and policies. Buying pickles is a whole thing involving a sit down in a worker’s chair to take an application.
Oh Cheeezus!
As I survey my feed, two zeitgeists coexist—contract logic and grace logic. Contract logic is the exegesis of the Citadel. You will never be good enough. And if by an accident of birth you arrived to a deplorable caste, sorry about that. My suggestion? Move out of the Citadel. Grace-logic is familiar. It is the grace we got through the death of Christ on the cross. We celebrate it each time we eat the bread and drink the wine of communion.
Contract logic is legalism. It is the core belief that if we perform correctly we can earn God’s love, earn warm fuzzies from our higher power. By itself, noble. Legalism has a dark side, though. In the extreme it justifies violence because some people are not coming correct. AI doesn’t like naming names so I’ll do that—legalism shows up in the more zealous sects of Islam, of Progressivism, and in ‘Merican Charismatic Krischianitee.
“We all have sinned and fall short of the glory of GAWD! PURAZE DA LAWD AND FILL DAT BASKET!” I’m blowing right past Islam since I know very little about it. Progressivism is in my blood. I was raised in pink diapers. My adjectives either condemn me or make me an ersatz hero. Punctuating my geneaology are a string of disruptors and malcontents. “Hi, my name is Alan Webb and I am trouble.”
Grace Life
Over two thousand years ago, in Jerusalem, a stone mason was accused of blasphemy by his rabbis. He told his disciples — Luke 9:22 — “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.” This is absurd. The King and Savior of God’s people must be killed? That can’t be true.
It was and it is true. The circumstantial case for a historic Christ isn’t trivial—but it’s not unshakeable. Also, people have believed things far more absurd than Christ. We’ve blamed eclipses on kings, blamed plagues on witches, blamed heartbreak on astrology, and claimed divine cause for events that were just coincidence. We’ve believed worse. Didja know the Qur’an affirms the Bible? Fact‑check that.
Well… why? God’s people were sincere in their practice of God’s commandments. They were, for a while. Let me give you the Old Testament in a paragraph: In the beginning there was nothing, then something, then two, then many. God made the world in six days and on the seventh He rested. Then Adam & Eve, the Fall, Cain & Abel, Moses, Joshua, Abraham and then this loop: God’s people behave for a while, then drift, then get punished, then apologize, then behave, rinse, repeat. Nothing God did kept His people in line forever. Every damned time they drifted and pissed Him off.
The only thing left was grace, mercy, forgiveness. So He gave us His only Son as a permanent atonement for our sins and to defeat death. So that we could get on with growing in our discipleship.
Eat Pickles
Contract logic is depressing. And tantrums from zealots who insist that my ancestry and adjectives impute my character are exhausting. Radicals have been screaming at us about this and that for at least a century. One of my ancestors fought the Moors in the Crusades. Today’s headlines are filled with apocalyptic headlines. Salmon Voldemort is at the helm of a government that no longer serves us and is headed for a crash. Happy! Happy! Joy! Joy!
I can’t. I’m over the hilltop and walking through the valley of the shadow of death. I have my confirmed reservation with Charon for my ride to Hades. My most impactful event in my day is the relief I get as my dung splashes into the toilet water. Get excited about Herr Grophenfuhrer? Meh.
I can do me. I can do the things in my orbit. My world is small. It’s clean cat boxes, clean laundry, and more content. I can’t do contract logic. Even if I could, at this point . . . why bother? Grace logic, though, is the air I breathe. Through Christ I am promised forgiveness for my sins and a way of life that leads to better health. It’s an iterative pilgrimage where with each step I’m as good as I can be and yet, I could be better.
The Way of the Desert Fathers
The Desert Fathers figured this out long before I did. They walked out of their own Citadels — Rome, Alexandria, the noise, the purity tests, the zealots — and went into the desert with nothing but their breath and their prayers. Read their biographies because instead of dying they thrived. Abba Agathon gave away the smallest food he had, olives, dates, scraps, and treated these like a blessing. These monks left us a legacy that still echoes in my life today.
I live that way to the best of my ability now. Clean the cat boxes. Fold the laundry. Write the next paragraph. Pray the Jesus Prayer under my breath. Do the work in front of me. That’s my 道.
Contract‑logic demands performance. Grace‑logic asks for presence. The Desert Fathers chose presence. So do I. It’s the one path I can walk with what I have, where I am, in this small life that is somehow still enough.
Make Pickles
So the claim goes, people who grow cucumbers owe the rest of us pickles. Growing pickles is ability required to satisfy a need for those who eat pickles. So we can demand that more people are obligated to grow pickles. The scolds know that the Citadel elites game the regs to their favor and get pickles on the regular. Doesn’t matter. You still owe the rest of us your fair share of pickles. Pay up.
Or . . . for about two days work for most of the world, you can buy a jar of pickles. One more option, make your own. Cucumbers are cheap, the salt and vinegar is also cheap, and the work involved is minimal. A little effort and there you go, you can eat pickles.
To make pickles, dissolve about 3 tablespoons of salt in a quart of water. To taste, you can also add bay leaf, black peppercorns, mustard seeds or dill weed fronds. Put whole, small cucumbers in a quart canning jar and pour the brine over them. Cover with a lid and put the jar in the fridge. It takes a day or two for the magic to happen. Fight the temptation to taste test the pickles. It will be worth it. After a day or so, enjoy!