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The shorter fights

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THE BASTARD SAINT

© 2026 Joe Nichols. Built for readers who still believe the room matters.

Faith, Religion

Saints, Liars and Other Useful People

The people who taught me grace never looked like the people who preached it. This is an essay about mercy, failure, and why the scarred are often the safest company.

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"The saints I trust have all done time in some private hell."


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Shame

The Mask Breaks

We spend our lives extending grace to strangers while quietly refusing it to ourselves. This is an account of the masks we wear, the selves we abandon to survive, and the terrible loneliness of becoming everyone else's refuge but our own.

"I have spent a lifetime handing out grace like bread to starving strangers and then curling up in the corner to die of my own hunger."


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Heart

Of Dogs and Ditches

We spend our lives trying to outthink the heart while a dog settles the question before breakfast. Sometimes the shortest path to truth isn't the road at all.

"The heart of a man is the same animal kept indoors and told it is something else."


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