Richard K Reedy
@richardsreflection.bsky.social
My faith leads me.
My philosophy guides me.
My words convict me.
I am guilty of love.
My philosophy guides me.
My words convict me.
I am guilty of love.
Pinned
Reflections From Richard | Substack
Poetry, essays, and short stories, I do it all. Sometimes profound, sometimes romantic, sometimes faithful, but always me.
substack.com
This is my Substacks Newsletter.
In time, I hope to have 20 years of writings, edited, and posted to share with everyone.
substack.com/@reflections...
In time, I hope to have 20 years of writings, edited, and posted to share with everyone.
substack.com/@reflections...
Yes, life is hard. We make it harder when we choose fear and hate. My friends -- choose love.
open.substack.com/pub/reflecti...
open.substack.com/pub/reflecti...
Choose Love
Choose Love I proclaim that love is the answer. The question asked – doesn't matter.
open.substack.com
November 14, 2025 at 5:43 AM
Yes, life is hard. We make it harder when we choose fear and hate. My friends -- choose love.
open.substack.com/pub/reflecti...
open.substack.com/pub/reflecti...
I watched a veteran explain why he left the Evangelical Church, and it struck a nerve. Too many people answer real suffering with platitudes instead of presence. What follows is my response - born from grief for what faith should be, and anger at what it has become
open.substack.com/pub/reflecti...
open.substack.com/pub/reflecti...
I Want You To Pray
I Want You To Pray I just watched a video of a veteran explaining why he left the church.
open.substack.com
November 13, 2025 at 12:23 AM
I watched a veteran explain why he left the Evangelical Church, and it struck a nerve. Too many people answer real suffering with platitudes instead of presence. What follows is my response - born from grief for what faith should be, and anger at what it has become
open.substack.com/pub/reflecti...
open.substack.com/pub/reflecti...
If you like fantasy. If you support the LGBTQ+ community, you need to read my short stories in the world I created.
The Realm of Nermar
therealmofnarmer.substack.com/p/the-realm-...
The Realm of Nermar
therealmofnarmer.substack.com/p/the-realm-...
The Realm Of Nermar
SHORT STORY LIST
therealmofnarmer.substack.com
November 12, 2025 at 11:19 PM
If you like fantasy. If you support the LGBTQ+ community, you need to read my short stories in the world I created.
The Realm of Nermar
therealmofnarmer.substack.com/p/the-realm-...
The Realm of Nermar
therealmofnarmer.substack.com/p/the-realm-...
Election Day 2025. Voting matters. It is a civic responsibility. But more importantly, it shows the nation who and what you are.
open.substack.com/pub/reflecti...
open.substack.com/pub/reflecti...
No Really
No Really You voted for a convicted felony One who flagrantly violates the laws You voted for a party too afraid To stand in opposition to this criminal
open.substack.com
November 4, 2025 at 11:56 PM
Election Day 2025. Voting matters. It is a civic responsibility. But more importantly, it shows the nation who and what you are.
open.substack.com/pub/reflecti...
open.substack.com/pub/reflecti...
The most powerful word in the english language is Love.
We must embrace this four letter word.
But at the same time not cheapen its power.
Love can conquer hate — awaken indifference and heal the world.
open.substack.com/pub/reflecti...
We must embrace this four letter word.
But at the same time not cheapen its power.
Love can conquer hate — awaken indifference and heal the world.
open.substack.com/pub/reflecti...
A Four Letter Word
A Four Letter Word Love is a four letter word And like most four letter words It is misused – cheapening its power It's so misused and abused We must now quantify and qualify the word It's not enough ...
open.substack.com
October 31, 2025 at 8:39 AM
The most powerful word in the english language is Love.
We must embrace this four letter word.
But at the same time not cheapen its power.
Love can conquer hate — awaken indifference and heal the world.
open.substack.com/pub/reflecti...
We must embrace this four letter word.
But at the same time not cheapen its power.
Love can conquer hate — awaken indifference and heal the world.
open.substack.com/pub/reflecti...
“Dream On” is both blessing and reminder — a call to keep faith in the power of vision. It urges us to see dreams not as escapes but as acts of love, transforming others and ourselves. In the end, it is not the dreaming, but the giving that makes those dreams real
open.substack.com/pub/reflecti...
open.substack.com/pub/reflecti...
Dream On
Dream On May you find your tomorrow May your dreams liberate you From the nightmares of your life
open.substack.com
October 24, 2025 at 9:28 AM
“Dream On” is both blessing and reminder — a call to keep faith in the power of vision. It urges us to see dreams not as escapes but as acts of love, transforming others and ourselves. In the end, it is not the dreaming, but the giving that makes those dreams real
open.substack.com/pub/reflecti...
open.substack.com/pub/reflecti...
In a world stripped of compassion, even the strongest towers crumble. This piece asks what remains when love is abandoned – when faith becomes judgment, and patriotism becomes permission for hate.
open.substack.com/pub/reflecti...
open.substack.com/pub/reflecti...
Without Love
Without Love Without love You can still breath You can still gather wealth You can still pretend to live But do not be fooled Breathing does not make you alive
open.substack.com
October 23, 2025 at 1:42 AM
In a world stripped of compassion, even the strongest towers crumble. This piece asks what remains when love is abandoned – when faith becomes judgment, and patriotism becomes permission for hate.
open.substack.com/pub/reflecti...
open.substack.com/pub/reflecti...
This is a toast for those who hide betrayal behind ceremony. It names the violence clothed in righteousness and refuses silence. Read if you can stand the heat.
open.substack.com/pub/reflecti...
open.substack.com/pub/reflecti...
A Fitting Toast
A Fitting Toast Ah yes – I understand now, I see what you did. You lied and cheated, And now you offer a toast. A fitting toast to your duplicitous deeds.
open.substack.com
October 22, 2025 at 9:12 PM
This is a toast for those who hide betrayal behind ceremony. It names the violence clothed in righteousness and refuses silence. Read if you can stand the heat.
open.substack.com/pub/reflecti...
open.substack.com/pub/reflecti...
This poem confronts the soft denial that shelters hate — the ordinary faces that insist, “But I’m not a Nazi,” while their words and actions betray the same rot. It strips away excuses, showing that morality isn’t defended by declarations but revealed through deeds
open.substack.com/pub/reflecti...
open.substack.com/pub/reflecti...
But I'm Not A Nazi
But I'm Not A Nazi So maybe I've said or texted A few hate-filled things Or have a tattoo But I'm not a Nazi
open.substack.com
October 22, 2025 at 12:04 PM
This poem confronts the soft denial that shelters hate — the ordinary faces that insist, “But I’m not a Nazi,” while their words and actions betray the same rot. It strips away excuses, showing that morality isn’t defended by declarations but revealed through deeds
open.substack.com/pub/reflecti...
open.substack.com/pub/reflecti...
We were all given the same breath – the same chance to love, to build, to care. Yet somewhere along the way, we decided that judgment was holier than compassion. “The Giving” is a reminder that what was freely given to us is meant to be shared, not withheld.
open.substack.com/pub/reflecti...
open.substack.com/pub/reflecti...
The Giving
The Giving In exchange for the giving of our lives We are taught to love our neighbors – For they too were given theirs. And regardless of what they were taught, Our precept says: love is the greatest...
open.substack.com
October 20, 2025 at 6:34 AM
We were all given the same breath – the same chance to love, to build, to care. Yet somewhere along the way, we decided that judgment was holier than compassion. “The Giving” is a reminder that what was freely given to us is meant to be shared, not withheld.
open.substack.com/pub/reflecti...
open.substack.com/pub/reflecti...
In a world shouting for attention, we’ve forgotten how to listen – to history, to conscience, to love. Carter built his faith, Lewis bled for justice, and King dreamed of a world yet to be realized.
Their sermons still echo if we only stop long enough to hear.
open.substack.com/pub/reflecti...
Their sermons still echo if we only stop long enough to hear.
open.substack.com/pub/reflecti...
We Need To Tell
We Need To Listen
open.substack.com
October 18, 2025 at 8:07 PM
In a world shouting for attention, we’ve forgotten how to listen – to history, to conscience, to love. Carter built his faith, Lewis bled for justice, and King dreamed of a world yet to be realized.
Their sermons still echo if we only stop long enough to hear.
open.substack.com/pub/reflecti...
Their sermons still echo if we only stop long enough to hear.
open.substack.com/pub/reflecti...
Love does not die all at once. It erodes – word by word, law by law, silence by silence – until what once bound us in compassion becomes a weapon of exclusion. When love fades to hate, nations unravel, families fracture, and faith becomes tyranny.
open.substack.com/pub/reflecti...
open.substack.com/pub/reflecti...
When Love Fades To Hate
When Love Fades to Hate When love fades to hate, Evil is justified as protection. Justice is no longer blind or equally applied, And the love of God is caged – reserved only for the “worthy.”
open.substack.com
October 17, 2025 at 5:39 PM
Love does not die all at once. It erodes – word by word, law by law, silence by silence – until what once bound us in compassion becomes a weapon of exclusion. When love fades to hate, nations unravel, families fracture, and faith becomes tyranny.
open.substack.com/pub/reflecti...
open.substack.com/pub/reflecti...
In our diversity of uniqueness, we find shared humanity.
From Love—To Love—Through the Darkness—Where Hope abounds.
All are needed.
All are sacred.
All belong.
When embraced with love, the pain of life is not removed - it is shared.
therealmofnarmer.substack.com/p/the-realm-...
From Love—To Love—Through the Darkness—Where Hope abounds.
All are needed.
All are sacred.
All belong.
When embraced with love, the pain of life is not removed - it is shared.
therealmofnarmer.substack.com/p/the-realm-...
The Realm Of Nermar
Cover Page
therealmofnarmer.substack.com
October 12, 2025 at 2:35 AM
In our diversity of uniqueness, we find shared humanity.
From Love—To Love—Through the Darkness—Where Hope abounds.
All are needed.
All are sacred.
All belong.
When embraced with love, the pain of life is not removed - it is shared.
therealmofnarmer.substack.com/p/the-realm-...
From Love—To Love—Through the Darkness—Where Hope abounds.
All are needed.
All are sacred.
All belong.
When embraced with love, the pain of life is not removed - it is shared.
therealmofnarmer.substack.com/p/the-realm-...
A man and his fox race through fog toward a rising sun – symbols of endurance and fleeting grace. In the haze between fear and faith, they chase what remains of hope in This Thing Called Life.
open.substack.com/pub/reflecti...
open.substack.com/pub/reflecti...
This Thing Called Life
This Thing Called Life The phantoms surround me Howling As they hunt my spirit And like the fox I cannot hide my scent So I run and I run and I run In no strategic direction Or toward any defensive po...
open.substack.com
October 11, 2025 at 10:17 AM
A man and his fox race through fog toward a rising sun – symbols of endurance and fleeting grace. In the haze between fear and faith, they chase what remains of hope in This Thing Called Life.
open.substack.com/pub/reflecti...
open.substack.com/pub/reflecti...
Part 6 moves from mourning to momentum: Fadhb’s past is unbound, the long shadow of a Weaver’s years falls across Bri’s heart, and far away the Halls of Wisdom feel the surge of something they cannot quite see.
open.substack.com/pub/therealm...
open.substack.com/pub/therealm...
The Weaver Pt 6
A Nermar Tale
open.substack.com
October 10, 2025 at 4:49 AM
Part 6 moves from mourning to momentum: Fadhb’s past is unbound, the long shadow of a Weaver’s years falls across Bri’s heart, and far away the Halls of Wisdom feel the surge of something they cannot quite see.
open.substack.com/pub/therealm...
open.substack.com/pub/therealm...
Joy rises with the beating of golden wings, fear shatters the night, and grief carves its mark deeper than any wound. Yet through loss, Bri discovers love’s truest shape – the kind born not from blood, but from choice, and from the hope that endures. open.substack.com/pub/therealm...
The Weaver Pt 5
A Nermar Tale
open.substack.com
October 10, 2025 at 4:23 AM
Joy rises with the beating of golden wings, fear shatters the night, and grief carves its mark deeper than any wound. Yet through loss, Bri discovers love’s truest shape – the kind born not from blood, but from choice, and from the hope that endures. open.substack.com/pub/therealm...
The title draws from language reclaimed within the trans community – “Dolls,” a term of strength, beauty, and defiance. I use it here with reverence, not ownership. My intent is not to speak over but stand beside – to witness and to name the hypocrisy harming them. open.substack.com/pub/reflecti...
Protect The Dolls
Protect The Dolls Liberation To be authenticly true To self and fuck the world It will hate you For your courage To live fully Outside their restraints Thus you scare them How is it possible Boy will ...
open.substack.com
October 8, 2025 at 5:00 PM
The title draws from language reclaimed within the trans community – “Dolls,” a term of strength, beauty, and defiance. I use it here with reverence, not ownership. My intent is not to speak over but stand beside – to witness and to name the hypocrisy harming them. open.substack.com/pub/reflecti...
“The Enemy Within” confronts the moral decay masked as righteousness in modern America. It does not speak to death as an end, but to immorality as a contagion — the rot that begins in the heart and spreads to the nation.
open.substack.com/pub/reflecti...
open.substack.com/pub/reflecti...
The Enemy Within
The Enemy Within Is the head rising as the body rots and time drifts away to an eternity of nothing? I speak not of our mortality, but of our immorality. Crimes of lust and hate spread unchecked.
open.substack.com
October 6, 2025 at 7:54 AM
“The Enemy Within” confronts the moral decay masked as righteousness in modern America. It does not speak to death as an end, but to immorality as a contagion — the rot that begins in the heart and spreads to the nation.
open.substack.com/pub/reflecti...
open.substack.com/pub/reflecti...
One moment you’re standing on solid ground — certain of who you are, what your duty is, and where north lies. Then a shift. The map burns. The compass breaks. And suddenly, the world that once felt round and navigable feels flat, empty, and without direction.
open.substack.com/pub/reflecti...
open.substack.com/pub/reflecti...
The Sphere
The Sphere I nearly fell off the edge of the earth. For you see, the earth was flat—
open.substack.com
October 5, 2025 at 8:46 PM
One moment you’re standing on solid ground — certain of who you are, what your duty is, and where north lies. Then a shift. The map burns. The compass breaks. And suddenly, the world that once felt round and navigable feels flat, empty, and without direction.
open.substack.com/pub/reflecti...
open.substack.com/pub/reflecti...
Every fall in Gainesville, you can feel the pulse quicken. The stadium lights, the roar of the crowd, the sea of orange and blue — it all feels sacred. For a few hours, thousands of strangers move as one, believing in the same cause. I love that about Game Day.
open.substack.com/pub/reflecti...
open.substack.com/pub/reflecti...
Game Day
Rome In Orange And Blue
open.substack.com
October 4, 2025 at 10:27 PM
Every fall in Gainesville, you can feel the pulse quicken. The stadium lights, the roar of the crowd, the sea of orange and blue — it all feels sacred. For a few hours, thousands of strangers move as one, believing in the same cause. I love that about Game Day.
open.substack.com/pub/reflecti...
open.substack.com/pub/reflecti...
This poem isn’t polite – and neither is hypocrisy.
It’s about what happens when a nation confuses cruelty for patriotism, when saving one’s own wallet matters more than feeding a child. It’s not meant to comfort. It’s meant to convict.
reflectionsfromrichard.substack.com/p/fuck-the-c...
It’s about what happens when a nation confuses cruelty for patriotism, when saving one’s own wallet matters more than feeding a child. It’s not meant to comfort. It’s meant to convict.
reflectionsfromrichard.substack.com/p/fuck-the-c...
Fuck The Child
Fuck The Child The authority demands authoritarianism For democracy is difficult – limiting its power And that is the real reason It hates democracy
reflectionsfromrichard.substack.com
October 4, 2025 at 5:27 PM
This poem isn’t polite – and neither is hypocrisy.
It’s about what happens when a nation confuses cruelty for patriotism, when saving one’s own wallet matters more than feeding a child. It’s not meant to comfort. It’s meant to convict.
reflectionsfromrichard.substack.com/p/fuck-the-c...
It’s about what happens when a nation confuses cruelty for patriotism, when saving one’s own wallet matters more than feeding a child. It’s not meant to comfort. It’s meant to convict.
reflectionsfromrichard.substack.com/p/fuck-the-c...
History has a way of exposing false crowns. Some men rise to power not through greatness, but through grievance, corruption, and hate. This poem is about such a man—a would-be king who, in tearing down others, dismantles liberty itself.
open.substack.com/pub/reflecti...
open.substack.com/pub/reflecti...
The King
The King And then All the king's men Failed To put Humpty Dumpty back together For the government didn't care As the king gleefully bullied the loyal opposition
open.substack.com
October 1, 2025 at 10:55 PM
History has a way of exposing false crowns. Some men rise to power not through greatness, but through grievance, corruption, and hate. This poem is about such a man—a would-be king who, in tearing down others, dismantles liberty itself.
open.substack.com/pub/reflecti...
open.substack.com/pub/reflecti...
This poem takes on the voice of an American Evangelical Christian—revealing not faith, but the corrosion beneath it. It is not an accusation from outside, but a confession from within, exposing the idolatry of nationalism, fear, and self-worship.
open.substack.com/pub/reflecti...
open.substack.com/pub/reflecti...
An American Evangelical Christian
Now that only love remains – For hate is called corrective love With empathy now being a tool of Satan I can put on the full armor of God And wield the Word as my weapon
open.substack.com
September 29, 2025 at 10:29 PM
This poem takes on the voice of an American Evangelical Christian—revealing not faith, but the corrosion beneath it. It is not an accusation from outside, but a confession from within, exposing the idolatry of nationalism, fear, and self-worship.
open.substack.com/pub/reflecti...
open.substack.com/pub/reflecti...
Evangelicalism proclaims itself as guardian of truth, yet too often it becomes the very rot it claims to resist. What began as faith has curdled into fear, greed, and control – until its armor is ego, its weapon is hate, and its god is self.
open.substack.com/pub/reflecti...
open.substack.com/pub/reflecti...
Evangelicalism
Evangelicalism As we walk this journey A strange odor lingering in the winds Regardless of the winds direction It twists the winds – making them destructive And this thing That lingers long past its e...
open.substack.com
September 29, 2025 at 2:29 AM
Evangelicalism proclaims itself as guardian of truth, yet too often it becomes the very rot it claims to resist. What began as faith has curdled into fear, greed, and control – until its armor is ego, its weapon is hate, and its god is self.
open.substack.com/pub/reflecti...
open.substack.com/pub/reflecti...
These are the echoes of “If” –
not whispers, but tolling bells.
Let them ring,
and in their silence,
judge what cannot stand.
open.substack.com/pub/reflecti...
not whispers, but tolling bells.
Let them ring,
and in their silence,
judge what cannot stand.
open.substack.com/pub/reflecti...
If
If If Scripture is your weapon of choice You are abusing Scripture Scripture is a bandage to heal Your weaponization only shows You do not know Jesus
open.substack.com
September 28, 2025 at 5:18 PM
These are the echoes of “If” –
not whispers, but tolling bells.
Let them ring,
and in their silence,
judge what cannot stand.
open.substack.com/pub/reflecti...
not whispers, but tolling bells.
Let them ring,
and in their silence,
judge what cannot stand.
open.substack.com/pub/reflecti...