It begins, often, not with a clamour but with a whisper. A quiet, internal notation of a task left incomplete. Perhaps it is the half-completed tax return, its forms a silent rebuke from the drawer. It might be the unopened email from a colleague, its subject line hinting at a complexity we feel ill-equipped to handle. These are not merely items on a to-do list; they are what we might call ‘open loops’. They are the circuits of our intention and responsibility that we have left unclosed, and their persistent, ghostly presence in the background of our minds exerts a far greater toll than we often care to admit. This draining effect is a tangible, psychological weight that operates with a quiet and insidious efficiency, each unresolved matter constituting a small leak in the reservoir of our mental and emotional energy. From the perspective of a Christian faith, this phenomenon speaks to a deeper, theological reality about the nature of sin, responsibility, and the God who calls us into wholeness, inviting us to consider how our spiritual vitality is sapped by that which we fail to do.
