Originally published Feb 27, 2026 for our weekly Issue of Mindful Intelligence Advisor. Subscribe to get weekly issues.
By Paul Gordon Collier, Editor
INTRODUCTION
We are nearing the end of our first winter with our Hope Exit Castle, Riqueday. While we have been delayed in our direct work on the Castle, we have been working in other ways to prepare ourselves for our castle stewardship. We haven’t allowed our “downtime” to become total downtime.
Much of that downtime has been spent learning new skills to be better prepared for the Castle Work ahead. Along the way, a new challenge has emerged, one that expands our project, by necessity.
- THE FIRST WINTER
So far, we have found ourselves facing unexpected adversities, from health to weather, and those adversities keep happening. Yet we have faith we are walking in the path we should be, and our mission continues with as much fire (if not more) as we began this project with.
Economically, we are in better standing, so we have more resources right now we can bring into our project.
The weather this past month has been unforgiving. If you remember from our last installment, some of our water pipes (specifically to our steam heat registers) have frozen, and some pipes have become disconnected from the steam heat registers as well.
We have yet to experience sustained temperatures above freezing for more than a few hours, so our opportunity to thaw out the pipes and repair them as we discover problems hasn’t happened yet. We expect by next month to have been able to thaw out our pipes and finally get a full assessment of the damages we have to repair.
Our handyman, Anthony, has his own health issues, and it looks like we might lose him for a couple of months at least. This puts more urgency on myself and my wife to do what must be done so we can stay at the Castle, minimally, at least one week a month, but ideally we will quickly extend that to two weeks a month.
In order for my wife and I to get there, we NEED a shower installed and a laundry hookup to install a washer and dryer. We are good for our kitchen needs. We also have two bathrooms.
What we are hoping for is to get a bathroom/shower installed in what will be our second floor living quarters, which consists of two large rooms, the first would be our bedroom and the second is large enough to have a small bathroom installed in it.
As SOON as we can get the Castle thawed out, our next move is to find a service provider to give us an estimate on installing the bathroom/shower/laundry hookup, then we will be making that our top priority. Our hope is to have a new bathroom/shower installed by the end of May.
Until then, we plan on staying at brother Bill’s house at night while we work on the Castle in the daytime. This we hope to start by mid-March. Hopefully, we will have updates and maybe some new pictures to provide for you.
- TRAINING FOR CASTLE STEWARDSHIP
Every single one of us involved in this project is pursuing an understanding of what we assume will be called the AI revolution. We are sure AI will be a major part of our venture, both in our commercial pursuits (which includes MIA) and our social service pursuits.
This might seem unrelated, but we assume AI tools will be a major part of our planning, designing, and building going into the future. AI augments intelligence in planning and design for humans, and we most assuredly need that assistance.
Our first goal is to assess how much AI capacity we can build for ourselves. We believe our level of potential AI stewardship is at the AI agent level, so we will be developing our own AI agents as we learn how to do it.
In order to build and sustain our projects, we must have revenue. We have multiple streams of income, but they’re hardly maximally run. To that end, my wife, Jena, is learning more about financial investments so we can develop better strategies that might yield better dividend returns.
She also hopes to use those skills to help residents in need manage their basic finances. AI will also aid us in this pursuit.
We are all busy learning home improvement skills so we can do as much of the work ourselves as possible. While some members of our informal team have home improvement skills, none of them are our core members who will realistically have the most time to work on the castle (myself, my wife, my brother, my daughter, and our Anglican Priest).
Fortunately, my mother has a lot of knowledge in this area, and we hope to have her teach us as we work. She’s not as physically able as she was, but she only needs to show us a few times so we can then do the rest ourselves.
What I know of our castle is this; it needs to be filled with humans, it needs to fulfill its designed mission, to serve the community around it. In order for us to do that, we have to restore and fulfill its bones within.
- A NEW CHALLENGE
My mother currently lives in Harrisburg, PA, which is about 90 minutes from where I live. She lives about 2 hours from where my brother lives. Her health has been deteriorating. It is getting increasingly risky leaving her alone so, by necessity, we will have to create opportunities for our mother to be with us.
As it so happens, she owns what could be a 4-unit apartment building, a sizeable land lot, and multiple garages. In short, she has the bones of a Hope Exit Castle. Her home happens to be located about 90 minutes from Washington, D.C., a town my brother needs to visit to rouse up new business for our commercial projects (which are designed to provide for ourselves and our Hope Exit Castle project).
Bill will be the primary point for Harrisburg and will have an apartment for himself. This will enable him to stay with our mother for significant periods of time, and it will also make it easier for him to make a day run into DC to meet with a potential new client.
My wife and I will be spending some time there as well. We will also have our mother stay up at Bill’s for periods of time so she can help us with the Riqueday Castle (which she has been chomping at the bit to do).
- OUR SHORT-TERM GOALS
Our plan for Riqueday is to get back to cleaning the castle and fixing, painting, plastering whatever we can as we go. We hope, by summer, to be able to do serious work on the basement, starting with installing a new floor (which will be done in sections).
We hope to finish our thorough cleaning of the Castle, install a bathroom/shower in our living quarters, a laundry hook-up in the basement, complete our plaster repairs, and install a new floor in the basement. Once we get to this point, we can start serving the community.
Our Harrisburg project has been somewhat thrust upon us, happily, by need, so we haven’t yet built any short-term goals for this project outside of getting the apartment ready for Bill to use. Every challenge is an opportunity in the Kingdom of God.
We have not officially named our Hope Exit Castle in Harrisburg. We’ll let you know as soon as we do.
- PERSONAL NOTES
Healthwise, my wife and I were recently hit with Covid-19. We are more or less recovered, though both of us are still dealing with lingering bronchitis. My wife is still recovering her smell and taste senses which she lost almost as soon as she got sick.
Yet, we are both STILL much better than we were last year, so we are encouraged, believing we will have the health we need to do the work we hope to have done by summer.
My brother gifted me an e-bike that has a maximum speed of 45mph and a range of 50 miles. I hope to use the e-bike to get to know the beautiful region around us. We are nestled in the midst of mountains and hills, most of which have trails that lead to their tops.
I hope to spend the Spring topping all the mountains and hills around us that I can get to on my e-bike. My wife is not keen on riding an e-bike, otherwise she’d be joining me.
I want to enjoy the region as much as I can so I build into my heuristics the profound motivation I will need to do the hard work we have to do to complete our Hope Exit Castle conversions (in Canton, PA and Harrisburg, PA).
SUMMARY
By our reckoning, God has been sharpening steel these past few months, and He continues to do so. Now we have another challenge placed upon us which we are choosing to view as an opportunity, for my brother and I were born in Harrisburg.
My Mother started a purchase agreement for her property in 1979. She fully owned it by 1985.
About 10 years ago she added an empty lot to her property that became available after an apartment building had been condemned and torn down (one I remember being in on numerous occasions as a young boy). She turned that lot into a garden paradise, with a canopy of living plants she designed and built herself.
Her dream has always been to see her property become a community service provider. Seeing our project, of creating blended private and public space with a Castle Stewardship Family, made her want her property to be something like that as well.
How this will all unfold is unknown to us, though we have plenty of ideas, plenty of dreams. These dreams we will share as they become more realistic and more solidly understood.
We ask our readers who do so to consider praying for us that God opens opportunities for us to more quickly equip our castles to serve the communities they are in. Riqueday Castle and the Harrisburg property (to be named later) are radically different communities. Riqueday Castle is in a small rural town, Canton, which itself is in the middle of almost nowhere.
The Harrisburg property is located within what could be called an urban ghetto by some and a poor urban neighborhood by others. The city itself is the capital of the state of Pennsylvania. As disconnected from the world as Riqueday Castle is, the Harrisburg property is connected.
Fortunately, both my brother and I have grown up in both the rural and urban communities (specifically THIS community, though we lived in others before our mother bought this property). So, we are well equipped both in experience and in heart to serve both communities.
To say we need prayer is an understatement. If we are to succeed, we can tell you we are but a metaphorical 300 facing 30,000 challenges, with ice storms counted among them, so surely when you see us succeed, know that our victory will not have been through our own strength.
Starting out, God will leave little doubt that our “success” will be His.
ED.NOTE: On April 10, 2026, we will be releasing our essay, “Fear of Suffering and Death” to the general public both in digital and print. For our subscribers, you will receive the digital copy free on the same day. This will be included with the release of our first MIA Quarterly.
The suppositions in this essay directly inform our approach to our Hope Exit Castle Project and the way we run MIA.
The essay is an apologetic in defense of an emergent Christian nation and against an official Christian state. It also introduces the analytic tools I utilize to analyze the news, actiune baza (base of action) and apex existentialism (my current working theory for the base of action).
The final draft has been complete. This will be the first edition. I plan on doing more editions, updating and adding to the essay (until it becomes a book) as I develop the concepts further.