The False Front of Fatherhood, and Other Unmet Needs

Learning to be real with others lets them in and helps meet your increasing needs.

It is rare that our neighbor speaks to us beyond a wave and a smile, so when he approached us to talk, we knew there was something big to share.

“My wife had a baby!” He was thrilled. His son had been born about a month ago to an already packed house that had the three of them along with his parents, but he was beaming with joy from ear to ear. He explained how he is so happy all the time and so much in love with his child. He showed us the goosebumps on his arms as proof. Proud poppa was having his moment.

It then took about 30 seconds for him to start telling us about his frustrations in the night and how the baby wakes them. As anyone who has ever had kids, we are all acutely aware of how difficult a new sleep schedule is when the child won’t sleep for more than a couple of hours at a time. The facade continued to crack and he began to tell us about how he wished his child could talk and share what was wrong when he was crying. We empathized and said that yes, it is difficult because all you want to do is help and they won’t explain what’s wrong.

And then it all started to spill out.

He then went on to explain how hard a time he is having with adjusting to this new lifestyle. He recounted daily fights that he and his wife have over how to treat the child (sleeping on his back, side, in the bed, etc.), fights that his wife and mother are having over who is in charge of raising the child, and statements that he has made to his spouse about how he doesn’t think they are going to make it. It was a big turnaround in tone from the start of the conversation.

As we’ve been there with our own, we let him know that there was no judgment whatsoever from us and that there was nothing wrong with him for feeling this way. We’ve often said that the first 6-8 months of raising a child are absolute hell and that anyone who says it was a joy isn’t remembering it correctly. It tests everyone involved, pushing them to the brink. So, we spent time letting him know that he isn’t alone and that everything he is going through is completely normal. We mentioned that he will make tons of correct and incorrect decisions with raising his son and none of them will make a difference. We encouraged him to take more deep breaths and know that everything they are going through is normal.

At that point, his visage softened and he seemed less uptight and more encouraged. I thought he might  hug us at one point. We invited him to come over any time and just unload or take a break (his wife, too), because we know what it is like. Whether he takes us up on that or not doesn’t matter, as for many just the knowledge that there’s an out is comforting. 

What struck me the most from this conversation was that he had some deep-seated needs that only came to the surface when he was most honest with us. Although a bit on the nose, Paul’s letter to the Ephesians instructs them: “Therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to your neighbor, for we are all members of one body” (4.25). I’m not suggesting he was lying when he was explaining how happy he was, but I think he wasn’t being totally honest with us and himself because everyone always says just how amazing having a child is and doesn’t focus on the more difficult aspects. Once we get past putting up that facade of whatever it is we want others to think and feel about ourselves, we then find the courage to express our real needs and allow them to be met by others.

Often, fear of others’ judgment is what stops us from putting our true selves up front for others to see. In class the other day, we discussed what standards we use to define ourselves and how other people play a part in that measuring tool. We brought up social media and how it isn’t a true representation of who we really are because we are so concerned with what other people think of us. Everything we post is a version of our best selves, the ideal that we want others to see, because we don’t want others seeing the cracks in our lives. Even “the real me” pictures are the best ones from a discarded collection. I know enough great looking social media people who are actually deeply insecure emotional messes on the inside—and there’s nothing wrong with that, but it’s better to just be honest with everyone.

When we worry about other people’s opinions, we then don’t get our needs met. A friend I grew up with recently took his own life. Up until that point, according to his social media, he was a successful and happy single lawyer. Why he ended his life is a mystery to me because he never let those of us online know what was really going on. If that is any indication, I can only imagine that he may have hid it from those around him, too. Had we known, maybe we might have been able to help.

In Paul’s letter to the Galatians, he wrote about how we should not focus on the approval of others: “Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ” (1.10) and again in his letter to the Thessalonians: “We are not trying to please people but God, who tests our hearts” (2.4b). That he harped on it so much indicates the importance of that precept. Why? Most likely because he wants us to “carry each other’s burdens” (Galatians 6:2). However, we can only do that if we know what they are, and that can only be done if we stop worrying about the judgments of others. By working on worrying less about what others think about us and more about getting our needs met, we can better shoulder each others’ difficult burdens and work to get each other over our tremendous struggles.

Amen.

Taking Sincere Stock of Recycled Responses

Being genuine rather than replying with something clichéd taps into the humanity in all of us.

Long story short, my credit card number got stolen.

We noticed it almost immediately, as there was a weird charge for $925 for concert tickets for musical artist “Bad Bunny.” Nothing against Mr. Bunny and his talented entourage, but it’s not something upon which we would be indulging in or attending.

Thankfully, banking organizations are set up with insurance, so we didn’t lose any money ourselves. They just issued us a new card and on our merry way we went. Or so we thought.

Apparently, the computer’s algorithm with our new account got all screwy (that’s a technical designation – don’t argue), and it decided to flag EVERY charge we made with this new card as “suspicious.” Each time this happened, we were forced to go through a process of calling the company and approving the charges, a routine that would take around 10-15 minutes per call. Once or twice for the computer to learn is fine, but by the end of the week, I had called around a dozen times. You can imagine my increasing irateness.

I tried my best to not get angry at the person on the phone because it’s not their fault, but after that many calls to their service center, it was hard to mask my frustration. And what really set me off was the script they followed.

As anyone in the customer service industry knows, there is often a set list of responses that the representative must follow, a flowchart leading them to the right way of not only solving the problem but also deescalating the person on the phone. It’s a handy tool for them, but when I hear the EXACT same sentences EACH time I call, it’s absolutely soul crushing. The person sounds frighteningly machine-like, and I get robotic responses to my human issue.

In response to said roboticism, I then don’t see the person on the other end of the line as human but as a cog in a machine. Thus, it tends to bring out my worst. It escalates me and (although it shouldn’t) gives me license to lash out. And I began to do so.

On one occasion, I began to speak harshly to the representative who was following the script. I asked her if she had any indication as to how many times I had called so far. She said she didn’t. I forced my frustration on her and told her that it was around ten times. At that point, she broke script and said, “Well, I would have burned the card by then.”

It was a comment that caught me off guard. Infused with warmth, as well as compassion, it was a bit of humor that made me chuckle and feel connected to her. It was a moment where I glimpsed her humanity and realized that she empathized. And it made me change my dark tune. She took a chance and it turned me around. My problem still wasn’t solved, but I finally had someone who I felt was listening rather than just giving me stock responses. 

Now, I don’t expect the entire banking system to alter their model of customer approach and let callers improvise their way through a conversation: the results would be disastrous. But it reminded me that, “The soothing tongue is a tree of life” (Proverbs 15:4) and genuine words like her’s, rather than stock ones, develop empathy and compassion. 

We too often kowtow to stock responses, relying on them to get us through a situation, when in fact a genuine expression of emotion is the best and most caring response. Stock responses are crutches when we don’t know what to say. When in a confrontation with my spouse, and I see her anger, I too often fall to the stock three responses of most males: “I’m sorry. You’re right. I love you.” Yes they are true, but they don’t meet her needs. Something more sincere and genuine would most likely be the salve she needs on her wounds.

I attended a wake recently of a former student who died unexpectedly at the age of 26. I remembered him well and was saddened by the loss. Like most wakes, no one really knew what to say, so many relied on the handful of responses they usually have ready.

Paul’s letter to the Philippians tells us to, “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.” Stock responses meet the needs of the speaker but not the needs of those truly in need. “I’m sorry for your loss” is usually the answer we throw out there as there is frequently nothing easy that can be said at these sorts of things, but honestly, it’s a pointless sentence that only gets us out of uncomfortable situations. I wanted to give the mother some small bit of peace, as she was crying openly, so I just went in and tried to be genuine.

I introduced myself as her son’s former English teacher, and relayed some memories about how he was so expressive and energetic in class, always bringing smiles to those around him. She wept even more and thanked me so much for that kindness. It wasn’t a lot, but it was all I had to give that was sincere. She probably won’t remember me afterwards, and may not remember my words, but that brief break of stock phrases and responses clearly resonated with her and helped her through her grief, even if just for a second or two.

If Paul asks us to “be like-minded, be sympathetic, love one another, be compassionate and humble” (1 Peter 3.8), we should look not to dismiss others with stock answers, working to move out of a situation, but to instead take moments to embrace our humanity and respond in authentic ways that help. It can be scary to respond with something not so stock, but reaching out in compassion puts the other person’s needs first. Relying on a human response rather than a stock one may put our comfort last, put it puts people first.

Amen.

Finding Commonality Makes Life Easier to Handle

Realizing that there are others out there like you gives you the strength to stick together.

It’s important to know that you are not alone. It’s something I address with my students on an almost daily basis, as their self-esteem is usually wracked by the thinking that they are the only ones in their situations. 

And it’s not always bad, either. Today, it was a student who is going into a career in animation and feels like no one else shares her passion. She thinks that she’s going into uncharted territory, and as a result, she believes she’s going to fail because no one else has ever done this. I spent time talking with her, letting her know that I actually have about one person every couple of years with that same passion for animation. In fact, one of them had just emailed me and sent me her college junior year animation portfolio, so I shared it with this current student as a means of encouragement. She was ultimately so relieved to know that yes, there are others out there, people who are successful in her chosen profession.

Sometimes it’s a life choice they’ve made, sometimes it’s a problem with their experiences, while other times it’s a personal obstacle they are working to overcome. In all cases, they feel like the only ones and therefore think something is wrong with them. Feeling alone is a natural human emotion. When we feel alone, we become introspective and fearful, which is why the Bible reminds us so often that we are not alone. Psalm 23:4 famously reminds us that,  “Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.” We need to know that we are not alone so we can continue onward.

When couples fight, they are often at their lowest because they feel deeply alone. They think that their struggles are unique to their relationships, therefore something must be wrong between the two of them. They feel like failures as a result, misunderstanding that what they are experiencing is not common. Deuteronomy tells us to “be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the Lord your God goes with you; He will never leave you nor forsake you” (31.6), and it is that knowledge that comforts us. So in an effort to make couples feel less alone, let’s address some of the most common things people fight about.

Sure, there are things I’ve already mentioned like money and how you two spend it, ignored household chores and responsibilities, and attention neglect. But let’s move past those, as we already know they are common, and get to the fights you thought you were the only ones having.

Where you are spending Thanksgiving/Christmas/Mother’s Day/Father’s Day – Chances are, each of the two families has their own traditions, and no matter how you handle it, one of them is getting the short shrift. To NOT go to one of the family’s households, or to not stay at home and celebrate, sometimes sends the message that one person is more important than everyone else. Of course, that is not really the case, as it may come down to practicality or who’s turn it is, but yes, where you spend that important holiday can be a sore subject. And sometimes it can even be about the resentment in needing to spend time with someone they rather would not. And if relatives are visiting you? Ben Franklin said it best: “Guests, like fish, begin to smell after three days.” 

How often you are having sex – How much each person in the relationship wants sex is often what’s called a “desire discrepancy,” as the amount each desires may differ. In short, one wants it more than the other, so a standoff occurs which sometimes results in a sexless marriage. Frequently attributed to a misunderstanding as to how vast the discrepancy is (it usually isn’t that much, but each party perceives it as such), it can be an issue especially if one party feels much more satisfied with the couple’s intimacy than the other.

Why you ___ so much – Fill in the blank with drink, smoke, vape, eat, play video games, or whatever obsessive behavior is consuming one of you two. It’s a practice that impacts the relationship, whether physically, mentally, or emotionally, with one wishing that the other would stop whatever it is that he or she is repeatedly disapprovingly doing. Even my frequent Pokemon-ing, a harmless activity, can make my wife feel second to a Pikachu. A subgenre of this category is, “Why you are on your phone so much,” with too many of us being tethered to our devices when it should be left on the charger.

Why you are still working – Individuals can be consumed with work to the point that it takes up the entirety of their lives. Work becomes their sole focus, as they are defined not as being someone’s romantic partner but as being a company worker. When we were first married, I was grading endlessly after school and on the weekends, until we both decided that schoolwork stays at school. Hard at first, it separated my two lives and thankfully allowed me to focus on my family instead.

These are just a few common arguments, as there are more, but more importantly, is knowing that we share them. There is strength in numbers, and knowing that you are not alone gives us the inner strength to overcome our most difficult struggles. In King Solomon’s book to the Ecclesiastes, he reinforces this precept: “Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken” (4.12). Hearing that these are common struggles to us all helps us feel a little less alone and allows us to feel a part of a larger group. Knowing that these disagreements are common lets us feel like a part of a larger collective rather than floating alone in a lifeboat on the ocean. 

When you find yourself going through a rough patch with your romantic partner, know that whatever it is you are experiencing is not unique to you. Generations of people have fought the same fight well before you and still stuck together afterwards. Sometimes, that fight can feel like it’s the end of the world, but know that it’s much more common than you think. Learn to feel that connection with people outside of your couplehood and you will feel much more comfortable when the seas get choppy.

Amen.

Picking at Each Other is Death by a Thousand Cuts

Antagonistic attitudes and ornery outlooks are just asking for a troubled relationship.

I try to be as easy-going as possible, but when I get in a mood, any suggestion to help or fix my problem is the wrong answer. In our house, we call it “Mary, Mary quite contrary,” meaning that no matter what someone says as a solution, there’s a reason that ideas won’t work.

For example, let’s say that I need to get work done by a certain time. My wife will try to help by giving me suggestions for how I can maximize my time, consolidate my workload, break up work into sections for efficiency, etc. For each solution she gives me, if I am in a contrarian mood, I will find a reason why each of her solutions wouldn’t work. Hence, the “contrary” nickname. I see it in my son when he hasn’t eaten much, so everything in the world then seems wrong to him. What we don’t realize is that all of our obstacles are internal (his mood and appetite, the proverbial chip on my shoulder) rather than external. 

It’s this type of antagonistic fighting that causes relationships to fall into fights that could have been avoided if one person in the relationship is in full on sabotage mode. Although fighting can be healthy, needlessly picking on each other and egging each other on to start a pointless fight never helps the relationship grow. But Proverbs warns us to, “not make friends with a hot-tempered person, [or] associate with one easily angered, or you may learn their ways and get yourself ensnared” (22.24-25), what do we do when that person is our partner, the individual we chose to never abandon?

Being able to identify the reasons why we fall into these traps is the initial step. Isolating the cause of this contentiousness helps us prevent self-sabotaging behavior and can reveal solutions for how to deal with ourselves and others when it starts. In addition to obvious triggers like hunger or lack of sleep (which are easily fixed) there are frequently less obvious reasons for our desire to pick on our partners.

You are bored.

Fights can be exciting. It breaks up a monotonous existence with a little chaos and unexpectedness. Sometimes individuals are so tired of the mundane that they start to pick and poke at each other just for the sake of getting a rise out of the other one. It’s a simple and unhealthy way of getting out of a rut and making a connection with the other person, albeit a damaging one. 

You are avoiding.

You probably have bigger issues that need to be discussed and dealt with, so rather than tackle the big things, you end up being petty and picking on each other with the little ones. It’s a shorter, easier path to conflict/resolution instead of looking at what’s really the issue between the two of you.

You want intimacy.

Frequently, picking at the other person is a cry for help for a deeper connection and more attention but don’t really know how to ask for it. A lack of physical intimacy can also trigger this behavior, as one person may not know how to approach the other for this request.

You need attention.

Poking at the other person’s vulnerable spots and being outright ornery is a way to get attention when you are feeling ignored. (I have seen many students who don’t get the attention they crave so they act out as that’s the only attention they can get.) The same goes for our relationships when we don’t feel the other’s gaze enough.

You desire control.

Sometimes people become antagonistic even when things are going well. During that time, they feel out of control and anxious, as if at any moment things will go bad. Picking on the other person gives a certain sense of control because that person is in control of the antagonism.

You have bad habits.

Other times, it’s nothing more than a habit you perpetuate because it’s your go-to default. You have no real reason to fight other than it’s what you’ve always done in the past.

Knowing what’s at root with the other person when they start to pick on you helps a tremendous deal in diagnosing the problem. Once you reveal the cause, you can start to address it practically and help the other person through it. But what about when you yourself are the perpetrator of the picking? What if you’re the one initiating the fights and your partner is helpless to engage in it, combat you, or help you get through it? Taking some steps to deescalate yourself and diffuse your barbs will allow for smoother relationship sailing.

Taking yourself out of the situation by walking away and having a brief time-out could help you reassess and reflect. Sometimes it’s good to just walk away rather than engage and find yourself trapped in that cycle. In Paul’s first letter to Peter, he encourages him to, “not repay evil with evil or insult with insult.” (3.9), and sticking around might lead to that. It doesn’t have to be long, as just a break from the situation makes you readjust your mindset. Writing down your feelings can help to get it out, as we often feel better once it’s no longer inside us. Reflecting on what led you to this spot, or identifying the trigger, also helps bridge the gap between the two of you. 

At that point, you can start to focus more on your partner and your perceptions of them. Give them the benefit of the doubt and assume innocence. Decide if this is a battle worth fighting: too often we pick battles not worth our time. Finally, communicate in a less emotionally damaging way what you are upset or worried about. That offering of your vulnerability and show of needs will allow for compromise and resolution.

Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians asks that we “make sure that nobody pays back wrong for wrong, but always strive to do what is good for each other and for everyone else” (5.15). Identifying the cause and taking steps towards a solution that doesn’t involve the prodding of each other will lead you towards that striving, putting an end to the goading of each other into a fight. Thoughtfully reflecting upon how you got there and where you are headed will give you the healing steps you need so as to not tear each other down piece by piece but rather to lift each other up a step at a time.

Amen.

The Fight That’s Been Going on For Years

Why are you having the same messy fight over and over? You aren’t approaching it from the right angle.

“For the last 30 years, you haven’t gotten this right!” is a sentence I’ve heard a few too many times.

Despite our best efforts to break some fighting cycles, like many we tend to return to the same fight again and again in our relationship. Yes, as I’ve mentioned, fighting is good for a couple. It clears the air between you two and lets you both know how the other feels: it makes sure that no one is holding anything in and building up steam. But what happens when the two of you keep returning to the same fight again and again, seemingly getting nowhere with it?

There are many reasons people keep having the same fight because one party does not feel that the issue has ever been resolved. Why not? Well, first let’s classify them into two categories: solvable and unsolvable. 

Solvable 

I read of a mom whose children would leave wet towels on the floor after a shower and then use a new towel because theirs was wet. She tried reasoning with them to not take new towels and hang up the ones they used after showering and reuse it next time. She explained how it disrespected her, wreaked havoc on the environment and her laundry, and even tried punishments by taking away cell phones and gaming systems. Nothing worked. Finally, someone suggested that she hide the new towels so they were forced to use the old one even if it was wet. With the cunning of Jacob pretending to be his brother Esau, she solved her problem and her kids eventually learned to hang the wet towels up.

Seems easy enough to solve, but it was a repeated conflict. Why? As she claims, it is because she was more concerned with being correct than being effective. The triggered behaviors from those wet towels clouded her thinking and she mislabeled her children’s actions as intentionally hurtful. She also realized that this mislabeling was linked to childhood baggage, which caused her to want to win the fight rather than create an effective solution. 

Learning to think clearly in a repeating conflict often leads to one of two situations: you find an effective solution or you let go of the issue. For example, my son’s friends are constantly over our house. I love it: it’s a lot of cacophony and chaos as they shoot basketball, film TikTok videos, conquer video games, and design forts out of our TV room. While here, we also feed them, which gets very expensive. I’ve been lamenting the fact that none of these parents ever offer to pitch in with the cost or have the kids over their house to feed them. My resentment grew until I adjusted my thinking and realized that they are not intentionally making this decision. In fact, I realized that they view us as well-off and can easily afford these things because we do it so frequently and easily. Although we are not rich by far, we can afford these things and I’m grateful that I can provide great memories for my son’s childhood. Proverbs helped me learn that, “starting a quarrel is like breaching a dam; so drop the matter before a dispute breaks out” (17.14). So, I’ve been able to let this perpetual issue go once I reframed it in my mind, and I now find my mood happier and more at peace. Again, reframing thinking helped to solve the perpetual problem.

Unsolvable

Then there are the perpetual unsolvable problems, the ones where you and your partner are gridlocked, cannot seem to reconcile, and no reframing of mind leads to either a solution or a release of the issue. These are issues where each person feels that they are spinning their proverbial wheels and can’t come to a consensus as to how to appease both parties. For these, we need to get to the heart of why this issue consistently rears its ugly head to figure out how to handle it:

• The argument may be an indication of a deeper issue. It’s not just about dishes and laundry, it’s about feeling supported. Have both people find out what this fight is really about and tackle it from there.
• Expectations may not be accurate. One person may be unreasonable as to what they want from the other. Checking with other people outside of the relationship helps set the standard for what is reasonable. 
• Your memories of the past are your trigger. You may be reminded of past problems you had with someone else that you fear will manifest themselves in this new person. Past failures and issues sometimes create insecurities in present relationships. 

Learning what is at heart in these gridlocked issues sometimes helps remove fuel from the fire. Proverbs explains that “without wood a fire goes out; without a gossip a quarrel dies down” (26.20) You may not be able to solve it, but when you discover the origin of the argument, you learn to slowly take away what stokes it.

Once you can figure out the root of the argument, there are some key character traits to employ that will lead to resolving it, keeping you from repeating the same issues. Patience is one of them. When something is broken in our life, we are used to fixing it quickly. A leaky pipe brings in a plumber, an appliance breaks and you get a new one. Relationships aren’t quite as easy, as they take time to fix. It won’t happen overnight, so don’t expect it to, but a commitment to fixing it goes a long way to healing. The other trait is honesty, not only with your partner but with yourself. Learn to self-examine and be open about what is bothering you and what lies at the heart of the issue. This analysis will lead you to manage the argument and better handle yourself and your partner.

Paul’s second letter to Timothy encourages us away from the solvable arguments and beyond the unsolvable ones: “Don’t have anything to do with foolish and stupid arguments, because you know they produce quarrels. And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but must be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful” (2.23-24). It takes great effort and patience, but it is well worth the time to give towards introspection given the amount of effort often put towards repeating arguments. Taking the time to categorize your issues as solvable or unsolvable, and then taking steps to either find solutions or healing, will break the cyclical arguments that divide you and your partner and will lead to a more peaceful relationship.

Amen.

The Loving Benefits of a Good Relationship Fight

How much fighting is enough fighting? As long as it’s with love, it’s plenty.

I can sometimes hear it rumbling in the distance—the soft shaking of the ground that means a fight is coming my way. It’s usually a day or two still when I first sense it, but one thing I know: it’s inevitable. 

Knowing that I can’t escape it, I usually try to gird up my defenses and brace for impact, like an incoming missile that can’t be dodged. Yet no matter how much I try to avoid it or prepare for it, nothing can get me ready for when it comes.

The fact that I am able to see the proverbial steam rising is, I suppose, a good thing in that it doesn’t catch me off guard. Yet what I should be most thankful for is that the steam pressure doesn’t settle. Sure, the Bible tells me that “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God” (Matthew 5.9), but does that really mean that not fighting is keeping the peace?

As I’ve mentioned before, fighting is good and important in a relationship, and you see, if that steam pressure is subsiding, then someone is holding it in and squashing it down. If I’ve learned one thing from psychology, it’s this: repression of feelings never solves the issue. So the question to ask isn’t “how can we stop fighting?” but rather “how much is a good amount of fighting?” which means we might need to be fighting more than we are.

In a joint study from the University of Michigan and Penn State University, researchers followed over 1,500 adults for more than a week and tracked the amount of fighting they did. They weren’t so much interested in how often people fought but how people felt as a result of fighting. They discovered that although people did not feel well on the day of the fight, they felt much better the next day, as if getting the fight out of their system and dealing with the issue increased their wellbeing. Consequently, for those who avoided an argument and chose not to engage, they discovered that those people had “diminished psychological well-being and increased cortisol, which can lead to weight gain, mood swings, and trouble sleeping. Short-term gain, long-term pain.” Obviously, not good for their wellbeing. 

Another 2017 study found that couples who did not fight and avoided discussing sticking points in their relationship (money, neglect, possessiveness, and condescension) were less happy in their relationship following the lack of fighting and found that they were less committed to the relationship seven weeks later. So, it would seem that avoiding the fight that lingers in the background is only putting off a conversation vital to the health of the relationship. Choosing to fight is choosing to better the relationship, a gesture of love that reaches out for help.

Just as fighting can be an expression of a desire for love, avoiding a fight thus neglects the relationship’s health. Like water and sunlight to a plant, relationships need warmth and conflict in order to grow; denying a relationship the right to fight squelches the things that are so necessary for its growth. Additionally, dismissing a fight misses out on the opportunity for the relationship to develop and mature. My wife and I might not always be thrilled when we find ourselves in a fight, but we always become better people as a result and grow closer to one another because we now understand each other better. 

Thankfully, there are a lot of other benefits that contribute to the health of the relationship by fighting. Fighting helps you to better understand your partner. Too often, one of the members in the relationship stays silent regarding feelings, and a fight can bring them to the surface, leading the other person to better meet their needs. It also shows where you can make corrections between the two of you, as you might not have otherwise noticed these deficiencies between you both. And, it helps you personally with listening to others and problem-solving in general. Although uncomfortable, choosing fight over flight benefits all parties involved.

Often misinterpreted, Ephesians 4 instructs us as to how we should handle our anger and conflict: “In your anger do not sin: Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold” (26-27). Many see it as the proverbial “Don’t go to bed angry,” yet I suggest it is not so much about not going to sleep in the middle of a fight but is more about holding on to resentment and not expressing it at the right time. Resentment, if not given light, can grow and fester in dark, damp places. Exposing it to the light, although unpleasant at first, helps it wither and die, leaving only healing and maturity in its wake. Sure, we’ve gone to bed a few times steaming at each other (to continue fighting would have just made matters worse), but by the next day, cooler heads prevail and solutions are found because we didn’t neglect our resentment.

Most therapists say that it is common for couples to have disagreements. There’s nothing wrong with you if you do, but there is something wrong with you if you don’t. So how much is enough fighting and how much is too much? There is no real acceptable average for how often is an acceptable amount. Some couples fight just once or twice a month whereas some fight weekly. (However, there are signs that point to an unhealthy relationship if you are fighting almost every day.) In most cases, the fighting is encouraged as long as it stays within the healthy boundaries of what a good relationship fight should look like. (See my past devotionals from this series about handling relationship conflict.)

Fighting has always been portrayed as a sign of a rocky relationship, but the truth is that fighting is healthy, needed, and beneficial. Just because tempers flare and volumes rise, that doesn’t mean love isn’t being expressed along with a desire for a better relationship. Colossians 3.14 tells us, “and over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity,” so we should fight with love for our relationship to grow. Remember, if we didn’t fight in the first place, then we are probably not caring about the relationship. Don’t judge yourself harshly for fighting in your relationship, but allow it to happen so that the two of you might be the best versions of yourselves apart and together.

Amen.

When Stalemate Fights Develop into Relationship Standoffs

Win or lose, it’s a bloodbath. Try hearing instead.

A whistle in the distance…a rolling tumbleweed…squinty eyes…itchy trigger fingers. Looks like we’ve got an old-fashioned standoff! Yeehaw!

My wife said to me the other day that she and I don’t have many actual fights in our relationship but rather we have a variety of standoffs, where each person has his or her own ideas and won’t budge on them. We are two alphas constantly butting heads and refusing to back down.

Hearing those words made me rethink a lot of how we approach each other in conflict. It reframed our disagreements for me, seeing them not as people angry at each other but as individuals strategizing to be heard. It also made me realize that in every fight we have, there is a potential winner and loser, and even when you win, you lose.

Our most recent standoff? We have had a long-standing one in our relationship. The proverbial thorn in our side, where we have each stood our ground firmly and refused to concede.

Apple vs. Samsung.

I have been a die-hard Apple user since iPhone 3. In it for the long haul, I love my iPhone and get a new one every year. It is everything I’ve ever wanted and more. Years ago, my wife dug in her heels with Samsung and only conceded this year when our son switched over to iPhone. (His friends all have one and she wanted to be able to stay in close contact with him—the two opposing services don’t communicate well with each other otherwise.) 

Since then, she has kicked and screamed about her iPhone because it doesn’t do what she wants it to do. So the other night, when she had trouble with it connecting to her car, that standoff came center stage. 

It began as most fights and standoffs do, with an expression of frustration. I tried just listening, but after a few minutes, she didn’t feel heard. (Even though one can be in listening mode, that doesn’t mean the other person feels heard.) You see, she wanted some concession from the lot of us iPhone users, where we would break out of our collective “cult-craze zombie-like acceptance” (her words)  and see the light that Samsung is better.

Now, this all seems silly written down, but remember that standoffs aren’t always about the issue. Often, as I’ve mentioned before, they are about the history between the two parties. When a couple disagrees, it’s about all the other things that the other person has ever done. So, to help recontextualize the stalemate, it’s important to see the other person not as an aggressor but as someone who feels unappreciated. According to relationship therapist Esther Perel, fights bring susceptibilities to the surface and are frequently difficult to solve because both involved parties misunderstand what is at the root of the problem: hurt and vulnerability. Because of this misunderstanding, couples end up having the same fight over and over because each feels vulnerable and not heard. To truly win the argument, couples need to take steps to break the loop. 

The first step is to recontextualize it not as a fight to be won: there is no right or wrong side. The goal is then shifted away from winning and moves towards understanding where the other person is coming from. It becomes much more productive that way as each person starts to retract their alpha horns and back off. In John 13, Christ takes all of the rules of life and boils it down to this: “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples if you love one another” (34-35). Putting love first and winning last achieves this goal.

In addition, don’t try to make your partner see your perspective, as that also creates a push and pull scenario between the two of you. Instead, shift your goals towards understanding the other person’s perspective by examining feelings and experiences. Remember, there is a difference between listening and hearing. I tend to listen, which means I get quiet during a fight. Unfortunately that is perceived as a dismissal, where the other person thinks you are shutting down. Instead, actively listen, where you ask questions that help to shed light on areas that your partner feels you are in the dark about. It’s hard, but Ephesians 4 asks us to “Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace” (2-3). Letting them know that you are actively listening paves a path of love for the both of you to travel together. 

And if you are on the other side and are the one coming in hot with the argument, avoid accusations and judgments on the other person. Frame your issues with how you are feeling and why you feel defensive about an issue. Explaining that you feel attacked rather than accusing the other person of attacking you puts emotions at the center and allows for empathy. Ephesians asks that we “walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God” (5:2). Avoiding an attack by focusing on how you feel rather than what the other person did allows for that walk. Seeking to find common ground and relating to each other’s feelings also models that love for the other person, and sometimes even persuades them to act likewise. For us, we might still disagree about our phones, but at least we are understanding each other’s emotions and aren’t in a stalemate.

Roaming the romantic wild west and coming across the occasional relationship standoff is a given. Good couples fight, and when they do, it can often lead down the wrong path. Be sure to set that path straight not by framing your argument about who’s right or wrong or how much the other person hurt you, but instead by developing it around your vulnerabilities, the emotions the issue evoked, and how you want to understand the other person’s point of view. In a stalemate, no one wins, but in a relationship framed with empathy, everyone does.

Amen.

Ugly Dismissiveness in Relationship Fighting

Refusing to engage with the other in a fight causes more harm than healing.

Although unpleasant, undesired, and unliked, I’m glad my wife and I fight.

We’ve had some tough ones, too, where tempers rose and frustration peaked. In fact, just yesterday, she approached me with valid concerns and frustrations. (It wasn’t received well, either. I’ll get into that in a minute.) Yet, despite the difficult experiences, I’m glad we fought as fighting is good for couples.

The reason I’m glad is because the real problem is when couples DON’T fight. When words are not exchanged and people don’t engage in conflict in a relationship, it’s because someone is holding it all in. When fights don’t happen, it’s because someone is deeply unhappy and isn’t expressing it, either because the other person is dominating the relationship to the point where the unhappy one is quiet or they don’t know how to express their frustrations. What happens then is that the displeased party becomes so unhappy as a result of bottling it up over a long time, that it finally explodes, manifesting itself with an extreme gesture like an affair or a divorce. When that happens, the other person usually doesn’t see it coming.

This approach of quietude falls under the large umbrella of dismissive behavior, where one person works actively to emotionally shut down the other. One of the most destructive individuals in a fight, this person actively works to silence the other through words, actions, approaches, or a combination of all three. They minimize the other person’s issues or feelings by imposing their own take on the situation. They listen to no one but their own ideas and beliefs: “The way of fools seems right to them, but the wise listen to advice” (Proverbs 12.15). Before addressing one, it is important to be able to identify them so as to develop a strategy in working with them towards a better relationship.

Character Traits

Ever tell someone that they hurt you and they immediately start defending themselves, making excuses for why you are wrong for thinking the way you are? That’s a dismissive person. They always have to be right and become insecure when you think that they are wrong. They prioritize themselves in the situation rather than putting your feelings first. They never apologize, never take you seriously, and tend to be judgmental in their assessment of your issue. Rather than listening, they jump to making themselves the victim. They dismiss the problem you presented and create a new problem with their lack of attention. Proverbs 18.13 encourages us to listen more as “to answer before listening— that is folly and shame.” They ignore what they’ve done and can only focus on what others have seemingly done to them.

Personally, I have a deeply flawed desire to let everyone know that what I did was right and any wrong they perceived is a misinterpretation on their part. This desire constantly invades my fights with my spouse right from the get go. As soon as she started with me yesterday, I tried my best to tell her how wrong she was. (My response comes from low self-esteem where I want to appear perfect to everyone. For people like me, we are worried about other people’s opinions.) If you enter into a fight with someone like me, it is best to bring the dismissive behavior to their attention because they might not know about it. Tell them how it makes you feel when they do that, as that approach labels it with an emotion.

Dismissive Words

Whatever the other person is bringing to you in the fight is real, as all feelings are valid. It doesn’t matter what you did or said: it’s how it’s perceived by the injured person that matters most. So any attempt to minimize the situation rather than hear and acknowledge it is a dismissive approach. Phrases like “That’s ridiculous”, “Whatever”, “Why are you making such a big deal of this?” are all dismissive. It’s a judgment on the validity of the other person’s concerns, but Romans 2.1-3 tells us, “You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge another, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things.” Additionally, non-verbal behaviors like eye-rolling, smirking, and facing away are all attempts to refuse engagement. 

I have difficulty physically engaging. Yesterday, I went inward and looked away often. It pained me to hear my mistakes being verbalized. What do you do with someone like me? Tell them how that makes you feel when you are dismissed: ignored, saddened, and worthless. Re-engage them and don’t give up. 

Dismissive Motions

Sometimes, dismissiveness can come in the form of broader strokes, like ignoring the person altogether or walking away during an argument. They may refuse to answer questions posed or give short grunts and one-word answers. They ignore you and show no interest in what is being said, treating the other person as less than they should be. 

I get very quiet in these arguments and answer with words that aren’t classified as words. My unwillingness to engage too frequently dominates my stance. I don’t want to be like the fool of Proverbs 18.2 who “find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions.” Thankfully I am with someone who hasn’t given up on me and takes these steps to combat my dismissiveness.

I am working on myself. I recognize that I don’t engage as I should. So today, I went back to her and let her know that although I didn’t receive her message well, she had some excellent points that I will work on. I am working on overcoming my lack of engagement, but at least for now I am considering her concerns more because of her approaches. As the dismissive one, I’ve had my behavior labeled, recognize it as wrong, and am taking steps to alter it.

This week, start taking a harder look at your engagement style when people bring a slight to your attention. Determine if you are engaging with them or not and work toward being more open to their criticism. It’s not easy, believe me, but know that the other person is coming to you out of love and concern for the relationship and yourself. And if you are dealing with a dismissive person, be patient and let them know how you feel when you are being dismissed. By putting the other person at the center of the issue, rather than yourself, your fighting will improve to a more healthy level.

Amen.

In Arguments, Don’t Let “You” Be the Focus

By introducing the word, “you” are allowing for accusations and unsettled conflict.

Words have tremendous power. They can be used to hurt, heal, inspire, and destroy. One of the roles of the English dictionary is to determine which words have gained too much power and which have lost their power altogether.

Over the last few years, there have been words that no one uses any more, words that have lost all meaning and power. For example, “hodad” is a 60s word and means “a surfer poseur,” which is not a word thrown around the beaches much these days. “Sternforemost,” an old nautical term from the 1800s, describes a ship moving backwards, another term no longer necessary. Where the unused word “frutescent” describes something as being “shrub-like,” an “unscrupulous politician” was known as a “snollygoster.” (So, is a short, round, corrupt politician then known as a “frutescent snollygoster”?)

Yet there are also words that have become too heavy for us to bear as a society, words that carry so much hurtful and hateful meaning that we now refer to them solely by a letter: the “f-word”, the “r-word”, the “n-word”, etc. (Feel free to look them up, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.) So harmful, these words immediately destroy the reputation of the person and may cause a complete breakdown in communication altogether. Since Proverbs warns us that, “The tongue has the power of life and death, and those who love it will eat its fruit” (18.21), we need to choose our words very carefully when speaking to one another.

With a foundation of loving and caring words, we build our personal and romantic relationships, establishing trust and nurturing communication. The most delicate time of relationship communication, where reputation and personal connection are most at stake, is during an argument. It is then that we become heated and sometimes don’t guard our words as closely as we should, mis-weighing each for their impact on the other person. Where there are clearly words that cannot be used, there is one word that really shouldn’t be used during a fight, as it can be the most destructive one of all: “you.” 

Seen as accusatory, the “y-word” changes the direction of the conversation from how the individual is in need of healing to what the other person is doing wrong. If “gracious words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healing to the bones” (Proverbs 16.24), the word “you” is an ax to the soul. It morphs the motion from gesturing to the hurting heart into a pointing finger of accusation that tears. Once the word is introduced into the argument, the point of the conversation changes from “help me” to “fix yourself,” and everyone gets defensive. 

“You always/never”

Sweeping generalizations tend to derail an argument and incorrectly label the accused party. They are exaggerations that lump all of a person’s efforts into a single category, ignoring any and all efforts of the other person. At this point, the accused then usually starts to list (either out loud or silently) the things that they have done that disprove that statement. The couple is then moving past problem-solving mode, where both people are trying to benefit, into argument mode, where one person is attempting to “win.”

My wife carries a big bag around with her filled with all of the things I’ve done over the last 30 years. When arguments start and we get accusatory, she unzips the bag and starts flinging them at me, citing the various wrongdoings I’ve been guilty of throughout the course of our relationship. And given that she’s a much better debater than I am, I frequently get buried in a mountain of my own errors. As a result of the “you always/never” approach, the past gets dredged up by one or both members, and that misses the problem at hand. Instead, avoid this phrase and try focusing on what is happening in the present and use phrases as to what you’ve recently witnessed and how it makes you feel. That will keep that bag zipped up tightly.

“You’re overreacting/You need to calm down”

We all know our arguments can get heated, however that doesn’t give the other person the right to judge and tell the other how they are reacting to the moment, quantifying their reaction as good or bad. You don’t get to determine whether the response is appropriate or not because you are not that other person, and no matter how much you might think or try, you don’t know how they are feeling. To them, this issue might be enormous, and for you to see it as less minimizes who they are as a person and how they are feeling. This approach also limits the accused’s accountability, suggesting that they didn’t cause the problem or didn’t cause it to the extent that the other feels it is.

Once these words come out of my mouth, there is not going back. If I thought she was overreacting in the beginning then I clearly haven’t seen overreacting, and boy will she show me what overreacting looks like now. Ever see oil get thrown on a fire? Pretty similar. (Even worse, try, “You’re crazy.”) A comment like that never sends us in the right direction and eliminates deescalation as an option. Instead of these phrases, let the other person know you are listening and want to hear more. James 1.19 tells us that “…Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry.” Making listening a preference then makes resolution a priority.

There are a lot of things that should or shouldn’t be said in an argument, and starting with eliminating the “y-word” is a step towards resolving conflict and building stronger bonds of communication. Remember, that “a gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger” (Proverbs 15.1), and “you” is just the word that kindles the fire. This week, work on becoming less defensive in your disagreements and geared more towards strengthening them through words of openness and phrases of gentleness. Being quick to listen puts the other person’s issue at the forefront and leads you less towards conflict provocation and more towards conflict resolution. 

Amen.

Sticking to One Flavor Makes the World Bland

Fear of other religions and their worship styles has Christians missing out on the joy of inter-faith celebrations.

The great philosopher Jerry Seinfeld once hypothesized that the entire world could draw lessons from the delicious dessert pastry known as the black and white cookie. His idea was about the two very different colors/flavors existing on the same plane and working together to make a delicious snack.

“You see, Elaine, the key to eating a black and white cookie is that you wanna get some black and some white in each bite. Nothing mixes better than vanilla and chocolate….If people would only look to the cookie, all our problems would be solved.”

Coexistence between two polar opposites of flavor seems like the perfect harmonious allegory for our society. Yet, not everyone sees the cookie that same way, as some see the chocolate and vanilla sides not as complementary flavors but as rival ones. There are some who eat one side first because it is better and then reluctantly eat the other side, not to mention those who throw the whole other side away, uneaten. Like Jerry says, it’s the mix that makes it perfect.

The cookie metaphor of course represents race, but it can also represent our religious landscape, with Christians being one side and non-Christians being the other. Amongst Christians, many tend to stick to their own kind, missing out on the mixing flavor of the world, creating social circles made up of only fellow believers. In college, it was frequently recited to me and others in my Christian circle that we should not get close with those who are not Christians. They cited 2 Corinthians 6:14 as their reference (“Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness?“), showing us that Christ desired us to not become involved, socially and romantically, with non-believers. I still shudder when I think of those who would self-righteously proclaim this to us on a weekly basis.

What they failed to realize and tended to miss was how Christ himself often hung around with non-believers. His social circle consisted of prostitutes (Luke 7), tax collectors (Matthew 9), and a host of sinners. When entering a town, He never sought out the faithful or synagogue leaders (he usually couldn’t stand those people, actually), but looked for people like Zacchaeus (Luke 19) the chief tax collector, asking to stay at his house. He also looked to socialize with those who were rejected by society, like the Samaritans (John 4). He did not view them as “wicked” but as people who had something to offer, individuals of value.

Believers tend to exemplify this lack of acceptance not only when it comes to non-believers, but more importantly, when it comes to the faithful of other religions. Like the opposite side of the cookie, they see them not as a complement to their own faith but as the polar opposite to it (i.e. – the enemy). To a Christian, engaging with someone Jewish, Buddhist, or Muslim is seemingly unheard of, and when it happens, it’s for the sole purposes of argument and conversion.

A celebration of our commonality as believers rather than a spotlight on our divisions, multi-faith groups feel that they can affect positive change in the world through a sharing of ideas and a collaboration of efforts. Unfortunately, there are common myths that mislead the faithful. 

Myth 1 – You must abandon what you believe

Some of my best friends are people with whom I don’t agree. We have differing philosophies, yet we get along very well, finding what we have in common and contributing those commonalities to a greater good. The same is with multi-faith: once together, many find that they have more in common than not, yet these similarities aren’t explored until people start talking with one another. Multi-faiths frequently begin with an acknowledgement of what people have in common, which is usually a recognition of a higher power that created us and loves us. There are also core character traits shared like dignity, respect, faith, and a desire for worship. Finding common ground creates empathy and understanding between people from differing backgrounds.

Myth 2 – Your faith will weaken

The fear comes from the thought that ideas will be watered-down. However, watching people enjoy their own faith results in a strengthening of one’s own because of the passion we see in others—we instead become inspired. It also sharpens our own faith, forcing us to figure out exactly what we believe. In college, I took a World Religions class, and the professor’s constant questions to the group made me go inward and explore my beliefs, solidifying them beyond trite answers and clichéd responses.

Myth 3 – It will silence your faith

Nothing gets people of faith talking more than getting together. Why must those involved be all the same faith, then? In inter-faith, people have the opportunity to share the wonderful things that are going on in their lives, making celebrants realize just how great the world can be. It brings about positivity and a desire to fellowship and encourage one another. Joy is joy, no matter from whence it springs. 

Having been to multi-faith services and ceremonies, they are not sacrilegious and godless but are a spiritual time of excitement and camaraderie. (Most fun was a winter solstice ceremony I attended at St. John the Divine in NYC!) It’s a time to break through misconceptions and constructs, giving others a more realistic, encouraging perspective. As mentioned last week, Christians tend to think that they are better than others, but gatherings like this help us to recognize our equal place in the world and a community with others. 

Faith celebrations should not be exclusive. They should be shared not only among fellow Christians but among faithful people, as well. Christ encouraged us to “…let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven” (Matthew 5:16). We have the ability to be that “cookie” complement to others with our light, but if we choose the role of opposition, our light is dimmed. This week, take an active role in your faith and seek out other opportunities to know those who are not of the same faith. Non-Christians are not unbelievers, unfaithful, or immoral—celebrate with them the beliefs you have, even if you don’t always agree. You may even find that there are believers who have more faith than most Christians you know, so enjoy the excitement others have for their faith and use it to embrace and share in that experience with them. 

Amen.

Burying Your Head in a Bible Narrows Your Vision

It may have great ideas, but sticking to one story breeds contempt and ignorance.

Standing in front of a room, I am constantly reading body language to see how well the lesson is going, or isn’t.

The study of body language is a definitive study that leads to real conclusions. It is one of the most helpful sciences in talking to other people, helping us to better understand the needs of others in conversation or public speaking. 

For me, if students are sitting with arms crossed and legs folded, I can tell that they are rejecting what I am saying. If they are leaning forward and sometimes nodding their heads, they are engaged. If they have their eyes closed and heads down, then they are asleep. (See, it’s easy!)

When I am reading these signs, I can easily adjust my lesson to better meet their needs. However, there is one bodily response that one can never change or come back from, one that is easily recognizable and is a death knell for whatever it is you are saying and maybe even for who you are: contempt.

If you ever see someone display a sign of contempt, you’re done. When someone lifts the corner of their upper lip, it is an unmistakable sign that they not only reject what you are saying but who you are. Thankfully, I haven’t run into it too often in the classroom, as there is no coming back from contempt: those who display it always feel that they are better than you.

Although it is cited as a misconception when talking about Christians, my experience in multiple churches has shown me that yes, there are believers who show contempt and feel that they are better than non-believers. They lift the corner of their proverbial upper lift and feel that they are the enlightened ones who know the truth and the way, and thus look down on others who are not. However, in order to combat contempt, let’s first understand why Christians think this way, as it all comes down to narrowmindedness.

Nigerian writer Chimamanda Adichie, in her 2009 TED Talk “The Danger of a Single Story,” discusses how when growing up in Africa, she was only exposed to British and English literature. Although profoundly influenced and moved by those works, she couldn’t connect with any character because she didn’t see herself in any of them. As a result, she thought that literature only contained stories about foreigners, so she had a very narrow view of literature. When exposed to African books, “I went through a mental shift in my perception of literature. I realized that people like me, girls with skin the color of chocolate, whose kinky hair could not form ponytails, could also exist in literature. I started to write about things I recognized.”

Similarly, when she entered college, her roommate was surprised by many of her abilities because she also had been told a single story. “She asked where I had learned to speak English so well, and was confused when I said that Nigeria happened to have English as its official language. She asked if she could listen to what she called my ‘tribal music,’ and was consequently very disappointed when I produced my tape of Mariah Carey.” Because her roommates’ exposure to the single story of “tribal” Africans was all she knew, she had a very narrow view of people from that background.

Christians who read only Christian material are the same in that they are feeding themselves a single story. Ask the average churchgoer to explain the significance of the Jewish Seder plate or list even one of the five pillars of Islam, and you will find blank looks and silence along with contempt for those religions. For the most part, Christians only read the Bible and Christian texts, despite there being a wealth of material lying outside of Christianity from a wide range of religions, philosophies, and lifestyles.

Why do they exclude so many other ideas and stick to their own? Why is there such contempt for anything non-Christian? The reason comes from scripture quoted out of context regarding Christianity and its supposed exclusiveness. For example, Jesus says, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). Putting this verse into proper context, Jesus is talking to His disciples and letting them know that by following Him, they may access God. He is God’s vessel, a divine mediator. Many use this verse to show that there is only one way to God, but that message ignores Jesus’s previous teaching about love, compassion, and inclusivity rather than the exclusivity many think this verse suggests. Focusing on this single verse creates a narrow understanding of the Bible’s teaching. Acts 4.12 is similarly used for the same purpose and with the same effect: “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.” These words are spoken not by Jesus but by Peter, a secondary source to Christ, so it is not so much a teaching as it is a message to the people in that particular story. Without that context, Christians can bend it to achieve any purpose they want. When Christians use it as a sign of exclusivity, they breed contempt for others outside of their own exclusive circle.

Causally speaking, if Christians believe they are the only way, then they see other religions as false. This narrow-mindedness ignores the fact that Christianity was birthed in a very specific part of the world with the values and vocabulary of that area, and other religions from other regions may have similar ideas but just with different names attached to them. Christians incorrectly see other religions as contradictory to their own, thinking those religions possess no inherent value, which of course is not true. There is a great deal that Christians can learn from other religions regarding meditation, healing, and peace (both inward and outward). Yet because they swallow the misconstrued construct that Christianity is true and everyone else is false, they fail to seek out the personal and societal benefits that other religions and ways of life offer. They do not recognize other’s viewpoints so they cannot develop compassion for them.

If Christians can move beyond thinking that they are special and the only true people of God, perhaps we might find more peace and understanding in the world rather than conflict and war. This week, take yourself down a notch and know that the only person you are better than is who you were yesterday. When you achieve that level of compassion and understanding, you will begin to see others as having equal value, acknowledging that all people have something to offer. Take yourself out of your Bible every once in a while and seek enlightenment through non-traditional, non-Christian means. You are not a bad Christian for understanding other people and cultures: you are just a compassionate one.

Amen.

Artwork courtesy by Paul Brumit

You’re Going to Be Sick for Awhile if You’re Praying It Away

Prayer and faith are good, but medicine and doctors are better.

One of the first emails I read every day when I come into school is the list of absent teachers. They send it out because we present teachers need to cover their classes for them. (Don’t worry, union people: we get paid extra to do it.) Over the last couple of months, that list has been growing significantly longer.

My first period students are always anxious to hear who is on that list, as the name of their teacher on that list dictates the kind of day they will have. When I mention the name of one of their absent teachers, they usually cheer. (Do they do that when I am absent?) I do get the occasional comment of, “Wow, they are STILL out?”, which indicates to me that the individual is REALLY sick, keeping their absence in context. What never occurs to me though, is how that individual must not have the required faith to be healed, which pulls the situation completely out of context.

I’m continuing my exploration of the view sickness has in the Christian community and how many of the beliefs are not truths but are Christian constructs (when a society creates and agrees upon a specific rule or concept they will all follow and adhere to throughout their time together, i.e. – race, gender, money, or countries). Now, let’s look at the role that faith has in healing and how several feel that in order to be healed, you must embrace the healing and have faith that you will get better. In truth, nothing could be farther from it. A series of belief missteps, the faithful are being misled with these faulty conclusions.

Myth 1: Christ not only died for our sins but for our sickness, too.

With this coming Easter season, you may hear that Christ was crucified not only for our sins, granting us forgiveness, but also for our sicknesses, giving us healing. Among the very few passages that point to this bodily healing is the prophecy of Isaiah 53 which says, “Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering…and by his wounds we are healed” (4, 5). Some also cite Matthew 8. 16-17 which has Christ healing demon-possessed and the sick, fulfilling that prophecy of Isaiah. This fulfillment is suggested that we no longer need to be sick because Christ bore those illnesses rather than have us suffer them, and we are healed as a result. So, many “claim” healing through their faith, and when they are not healed it’s because they lack the faith to do so.

However, the examples of Christ healing the sick at that time does not translate to how He heals all people throughout time. The problem is Christians, once again, taking scripture out of context and using it for their own purposes. The healing of the sick in Matthew was written to show how Christ was fulfilling the prophecies of the coming Messiah and the Jewish law, and those who use it to show how Christ died for our sicknesses are ignoring the author’s purpose. And when the scriptures discuss how Christ “bore” our suffering, those who use it out of context ignore the concept that “suffering” is referring to sin, not sickness. Biblical authors never wrote about how our faith connects to a physical healing, because it doesn’t.

Myth 2: If you have enough faith, you will be healed

Dale and Shannon Hickman, in 2009, chose not to bring their premature child to a hospital and instead decided to pray over him. Despite the infant weighing less than four pounds and being in extreme distress, the couple decided to not seek out healthcare and medical personnel. The child died within nine hours of its birth from staphylococcus pneumonia. After reviewing the case and the home video footage, one doctor said that if the couple had brought the child to a hospital, it would have had a “99 percent chance of survival.” Brought up on charges, the couple were found guilty of second-degree manslaughter and were sent to prison for 6 years. Most disturbing is that the couple, when testifying, felt that they did nothing wrong and if given the chance, would do it all the same way again.  

This example is one of many from faith-based churches who rely not on science and medicine but misguided faith-based healing whose foundation is built on shaky ground. I say that this is the most dangerous of misbeliefs because there are many who eschew science and medicine in favor of prayer and supplication. Referred to as faith/spiritual healing, they ignore doctors and pharmacists in favor of ministers and prayer groups.

This faith-based misconception is directly linked to the above myth, believing that if you pray hard enough, light enough candles, and deny yourself the good things in life, then you or the one for whom you are praying, will be healed. It is taken as a sign that you do not have enough faith if you or your loved one is still sick after asking for healing. It ignores last week’s incorrect assumption that all sickness is evil even, which ignores that sometimes He works through people’s sickness to achieve a greater good. So misguidedly, these believers try to pray the sickness away, which ignores logic and the advice of those around them.

As you might have assumed, there is no Biblical basis for this approach whatsoever, and there is no logical basis either, as many who have no faith are frequently healed from their sicknesses. Also, it concludes that God wants us to be healthy, which assumes that we know the mind of God. As God speaks in Isaiah 55, He shows us that we can’t possibly comprehend His actions and thoughts, “”For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts” (8-9).

Taking scripture out of context and holding it up as a core belief creates knowledge gaps and fosters poor decision making which leads to ignorance and disastrous results. The tragic consequences of assumption and misguided belief are rooted yet again in not seeking out the truth. Unlike Dale and Shannon Hickman, we need to base our beliefs in actual logic and listen to the advice of those around us who may know better. We can’t assume a belief because it feels right but need to embrace belief that is founded on what is truthful and Biblical.

Like my previous devotionals, if we choose to accept an unfounded construct or misguided belief because we don’t do the research ourselves or back our ideas up with solid teaching, then we run the risk of dangerous consequences. This week, continue to seek truth and build up a foundation of actual fact rather than one of assumption, construct, and misinterpretation. Your life, and afterlife, may depend on it.

Amen.

If You’re Feeling Sick, Maybe It’s a Demon

The Christian myths that fly around illness distract us from what is truly at center: people.

Sickness has been such a prevalent aspect to our society these past few years that its announcement has almost become commonplace. With the onslaught of COVID and the flu, most of us can hardly remember a time when sickness was not much more than a sniffly cold or a reaction to bad sushi.

Churches have always taken an active role for those who are ill in their congregation, tending to them when possible and visiting those in need. Also, they have also been actively engaged in prayer for them, usually with a list of people read aloud during a service. 

Although I don’t have any hard data to back it up, I can gather that these lists have grown longer in the past few years, with the number of lit candles for supplication increasing, as most in the church believe in a solid connection between prayer and healing sickness. As a construct (when a society creates and agrees upon a specific rule or concept they will all follow and adhere to throughout their time together, i.e. – race, gender, money, or countries), it is adhered to so faithfully that many attribute miracles to these spiritual requests.

This construct is drawn directly from James’s letter to the twelves tribes, where he asks: “Is anyone among you sick? Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise them up. If they have sinned, they will be forgiven” (5:14-15). And unlike many of the other constructs we’ve examined, there is a great deal of truth that supports this one. Although the Bible has few verses connecting prayer and healing, there are precise examples where an individual’s faith has made them well. And scientific research has also shown that prayer and meditation has the ability to heal the mind, body, and soul.

Yet what isn’t supported by the Bible and science is our misunderstanding of the roots, existence, and progression of sickness, as there are many mistaken beliefs that surround it. So in order to utilize prayer for healing, we must first understand sickness properly and crush the fallacies so that we might prop up the construct properly.

Myth 1: Sickness is evil

Several feel that sickness has roots steeped in Satan, indicating that if one is sick, they are being tormented by the evil one. This concept most likely developed from stories in the gospels where Christ healed sick people by casting a demon out of them. Some cite the character of Job, as he was struck with boils given to him by the devil to dissuade him from his faith. However, the conclusion of Satanic illness does not take into consideration the times when God afflicted a person with an illness or disability. In Exodus 15:26, God brings up, “the diseases I brought on the Egyptians,” indicating that their affliction was heavenly and for His purposes. Saul’s scales on his eyes also seem to emanate from His actions. Both of these situations reveal this key concept: disease and sickness, although unpleasant, seem to be a part of His plan. Seemingly, illness can contribute to a greater good and a better world, and therefore be divine and not just under-worldly. 

Myth 2: Sickness is sin

If we believe that sickness comes from evil sources, we run the risk of assuming that sickness is a result of sin. This concept was perpetuated by the Christian community in the 80s when AIDS became an epidemic and the church linked it to homosexuality. (Turns out, AIDS affected all lifestyles.) Nowadays, many evangelicals like to link any illness to the sins of the people, when the truth is that the two have no causal relationship whatsoever (they are merely correlated, or happening at the same time but not caused by each other). So praying the sin away will not heal the sick. Usually only medicine and treatment does that.

Myth: Sickness is a sign of judgment

This misconception reminds me of The Simpsons’ Reverend Lovejoy, who, whenever something bad happens, mutters, “God is angry…” Health is wrongly attributed to the faithful and illness to the judged. Sure, we’ve seen God judge people before and given them sickness as a result: in Numbers 12, Miriam is struck with leprosy when she speaks out against her brother Moses, and in 1 Kings 13, King Jeroboam’s hand withers when he orders a prophet’s arrest, but to connect all sickness to sin is an oversimplification and a faulty argument. (It’s like saying that chocolate makes people happy, a statement which is true sometimes, but not frequent enough to be a truth.) There is no consistent link between illness and God’s judgment, as we’ve seen evil people prosper and good people suffer. (In the same manner, natural disasters have unfairly been called “God’s judgment” on His people.)

What this all comes down to is that we should not assume that sickness is a result of either judgment, sin, or the devil, because if we do, then we end up concentrating our efforts on the wrong source of it. By believing these myths, rather than tending to the sick, we tend to things unrelated to them, and our efforts are wasted. Even in prayer, when we think about sickness we should be focusing not on praying away sin or asking for God’s judgment to be lifted, but for the person’s healing. 

Additionally, as indicated by almost every major section of the Bible, authors discuss how we live in a broken world, one where pain and suffering exist as a result of sin. Sickness is just a way of life, being neither good nor evil. It is biology (germs invading our system) or it is our own lack of prioritizing our health and running ourselves down. To paint it as either good or evil misses the point of sickness: we are a world in need of healing and illness creates opportunities to bring out the best in us all.

Understanding the true nature of sickness helps us better serve one another and in turn creates stronger bonds of love and empathy between us. This week, focus not on the sickness but on the sick, humanizing illness rather than imagining an angelic battle for the soul. By seeing the sick for what they really need, we can become better servants of them and God and redirect our efforts in a better manner.

Amen.

God’s Perfect Word Comes From Above, Not from the Bible

Our faith is placed too firmly in a book written by humanity rather than in a being who loves us despite our flaws.

If it’s on the Internet, then it must be true!

That’s the thinking of most of my students who don’t yet know quite how to wade through the sea of misinformation. The problem with the Internet is that anyone can post there, from anywhere in the world. And if you can get enough people to read your misinformation, they are okay with believing it. 

Here are some examples of Internet misinformation that people have fallen for:

• an article from “NASA” with quotes from established scientists made the rounds about how we would be experiencing a global phenomenon of six days of darkness
• a claim called “The Broom Challenge” was made (with video) where the gravitational pull of the earth at a specific time, would make a broom stand up for 24 hours (many news outlets and celebrities jumped in on this)
• a video of a shark swimming down the street during Hurricane Laura was picked up by many outlets (it was actually old footage from 2011, and it was a photoshopped image, anyway)

The same goes for news sources, both print and online, that because they post it, it must be the inerrant word of truth, but the actual truth is that these sources are either not reliable or have an agenda to slant the truth toward their desires. They want people to react and respond a certain way, so they post it in a way where their audience will react accordingly. You can’t believe it just because they say it, and yes, the Bible also falls into this category. We believe things just because it’s in the Bible, because several believe that the Bible is the flawless, inerrant word of God. This belief is a social construct.

(Another reminder for those who haven’t been following my series on constructs: constructs are when a society creates and agrees upon a specific rule or concept they will all follow and adhere to throughout their time together. For example, nationality is a construct: just because your ancestors came from an area between specific randomly drawn borderlines does not mean that they should act a certain way or that you should, too. Oddly enough, a great deal of Americans still identify with their heritage, claiming to be a specific nationality, when they were born in America.)

As the most published book in the world, a lot of people believe that the Bible is the absolute truth, that cover to cover, the Bible contains the most accurate, irreproachable, divinely inspired word of God. It happened as it is written. Taking this verse out of context, Christians refer to 2 Timothy 3.16 for this proof: “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness.” However, despite what Christians think, the Bible never claims to be flawless or without contradiction. 

But first, a history lesson!

To show you just how human-centered and convoluted the Bible’s can be, let’s first see how it was made. With 66 books by 40 different authors, the biblical collection of texts as we know it were somewhat randomly and haphazardly put together over two thousand years, with shifting groups and competing agendas. Beginning in 1400 BC, the first five books of the Bible would be written by the Hebrews over the next 1000 years. Around 250 BC, the Septuagint, a popular version of the Old Testament, was written and organized by the Greeks. From 45-85 AD, several New Testament books were written by the apostles and disciples but not settled upon as a collection until 367 AD. Meanwhile, in 118 AD, the Judaic 39 books of the Old Testament were put together in response to Christianity’s growth. From 400-1600 AD, the Bible was rewritten several times in many different languages with differing cultural backgrounds and standards. In 1611, the authorized King James Bible was published under the Protestant king, which is what we use today. 

Also, these 66 weren’t the only books around: several competing books were also looking to get into the Bible that didn’t make it, some Apocryphal and some that are not (Books of Jasher, Jehu, Enoch, and Acts of Isaiah, just to name a few). Why didn’t they make it in? People voted that they should not be in there and don’t people know best? (I don’t know about you, but I can think of several elections where they picked the wrong person.)

And besides this organization, or maybe because of it, the Bible isn’t perfect and contains contradictions. There are lots of differing accounts throughout, events that don’t agree with one another. Here are just a few:

• Mary Magdalene finds the tomb “after sunrise” (Mark 16.2) and when it is “still dark” (John 20.1).
• No one has seen God (John 1.18, 1 Timothy 6.16, 1 John 4.12) and some people have (Genesis 32.30 and Exodus 33.11).
• The order of creation between Genesis 1 and 2 varies wildly.
• Judas betrays Jesus with a kiss (Matthew 26.49-50, Mark 14.44-46), Jesus anticipates the kiss without it happening (Luke 22.47-48), and Jesus steps forward without being pointed out by Judas (Luke 22.47-48).

These are just a few of the many inconsistencies that most overlook in favor of propping up the inerrancy of the Bible to build their faith. To make matters worse, a Gallup poll from last year found that 20% (although this figure is steadily declining) of Americans believe that the Bible is the literal word of God, rather than being symbolic or having cultural context (i.e. – they believe in a literal seven day creation). That Christians would ignore the facts about multiple authors, the timespan of the writings, the inconsistencies and contradictions, as well as context and decide to stand so firmly on such an unimportant point is disturbing at best.

Why do people adhere to this construct and where did it come from? Bible scholar Michael F. Bird notes: “Raising the banner of inerrancy was a great way to strike fear into folks that the secular barbarians were at the gates and to justify canceling persons who interpreted the Bible in such a way that undermined the power base of certain leaders.” The construct of a flawless Bible is a fear tactic, an attempt to scare people into believing because that would increase their faith, and people believe it because they are afraid not to. The good news is, we don’t need to believe in a perfect Bible or be scared to be faithful. Our faith is made of sterner stuff. We can still be a Christian and accept that the Bible is flawed and inaccurate and be just as secure in our faith. Putting all of our eggs into the basket of a perfect Bible only creates divides, rifts, and disharmony.

To insist that the Bible is the “God-breathed” word of our creator is petty and goes against every message that Christ ever preached. Above all else, he preached love and mercy, not perfection and inerrancy. Even though the Bible is a man-made object that recorded fantastical events and got some things wrong, that doesn’t mean that Christians can’t believe in wonderful happenings, things beyond their understanding, or the essential message preached of love, forgiveness and mercy. We need to live beyond what is written and live more for what it all means.

Remember: just because it is written down, that doesn’t make it true. Just because it is old, that doesn’t make it inerrant. Just because the church claims it to be perfect, that doesn’t make it so. What is true is that none of these points are important enough to argue about or believe in, because faith is about accepting the things we don’t know for certain and living a life of love that accepts each other despite our differences. Don’t let anyone tell you that it’s all true, but don’t argue with them either. It’s okay to accept them for who they are, and maybe in turn, they will do the same whether the Bible tells them to or not.

Amen.

The Methodical Suppression of Women Warriors, and Other Male Fantasies

Church masculinity isn’t what it used to be. Or should ever have been.

John Wayne would be embarrassed by my laundry skills.

In our house, my wife and I share the household chores fairly evenly. Where she dusts and cleans bathrooms, I vacuum and change the beds. She is in charge of meal preparation (I have no expertise in that area), and I balance the finances and pay the bills. I am also fully in charge of all laundry in the house, making sure that everyone has clean clothes that are neatly folded and put away. So as the epitome of masculinity, John Wayne would shake his head while moseying away, mutter for me to “man up,” and then probably shoot a Native American.

Traditional male roles state that I might best be used for hunting the evening’s dinner or pulling in a huge salary, but I’m not sure that I’m best utilized that way. Folding laundry gives me peace of mind and satisfaction in a job well done while serving the household. As many might suggest, it is not the most “manly” thing one can do, but “masculinity” isn’t really something that can, or should be defined.

As you might have guessed where I’m going here, yes, gender is also a social construct. 

(Quick reminder for those new here: constructs are when a society creates and agrees upon a specific rule or concept they will all follow and adhere to throughout their time together. For example, intelligence is a construct. We can agree that the valedictorian is intelligent because of his grades, but put him in the wilderness and he’d die within two days. How intelligent is that?)

The concepts of gender and sex are very different. We are assigned sex at birth based on biology, but gender is about the expectations placed upon a person throughout their life that is associated with their sex. For example, men should not wear dresses – a construct because we usually associate dresses with women. (Tell that to a Scotsman.) The idea that a man would be in charge of laundry in a household with a woman present also goes against gender roles, as that should be her job. Constructs can be fluid, as seen by how gender roles have changed over time—years ago women became either nurses, secretaries, teachers, or housewives, whereas nowadays they can be anything they want to be. Yet what unfortunately hasn’t changed for the better with gender constructs, is the role of men and women in the church.

The gender-assigned roles in the church of men as leaders and providers and women as nurturing caregivers was probably well-intentioned at the beginning, but this gender construct has been weaponized over the years to promote a male-dominated Christian patriarchy, where men create the rules and women subserviently follow. This approach has unfairly painted women as more caring and sensitive to the needs of others, thus being well-suited for raising children but not set up to be leaders of groups. They are allowed to teach children and other women, but not men. In fact, they are often drawn as incapable of teaching men, something my wife challenged for years when she taught kickboxing to me and many other men.

The construct is frequently enforced with misinterpreted scripture such as this passage from 1 Timothy 2.11-15: “ A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet…Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner. But women will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety.” To the uninitiated, the passage seems fairly straightforward about how the role of women in the church should be suppressed, but that narrow-mindedness ignores the historical and cultural context of place within Ephesus, the gender norms of the time period, and the cultural practices of the people. The church often incorrectly assumes a timelessness rather than scripture being bound to a period and a literalness where symbolism and allegory are frequently invoked.

The gender construct of the weak woman has also been reinforced by cherry picking specific events and women from the Bible as models and ignoring the contributions of others. Men would rather not draw from more aggressive and involved women like the warrior and prophet Deborah of Judges 4 and 5, a military commander who leads the nation of Israel, or the cunning warrior Jael, who defeats her enemy through clever espionage. Weak women they are not.

Instead, the church patriarchy holds up women like Mary and Sarah, amazing women in their own right, but they are heralded only for their obedience, submission, and quiet faithfulness. Yet these women were more than that. In Luke 1, Mary, the mother of Jesus, shows great courage in facing a culture that assuredly rejected her for an out of wedlock pregnancy, and in verses 46-55, Mary sings a song that celebrates God’s justice and mercy, reflecting a deep knowledge and understanding of the scriptures. For Sarah, the ninety year old who birthed Isaac, Genesis shows how much of a leader and matriarch she was among the Israelites, as her influence changed family dynamics and drove the direction of the Abrahamic covenant. But these qualities are so infrequently invoked because they do not support the gender construct of women being weak and subservient.

Wrongful and misguided interpretation is, as we have seen here and in previous devotionals, at the heart of promoting incorrect constructs. Where one sees the entirety of Ephesians 5.22-33 as a guideline for mutual submission, care, and love in a marriage, another takes only one section to prove that “the husband is the head of the wife” (23). A key to avoiding misguided constructs is to put the entirety of a concept into context, looking at the words and ideas around the idea rather than just the idea itself. 

Biblical masculinity and womanhood are clearly constructs designed to suppress one group and promote another, a frequent approach when one group plays for power over the other. The church is deeply guilty of this suppression and has forgotten that, “God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them” (Genesis 1.27). To avoid these pitfalls, we need to weigh all of the evidence, not just the parts that fit our needs. To rise above these pitfalls, we need to not accept what gender roles are being dictated to us but instead embrace our skills as individuals, work together as a body, and look beyond our sex for what we should and shouldn’t be doing.

As for me, I’ve got a load of wash that needs to go into the dryer.

Amen.

Looking to Get into Heaven? It’s More Complicated than You Realize

We think we know a lot about the afterlife, but the truth is more cloudy than we can imagine.

White robes, glowing halos, cloudy streets of gold and pearly gates, St. Peter with a big book of names: it’s what most Christians view heaven as. But as we found out in last week’s devotion on constructs, turns out we don’t know much about heaven at all. And on the topic of getting there, we might be even more uncertain.

First a refresher: constructs are when a society creates and agrees upon a specific rule or concept they will all follow and adhere to throughout their time together. Everything from property lines to beauty standards: they are all constructs. Christianity also has its constructs, usually based on assumptions and individual interpretation, and the issues arise when we believe that the constructs are actually Biblical and are willing to fight people on it.

In fact, there are a lot of things we think are in the Bible that actually aren’t. For example, Adam and Eve ate from the tree of knowledge sharing what with one another? Most would say an apple, but the Bible never does. It only says a fruit, which could be a mango, papaya, or pear (Genesis 3.6). How about Christ’s birth: how many wise men were there? The Bible only says that wise men showed up and had three gifts, so we assumed there were three of them (Matthew 2.1-12). And how about those famous Bible verses like “this too shall pass”, “God will not give you more than you can handle”, or “money is the root of all evil”? Nope, none of these are in there: they are all created by society and we assumed they were in the Bible.

So how about getting into heaven? We mentioned that there are only a few mentions of heaven in the Bible as is, so let’s examine what is true and what is not about going there.

Good people go to heaven

In Albert Brooks’s fantastic comedy “Defending Your Life,” the main character dies in the opening moments and spends the rest of the film in a heavenly courtroom. There, scenes of his life are played back to him as a prosecutor and defending attorney attempt to determine whether he is a good person or not. Once a person is established as “good,” you get to go on into heaven. Christians have a similar concept of judgment, usually involving a cosmic scale that puts all of our good deeds on one side and bad deeds on the other, but the Bible supports no such unit of weights and measures. So how DO you get an admittance ticket?

The problem is that good and evil are just constructs, too. Try this example: A stranger comes to my house and my dog bites him. Is my dog a good dog or a bad dog? She is good, because she defended the house against strangers, but she is also bad because she caused pain to someone. Good and bad often depends upon perspective, so that’s out.

Your faith will save you

Many Christians consider faith as a prerequisite for entrance, as Christ mentions in John 14.6: “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” Churches have interpreted that belief in Christ as savior is the way into heaven, but that is just an interpretation and seems to forget that James 2.17 tells us that, “In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.” And don’t forget repentance as mentioned in Acts 2.38 which may also be the key that unlocks those pearly gates: “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins.” So is it about asking for forgiveness? Faith? Works? It’s mostly up to how different groups interpret scripture.

We are saved if we say “The Sinner’s Prayer”

The Bible also mentions God’s mercy, grace, and forgiveness (Ephesians 2:8-9 states, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.”) which suggests that even the most immoral person has a chance at entrance if they ask for forgiveness. Just say the magic words!

Thus, many believe in this singular prayer where confession, acceptance of forgiveness, repentance, and faith are all invoked, which are all similar to this one as said by Rev. Billy Graham:

Dear Lord Jesus, I know that I am a sinner, and I ask for Your forgiveness. I believe You died for my sins and rose from the dead. I turn from my sins and invite You to come into my heart and life. I want to trust and follow You as my Lord and Savior. In Your Name. Amen.

Although based in Biblical ideas and Christian concepts (it is inspired by Romans 10.9 – “If you declare with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”), there is nothing in the Bible that suggests that if you say these words then you are issued an immediate heavenly ticket. Sorry.

After death, Heaven awaits

Well, at least no matter how bad this life gets, we have heaven to look forward to in the next one, right? Unfortunately, this concept is not Biblically based either but is built off of Medieval ideas of a post-death paradise. There is nothing that says that heaven is our next stop on the line, the place where all the faithful go. Mentions of “My Father’s house” (John 14.2) and “a building from God, an eternal house in heaven” (2 Corinthians 5.1) are written about, but other than being able to ultimately spend an eternity with God, we don’t really know what that entails or if there is another stop before we get there. 

Essentially, heaven is a mystery.  We have faith that we will be given a peaceful existence in a place that is heavenly, but the truth is that given our limited perspective and brain power as humans, we probably can’t conceptualize what lies after this word (“the undiscovered country” as Hamlet calls it, and suggests that since we don’t know what lies after, all we can do is be open and ready for whatever lies next—“the readiness is all”). 

All these realizations can be discouraging, but only if you let them be. Since we cannot be sure of anything about heaven (sorry, Mr. Burpo), we can enjoy the mystery and not be limited in our thinking about it. Then, perhaps we won’t stand against each other so firmly with things we really aren’t too sure about. Rather than drawing lines between groups, we should be embracing the shared experience of faith and the unknowable hereafter. 

This week, don’t allow these realizations to shake your faith but rather allow them to open up your faith to the possibility of the unknowable, the wonderful mystery of faith and the afterlife. That approach won’t shake your faith but will definitely shake the self-righteousness that so pervades our world, allowing for an empathetic understanding of others and their ideas. The truth is that we really don’t know much, and that lack of knowledge is freeing. Don’t be self-righteous and let misconceptions about your faith guide your actions; instead let a search for wisdom and an embracing of the mystery guide your life journey.

Amen.

The Danger of Accepting the Construct Rather than Finding the Truth

When we blindly accept what everyone is saying, we do damage to ourselves and miss out on life.

Asking someone how old they are is never a polite conversation starter. So instead, I ask people how old they THINK they are.

It’s a very different question that gets people talking. In our heads, we see ourselves as much younger than we actually are. Dubbed our “subjective age,” it’s the age we view ourselves in our minds. Most of us have a strong grasp of our subjective age and can call out a very specific number within seconds. (Research finds that we see ourselves as 20% younger than we actually are.) And when we step in front of a mirror, we are struck by the ravages of time, thrown off guard, and startled by what we see, thinking that there must be some mistake with what the mirror is reflecting back at us.

I’ve been thinking about this concept a lot lately, as I recently just hit a milestone: I turned 50. Many keep congratulating me, although I see it as a dubious honor—essentially being this old means that for the past 50 years I’ve managed to not die (which is not much of an accomplishment when phrased like that). Of course, I don’t really see myself as being that age; in my head, I am a spritely 32, full of vigor and vitality. (Physically, I’ve been lucky to still look that young, although my joints doth protest too much.) My students are surprised to hear that I am that old, as they expected my answer to be fifteen years less. Why? Because age is a social construct, and I am not adhering to the rules.

When the people in a society create and agree upon a specific rule or concept that they will all follow and adhere to throughout their time together, that is known as a social construct. For example, paper money is a construct—there is nothing inherently valuable about the paper itself. It is just pulp from a tree printed upon with ink. But as a society, we’ve agreed that the ones with a “20” printed on it are more than the ones with a “5.” Driving rules are another construct—we’ve all agreed that when there is a red glowing light bulb at an intersection, we will stop and make it safe to travel in the perpendicular direction. 

In the same way, age is a construct, a seemingly meaningless but agreed upon number attached to our existence, where certain behaviors and attitudes are assumed of a person depending on that number. We all think that people with lower numbers are seen as carefree, energetic, but self-centered, whereas people with higher numbers are wise, family-oriented, but forgetful. Are these traits true of everyone? Of course not, but we conform to what people expect of us. A construct creates boxes that trap and confine us because it is assumed that we should “act our age.”

I tend to reject my age construct in that I allow for more energy than most my age, I relate more to teens rather than adults, and I am more tech savvy and pop culture minded than those around me, all construct-defiers. I acknowledge the construct but I don’t let it define my lifestyle and choices. Where most have settled into their ways at 50, I feel that I am still learning, growing, and have so much more in life to experience. In short, I’m just getting started, all because I don’t accept the construct. If I choose to adhere to it, I miss out on life and the joy it brings. So, that we all see ourselves as younger than we are, suggests that the construct doesn’t reflect the actuality and many have a desire to reject their age but don’t because, well, society.

This is where the concept of a construct becomes dangerous. If we accept things the way they are just because everyone says that’s the agreed upon rule, we become misinformed and led astray. Just because everyone says it’s so, that doesn’t mean that it is. And unfortunately, Christianity is riddled with constructs, ideas that we all agreed upon but have little to no factual backing.

For example, ask anyone where heaven is and they will no doubt point up. Where’s hell? That’s right: down. Yet there is no Biblical support for this misguided geography. Additionally, the majority of what we understand about both these places is a construct. The Bible is very scant on heavenly depictions, citing that ”God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and He will dwell with them” (Revelation 21:3). The chapter continues with depictions of a painless, tear-free existence in His presence. But where are the golden robed angels with halos and harps? What happened to the physical floating and timeless existence? Constructs.

Additionally, hell is also described just a few times, labeled as a place of “eternal punishment” (Matthew 25.46) and a “furnace of fire” (13.42). Yet isn’t hell a party for Satan and his followers? Where are the torture devices and pitchforks? That we’ve vividly accepted societal imagery suggests a misinformed public heavily influenced by art, film, and Dante’s “Inferno.” 

Societally, we’ve adopted the concept of these two afterlife images without any biblical backing. We just assumed it was all in the Bible somewhere and never bothered looking any of it up. If there are only a few mentions of heaven and hell in the Bible, how is it that Christians have made it the foundation of everything they believe and have chosen to predominately de-emphasize the rest? If the majority of the Bible emphasizes love, charity, and mercy, why are Christians so focused on eternal reward and punishment? No doubt heaven and hell are important, but to be the sole focus of being a Christian seems misguided, and our damaging actions towards each other and non-believers suggests our focus on the construct has made us deprioritize love, charity, and mercy.

As only one of many construct examples among Christians, we’ve accepted too many commonly held beliefs as gospel and have become deeply misinformed as to what being a Christian is really all about. As such, we act upon what we THINK is true rather than what is actually true. Like the way we succumb to the expectations of our age, we accept the Christian construct which allows it to define us rather than finding out the truth for ourselves. 

Our blind acceptance pushes a false narrative and we miss out on what life can be like, accepting what constructs tell us to think and how to act, sometimes causing harm in the process to others and our surroundings. This week, stop accepting constructs and what you are being told and begin accepting what is true and backed up with actual facts. Constructs can become dangerous if we don’t question their origins and purpose. Do the research yourself and base your life not on what others tell you but on what is true.

Amen.

Christian In-Fighting Wins the Battle but the Example It Sets Loses the War

When the church shakes your faith rather than steadies it, it’s time to find encouragement elsewhere.

The label “Christian” has been dragged through the mud aplenty all thanks to its very own followers and our confrontational natures with one another.

I’ve seen plenty of it in my years at various churches: in-fighting between members and the splitting of hairs with no side willing to concede. We can’t seem to get along, whether the disagreements are within the church and its people or between various Christian denominations. A time-honored tradition, the only new thing about it is what we are fighting about. 

Right now, the latest in-fighting comes from whether or not gay marriage should be blessed by the church. Despite some movement from Pope Francis in giving blessings to same-sex unions, the Vatican still takes a hard stance about what the definition is of a marriage, suggesting that it is only between a man and a woman. Even just this past weekend, when a Kentucky church gave a blessing to a gay couple, the Vatican responded with a harsh rebuke saying that same-sex couples can be blessed but their marital union cannot. (The Methodist church is currently undergoing a similar split over human sexuality, as well. Personally, this author couldn’t care less about the sexual or marital status of any person, feeling that everyone is deserving of God’s blessing, but I’m not going to get into an argument about it because that would just contribute to the already prevalent problem with the institution: constant disagreement perpetuated by the church’s own people.)

Years ago, wars were started over transubstantiation and consubstantiation, something that almost no one today either cares about or knows what that is. The Filioque controversy was another theological dispute over the phrase “and the Son” in the Nicene Creed, which equated Son and Father, which is again, irrelevant to today. Fighting within the church has broken out over such deeply important topics like the use of icons, the role of free will, and even the size of the chalice in communion. I can imagine that, within time, same-sex union blessing will also be an ersatz discussion.

These fights also go back to the beginning of the church just after Christ’s resurrection. One of the first debates, the apostles raged around the necessity for circumcision. “Certain people came down from Judea to Antioch and were teaching the believers: ‘Unless you are circumcised, according to the custom taught by Moses, you cannot be saved.’ This brought Paul and Barnabas into sharp dispute and debate with them” (Act 15.1-2). Again, this was so important at the time but nowadays, no one is checking that requirement for church membership. As time shows, it’s not so much the topic of debate but the sharp, splintering dissent that Christians have when there is disagreement. Our empathetic-free loveless approach has deeply hurt the Christian name and blackened the church reputation.

What’s really causing our current divide and what we need to pay attention to is the political associations that the evangelical church is making, specifically with them directly connecting themselves to the Republican party. (The choice of party is irrelevant: it’s the fact that a party has been chosen.) As a result of this marriage, church members have been fighting even further about what their political party says rather than loving and serving one another as Christ says. Don’t believe me? Then you haven’t been on social media much.

Like me, you’ve probably found yourself dumbfounded by insipid statements posted online from our Christian brethren that align not with logic or love but with an institution or association. The rule of thumb seems to be that if someone in the political party says it, it must be true. As you might imagine, these postings lead to more dissension and in-fighting in the comments, which leads to unfollowings and unfriendings. Online and in-person, we feel that we can say whatever we want with 100% certainty and confidence and be completely sure that anyone who disagrees with us is uninformed. Our words, debates, and associations are destroying us and our impact as Christians.

The institutions, and members thereof, have forgotten the multitude of verses that stress harmony amongst its followers. In Paul’s letter to the Ephesians he encourages us to, “Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace” (4.3). In his first letter to the Corinthian church, he begged them to get along as he knew what division would cause: “I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another in what you say and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly united in mind and thought” (1.10). And Christ himself called for unity and understanding saying that ”‘Every kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and every city or household divided against itself will not stand” (Matthew 12.25).

It’s all so frustrating as many of us are losing faith in the institution, so where do we go from here? My suggestion is that we look not to the words and statements of faith by its members, avoiding what Christians are saying and posting. Engaging fellow believers on that level only leads to more anger, disagreement, and in-fighting. Instead, we need to look at the actions of believers. We need to go to where Christians are serving rather than speaking.

There is a tremendous amount of Christ-like faith on display all around us and no one needs to say a thing to show it. By going to the streets where people are serving the homeless and needy, looking into the prisons where people are reaching out to the unloved, and seeing the shelters of those in want and watching those who selflessly give of their time and efforts: that is where we see His love on display. The collections taken up, the charitable gifts being given, the time selflessly given up: these places are where we are encouraged by Christ-like faith. Seek them out, and you will find yourself renewed.

It is very easy to be discouraged by fellow Christians and the institution of the church when it is more about message than action. This week, avoid the places where so many gather to argue, whether in-person or virtual. There is nothing to be gained or encouraged by that practice. Instead, look for encouragement in the charity, love, and empathy of believers who devote their time, money, and efforts to helping others. In those places you will find your heart lifted and may even be moved to follow in their actions. Don’t let petty disagreement hijack your faith and instead let the charitable actions of Christians be where you see His love.

Amen.

Feeling Like a Failure When Success Doesn’t Look Like What You Expected

Expecting success to be one specific thing will only lead to disappointment and feelings of failure.

When we think of Christmas morning, we get a very specific image in our heads. So when the expectations that image brings doesn’t look like it’s going to line up with reality, how are we to react or adjust?

My wife and I had wrapped all of the presents with love and set them carefully under the tree just before retiring to our beds. We were so excited for the reaction on his face when he would open them the next morning. Meanwhile, as is his usual nighttime routine, he was upstairs in his gaming room playing online with all of his friends. He is in charge of his own bedtime, which is frequently after us, so we soon fell asleep while he was still up there yelling and having a great time.

While the narrator of “The Night Before Christmas” awoke in the middle of the night because of a clatter on the roof, I awoke to the sounds of his continued online joy at the late hour of 3:00 in the morning. At that point, I began debating as to whether I should tell him to go to bed. I had imaginings of him waking up much too late for it to be “Christmas morning” thus missing out on the idyllic image of it all. I was filled with anxiety that my expectations of a successful Christmas morning would be wrecked, but he had every right to be up. I took a deep breath and decided to do nothing and let him go to sleep when he deemed it appropriate (which was a quarter to 5, btw). 

Yet, the next day, despite his waking up around noon, we still had a perfect Christmas morning even if the clock didn’t suggest it. I learned that the issue wasn’t with him, the time, or his late night activities. Instead, it was because I had a specific image in my brain of how things were supposed to be, and when that expectation was altered and unmet, I was stressed out because I thought the result was unsuccessful. Turns out, success comes in more forms than one.

We are told that success is measured in the amount of money and/or fame one achieves in life. Hence, millionaires and celebrities, by this measure, are considered some of the most successful people in society. Others define success through the lens of the American Dream, where having a steady job, a house, and a family are the indicators of a successful life. But when we don’t achieve the perception of success, we become distraught, introspective, and downright depressed. Because we have not achieved what society deems a success, we must, by definition, be failures.

A Gallup poll from a couple years ago suggests that the perception of success and the individual measure of success don’t often coincide. When asked to rank eight domains of success (education, relationships, character, finance, health, work, quality of life and status) as to how society views them, status came in at a whopping 46% as the highest indicator of success. For the poll respondents, they felt that the number of “likes”, shares, retweets, etc. on a post or video was how society measured success. Yet when they were asked as to how they individually determine success, status shrunk to 5.5%, and education (17.1%), relationships (15.6%) and character (15.4%) dominated the top three spots. By this measure, many of us are successful, but because our expectations of success do not match up to our actual success, we feel unsuccessful as a result.

I deeply felt that last week when I again invited graduated seniors to talk to the current seniors about their college experiences. Previously, it was a huge success, so when I conducted it this year, I had expectations of what success looked like based on last year. When it didn’t meet that expectation, I left that day feeling like a failure. I know that everything went really well and everyone enjoyed their time, but until I shifted my image of success in my brain, I wasn’t able to feel it.

I imagine Moses felt the same way when God told him to lead the Hebrews. When instructed, Moses responded to God with, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” (Exodus 3.11). Moses had viewed what successful leaders looked like and he just couldn’t reconcile his abilities with those of other leaders. “Pardon your servant, Lord. I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant. I am slow of speech and tongue” (Exodus 4.10). Moses imagined that great leaders give great speeches, but based on Moses’s success with the Hebrews and the Exodus, successful leaders can have other great qualities, too.

Even the Bible defines success in many different ways, each of which is accurate because success isn’t one thing. Joshua 1.8 tells us to “Keep this Book of the Law always on your lips; meditate on it day and night…Then you will be prosperous and successful.” Psalm 1.1 suggests that success is defined by how much we avoid evil:  “Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked.”  And Proverbs 3.5-6 defines success as being faith: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.” The point is that success is not just one thing, and when we make it just one thing, we set ourselves up for failure.

Instead of thinking singularly, we need to think holistically, allowing for multiple aspects to define our success. We must decide for each of us what success looks like, as for some success might be the amount of work we complete in a day and for others it might be just getting out of bed. Both are equally successful, but until we allow for multiple definitions of success we will continue to label each ourselves as failures. 

This week, broaden your definition of success. Focus not on the end result but on the process. Celebrate the small wins. Challenge societal expectations and embrace success in multiple areas of life, which includes well-being, personal fulfillment, and gratitude. If you allow success to be more than one thing, your mindset will slowly begin to embrace just how much of a success you actually are.

Amen.

Shifting Our Gaze Towards Bethlehem this Christmas

In a call for peace in the Middle East and the world, it’s time to believe in miracles this season.

Whether you find yourself agreeing or disagreeing with the Catholic church, you must admit that the current Pope has an ear to the ground when it comes to unrest and need in the world. That he uses his platform to bring attention to the needs of others suggests a man of character with a heart for humanity. In addition to drawing a comparison between Bethlehem then and now in this year’s Christmas message, Pope Francis continues to sound an alarm for many of the war-torn areas he mentioned in last week’s printed message. The following is his Christmas Day address to the people:

Dear Brothers and Sisters, Merry Christmas!

The eyes and the hearts of Christians throughout the world turn to Bethlehem; in these days, it is a place of sorrow and silence, yet it was there that the long-awaited message was first proclaimed: “To you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord” (Luke 2.11). Those words spoken by the angel in the heavens above Bethlehem are also spoken to us. We are full of hope and trust as we realize that the Lord has been born for us; that the eternal Word of the Father, the infinite God, has made his home among us. He became flesh; he came “to dwell among us” (John 1.14). This is the good news that changed the course of history!

The message of Bethlehem is indeed “good news of great joy” (Luke 2.10). What kind of joy? Not the passing happiness of this world, not the glee of entertainment but a joy that is “great” because it makes us great. For today, all of us, with all our shortcomings, embrace the sure promise of an unprecedented gift: the hope of being born for heaven. Yes, Jesus our brother has come to make his Father our Father; a small child, he reveals to us the tender love of God, and much more. He, the Only-Begotten Son of the Father, gives us “power to become children of God” (John 1.12). This is the joy that consoles hearts, renews hope and bestows peace. It is the joy of the Holy Spirit: the joy born of being God’s beloved sons and daughters.

Brothers and sisters, today in Bethlehem, amid the deep shadows covering the land, an undying flame has been lighted. Today the world’s darkness has been overcome by the light of God, which “enlightens every man and woman” (John 1.9). Brothers and sisters, let us exult in this gift of grace! Rejoice, you who have lost confidence in your certitudes, for you are not alone: Christ is born for you! Rejoice, you who have abandoned all hope, for God offers you his outstretched hand; he does not point a finger at you, but offers you his little baby hand, in order to set you free from your fears, to relieve you of your burdens and to show you that, in his eyes, you are more valuable than anything else. Rejoice, you who find no peace of heart, for the ancient prophecy of Isaiah has been fulfilled for your sake: “a child has been born for us, a son given to us, and he is named… Prince of Peace” (9.6). Scripture reveals that his peace, his kingdom, “will have no end” (9.7).

In the Scriptures, the Prince of Peace is opposed by the “Prince of this world” (John 12.31), who, by sowing the seeds of death, plots against the Lord, “the lover of life” (Wisdom 11.26). We see this played out in Bethlehem, where the birth of the Saviour is followed by the slaughter of the innocents. How many innocents are being slaughtered in our world! In their mothers’ wombs, in odysseys undertaken in desperation and in search of hope, in the lives of all those little ones whose childhood has been devastated by war. They are the little Jesuses of today, these little ones whose childhood has been devastated by war.

To say “yes” to the Prince of Peace, then, means saying “no” to war, to every war and to do so with courage, to the very mindset of war, an aimless voyage, a defeat without victors, an inexcusable folly. This is what war is: an aimless voyage, a defeat without victors, an inexcusable folly. To say “no” to war means saying “no” to weaponry. The human heart is weak and impulsive; if we find instruments of death in our hands, sooner or later we will use them. And how can we even speak of peace, when arms production, sales and trade are on the rise? Today, as at the time of Herod, the evil that opposes God’s light hatches its plots in the shadows of hypocrisy and concealment. How much violence and killing takes place amid deafening silence, unbeknownst to many! People, who desire not weapons but bread, who struggle to make ends meet and desire only peace, have no idea how many public funds are being spent on arms. Yet that is something they ought to know! It should be talked about and written about, so as to bring to light the interests and the profits that move the puppet-strings of war.

Isaiah, who prophesied the Prince of Peace, looked forward to a day when “nation shall not lift up sword against nation”, a day when men “will not learn war any more”, but instead “beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks” (2.4). With God’s help, let us make every effort to work for the coming of that day!

May it come in Israel and Palestine, where war is devastating the lives of those peoples. I embrace them all, particularly the Christian communities of Gaza, the parish of Gaza, and the entire Holy Land. My heart grieves for the victims of the abominable attack of 7 October last, and I reiterate my urgent appeal for the liberation of those still being held hostage. I plead for an end to the military operations with their appalling harvest of innocent civilian victims, and call for a solution to the desperate humanitarian situation by an opening to the provision of humanitarian aid. May there be an end to the fueling of violence and hatred. And may the Palestinian question come to be resolved through sincere and persevering dialogue between the parties, sustained by strong political will and the support of the international community. Brothers and sisters, let us pray for peace in Palestine and in Israel.

My thoughts turn likewise to the people of war-torn Syria, and to those of long-suffering Yemen. I think too of the beloved Lebanese people, and I pray that political and social stability will soon be attained.

Contemplating the Baby Jesus, I implore peace for Ukraine. Let us renew our spiritual and human closeness to its embattled people, so that through the support of each of us, they may feel the concrete reality of God’s love.

May the day of definitive peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan draw near. May it be advanced by the pursuit of humanitarian initiatives, by the return of refugees to their homes in legality and security, and by reciprocal respect for religious traditions and the places of worship of each community.

Let us not forget the tensions and conflicts that trouble the region of the Sahel, the Horn of Africa and Sudan, as well as Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and South Sudan.

May the day draw near when fraternal bonds will be consolidated on the Korean peninsula by undertaking processes of dialogue and reconciliation capable of creating the conditions for lasting peace.

May the Son of God, who became a lowly Child, inspire political authorities and all persons of good will in the Americas to devise suitable ways to resolve social and political conflicts, to combat forms of poverty that offend the dignity of persons, to reduce inequality and to address the troubling phenomenon of migration movements.

From the manger, the Child Jesus asks us to be the voice of those who have no voice. The voice of the innocent children who have died for lack of bread and water; the voice of those who cannot find work or who have lost their jobs; the voice of those forced to flee their lands in search of a better future, risking their lives in grueling journeys and prey to unscrupulous traffickers.

Brothers and sisters, we are approaching the season of grace and hope that is the Jubilee, due to begin a year from now. May this time of preparation for the Holy Year be an opportunity for the conversion of hearts, for the rejection of war and the embrace of peace, and for joyfully responding to the Lord’s call, in the words of Isaiah’s prophecy, “to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners” (61.1).

Those words were fulfilled in Jesus (Luke 4.18), who is born today in Bethlehem. Let us welcome him! Let us open our hearts to him, who is the Saviour, the Prince of Peace!

This Christmas, we echo the call for saying ”no” to war and “yes” to the peaceful ways and methods that Christ embodied. Regardless of whoever’s side you may empathize with, no one desires the war and strife we see every day in our newsfeed. We continue to pray and plead for conversation and reconciliation despite flaring tempers and agendas. Let the light and spirit of Christmas permeate the hearts of the leaders of the world, as well as its people, well into the new year.

Amen.

Peaceful Blessings for Those in Need at Christmas

Despite our abundance, there are many throughout the world who need our attention this season.

Growing up, I was blessed to have always had festive Christmas holidays surrounded by family members who have welcomed me into their homes with open arms. Picturesque in so many ways, whether it was on a Christmas morning as I poked and shook at thoughtfully wrapped treasures beneath a decorated tree, or when seated at the dinner table where friends and relatives laughed about the year and were thankful that we could be together, we were happy to be able to meet in peace despite the difficulties of life. The celebrations may not have all been perfect, and we might not have always had a lot of money, but we had enough because we broke bread in peace with one another.

Amongst our peaceful times, we always knew that there were others who were not able to celebrate at Christmas like we did. During this time as we celebrate the season and enjoy its bounties, it is important to look to those who struggle in poverty and are in want, the neglected denizens of so many unsettled lands.

In the Pope’s Christmas address from last year, he addresses the needs of many around the world in an attempt to draw attention to their struggles while we celebrate the spirit of the season. Given that Christmas falls on a Monday, I am bookending the holiday by first publishing an excerpt from last year’s keenly observed address below and then following it next Thursday with this year’s address. As you read the following, please keep in mind those around the globe who are starving and war torn as a result of a lack of peace. After reading both, let’s be both encouraged at the progress we have made in a year as a society and humbled by how little we’ve accomplished in the world despite our successes.

Our time is experiencing a grave famine of peace also in other regions and other theaters of this third world war. Let us think of Syria, still scarred by a conflict that has receded into the background but has not ended. Let us think too of the Holy Land, where in recent months violence and confrontations have increased, bringing death and injury in their wake. Let us beseech the Lord that there, in the land that witnessed his birth, dialogue and efforts to build mutual trust between Palestinians and Israelis may resume. May the Child Jesus sustain the Christian communities living in the Middle East, so that each of those countries can experience the beauty of fraternal coexistence between individuals of different faiths. May the Christ Child help Lebanon in particular, so that it can finally rebound with the help of the international community and with the strength born of fraternity and solidarity. May the light of Christ illumine the region of the Sahel, where peaceful coexistence between peoples and traditions is disrupted by conflict and acts of violence. May that light lead to a lasting truce in Yemen and to reconciliation in Myanmar and Iran, and an end to all bloodshed. May it inspire the political authorities and all people of goodwill in the Americas to attempt to calm the political and social tensions experienced by various countries; I think in particular of the people of Haiti who have been suffering for a long time.

On this day, as we sit around a well-spread table, may we not avert our gaze from Bethlehem, a town whose name means “house of bread,” but think of all those, especially children, who go hungry while huge amounts of food daily go to waste and resources are being spent on weapons. The war in Ukraine has further aggravated this situation, putting entire peoples at risk of famine, especially in Afghanistan and in the countries of the Horn of Africa. We know that every war causes hunger and exploits food as a weapon, hindering its distribution to people already suffering. On this day, let us learn from the Prince of Peace and, starting with those who hold political responsibilities, commit ourselves to making food solely an instrument of peace. And as we enjoy gathering with our loved ones, let us think of families that experience great hardship and those that, in this time of economic crisis, are struggling as a result of unemployment and lacking in the necessities of life.

Dear brothers and sisters, today as then, Jesus, the true light, comes into a world severely sick with indifference, a world that does not welcome him (John 1.11) and indeed rejects him, as it does with many foreigners, or ignores him, as we all too often do with the poor. Today may we not forget the many displaced persons and refugees who knock at our door in search of some comfort, warmth, and food. Let us not forget the marginalized, those living alone, the orphans, the elderly – who are wisdom for their people – who risk being set aside, and prisoners, whom we regard solely for the mistakes they have made and not as our fellow men and women.

Brothers and sisters, Bethlehem shows us the simplicity of God, who reveals himself not to the wise and the intelligent but to the little ones, to those with a pure and open heart (Matthew 11.25). Like the shepherds, let us too set out in haste and allow ourselves to be amazed by the unthinkable event of God who becomes man for our salvation. He, the source of all good, makes himself poor, asking as alms our own poor humanity. Let us allow ourselves to be deeply moved by the love of God. And let us follow Jesus, who stripped himself of his glory in order to give us a share in his fullness.

This Christmas, before tearing into that next present or asking for second helpings at a full dinner table, take a moment to remember those around the world who are just as special but are missing out on God’s abundance because of their country’s difficult situation. This season, we pray for peace and His love to fill those perpetuating the unrest around the globe and to let the Christmas spirit be felt no matter where you are.

Amen.

Getting Not the Justice We Deserve but the Justice We Need

Punishment should be “just,” but is “just” effective or is it just bad practice?

With the stacks of grading that flow my way, I tend to get into a great rhythm that clips it all along at a decent pace. However, nothing brings it all to a screeching halt like a plagiarized paper.

It’s plagued every teacher for years, students who try to pass off someone else’s work as their own. Years ago, the issue was copying off of each other. With the dawn of the internet came websites that post the answers. In the past year, with the click of a button, AI can now generate an entire paper for them without breaking a sweat. And sure enough, students know and use this resource.

It’s worth noting that AI is not inherently evil. I use it myself to brainstorm and do research. Used well, it’s great, but students have gotten good at misusing it. And as they’ve gotten better with it, I’ve had to get better at catching it, and sure enough, last week I caught two such individuals. As both are in my college class, and both have already committed to future colleges, this transgression proved exceptionally egregious and risked a great deal for both of their futures. 

Colleges don’t mess around with this sort of thing: students get reported to the dean immediately and are frequently expelled without a tuition refund. The stakes here were very high, as they could lose everything they’d worked for. After meeting with my principal, she left it up to me to decide how to handle this situation.

I’ve noticed with some who’ve been wronged, they lash out at that person to “teach them a lesson.” We are cut off in traffic, so we honk, yell, and cut them off in return to show just how wronged we feel. We become vindictive and vengeful, wanting to punish the person for their actions. Many even cite Old Testament scripture:  “But if there is serious injury, you are to take life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand…” (Exodus 21:23-25). What they don’t understand is that those actions don’t get the desired result.

When you slam those who err, the message of correction gets lost and is replaced with the message that you are a jerk. The wrongdoer focuses on the punisher and how much they hate them rather than inwardly reflecting and changing their actions. With this understanding, my approach has been that I seek the least amount of discipline with the best possible result. I merely want to correct the course of the individual and send them on a better way, so I decided to dole out consequences that achieve that result.

Could I have completely hammered these two with some real justice? Absolutely. In fact, where one only plagiarized one paper, the other had plagiarized THREE assignments (one which had already snuck past me). I had every right to bring that real Old Testament fury her way. But where many interpret that verse to be about total annihilation, it is in fact about proportionate justice. It’s about focusing on equality and corrective measures rather than suffering a punishment. It’s where the accused walks away from the situation feeling that the decision was fair.

I first spoke to the single plagiarizer, who initially denied everything, but when pressed with evidence, broke down in confession. He later came to me in tears, embarrassed by what he did. What would stop him from doing this again? It seems that we’d already reached that point, so just a zero for the assignment would be enough—no detentions, phone calls home, or other punitive measures. I’d say he got the message.

The triple plagiarizer had been a headache for me all year long with her resistance to the class, so I was weary about how this might go. Yet when confronted, she became humble, contrite, and afraid. She apologized profusely and presented unprompted rewritten pieces. 

Now, I was fully within my right to drop her from the class, call the college and report the plagiarism, and deny her credit for all rewritten work. Yet, she clearly realized the error of her ways, so why punish her with what she deserved rather than with what would be most effective? And so, I didn’t report it, didn’t drop her, let her make up two of the assignments and gave her partial credit on the third. (I figured she showed initiative and should be rewarded for it.) Now? She’s a model student. Her transformation rivals Saul of Tarsus. In speaking with her afterwards, she said that she realized how her actions jeopardized her entire life, and she never wanted to feel that way ever again. Her heart had been convicted, so external conviction was unnecessary.

“Eye for an eye?” In the Sermon on the Mount, Christ recognized that many had misinterpreted the aforementioned scripture to be about vengeful punishment, so He addressed it to the crowd: “You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also” (Matthew 5:38-39). He called for mercy where others demanded strict justice. He too felt that punishment should be just, proportionate, and effective, which eliminates vindictiveness and self-righteousness. He desired to correct not out of spite but out of compassion and love. 

When we correct, we need to put ourselves in others’ shoes, feeling what they feel and knowing that people make errors in judgment. We shouldn’t let it define them and should allow it to be an instrument for learning and betterment. I expressed to them a similar sentiment, that had others not given me that same level of understanding when I messed up, both in my youth and later, I wouldn’t be where I am today.

This week, give corrections in the name of love and perpetuate that love and compassion by inspiring others to do the same. In Paul’s letter to the Colossians, he entreats them to, “Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you” (3:13). When we model that level of compassion in our correction, we not only reflect the forgiveness we’ve received in our own lives but create a situation where others desire to be compassionate in their correction to others. Harsh correction may be what we deserve, but merciful justice is what we need.

Amen

Know Thy Stressed Self and Put the Pieces Back Together

Being able to identify stress when it happens allows you to move forward and adjust accordingly.

Sure, Christmas is the most wonderful time of the year, filled with joy, giving, holiday spirit, and tradition. But it’s also one of the most stressful times of the year, where long lines, holiday traffic, travel, and last minute shopping can dominate the landscape. (I fondly recall one particular pre-dawn shopping spree involving mass rushes for electronics that resulted in my hand getting crushed in a door being shoved by aggressively bargain-happy teenage girls.)

Being that kind of season, I asked the class today, how do you know when you are stressed? Their answers were surprising.

There were many who suffered physical symptoms. A few claimed to break out into hives, sometimes on very specific parts of their bodies. Others said that they resort to nail chewing, sweating, and excessive chest tightness. One even claimed that when she’s stressed her brain feels heavy. Others cited the raging desires that arise within: uncontrollable crying, need for sleep, and overeating. (One was eating while giving me this answer, whereas she said that, indeed yes, she was currently stressed.)

But if it can cause a physical reaction, what exactly is stress? According to the National Institute of Mental Health, stress is “the brain and the body’s response to change, challenge, or demand.” Chemically speaking, there is a physical influx of hormones which is the body’s defense mechanism against danger or harm, and as a result, people’s reactions to those hormones manifest themselves in not just physical but also mental and emotional ways.

Many of those tell-tale signs manifest themselves with an irritability when stressed, that those afflicted people are frequently short on patience and tend to lash out at those around them. As my students agree, stressed people have difficulty focusing on a single task. Their minds are all over the place, and they frequently avoid the tasks at hand by taking on other menial tasks.

Which brings me to this point right now in my day: late at night on a Monday writing something that I should have started much sooner. Stress turns me into a procrastinator.

You see, stress-wise, Mondays for me are the worst. They are jam-packed with meetings, student check-ins, email deluges, weeklong lesson planning, after-school activities, weekend grading, laundry, exercise, and garbage (pick-up is on Tuesdays). I try so hard to reassign these tasks to other days, but nothing works. I dread the demands of my Mondays, and thus I fall into that stress group that is task-averse and avoidance-filled. Hence, I’ve been putting off writing this until the last minute.

Additionally, I’ve also noticed that when I’m stressed, my patience is in short supply. To compensate, I tend to avoid situations where they may be tested. I make my meetings and check-ins to-the-point rather than dragged out, as I know I won’t function well under stretched out meetings. (I also noticed that when I’m stressed, I get super annoyed at people and think that everyone is stupid and wrong in everything they do.)

Yet when I can step outside of myself and identify that I am in fact stressed at that moment, I begin to contextualize my feelings and know that the rest of the world isn’t at fault: it’s probably me. So, I take a breath and avoid too much human interaction. Rather than getting down on my behavior and mental state, knowing who I am and what my limitations are makes me work through my weaknesses and become a better, more productive person as a result.

What is key is the ability to recognize the stress signs for your own self, as that awareness leads to decreased stress and more favorable outcomes. Given that I recognize my Monday mania, I am fully aware of who I become on those days, as I’ve made it a priority to be mindful of who I am when stressed. Knowing my manifestations of stress allows me to adjust accordingly.

Inscribed at the entrance of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi, site of the sacred oracle, are the words “Γνῶθι σαυτόν” (pronounced “Gnothi Seauton”) or “Know Thyself.” A major tenet in Ancient Greek philosophy, the concept was taught by Socrates which asked that individuals be introspective and reflective, searching within oneself for knowledge of who one is. If one is to grow in life, one must “know thyself” in order to pursue wisdom. Even the apostles drew from this concept, as in Paul’s letter to the Colossians, he encourages the members of the church to “Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves. Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you—unless, of course, you fail the test?” (13.5). Like the benefits that come with being aware of our own stress and emotions, when the apostles look inward and become aware of the strengths (or lack thereof) with their faith, they can then move out into the world and interact with others in a way that is good and pleasing.

Knowing thyself is the key to mindfulness, too. We are asked to be mindful of who we are and what we are feeling in that particular moment. Being able to search internally and recognize what emotion you are feeling is a great skill as you can then move forward accordingly, finding the most productive and happy path for you. Galatians 6:4-5 asks that “Each one should test their own actions. Then they can take pride in themselves alone, without comparing themselves to someone else, for each one should carry their own load.” Learning to be mindful and emotionally self-aware is a personal responsibility, a task that should be carried by the individual, as when we don’t, we put our negative emotions upon others and become a burden.

The next time you sense yourself becoming stressed, look for how you react to it. Know your emotions and your reactions. Once you learn to observe and recognize the signs, you are then ready to take mindful steps to work accordingly and adjust yourself with mindful actions like breathing, acceptance for yourself and others, and compassion for those in distress. Knowing thyself brings us closer to who God intended for us to grow and become, and by being aware of the manifestations of stress in our life, we can become stronger in our faith and in our worldly interactions without biting the heads off of those around us.

Amen.

When Repaeted Mistakes Keep Repaeting

It’s a vicious cycle that might break once we accept its presence.

We’ve all made a fair amount of mistakes in our lives. If you’re anything like me, you’ve probably been making a lot of the same mistakes over and over again. Actress Mae West was quoted as saying, “I never make the same mistake twice. I make it five or six times, just to be sure,” which sums up our experience pretty well.

While currently learning a new language, I find myself making many of the same mistakes repeatedly. In the exercises (on Duolingo), when you get a translation wrong, it makes you redo that translation at the end of the lesson. And the fun part: it makes you redo the translation EVERY time you get it wrong. So, there are times when I get so stuck, when I hit a mental wall, when I can’t absorb anything beyond what I currently know—it’s then that I get stuck in a cycle of making the same mistakes again and again.

Similarly, I continue to make repeated mistakes in my close relationships. For example, when someone comes to me with a perceived offense, I am too quick to respond with a plea of innocence which only exacerbates the situation. I know I shouldn’t respond that way, and I don’t do it with strangers, but I still repeat those mistakes. WHY?!?

According to behavioral and data scientist Dr. Pragya Agarwal, there are many factors working against us. First, are heuristics—shortcuts made in our brains as a result of a world overloaded with information. With so much going on around us, our minds filter out as much as they can and create neural shortcuts, or templates which get endlessly reused, saving mental energy and conserving resources. 

You see, our brains think that the world is a certain way because of the patterns it’s recognized in the past, and as a result, it thinks those patterns still exist even though we keep telling it that they don’t. The way we’ve self-wired our brains causes us to repeat the mistakes we do, because even when we know we are repeating our misguided words and actions, we are helpless to change because our brains are wired to respond in that predetermined way.

Also against us? Our egos which compel us to stick with what we believe to be true. Being fragile, our egos don’t like to be told that their way of doing things is wrong, so the mind protects it by acting the way we always have.

And not to be left out—we have an internal bias that suggests that if we’ve done something a number of times, we will continue to do it despite the diminishing results.

In short, we suck at fixing our repeated mistakes.

In the past, I’ve discussed the importance of admitting mistakes and getting back up on that proverbial horse. The author of Proverbs indicates that seeking to correct mistakes is a sign of good character: “for though the righteous fall seven times, they rise again, but the wicked stumble when calamity strikes” (24.16). It is good to fix your mistakes, but as we’ve seen, the more we try to rewire our brains and stop mistakes from repeating, the more fruitless the pursuit seems to be. So how should we approach our repeated mistakes if science tells us that there is little we can actually do to remap our thought patterns?

I asked a question today of my students: From whom have you learned the most in life? Many said the obvious parental answers, but one student said himself, as he has learned most from the mistakes he’s made. And he is profoundly right, but more importantly, that he is not afraid to publicly admit that he makes mistakes helps him to break that cycle. By admitting our nature in being people who make mistakes, we become comfortable with who we are, which in turn alleviates the shame in repeating them. This process leads to a breaking of the cycle.

On a TV show, I observed a character badly mess up a kitchen restaurant situation that caused all the power to go out. He was out sulking in the back alley when the owner came to talk to him. Their conversation went like this:

I won’t make a mistake again. 

Yeah, you will. But not ’cause you’re you, just ’cause (stuff) happens.

He admitted fault, which was a great first step, but he followed it up with a shameful admission about how he would not repeat his mistake. Up until this point, he’d been sulking, but once the owner let him know that we all repeat our mistakes and that’s okay, he smiled and realized that making repeated mistakes is just who we are. 

When ashamed of our mistakes, we become uncomfortable with the thought of making them, so we hide them from others. That secretive nature leads us to repeat them. Why? Because we are not open to new information and are more worried about image than change. Isaiah suggests that we let our mistakes define us and forget that we don’t need to feel shame from them: ”Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool” (1:18). If we can get ourselves to the point of being comfortable with the idea that yes, we will make mistakes and that is okay, then we have a chance at not repeating our mistakes.

To develop this mentality, we should see our mistakes not as the end of the world but as an opportunity to receive joy for the forgiveness we receive when we ask for it. In his parable about the lost sheep, Christ tells us that, “there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance” (Luke 15.7). Seeing ourselves as candidates for love and forgiveness alleviates the shame we feel as a result of making mistakes. Getting comfortable about our mistake-filled nature allows for lessons to be learned and growth to happen

This week, as you see the mistakes you make, do not be so hard on yourself. Take a breath and know that making mistakes is a part of life and doesn’t label you as a bad person. Don’t hide your misjudgments and miscalculations but let others know that you messed up, as it will alleviate the anguish you feel and help you to remap those seemingly unchangeable mental pathways. You’re going to mess up, and that’s okay: getting used to it will make it even better.

Amen.

Don’t Tell Others How Thankful You Are—Show It

Words are great, but actions solidify your words.

How many times this week did you thank someone? Did you mean it? Or were you just being polite?

The action of thanking someone sometimes gets taken for granted, where we have it at the ready regardless of how we feel and issue it without really thinking about it or sincerely meaning it. Additionally, we too often thank someone only with our words. Are we ready to proverbially put our money where our mouth is?

At this time of year, rather than writing a devotional, I usually find a prayer of Thanksgiving to express our gratitude. This year, I am doing something different: rather than giving words to show Thanksgiving, I am providing examples of ways to show Thanksgiving with a charge to my readers to implement some of them. In John’s 1st letter, he instructs fellow believers to not just speak our feelings of care, but to reveal them in our actions: “Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth” (1 John 3:18). To bring this concept to life, the following is a list from the blog TinyBuddha.com of ways you can express the thanks you feel rather than just saying it.

Show Gratitude to People Who Love You

1. Share a specific example of something they did for you and how it made a difference in your life.
2. Do something little but thoughtful for them—like clean up after Thanksgiving dinner!
3. Give a long, intimate hug; or if you know they don’t like hugs, stick out your hand for a handshake to cater to their preferences and make them smile.
4. Tell them you’re there if they have anything they want to talk about—and let them know they have your full attention.
5. Give them something of yours that you think they would enjoy, and let them know specifically why you want them to have it.
6. Invite them to do something you know they’ve always wanted to do.
7. Encourage them to try something you know they want to try, but haven’t yet because they’re scared.
8. Offer to do something you know they don’t enjoy doing, like organizing their closet or mowing their lawn.
9. Compliment them on a talent, skill, or strength that you admire.
10. Look them straight in the eyes and say, “You make the world a better place.”

Show Gratitude to People Who Challenge You

11. Fully listen to what they have to say instead of forming your rebuttal in your head and waiting to speak.
12. Thank them for introducing you to a new way to look at things, even if you still don’t agree.
13. Pinpoint something you admire about their commitment to their beliefs—even if you don’t hold them, as well.
14. Resist the urge to tell them they’re wrong.
15. Challenge them right back to be the best they can be, with love and positive intentions.
16. If they inspired you to push outside your comfort zone, thank them for inspiring you to take a risk, and let them know how it paid off.
17. Write a blog post about how they helped you see things differently and dedicate it to them.
18. Use the lesson this person teaches you through your interactions, whether it’s patience, compassion, or courage.
19. Introduce them to someone who may challenge them and help them grow, as they’ve done for you.
20. Let them know how you appreciate when they challenge you in a loving, non-confrontational way—and if they don’t do that, be calm and kind when you ask them to do that going forward.

Show Gratitude to People Who Serve You

21. Give a larger tip than usual.
22. If they have a tip jar, include a thoughtful note of appreciation along with your coins or bills.
23. Smile when you order or enlist their assistance. Smiles are contagious, so give one away!
24. If they serve you regularly, acknowledge something they always do well—like work efficiently or stay calm under pressure.
25. Exhibit patience, even if you’re in a hurry.
26. Let their superior know they do an outstanding job.
27. Keep their workplace clean—for example, at a coffee shop, clean up after yourself at the sugar stand.
28. Offer to get a coffee for them, if it’s someone working in or outside your home.
29. If you have their contact information, send an email of appreciation—and let them know you just wanted to express your gratitude, so they don’t need to write back.
30. Praise them in a review on Yelp and/or recommend them to people you know.

Show Gratitude to People Who Work with You

31. Write a hand-written thank you note, acknowledging things you value about them and their work.
32. Offer to lighten their workload in some way if you are able.
33. Bring back lunch for them if you know they’re working hard and likely haven’t had a chance to grab something.
34. If you’re running a meeting, keep it short to show them you appreciate and respect their time.
35. Ask them about their lives instead of always being all business. This doesn’t mean you need to pry into personal matters; it just means showing an interest in who they are as people.
36. Be the calm, light voice in a stressful situation.
37. Give them flowers to brighten their desk.
38. Let their boss know how they’re doing a great job and contributing to the company.
39. Listen fully if they’re having a difficult day, and recognize if they need space to figure things out on their own, not advice or help.
40. Remember that little things can make a big difference!

Show Gratitude for Yourself

41. Make a list of ways you’ve impressed yourself lately.
42. Treat yourself to something you enjoy, like a pedicure or a massage.
43. If someone compliments you, thank them and let them know you’re proud of that skill, talent, or accomplishment.
44. Compliment yourself—say it while looking in the mirror, write it in a journal, or jot it on a sticky note and put it on your refrigerator.
45. Give yourself time to enjoy a passion you’re sometimes too busy to fit in.
46. Take an inventory of all the good things you’ve done for other people and the world.
47. Write yourself a love letter. Seriously, start with “Dear Lori” (but insert your own name) and describe all the things you admire about yourself.
48. Let go of any conditions you have for being kind to yourself—meaning you appreciate yourself even if you didn’t accomplish or do anything specific.
49. Schedule a date with yourself—an afternoon or evening that’s all about you.
50. Share the beauty that is you with the people around you, knowing they’re fortunate to have you in their lives.

Don’t let thankfulness be merely a collection of words for you, but let it be apparent in every action you put forth. James, the brother of Jesus, wrote: “Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says” (1:22). Find ways to show thankfulness this holiday season rather than letting it be just a polite saying.

I am thankful to have you in my life, so I dedicate this devotional to you.

Amen.

Stop Stalling and Be a Superhero!

You’re letting an uncertain future result hinder your great plans for adventure.

How important is it to have a full plan when starting out? We’ve been told that before taking on any task, you should create goals, establish steps, assess your strengths and weaknesses, etc. American author of several self-help books Alan Lakein tells us that, “failing to plan is planning to fail,” but is there benefit in jumping in without knowing where you’re going or how you’re going to get there?

Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock, you know that superhero movies have been all the rage the past decade and a half. More specifically, Marvel owns the lion share with 33 successful films since 2008. What makes their efforts unique is how all of these movies are interconnected, part of what is called the “Marvel Cinematic Universe” or MCU. So, characters from different movies interact with one another, show up in each other’s movies, make references to events from other movies, and sometimes all come together for a big showdown against a villain.

The genius behind the MCU is Kevin Fiege, who rose through the ranks of Hollywood using willpower, savvy, and hard work. Over the last 15 years, he developed a massive timeline of events into a single storyline: all movies have their own story, but they also contribute to an overarching story that spans several movies. With references to multiple events, callbacks to earlier scenes, characters entering the series at just the right moment, it all seems like a meticulous plan that was developed years in advance. It’s an amazing tapestry woven together that seems so deliberate. For years, I figured that they must have pages and pages of planned work for the series, but the truth of the matter is that they are sort of making it up as they go along. 

I just finished the highly informative and massively thorough book “MCU: The Reign of Marvel Studios” which details the accomplishments and struggles of Kevin Fiege and his co-creators. In its pages, the authors detail how Fiege struggled to get financing for early movies Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk and gambled on many people, scripts, actors, and bank loans. He knew that he wanted to create a massive storytelling universe, but given the number of obstacles in his way, he wasn’t sure just how to do it. Several characters he wanted to use he didn’t even have the rights to, financing was slim to none, and world events like Covid often prohibited filming. So how did he go about with his massive several decade long plan? 

He just jumped in and figured it out as he went along. And honestly, it all comes together so perfectly despite the lack of planning.

It’s an interesting and risky mentality that stops many from even trying, but it’s that approach to life that gets us going rather than being stuck in neutral. When I was first married, we discussed when we should buy a house and have a child. We planned and figured out what we needed before we would do these things, but we learned through experience that there IS no right time for either nor will there ever be. You just have to jump in sometimes without a plan and keep yourself committed. Author Ray Bradbury said it best:

If we listened to our intellect we’d never have a love affair. We’d never have a friendship. We’d never go in business because we’d be cynical: “It’s gonna go wrong.” Or “She’s going to hurt me.” Or, “I’ve had a couple of bad love affairs, so therefore . . .” Well, that’s nonsense. You’re going to miss life. You’ve got to jump off the cliff all the time and build your wings on the way down.

Jumping first without knowing if you will land safely is frightening to many, but it forces you to develop plans as you go along. It invites creativity and motivation and eliminates excuses for stalling out. For example, nine years ago, I felt the urge to begin writing devotionals. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with them or what the end goal was. All I knew was that I had to jump off that cliff and figure it out as I was falling. Now, 400 devotionals later, I’ve reached over two thousand people and developed my writing beyond what I thought possible. What’s the endpoint? I have no idea! I don’t even think I’ve hit the ground yet, so I am still figuring out my wings as I’m falling: and that’s what’s fun about the process. I’ve tackled something scary and difficult for the sake of it and the journey has been immensely rewarding. 

In truth, faith plays a big part in jumping without wings. We really don’t know what will come of our efforts, but we have faith that they are not in vain. Hebrews 11.1 defines faith as, “confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.” There’s no way we can accurately plan our futures, so we hope and hold close to the faith we have that it will turn out alright. We too often hesitate when we can’t see the future, but that lack of sight should be a signal for us to jump rather than to wait for a clear sign of approval or vision for the future. In faith, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight” (Proverbs 3.5-6). By cultivating faith and trust and not relying on cost/benefit analysis or ten-year plans, we follow more paths than had we decided to map it all out beforehand. And it’s that hesitation and stalling that often causes us to miss out on opportunity.

In faith, Fiege dove into the MCU, and currently, the films are the highest grossing film series in history, having made 29.55 billion dollars worldwide (which is 3 times the next closest film series, Star Wars). He struck right when the time was right, and had he waited for the right funding or all the proper scripts to come together, he would have missed out on being the most successful producer in film history.

In a scene from the 80’s film Better Off Dead, a character instructs a hapless John Cusack how to ski: “Go that way, really fast. If something gets in your way, turn.” It’s perfect advice for those who are too afraid to tackle a challenge without a net. If we remember and heed Solomon’s words in Proverbs: “Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and He will establish your plans” (16.3), then we too will enjoy building our wings as we fall in faith. 

Amen.

Are Your Conversations Lifeless and One-Sided?

When we talk, we don’t ask enough questions and those we ask are the wrong kinds.

With Thanksgiving and Christmas breaks in sight, the next group of people I assume I’ll be running into are the returning students, those who graduated and are now back to tell their tales.

They start showing up in the building somewhat suddenly, wide-eyed and roaming the halls, wondering why this place seems so strange to them. I love chatting about their new experiences, but I know that I am just one person in a long line of people they want to visit, so it’s important that I make my time count. 

Eschewing the usual questions like “what classes did you take?” and “how was your semester?,” I tend to go for more pointed questions. The trick is to get them talking, so an approach that requires a prepared answer just won’t do. If I really want to learn something, I have to ask the right questions.

“How were you surprised by your experiences at college?”

That gets them thinking and responding in a meaningful way, which is my goal. I’ve learned many lessons from these conversations and not just about college life but about humanity and relationships. My thought is that If our lives are filled with chance encounters, why not make them count with some meaningful dialogue?

According to the New York Times article The Essential Skills for Being Human by David Brooks, around 30% of people are good question askers. “The rest are nice people, but they just don’t ask. I think it’s because they haven’t been taught to and so don’t display basic curiosity about others.” He feels that a large majority of people feel unseen and unheard because in conversation, they are not acknowledged and thus feel invisible. The other night, I ran into someone I hadn’t seen in over a year. We chatted for a few minutes, but everything was about him: what he’s been doing, what he thinks, how he has been feeling lately. Not once did he ask me a question. He’s a nice enough guy; he’s just a little wrapped up in himself. 

The majority of people seem to fall into that same category: nice people who don’t know how to respect and understand others in conversation. Just because they got their points across, said what they wanted to, and felt a connection, that doesn’t mean that a connection was made. Both parties need to feel it for there to be a connection. If we don’t take others’ needs into account, then nothing is built between people.

It is through conversation that connection is made, when the speaking and listening needs of both parties are met. In Paul and Timothy’s letter to the Colossians, they encourage the readers to, “Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone” (4:6). The key to good dialogue is flavor, and by learning to season your words with the right elements that not only create meaningful conversation but also allow each person to be heard will be what leads to a connection and consequently the building of community.

In Brooks’ article, he identifies two types of people in any given conversation: the Diminisher and the IIlluminator. “Diminishers are so into themselves, they make others feel insignificant. They stereotype and label.” They dominate the conversation and only look to see what they can get out of it, dismissing the other party in the process. Illuminators are curious about others and look to understand them. “They know how to ask the right questions at the right times — so that they can see things, at least a bit, from another’s point of view.” They make people feel noticed and lifted up. They embody Proverbs 25:11 which says that, “a word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in a setting of silver.” And the way to do that in conversation, is to draw their story out of them.

Instead of asking questions that can be answered in a word or two, or with a pat answer, ask questions that require reflection. Don’t ask questions that start with “what” which requires a quick response, but instead ask “how” which transforms the answer into a story with events and steps. Having them “storify” their answer gets people talking about their lives, beliefs, families, and the journey of how they got to a specific point. That line of questioning allows for curiosity on your part and elaboration on theirs. It helps us to learn something about others and ourselves. 

Then, utilize the concept of follow-up questions. Ask for details and specifics, having them paint a word picture. Additional questions about the minutiae lead the speaker’s thoughts back into the situation, forcing a revisit that leads to a more full story. Your requests for additional details illuminate the speaker and bring light to that person’s issues, a place where some might have felt unheard. In similar fashion to God’s words to Isaiah, who said, “I will lead the blind…I will turn the darkness into light before them and make the rough places smooth” (42:16), through illumination, we can make people feel comfortable in sharing their stories with us. 

Conversations are often not about the words being spoken but the emotions behind them. What it comes down to is for you to decide what emotion you want driving your conversations. For many, they allow fear to drive conversation, where words are used to diminish the other person and push others into submission and subservience. Then, the conversation is not about curiosity but about social dominance. But if approached with curiosity and respect, we give the gift of recognition to the speaker, acknowledging storified efforts as noteworthy and admirable. We lift the other up and put the speaker’s needs first, and we in turn grow from the sharing of stories. 

This week, relinquish the wheel in conversation more often than not and give control to others in allowing their stories to grow and connect with others, bringing curiosity to both parties. Give them the gift of attention, and you will see that relationship strengthen and grow as you benefit from their wisdom.

Amen.

Insisting on Being Right Isn’t Really Nice

You may technically be correct, but citing that won’t build any bridges.

Whenever we travel anywhere, my wife does the driving. It’s just easier that way, as she gets bored as a passenger and I enjoy just sitting. (Also, she’s a little critical of my driving, so there’s that.)

On our last long distance trip, we needed whatever time we could get, so I rerouted us through the city, cutting off around 20 minutes of driving. She isn’t crazy about driving through the city, and the last time I sprung that on her, it was just before we left. That approach heightened her stress level but ultimately DID cut off a significant amount of time. So this time, I thought ahead and warned her the previous night. (Score one for me and my listening abilities!)

When we left the next morning, I reminded her that we were going through the city. That’s when her stress level hit the roof because she had forgotten what I said. She got angry, but I was ready with facts! 

Last time, she told me that if we were going that route, that I should let her know ahead of time. (Check.) She told me that it doesn’t cut off enough time, but I let her know that last time it actually did and that she just didn’t remember. (Check.) She explained that she had forgotten, so I mentioned that her memory isn’t my fault. (Triple check!) I was totally right and justified! I had won the argument! I let her know that I had done everything right this time and that her feelings were wrong.

So why was she still angry and yelling? Didn’t she know that I was right?

In twenty-six years of marriage, I’ve learned, or perhaps not, that being right isn’t always the right way to approach a conflict. Just because I am in the logical right and that I’ve got facts on my side, it doesn’t mean that I’ve won the argument, as evidenced by her reaction. Although I was right, I wasn’t kind, which is more important than being right. Being kind allows for others’ feelings and needs, but being right ignores them.

Ironically enough, a few hours later, an unfortunate squabble with extended family erupted that resulted in a major rift.  We had expressed our needs and were turned down as a result, so we had no choice but to leave early. It was a bad convergence of conflicting desires, and we left saddened, disappointed, and deeply hurt because of other people’s decisions.

The next day, I called the offending party to bury the hatchet. Family is forever, so there we shouldn’t maintain resentment. I mentioned that there was no point assigning blame and identifying who caused what issue, so we should just move on and be nice to one another from here on out.

I then got a taste of my own medicine, as the party went on to prove to me that he had done nothing wrong. His facts trumped my feelings, so clearly I was wrong for feeling the way I was feeling. And you know what? Having facts stuffed down my throat isn’t great on the receiving end.

It gave me a great deal of insight as to how much more important being kind is over being right. What drives our need to be right is our insecurity about how others see us, so if we can centralize others and see them as opportunities for kindness rather than personal validation, we can fundamentally shift our approach and the world.

As a prime example of kindness over the need to be right, the father of the Prodigal Son shows that grace best.

In Luke 10, Jesus tells a story about a man with two sons, where the younger one asks for his inheritance early. The father divides it up, and the youngest leaves. “Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living. After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need” (13-14). He decides to return home and asks to be a servant in his father’s house. What he doesn’t expect is his father’s reaction: “But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him” (20). He clothes him in nice robes, feeds him, and throws a party to celebrate his return. 

What we should look at is not how the father reacts but how he could have reacted. He was within his right to say to his son, “I told you so” and lecture him about everything he did right and the son did wrong. But instead, the father chose kindness despite the fact that he wasn’t required to. His response was laced with love rather than self-righteousness, even though he was within his right to prove to the son why he was right.

The older son represents the callous response the world often has. When he returned from working hard in the field, he heard the partying and did not think that his brother’s return warranted said kindness: “The older brother became angry and refused to go in…He answered his father, ‘Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!’” (28-30). Technically, the older brother is legally right in his assessments, but that doesn’t make his responses morally right. He should have responded in kindness as nothing good comes of his harsh response; as for the father, nothing but goodness came as a result of his kindness.

In conflict, our knee jerk response may be to justify ourselves and explain how we did everything right in an attempt to validate our actions, but If we take a breath and shift our response to other’s needs, we see that the latter response helps while the former one hurts the relationship. Kindness clearly builds relationships while justification tears them down. This week, offer kindness where there should be judgment and love where there could be blame. Building relationships rather than tearing them down fosters love and forgiveness where harshness and righteousness fester. Yes, you might be in the right, but you’ll end up alone in being right.

Amen.

Committees are Killing the Spirit of Creativity

The mediocre thoughts of the many drown out the good ideas of the few.

When I look back at all of the people who have influenced me, there is one specific group that has been a big part of making me who I am, the one I can point to who inspired me to become great: committees.

Let’s give a big shoutout to all of the committees in our lives who have brought out the best in society, made a huge impact in the world, and developed clear visions that made humanity better!

Of course, that’s not true at all.

When people are surveyed about who their influences are, most point to a teacher, athlete, or individual who showed passion and care, ones who bucked the trends of the world and stood up for what they believe. Martin Luther King, Malala Yousafzai, Nikola Tesla, Tim Cook, Greta Thunberg, Beyoncé: the list is endless except for one thing you’ll never find on it—no one ever cites a committee as being an influence in their lives. And that’s because for the most part, committees suck.

Every few months, teachers like myself are asked to come in on a student-less day so we can all get together and plan pedagogy, curriculum, or educational approaches. We are subsequently placed on committees that tackle these issues and try to problem solve them. The result is never anything groundbreaking or monumental and never results in change. The only real result is that most committee members want to gouge their own eyes out by the end of the day.

It is never the group that gets things done but is instead the individual. Where the individual, the auteur, has a unique vision and a poignant strategy, committees are watered down, beaten down, overly complicated groups with solutions that are never a consensus but only kowtow to the common denominator (which is never the best idea but is instead the idea that everyone can live with). 

In the gospels, you can see that the vision of one (Christ) was always solid, progressive, and effective, whereas the vision of many (the apostles) resulted in infighting and constant disagreement. (As in Mark 9.33-34, where the apostles often argued about which one of them was the best, a status which never changed any situation for the better.) Even after the crucifixion, Christ’s apostles could never agree on anything, whether the issue was circumcision (Acts 15), the role of Gentile believers, food, and Jewish traditions (Galatians 2), or the role of women in ministry (1 Timothy 2). As such, not a lot got done while they remained as a group. Don’t believe me? The reason the world works is because God doesn’t decide things via committee: “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future” (Jeremiah 29:11).

Committees usually don’t work for a number of reasons. There is a concept in committees called “Groupthink” where everyone conforms to the majority regardless of whether they agree with it or not, leading to a stifling of creativity. Additionally, although diversity is a good thing in the world, too much of it in committees is bad and can lead to too much disagreement. As if that wasn’t bad enough, there can be hidden agendas where individuals have personal or political desires that may conflict with good ideas. Over-complication and decision-avoidance also tend to plague committees, making things more complex than they need to be, and they end up not deciding anything as a result. And if a committee does not establish clear goals and objectives, then the results will be either diluted or non-existent. 

The lesson to learn here? Stop empowering groups and continue to enable individuals. If we allow individuals to realize their vision, we give them the ability to influence and change the world. Visionaries never come in packs but in single serve packages. Allow me to present, Saul Bass.

A leader in graphic design for years, and no one could tell Saul Bass what to do. Earlier in his career, he successfully and singlehandedly redesigned film intros and credit sequences. When no one ever noticed those parts of the movie, he made sure you did when he designed them. His groundbreaking work included the openings to The Man with the Golden Arm, Vertigo, Spartacus, Psycho, Some Like it Hot, and West Side Story, among many others. He bucked the concept of ornate, flashy sequences and brought a minimalist approach, finding the true heart of the film and letting his small but precise drawings embody the themes. He also revolutionized the look of many corporate logos like Bell Telephone, AT&T, Dixie, United Way, Kleenex, Continental Airlines, and dozens of others that are still used and recognized today. He worked mostly alone, as his only other true collaborator was his wife. 

When presenting to companies and committees, he was very adamant about his vision and approach. When the group questioned him and told him that his ideas were wrong, he stuck to what he created and promoted his vision rather than water it down with groupthink and over-complication. He had no problem telling CEOs and boards of directors that they were wrong. Funny enough, those groups almost always came around to Saul’s ideas and ended up liking and using what he created. Had he taken the ideas of the committees, his designs would not have been as successful as they were.

Yes, the Bible tells us to consult with others and listen to advisors (Proverbs 11:14: “For lack of guidance a nation falls, but victory is won through many advisers.“) but that does not translate well when it comes to creativity and invention. If we listen to the words of the Psalmist who commends God on how he himself was created (“For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well” [139:13-16]), then we see that just as God was a sole creator, so should we be in our artistic endeavors. If we stop listening to the group and start embracing individualized creative vision, we will revolutionize the world through imagination and unique innovation.

This week (and beyond), if you find yourself on a committee, listen to the singular creative voice within the group, not the chorus of the whole group. Otherwise, as an individual, learn to be confident in your ideas rather than allow them to be compromised by too many cooks. Embrace your unique approach. Develop your vision, not your approval ratings, and your ideas will stand out from the pack rather than be devoured by them.

Amen.

In Order to Advance, You Must Sometimes Retreat

Going back and going backwards are two very different things.

As if I haven’t been challenging myself enough in life, I decided to learn a new language these past few months.

Well, it’s not exactly new. I grew up listening to Greek, and I even took two years of Greek school as an elementary student, but I never really stuck with it. When I visited Greece this past summer and was surrounded by it, it all started to come back (something I didn’t know I had locked away in my brain). I didn’t know enough to get by, so I decided to tackle the language head on.

I took up lessons on Duolingo (a free online interactive language learning program) and committed to learning Greek for the next year. (Because why not?) What started out as a few minutes a day grew into 30-40 minutes of enjoyment and language absorption. I now proudly post a 72 day streak and have found that despite the difficulty, I am retaining a lot of material.

For those unfamiliar, Greek is not the easiest of languages. There are letters that are similar to English, but there are also many that are unique to Greek. (A friend of mine compared it to hieroglyphics.) The conjugations are uncommon, the organization of words within a sentence are infrequent, and the sounds are an exceptional blending of consonants. As I learn, I can actually feel the neural pathways in my head being wonderfully elastically stretched. 

The program is set up with the user earning various stars, badges, and trophies as rewards, incentives for people to continue in their learning. It’s the gamification of education, which works quite well as I’m compelled to continue based on the status I receive. As a result, I tend to push myself a little more when I am just shy of topping that leaderboard amongst my peers. However, I also unfortunately find that I sometimes desire the shiny trophy more than the mastery of language.

A few days ago when I was completing my exercises, I was so determined to get my daily quests done that I found that I was not paying enough attention to the material. I was resorting to guessing and relying on looking things up (i.e. – cheating) rather than actually learning. I was faking it for the sake of reward rather than pursuing actual knowledge for the sake of learning.

Horrified, I stopped and reassessed. I concluded that in my pursuit of knowledge, I was ignoring learning and was only concerned with extrinsic reward. Once I came to that conclusion, rather than blindly pushing forward, I decided to retreat—which where some might consider defeat, I consider a victory.

See, once I retreated, I was able to reevaluate my actions, assess my weaknesses, and determine what the best course of action was. Through that introspection, I discovered that I hadn’t built up a strong enough foundation with some key points of the language. So it was time to shore up my foundational skills with some fundamentals. If my foundation is solid, I can develop my skills from there, as Matthew 7.25 shows: “The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock.” 

I discovered that I was building my Greek castle on sand rather than on rock. With each click I was adding bricks to a flimsy structure because of a lack of supports. Just like any relationship, argument, or personal plan, without a good foundation, the entire structure comes toppling down. When I drew back, I could examine and test myself, a desire that Paul expressed to the Galatians: “Each one should test their own actions. Then they can take pride in themselves alone, without comparing themselves to someone else” (6:4). Without that much-needed retreat, I wouldn’t have come to that conclusion. I reexamined my goals and determined what I really wanted out of this language exercise: proficiency, not stickers and trophies. 

Admittance of weakness is often seen as a fault, as many associate it with inability. Knowing what your weaknesses are and when to work on them is a strength, indicating keen observational powers and self-awareness. Retreat is not defeat but an indication of advancement. History shows that many armies, had they not retreated when they did, might have lost the war later on.

A prime example of such retreat and foundation building tactics is when Steve Jobs returned to Apple in the late 90s, while they were undergoing significant losses in the market. Not a lead producer by any means, they struggled financially as they lost their footing with each succeeding quarter. Upon return, one of Jobs’ first tasks was to eliminate most products from the Apple line. He discontinued printers, cameras, and many programs. That significant retreat allowed Jobs and the company to focus on only a few items. From that retreat and reassessment grew the iPhone, MacBook, and iPod. Today, Apple is one of the leading tech companies in the world and the leader in smartphones. Had they not retreated, they probably would have gone out of business. Similarly, as a result of my Greek retreat, I am now much stronger in my fundamental concepts and almost ready to advance to new levels. Knowing what my current weaknesses are helps me strengthen my overall language skills, allowing me to go further than I would have without them. 

It is easy to get caught up in pushing forward with a current course of action and not spending time retreating when needed, reviewing what your weaknesses are. The rewards of our current situation are distracting and the thought of going backwards seems counterintuitive when you are still meeting life with some level of success. The strong know their weaknesses, whereas the weak only rely on brute strength. Proverbs 22:3 explains it this way: “The prudent see danger and take refuge, but the simple keep going and pay the penalty.” This week, know when your advances are meeting too much resistance and learn to accept retreat as a means of re-evaluation. Going back is not going backward, but pushing forward without a good foundation and a strong plan will only lead to defeat.

Amen.

Your Mistakes Will Haunt You if You Let Them

Don’t let the ghosts of your past have power over you. Drive them out instead.

With this month being Halloween, I thought it might be a good idea to visit some of my old haunts and scare up the ghosts of times gone by.

Or in other words, I cleaned out my file cabinet.

It’s a four drawer rusty old metal container that sits in our garage and has been a catch-all for multiple documents for years. It’s a cornucopia of warranties and receipts, travel pamphlets and tickets, love notes and newspaper clippings. It’s the history of our family for the last three decades, showing not only who we are but how we interact, where we go, and what we buy. The enormity of it has haunted me as it sits down there.

So, I felt that it was time to get rid of some ersatz things that were just taking up space in it. It’s been a lot of fun going through it all and reminiscing. There have been so many people who have impacted my life in so many ways, and seeing their contributions and encouraging words is a friendly reminder that not all ghosts are scary. The encouraging notes from friends and family helped me remember how often so many people contributed to being who I am. But keeping everything makes one a hoarder, so it was time to thin it out.

Simplicity is a key to happiness, and getting rid of things is good for the soul, so into the trash went many items that no longer needed to be kept. I started with the easy files by getting rid of instructional pamphlets for things I no longer owned. I worked my way through old mortgages and house purchases for places where I no longer live. Some people and notes had lost context over time, and although they meant a lot to me then, I could no longer remember either who they were or what the situation was. (Having lived in several states and met tens of thousands of people, my mind tends to act as a sieve.) So sadly, those friendly ghosts had lost their power.

Being a pack rat, I save not only the good but also the bad. Mixed among these happy memories were also some that I would prefer to forget. And those were the ghosts that were not so friendly, the ones that haunted me the most.

Among the detritus, I came across letters that I was not too proud of, evil spirits that refused to let go of me. Being human, and a work in progress, I have made my fair share of mistakes. I have said the wrong things, spoken when I should not have, and handled situations poorly. More specifically, there were two papers that highlighted mistakes I made on my jobs. One was from college, working as an RA, where I came across two residents drinking and did not say the right things to them. The other was from a previous teaching job, where although the specifics were not written, I clearly had handled a moment incorrectly and was being reprimanded for it.

Seeing those two papers, I looked back on those moments with horror and deep embarrassment. Both situations were over 20 years ago, and since then I have grown and matured past those types of behaviors. Like the Psalmist who reflects on his mistakes, “I have considered my ways and have turned my steps to your statutes” (119:59), I had already admitted fault and worked hard to be better, living as one who reacts with kindness and humanity, avoiding being impetuous and reactionary. Those documents were reminders of who I was, not who I am. It hurt me to have to read them again. I kept them because I refuse to ignore my mistakes or pretend I don’t make them, but clearly I was causing pain to myself to revisit them. 

So, I took a deep breath, walked over to my office, and shredded those papers.

Leading up to that moment, I was really unsure if that was the right decision, but as soon as I did, I felt a weight lift from me. In going through those files, the happy times weren’t what were sticking with me: it was these two papers. They had immense spectral power, and I hadn’t realized how much I was allowing them to define me. By shredding them, I was admitting to myself that those moments were no longer who I am: they are who I was. In his pleas regarding his former mistakes, the Psalmist makes it a point to ask for God’s forgiveness and forgetfulness: “Do not remember the sins of my youth and my rebellious ways; according to your love remember me, for you, Lord, are good” (25:7). When we allow our past mistakes to shape our current identity by holding on to them, we lose sight of who we are and do not allow forgiveness and forward movement. 

In the book of Isaiah, God speaks to the nation of Israel and reminds them that they are a forgiven people: “I, even I, am He who blots out your transgressions, for my own sake, and remembers your sins no more” (43:25). When God forgives, He forgets, so it is only us that are reminding ourselves of our mistakes. We refuse to forgive ourselves, continuously punishing our minds by remembering the missteps we took. Instead of being filled with grace and forgiveness, we choke on regret, insecurity, and doubt: feelings those papers arose in me. There was no good reason to keep them, just like there is no good reason to move ourselves past our mistakes. 

In Paul’s letter to the Philippians, he wrote about how he could have fixated on the Christian persecutions he ordered before his conversion but instead chose to look ahead: “One thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead” (3:13). If he dwelled on his past mistakes, he wouldn’t have built the church, grew its numbers, or written so many books of the Bible. Instead, he would have regularly beaten himself up over who he was rather than work with who he is. This week, work to forget the mistakes of your past by getting rid of the reminders that haunt you in your life. We have no control over what we did but we can respond with requests for forgiveness and desires for growth. And once forgiven, always forgiven. Your mistakes and you are as far from each other as the east is from the west, so stop acting like they are still a part of you. Establish a growth mindset, not a punished one, and the ghostly chains of your past mistakes will lose all their power and fall away before you know it.

Amen.

If You Live for the Future, the Present Will Pass You By

Root yourself in the now, enjoying what each day has to bring.

Bryan Johnson, age 46, wants to live forever.

That’s a similar sentiment for most people, but the difference between him and us is that he’s rich. Stupid rich, in fact. He has every resource at his fingertips, and so he might just live forever.

In chasing immortality, for both himself and future generations, he’s developing a system dubbed “Blueprint” where every life and health decision is outsourced to a team of doctors who parse through the data and determine the best decisions in maintaining his health. He has a regiment where he wakes up every day at 4:53 AM, weighs himself immediately, sits under a light-therapy lamp for a few minutes, washes his face with a wrinkle-defying cream, puts on a laser light mask for five minutes, and then he’s ready to start his day (which brings us to around 6 AM). From there, it’s eye drops for pre-cataracts and nose vibrations for tear duct stimulation, all while taking a series of 111 pills every day. Then it’s leg presses, weights, planks, stretches, etc., sometimes while wearing a V02 mask. For food, it’s a lot of lentil mush, nutty puddings, and smelly juices. 

Is it working? According to doctors, he has the body of an 18-year-old and is in the top 1% of ideal muscle fat. But is he happy? That’s a judgment call based on the things that aren’t in his life.

What is gone are the things that most of us enjoy and savor: coffee, pizza, sleeping in, staying up late, alcohol, leisure activity, and fun. (“The idea of having pizza is more painful than pleasurable for me,” he says.) Spontaneity is gone, as is any deviation from his strict routine. He doesn’t go out much either, preferring to stay in the sterilized confines of his fairly empty and unfurnished mansion. Also gone? His wife and two of his three children (his 18-year-old son lives with him.) His body is clearly in shape, but his face has an eerie, uncanny valley look of someone who is trying to look much younger than they actually are. Is this living? Most would argue that he has sacrificed living in an attempt to live forever.

It’s one thing to get the most out of life, but it’s another to focus only on living forever. In a 2006 speech to the graduating class at Stanford, Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple, stressed the need to focus on the present day and live that day to its fullest: “For the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: ‘If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?’” It’s a great way of making sure that the things you are doing are worth doing and live fully. In Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, he similarly encouraged them to, “Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity” (5:15-16). Every day counts, but that doesn’t mean we should be counting the days like Bryan Johnson does.

So how can we learn to make the most of our lives without focusing so much on the prolonging of it? The answer is to live not in the past or future but in the present.

A meditation activity that I’ve done not only with myself but with my students is called a 5-4-3-2-1. It involves the five senses and observing the things around you. To start, take notice of five things around you, and then find four things you can touch. At that point, close your eyes and find three things you can hear, two things you can smell, and one thing you can taste. During these moments, you notice things that you hadn’t before, sounds or sensations that escaped you because your mind was too busy to observe. It makes you hyper-aware of the present and what is going on around you. Afterwards, you become more focused and aware of your environment because you are more connected to the present. You are able to observe more and aren’t thinking about yesterday or what you need to do tomorrow: you are in the now. 

I’ve been asked how I am able to come up with something new to write about every week. To be able to develop ideas and put them into a new devotion every seven days seems extraordinary to some, but I would suggest that it isn’t as hard as it may seem. My secret is that I put myself in the present as much as possible, being aware of what is around me as much as I can. I start my day with guided meditation, readying my head, heart, and eyes for what may come their way during that day. Throughout the day, I spend time reconnecting myself to the current moment by taking a breath or pausing to reflect, which then opens my mind and heightens my awareness. As such, I then find that I am always learning something new or observing something I hadn’t before, which prompts topics for this column. That is what it means to live in the present. 

The author of Ecclesiastes, the elderly King Solomon, after a lifetime of experience, wrote: “I know that there is nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live. That each of them may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all their toil—this is the gift of God” ( 3:12-13). Living to avoid death is no kind of life, as it denies all of what makes life worth living. That approach is a constant fixation on avoiding an inevitable outcome rather than embracing the joy that each day brings. This week, live not for tomorrow, but for today, because “you do not even know what will happen tomorrow” (James 4.14). Take steps to connect with the present, and the world will unfold before you. Life was made so that we could enjoy the present, and if we are always thinking beyond the current day, we will miss out on the tremendous treasures right in front of us. 

Amen.

You are Not Harnessing the Power of Your Words

Your words have tremendous potential for good, but you are not utilizing that gift enough.

Everything in the world can be broken down into smaller, simpler parts which makes it easier to understand. Just like how every bit of matter can be broken down to molecules, atoms, subatomic particles, and electrons, and every delicious recipe is made up of three parts this and ⅔ of a cup of that, so can effective communication be broken down into its parts.

Before you start to become a good writer, you have to know what those parts are that make up good writing. You can’t just become a good writer without knowing the nuts and bolts, so it’s good to study the three main parts: diction, syntax, and tone. Diction is the choice of just the right words, syntax is the proper and most effective order to put those words in, and tone is the emotion or voice that you want your words and arrangements to use. For every sentence I write here, I decide on which words I want, what order I want them in, and how I want the pieces to sound when someone reads it. If I do my job right, my words have power.

There is great power in being an effective communicator, one who is able to get his or her purpose across and convince the other party of one’s point of view. When Christ spoke to the Samaritan woman at the well, asking her for a drink (John 4), He knew what information to reveal at what time, what order His words should be in, and how to convey the proper tone so that He might convince her that He was the Messiah. Had He reordered His information or used just one wrong word, she might have fled. Similarly, the apostles learned effective communication from watching Christ interact with individuals and crowds, and knew just how to phrase their messages, whether it was Peter’s sermon at Pentecost (Acts 2), Stephen’s defense of his faith to the religious leaders (Acts 7), or Paul’s speech to the leaders in Athens (Acts 17). They all knew how to say just the right thing at the right time to achieve their purpose.

But in order to get to that point, we need to first study the power a word can have. A piece that I read to my students from the New York TImes entitled “Drinking, Driving, and Paying,” is an account of a person who drinks a little too much, gets pulled over, and must overcome a variety of obstacles both with finances and dignity. What makes the piece special and effective is that it is written in 2nd period, using “you” instead of 1st person “I” or third person “he”: a most unusual choice. By changing that single word throughout, instead of hearing about some poor schlub’s unfortunate night and subsequent issues, we are put in the driver seat and it is happening to us. We feel and experience what the narrator feels and experiences. I know this is effective, because I just read it aloud to a group of fifteen-year olds, and they were absolutely riveted the entire time. 

We don’t really realize that we all have the ability to harness the power of words. We think we need to be master wordsmiths for maximum effectiveness, but sometimes the simplest words at the right time are the best. Proverbs 16:24 explains that, “Gracious words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healing to the bones,” meaning that if you have the right word, you can harness the power of communication. For example, there have most likely been times when you’ve entered your school or workplace and no one acknowledges your presence. You feel absolutely invisible and emotionally empty as a result. Finally, when someone utters a simple, “hi” in your direction, you feel validated and comforted. 

There’s a famous true story about a man who walked to the Golden Gate Bridge and ended his life by jumping. When they identified the body, police went back to his apartment and found a note that said that he was going to walk to the bridge, and if one person smiled or said, “hi’ to him on the way there, he wouldn’t jump. All those people along the way had the power to stop him, but no one used it.

The same can work with just asking someone who seems distressed if they are okay. Frequently, we are hesitant to talk to people we don’t know because we think they don’t want to be bothered, but just hearing those words might be enough of a salve to heal a person in need. The author of Proverbs writes that, “A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in settings of silver” (25:11). I can remember many times when I was hurting on the inside and someone asked me if I was okay: I usually denied that anything was wrong, smiled, and told them that I was alright, because having the knowledge that someone else could see me struggling was enough to make me feel better.

The other day, I badly hurt my back and was painfully struggling to walk into urgent care. A woman who was there with another patient offered her arm to help me through the door. I didn’t take it, but what stood out for me the most was her kindness that was extended in my direction. Even when asking someone if he or she is alright, you may not get much information or even a response, but just knowing that someone cared makes a world of difference. That woman who offered her arm to me will never know just how much those words meant at that time.

It’s the reason I walk the halls and smile and say hello to students I don’t know, why I wave to and greet my neighbors even though we’ve never had a conversation, or the purpose behind welcoming every opportunity to interact with someone new: because words have power and people in need need to hear them. This week, smile and greet people when you see them and don’t shy away from those who look like they are in pain. Yes, it can be intimidating, but build up the courage to ask them if they are okay anyway. Your right words at just the right time might be the reason that they are still alive tomorrow. 

Amen.

Suffering the Screams of Small Children

Bearing the annoyances of others is a more compassionate response than fixing their path.

I love having the windows open at my house. Feeling the warm breeze sweep through while the curtains flutter is both invigorating and soothing at the same time. Having them open to nature also allows for the calming soft patter of raindrops as they gently soak the lawn, while at night, gentle crickets chirps create a symphony that lulls me to sleep.

However, having the windows open also allows for neighborhood sounds, which usually isn’t a problem, except when it’s the shrieking 4-year-old across the street.

They moved in sometime in the winter, so we hadn’t noticed anything until these past few months. And when we did, it was impossible to avoid. The parents open the doors and let her out of the house in the very early morning, and she screams her brains out until nine at night. It’s not consistent, which actually might be better because I could just tune that out: it’s sporadic, surprising, ear-piercing, and right next door. And it is driving me insane.

The family lives in a small house with a big yard, so kick her out and let her run like a wild banshee the whole day. She screams when she plays, when she gets hurt, when she’s excited, and whenever she feels like it. And no one there does anything to stop her or console her. In fact, they rarely interact with her. She is left to her own devices, running around and caterwauling in her vast yard. And if she’s not screaming, then her slightly younger sister is there making high-pitched barking noises. It’s a cacophony of nails against multiple chalkboards that puts my teeth on edge and provokes my desire to march over there and fix not only that kid but those parents, too.

Being that it’s destroying my peace, a big part of me wants to speak to those parents about the noise pollution that is pouring into my windows. I am also feeling the need to set them straight by telling them how to properly parent their kids. But is it my place to do so? 

Many morally upstanding people tend to feel the need to correct others when they see them in need of it. There is even a Biblical basis for it, too, as some interpret it to be. In James’s letter to the twelve scattered tribes, he writes as a warning: “My brothers and sisters, if one of you should wander from the truth and someone should bring that person back, remember this: Whoever turns a sinner from the error of their way will save them from death and cover over a multitude of sins” (5:19-20). As such, many feel the need to constantly “fix” people because they think that it’s their duty and sworn right, but we can all agree that a self-righteous approach like that is never received well.

For example, I feel the need to point out people’s bad driving, usually with an audible blast of my horn. They may be driving under the speed limit, not turning when they are supposed to, sticking out too far in the road, whatever. I need to make my point, letting them know that they are in violation of the rules of the road, and send them on the correct way. (I’m doing the world a favor!) My hope is that when they hear my correction, they will collectively smack their hands to their heads in a moment of realization, and promise the heavens and society to never be that ignorant of the law ever again. (At least that’s how it plays out in my head.)

But pointing out their faults never results in that outcome. Instead, they end up riding my bumper, fly some rude hand gestures, and shout their opinions about my own driving. My self-righteousness breeds anger and resentment, not renunciation and pleas of forgiveness. Additionally, when I “correct” other drivers, I feel no sense of accomplishment or joy myself. I have perpetuated a cycle of anger and hatred, where I have not only externalized it but internalized it as well. 

Paul’s letter to the Romans asks that we “accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God” (15:7). We forget that even when we were unlikable and unloveable, there were those who loved us despite our nature. That level of unconditional love, where we accept others as they are, is at the source of compassion. It was first given to us, so why are we so resistant in giving it to others? How can we claim to love others when we are quick to show anger towards those who annoy us? 

In Pauls’ letter to the Colossians, he asks that despite our perceived injustices, we should “bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you” (3:13). The key to dealing with those annoying drivers and shrieky neighborhood children (and their nonparticipant parents) is to bear with them, which is easier said than done. But when I step away from my emotional state and think about the situation with my head and heart, I begin to see the offender in a new light. I develop empathy and compassion towards them when I become curious and start to wonder what their lives are like, why they act that way, and what led them to that point. I don’t know what their struggles are or what emotions they are currently dealing with. If I were to have a conversation with any of the involved parties, I’m sure I wouldn’t mind their awkward driving and senseless screaming children. I would begin to understand them better.

By being curious and seeking understanding, we gain wisdom regarding other people’s circumstances. Proverbs 19:11 tells us that, “A person’s wisdom yields patience; it is to one’s glory to overlook an offense.” If we seek to gain wisdom rather than responding with knee-jerk emotion, we can put ourselves in each others’ shoes and develop compassion towards their positions. It takes some patience, humility, and restraint, but it ultimately promotes peace and understanding as well as true personal satisfaction, as opposed to the fleeting satisfaction of an emotional response. This week, rather than indulge in fuming judgment when others annoy you, resist the urge to fix them and instead seek wisdom and patience through meditation and the practice of compassion. Make more attempts to understand others and their personal situations and perhaps even you may be able to bear the shrieks of children.

Amen.

Delusional Thoughts: The Narrative is All in Your Head

The stories we tell ourselves only lead to the damage we inflict on our relationships.

As I lay there in bed staring at the ceiling, my wife lay next to me, her mind all a flutter.

I hadn’t said anything in awhile, so her mind started to spin, wondering why I wasn’t speaking to her. She thought about how I might be mad and could be giving her the silent treatment. She ran through all the words she’d said to me in the past day in an attempt to figure out where she had gone wrong or what had set me off. Was it the questions about my day? Were they badgering? Did I feel pressured about the house and its finances because of her? She kept ruminating, attempting to come to an answer in her head. Maybe she didn’t give me enough attention and I was feeling ignored? Finally she asked me what the matter was.

“I was wondering whether cheddar cheese or colby melts better with nachos.”

There are a variety of names for what she was going through including “unconscious storytelling,” “false internal narratives,” and “the story I’m telling myself right now.” It’s a relationship-sabotaging practice where one member creates a story in their head when they are unclear about what the other person is thinking or feeling, and more often than not, they come to the wrong conclusions.

Based on assumptions, this mental malpractice is a real argument escalator. If you’ve ever been in a relationship, you know that the real killer is not the big issues but the small ones that slowly chip away at each other’s romantic feelings. It’s the fights about who left what in the hamper, why the toothpaste was not replaced, or who is doing more housework than the other. Yet oftentimes these spats are not grounded in reality but in the stories we tell ourselves about the other person.

For example, the other day I left a plastic milk carton in the sink. When my wife came home and saw it, the story she told herself was that I am immensely entitled and feel that I don’t deserve to do work around the house because she’ll do it for me. She also began to feel that I look down on her, which made her feel small and insecure. That was the story she told herself; the truth was that I put it in the sink in the morning when I was half asleep and forgot that it was there. There was no intended malice or harm, but the story she told herself developed resentment which manifested itself in an argument. 

If Ephesians 4:29 tells us to, “not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen,” then we need to take steps to break this destructive loop.

1) Calm down and point out the obvious, what you know for sure

Open communication is the most helpful part in resolving perceived slights, but the first thing needing to be done is take the anger out of the situation. Take a moment to breathe, calming yourself down first. It is encouraged that, “whoever is patient has great understanding, but one who is quick-tempered displays folly” (Proverbs 14:29). Don’t hobble good communication with aggressive emotion. When you are ready, tell the other person what it is you are seeing. Keep it brief, or the other person will start to feel blame immediately. 

2) Tell them the story from your mind

Relay the story you told yourself in your head. Frequently, when you verbalize what you made up to yourself, you’ll start to see just how ridiculous it was, which may break the ice between you two with a good laugh. Phrasing it as such, that you made it up, also takes the blame off the other person and helps you get at the real root of what’s happening.

3) Explain how you were feeling

Labeling what it is you are feeling gets to what’s really at stake. Often, when my wife and I fight, I have to ask myself: “what is this fight really about?” It’s never about the laundry, money, or groceries, and is usually rooted in fear, hurt, or anger. Seeing the other person for the way they feel creates vulnerability and a desire to want to heal.

4) Give an example of what would help

Giving a practical solution to your feelings is a step forward in the relationship and an easily achievable one. Like most, I don’t want to hurt those I love or slight them in any way, so if I do, it’s not intentional. Knowing what would help the other person bridges the gap between wanting to make them happy and knowing how to make them happy. If you don’t verbalize what would help, they can’t give you what they don’t know you need. 

In Paul’s letter to the Colossians, we are called to speak lovingly to one another for a reason: “Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone” (4:6). Knowing how to respond properly to a mate is key to developing that grace between you two. This week, learn to identify the stories you tell yourself by paying closer attention to your thought processes: look for that spiraling of thought and how it gets out of control. Then, communicate with your partner, letting them know what you’re going through, as that open level of communication will develop a stronger bond between you two and a grateful response from the one who now knows your story.

Amen.

You Deserve to be the Happiest Person in the World

Choosing compassion and unconditional love is the path that will lighten your load.

What do you deserve?

If you were to ask Hamlet, he would suggest that if we treat everyone the way they deserve, “who shall ‘scape whipping?”, but I suggest that people deserve a little better than that. The question is a basic human rights issue, where we must look at what people are entitled to. Most agree that we all deserve food, water, and shelter—basic survival aspects of our existence—so our charity efforts are often focused on providing these needs through monetary donations. Others argue that healthcare is a right, how everyone should have access to it, so we have legislators who work to pass laws providing medical assistance to those who cannot afford it, and we send volunteers and doctors to countries who have no one to aid them. 

Then there are aspects that are not so clear cut because of how we feel about certain people, such as what human emotions people have a right to. It’s nice to think that everyone deserves to be happy and loved, but I’m sure you can think of a neighbor or relative that defies that description. Dignity and worth are other valid emotions, but should everyone feel that? Perhaps. These are all positive and beneficial feelings that we can agree most people should feel, but should anyone be deserving of negative emotions?

More specifically, do people deserve hatred? 

Most would probably balk at that question, as we cannot imagine indulging in our hatred for another, but aren’t there some people who should be hated? Aren’t the dregs of society, murderers, rapists, and genocidal madmen worthy of our scorn? It seems almost irresponsible to suggest that we shouldn’t hate certain dictators and serial killers. When we start to talk about how everyone deserves forgiveness and compassion, that’s where some people draw the line, yet if you ask Matthieu Ricard, he’s a lot more open to the idea.

Known as “the world’s happiest man,” Ricard is a former cellular geneticist turned Buddhist monk who authors books on wisdom, altruism, and happiness. In a recent New York Times interview, Ricard was asked what his happiness secret was, and ultimately it came down to, “I cannot imagine feeling hate or wanting someone to suffer.” The key to his happiness is compassion, that in a world of strife, suffering, and division, he wants everyone to be happy: 

When we speak of compassion, you want everybody to find happiness. No exception. You cannot just do that for those who are good to you or close to you. It has to be universal. You may say that Putin and Bashar al-Assad are the scum of humanity, and rightly so. But compassion is about remedying the suffering and its cause. How would that look? You can wish that the system that allowed someone like that to emerge is changed…You can wish that the cruelty, the indifference, the greed may disappear from these people’s minds. 

For him, compassion lacks any moral judgment, being a desire to “remedy suffering wherever it is, whatever form it takes and whoever causes it.” He feels that no one should be hated, no matter how bad they are, because he doesn’t hate the person or wish for bad things to happen to them: he just hopes that they change.

For example, as I sit here writing this devotional outside, I am being attacked by mosquitos. Do I hate mosquitos? Perhaps, but more importantly I hate that they want to bite me. Compassion is a desire for individual and societal change where the behavior stops or alters for the better. If the mosquitos didn’t bite me, I probably wouldn’t hate them, as they are creatures created from love. For those we find loathsome and detestable, how we view them is key to being capable of compassion for all.

So what’s the solution? In Paul’s letter to the Colossians, he tells us to, “Clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience” (3:12), with compassion being the first thing we put on. But what happens when our wardrobe lacks the necessary garments?

The answer is through unconditional love. In John’s Gospel, the local leaders challenged Jesus with a seemingly unsolvable problem, but He found that compassion and unconditional love would solve it: “The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group and said to Jesus, ‘Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?’”(John 8.3-4). By publicly humiliating the woman, the Pharisees attempted to trap Him by being indifferent (the opposite of compassion). He refused to respond to their attempts at public shaming and remained silent for a great deal of time in an effort to quiet the crowd: “When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, ‘Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her” (7). Eventually, they all dropped their stones and left, and Christ forgave her. His compassion and unconditional love changed the course of her life.

As with Jesus, Ricard feels that compassion is found through unconditional love, so how do we cultivate it? “When you are in that moment of unconditional love — say, for a child — this fills our mind for 30 seconds, maybe a minute, then suddenly it’s gone. We all have experienced that. The only difference now is to cultivate that in some way. Make it stay a little longer. Try to be quiet with it for 10 minutes, 20 minutes. If it goes away, try to bring it back. Give it vibrancy and presence. That’s exactly what meditation is about. If you do that for 20 minutes a day, even for three weeks, this will trigger a change.”

This week, squash hatred and cultivate compassion. Think of those for whom you have unconditional love and develop that feeling beyond those boundaries with meditation and reflection. When you find yourself leaning towards contempt for another, see beyond what they do and instead see them as a creation of God and nature, developed out of love, and remember that unconditional love that you are capable of. Seek out compassion for them, seeing them not as evil but as a product of a broken world, one who is capable of being better. By developing compassion through unconditional love, you will find your happiness too, seeing that this world deserves not the hatred it gets but the love you have to give it.

Amen.

Without Real Sacrifice, You are Hurting Your Relationships

Sacrifice is not the same as compromise: you should be giving without expecting.

A complicated word, there are many shades of definitions that run the gamut of what exactly “sacrifice” is, but we can all agree that it is a denial of oneself. It is when life and the world requires us to give up something we want or desire.

For example, during Lent many sacrifice a food, vice, or practice. Several people admirably give up meat for forty days as their sacrifice. Others dig really deep and give up something that they crave, like chocolate or alcohol. During this time, the purpose of sacrifice is for introspection, focus, and a closer awareness of our spiritual relationships. 

Sacrifice implies a relationship between two parties, and the level of sacrifice determines the level of devotion to that relationship. The key qualities include selflessness and commitment as well as a recognition of a greater purpose—that the short-term denial contributes to a longer-term goal in that relationship, a sign of a deepening commitment. Thus, the greater the sacrifice, the stronger the commitment.

The most obvious example of Biblical commitment is the sacrifice of God’s son for the love of humanity. For parents, there is no greater sacrifice, so God’s sacrifice of Jesus meant that His love and level of commitment is unsurpassable and His devotion knows no boundaries: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3.16). This sacrifice reflects the amount of love God has for His people and how much He desires humanity to be close to Him. In John 15:13, Jesus says, “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends,” reinforcing that philosophy, showing how Christ sacrificed His own life for those He encountered and for future generations.

God’s and Christ’s sacrifices measure just how much He is willing to give up for us. A sacrifice should require giving up something that truly and deeply affects us. Using God’s sacrifice as an example, we should ask ourselves: How much are we willing to give up for those we love? To what measure are we willing to sacrifice for those we claim to care for? In order to answer these questions, we must first better identify what it means to sacrifice for another. 

We do not fundamentally understand what sacrifice is. For example, I am not much of a morning person and my wife is not much of a night person. To help each other out, I get up a little earlier to be with her and she stays up a little later to be with me. I want to sleep in and she wants to go to bed early, so we both give up some of our desired time and activities for the sake of unity in our marriage. Historian and author Joseph Campbell once said that, “When you make the sacrifice in marriage, you’re sacrificing not to each other but to unity in a relationship.” But where some may see our choice as sacrifice, I would argue that it is not: it is compromise. 

There are distinct differences between the two. Compromise involves finding a middle ground between two parties where each gives up something in exchange for something else. Sacrifice means giving up something without expecting anything in return, a commitment to the relationship that has no strings attached or expectations involved. So again, to what measure are we willing to sacrifice for those we love that DOES NOT INVOLVE COMPROMISE?

For those in a loving relationship, true sacrifice should not be a 50/50 mentality between partners. Instead, it should be each person giving one hundred percent of the time. That way, when one person isn’t his or her best self, the other person is there to lift up the relationship to where it should be. Sacrifice should involve a level of personal suffering for the other person. In Paul’s letter to the Galatians, he encouraged sacrifice in the form of taking up the sufferings of each other: “Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ” (6:2). To sacrificially take another’s burden upon yourself involves suffering, a giving of oneself with a personal cost. 

So, how can we give sacrificially now that we know what it means? Time, energy, and money are the first things that come to mind, giving them up for other people’s needs. But there are other aspects of ourselves that can be sacrificed, ways that involve our personal needs. One is the need to always be right along with the constant urge to be perfect, two things I struggle with in my own marriage. I too often fight for the littlest thing in an effort to be right and perfect, but by doing so, I am winning the battle but losing the war. Almost all disagreements I’ve had could have been settled through my sacrifice, yet I perpetuate the cycle and increase the damage by insisting that I am never wrong. I sacrifice physical needs easily, but for me, it is the sacrifice of my emotional needs that need work. 

In denying yourself these key aspects, you are truly sacrificing for those you love. If you are like me and find yourself lacking in these areas, some ways you can develop them include cultivating empathy and prioritizing your relationships through active listening and reflecting on your own motivations. If I listen more and see what I truly want out of a disagreement, I begin to put her before me and see what it is like to be in her shoes. From there, the sacrifice becomes a natural progression.

Mother Teresa, in a speech at a National Prayer breakfast in 1971 said, “I must be willing to give whatever it takes not to harm other people and, in fact, to do good to them. This requires that I be willing to give until it hurts.” That we should give to the point of suffering is a true denial of oneself and a full surrender to the other person, be it a romantic, familial, or friendship. Without that mentality, there will always be a level of selfishness in the relationship, where you expect the other to reciprocate. In doing so, your relationship becomes less about them and more about you, shifting the target of love and attention off the intended. To truly love another person, you must be willing to sacrifice yourself to the point where it exhausts you, as without sacrifice, we end up denying the love that we so want to give and end up renouncing those whom we truly love.

Amen.

Choosing the Hard Way Is Better but Not Easy

Picking the path filled with difficulties is daunting but the rewards are worth the effort.

“We can do this the easy way or the hard way.”

It’s a bit of dialogue that’s been used in several movies, tv shows, and books. Perceived as a threat, it suggests that the person speaking has enough power over the other to achieve his or her goal, that the person is going to get his or her way, whether the other person wants it or not. The threatened person can either go quietly or can struggle in the process, but either way, that person is going. Unless that person is tough or stubborn, he or she will choose the easy way.

Most people usually choose the easy way in life. Why struggle and expound all of that energy when you will get the same result anyway? Many choose the easy way because the hard way is, well, hard. People would prefer not to struggle, so they choose what is easy. 

I am surrounded by people who usually choose the easy way in life. I have students who, if I tell them that the minimum is two paragraphs, will write two paragraphs. Why go beyond the minimum when the effort isn’t required? By taking the easy way, they have time for other things, but let’s face it: those other things are probably something leisurely. Are they successful in their efforts? I suppose to a point. It depends on what you want out of the situation and what your definition of success is on the matter. They aren’t going to learn as much as they could and they certainly aren’t impressing anyone by doing the bare minimum. So clearly, choosing the easy way has unintended consequences and ramifications.

Are there benefits in taking the easy way? Well, it takes less energy, consideration, and thought to do so. Why reinvent the wheel? Take what is familiar and simple, and you probably won’t have much trouble in life. Taking the easy way usually feels good, too. It is the go-to solution to your problems that eases your issue in the short term. But is choosing the easy way the best? Often, it perpetuates a cycle.

Choosing the easy way is why we have so many who stick to their addictions rather than deal with them. It’s easy to take another drink or smoke another cigarette to calm your nerves rather than deal with what is at the heart of that anxiety. Eating to feel better about yourself (short term) pays off difficult dividends in the long term (poor health). Often, the hard way is about digging in your heels to yield a more profitable outcome, but it isn’t easy. In His Sermon on the Mount, Christ encourages us to, “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it” (Matthew 7:13-14).

So, we’ve established that taking the easy way is not always what is best because it breeds or perpetuates problems, but is there reward in choosing the hard way? Is choosing the hard way not only good but good for you?

A staple of graduation speeches and yearbook quotes, Robert Frost’s poem “The Road Not Taken” explores the image of “two roads in the woods” and how one seems difficult and the other easy. The poet must choose between these two proverbial choices in life. He addresses the idea that the difficult road is the one with more reward, how the tough, emotional choices on that road and in our life mold us into who we are. Yet this poem is not about being inspired to take the hard path but is instead about regret in taking the easy one. Frequently misunderstood, many interpret the ending to mean that he chose the tougher path:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

Yet, a closer reading of the text shows that Frost actually chose the easy path, but he will tell others that he chose the harder path because he knows that he should have. He got a short term reward rather than a long term one. The easy path was soooo inviting, but the harder path was the one that would have led him to greater growth and rewards in life, but because the easy path was immediately easy, he chose that one. The choice to take the easy path paid off in the short term, but his regret in choosing it lasted a lifetime. It is not easy to choose the hard path: if it were, everyone would be doing it.

Which is why choosing the hard path is so much better than choosing the easy one: It’s how to stand out in the crowd. In Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, he likens taking the hard path to running a race: “Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last, but we do it to get a crown that will last forever” (9:24-25). Any athlete will tell you that they got to where they are not as a result of luck or who they know but because they were willing to work harder and put in more effort than those around them. Waking up earlier, putting in more exercise, developing your skills for hours: the hard way develops strength and perseverance, promoting growth. There is little growth in choosing the easy way because it is familiar. We become complacent with the familiar and only grow when we challenge ourselves by taking the hard way. 

Choosing the hard path means making the hard decisions with an unsure future. It may mean starting or ending a relationship, adopting better disciplines, or leaving a well-known area to start a new life. Choosing the easy way means sticking with the everyday and familiar, but choosing the hard way heading to an unknown, uncomfortable place leads to varied paths and more interesting journeys. Looking back on your life, you’ll notice that the times you grew the most and changed for the best were the times when you chose the hard way over the easy way. This week, when you come to those two roads in the woods, don’t create a lifetime of regret by choosing the temping easy path; be inspired to choose the more difficult one, as that will make all the difference in reward. Your long-term self will thank you..

Amen.

Is the Touching of Religious Relics Sacred or Profane?

Just because they are powerful in Christian history are they powerfully holy as well?

The idea that specific objects carry luck is nothing new. If you know any sports fans, you probably have smelled a shirt that has been worn too many times without being washed for fear of breaking a winning streak. The concept applies to religious objects, as well, yet those items, rather than being lucky, are considered holy and bring about a blessing by touching them. Is the concept just as valid, or not, as that sweaty team shirt?

Last month, I found myself on the island of Patmos, a thirteen square mile island in the Aegean Sea. The island is deeply steeped in Greek Mythology, with Zeus rising it from the waters to appease Artemis. The island is home to the Monastery of St. John the Theologian, which houses the skull of St. Thomas Aquinas, an indication of the importance of religious artifacts in the area. 

You see, Patmos is most well-known for being the former home to the banished apostle John. After being exiled as a result of anti-Christian persecution by Roman emperor Domitian, John lived on the small island for the remainder of his life. During that time, he lived in a cave, now known as the Cave of the Apocalypse, which is where he wrote the book of Revelation, an accounting of the end times. The story goes that God spoke to him in that cave where he wrote it all down.

Upon visiting the cave (which exits in a gift shop, btw), we were shown the various spots of significance in it. People marveled at the fissure at the top of the cave, a rock broken into three (symbolizing the trinity) where God’s voice came through and spoke to John. The guide gestured over to the adorned crevice in the wall where John rested his head when he was tired of writing, which was next to the ornamented cave cleft where he kept the scrolls of his writings. 

From a historical standpoint, seeing the actual spots where these things happened made history come alive. For others, it was not about the history but about being able to touch these spots to receive a blessing. I watched as people prayed and graced their fingers along these well-worn spots in the hopes of good fortune or healing. They traced the smooth, leveled lines of each crack and crevice in the hope of improving their lives in some small fashion by being in contact with something that was considered holy. (And I must confess, that even I was drawn to them and touched those areas in the cave.) But were they holy and contained power? Were these people correct in hoping for some special blessing?

To start off in answering this question, we must first establish that no, these items have no special power to them. Yes, they are special because they are integral to Christian history, but alas, they do not register any kind of supreme holy energy. They are just things. Yes, that is probably where John lay his head and hid his scrolls, and no, the ceiling probably was always cracked or at least it cracked not as a result of God speaking. So is it wrong to put thes places up on a holy pedestal? 

Ironically, John would probably not be happy with our relic worship, as evidenced in his first letter to the believers: “Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them. For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the world. The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever” (1 John 2:15-17). John calls for an eternal perspective on life, one beyond this one—not a temporal one focused on the things of this world. Jesus also explained that, “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6.21), expressing a desire to not put our hearts into the things of this world. 

But perhaps we are too quick to condemn. Maybe we are incorrectly looking at the tourists’ actions in terms of worship and should instead look at them in regard to faith. Aren’t the scriptures always calling for us to develop our faith through seeking and exploration?

It reminds me of the story of the woman who had been bleeding for years and reached out to touch Jesus’s cloak for healing. Clearly, she was seeking out that touch and knew that she would be healed as a result (which sounds awfully similar to what the people in that cave were doing). Immediately, she was healed and hid because she was afraid. “But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it. Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet and, trembling with fear, told him the whole truth. He said to her, ‘Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering’” (Mark 5.32-4). 

It’s interesting to note that Jesus needed to clarify how the healing occurred to both her and the crowd, letting them know that it wasn’t His cloak that had the power, but it was her faith that healed her. In faith, she pushed through the crowds, reached out, and believed. If someone else had touched the cloak, it might not have had the same result, because it had nothing to do with the clothes or things: it was instead the power of her faith. 

Our faith has nothing to do with the actual religious item (so I would encourage those of you who are now booking your Patmos trips to put a pause on that) but about the faith of the individual. Those who reached out in faith to those significant points in the cave were seeking an increase in their faith, which is the journey we should all be taking, whether through education, reflection, meditation and prayer, or just getting out of our comfort zones. Developing faith in this life is a main goal, and the only way to increase it is to continually pursue it any way we can, which may be what those tourists were in fact doing.

Like the apostles in Luke 17.5 who shout, “Increase our faith!,” establish a goal of faith by making it a lifelong journey with no end other than the ultimate reward in heaven. Just touching religious items will not develop faith, but believing in the power of heaven will, and for some that may be touching those items.

Amen.

Lessons Learned on a Grecian Platform

A tale of heading into foreign, deep waters and bringing about risk, reward, and growth.

Being in a different country gives a different perspective: the more foreign the culture, the more available the insight. I’ve spent the past week mentally unpacking my recent trip to Greece, and although I grew up Greek and there was so much familiar about the trip, so much was new that led to a great deal of learning on my part. 

One particular experience was the diving platform in Rhodes. Set around 200 yards into deep water is a cement diagonal platform (pictured above) that resembles what one might find in an Olympic pool. With three stations, you can jump from 6 ft, 10ft, or 24 ft into very deep water. This construction was clearly dangerous (something you’d almost never find in America), but not because of the way it was built. You needed to be careful in swimming out to it and in jumping off of it. Unlike here, there was no one monitoring the platform nor was there a lifeguard. (Of the divers present, many were jumping backwards, diving, flipping, standing on railings and jumping backwards off of them, yet no one was getting hurt. In fact, an online search for injuries sustained at this platform turns up nothing, so they must be doing something right.)

Anyone who knows me knows that I can’t resist such a scary experience: when I sense that I am afraid of something, I tend to run directly at it in an attempt to overcome my fears. So, this structure was, as insurance companies would phrase it, an “attractive nuisance.” Did I jump off the top? Of course I did. Yet the story doesn’t lie in my experience but in the lessons I learned about everything I witnessed.

Lesson One: Influence come from modeling

My 15-year old expressed to me that he wanted to jump from the platform. I knew exactly where this was going, as all week long he had hesitation about going in water where there might be fish. However, instead of explaining to him that he would have to swim out to the platform in fish-infested waters, I let him discover it for himself. In parenting, I’ve often found that they don’t listen to what we say, but to what they experience and conclude. The only way he was going to NOT go to the platform was if he realized the distance and depth of the water between the beach and the structure. So we started swimming together, but around ten feet out, he got nervous and asked to hold onto me while we swam. I explained that I would probably drown under his weight if he did. Eventually, he decided to head back because he realized the stakes. Although the danger of swimming out there was just in his head, I couldn’t tell him that: he needed to come to that conclusion on his own.

After I swam out to the platform and jumped twice, I saw him waving me back. I figured that it was time to go, but after I swam back to him, he said that he now wanted to go out there and jump. He told me that if he didn’t, he felt like he was going to regret it. So he and I slowly swam out together, taking our time while I encouraged him along the way. To his credit, he made it there due to determination and because he saw me do it. Proverbs tells us: “As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another” (27:17). Because I showed no fear, he learned to not be afraid.

Lesson Two: Take calculated risks

Yet that didn’t stop him from asking me a million questions. He wanted to know how scary it is, how deep the water is, are there fish in there, what happens to the fish when you jump, is it slippery, etc. Kudos to him for making an informed decision and weighing all of the options. Unlike his risk-embracing accident-prone father, his risks are calculated and take into consideration all aspects. Additionally, when he got on the platform, he stuck to the lowest jumping off point first, and worked his way up to the second one, rotating between the two. Proverbs tells us that, “The plans of the diligent lead to profit as surely as haste leads to poverty” (21:5). He knew that there was a progression to his courage, and he worked his way through it, getting braver with each jump.

Lesson Three: Don’t think—just trust

During his jumps, I stayed on the steps and just watched. I wanted to make sure that he was okay throughout, that he wasn’t having any problems swimming back or coming to the surface. To his and my surprise, his skills exceeded what we both expected. So it made sense when I watched him approach and tell me that he finally wanted to jump from the very top. Even for me, this top jump was immensely frightening, but I knew I didn’t have the luxury of feeling fear while he was there, or he would start to sense it and feel it, too. Being a parent, we often have to shove our own fears aside for the sake of our children so that they don’t succumb to the same worries. 

After we climbed to the top, I knew we shouldn’t stay up there too long, as our fears would only get worse rather than subside. Sure enough, I sensed his knees start to wobble and his resolve start to fail. Proverbs tells us to. “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding,” which sometimes means to not overthink. I grabbed his hand and said, “Look at my eyes. Don’t think and don’t look down. On ‘three’ we run. 1, 2, 3.” And we did without hesitation. What seemed like an eternal fall eventually hit water which brought out smiles and excitement. He had done it, and he wanted to do it again. 

Despite any hesitation he felt that day, his victory lay in the fact that he had overcome any fears throughout the process. He faced down a difficult task and succeeded. With that in mind, he was now brave enough to tackle whatever might come his way back in his own country.

Amen.

When Climbing That Hill Gets Interrupted by Those Who Didn’t

It’s frustrating when you put in all the work but those who didn’t get the same benefits.

It was one of the hottest summers for Europe on record, according to the New York Times, and we just happened to have booked our trip there right in the middle of it.

Never having been to Greece before, we had one main goal while in Athens this past week: see the Acropolis. It is possibly the most recognizable ancient ruin in the world. Who wouldn’t have that same goal in mind when visiting? We had one day to do it, and it just happened to be on the hottest day of the heatwave.

Clocking in at a whopping 108 degrees, the sun beat down while we stood in a longer than usual line (2 hours just to the gate). We waited patiently behind thousands of people in a line that looped all the way around the mountain in a complete circle. In addition to managing the heat, we also navigated slippery rocks and difficult steps without railings. Yet, our determination drove us onward despite these obstacles. By the time we got to the entrance, we felt that we had deeply earned that spot. 

So you can imagine our outrage when people began cutting the line in front of us.

It’s a rule we all learn in kindergarten. No one likes a line cutter, especially those who put in as much work as we did. After many hours, we dragged our sweaty selves through that gate, yet these perspire-less people had just gotten there and hadn’t put in the effort. And it wasn’t just there either: where we bottlenecked going up the stairs, others tried to skim the outside and get ahead. It was a frustrating situation for all who watched it happen to them. And throughout, I struggled with how to respond to this situation.

People who don’t want to put in the work and cheat others out of their position have been around since the dawn of time. In Proverbs, King Solomon brings up a situation in a business deal where the purchaser attempts to surreptitiously downplay the value of a product to get a better deal from the seller: “’It’s no good, it’s no good!’ says the buyer—then goes off and boasts about the purchase” (20:14). I see it in my classroom in group work, where one or two people do all the work and the rest of the group ride their coattails to the A+. Despite our good intentions and rule-following dispositions, those who do nothing and benefit from others’ hard work pervade our society.

As people cut the line, I watched as some just let it happen, their side glances indicating their disapproval. I too remained quiet but steaming on the inside. At other spots further up ahead where line cutting continued, I watched as some shouted their disapproval and threatened cutters to get back in line, sometimes more than once to the same people. I awed at their verbal chutzpah and temerity, but was that the right response instead of nothing? Was my silence showing complicity? I know how I felt (outraged), but how was I to respond? So I put it all in perspective to better understand.

The reason I felt so angry was because I had put in so much work to get to where I wanted to be, but they didn’t. It didn’t seem fair, a feeling we face in multiple circumstances. When people are faced with unfairness, it triggers a fight or flight mentality: we either engage it or avoid it (as viewed by those who responded, or didn’t, to the line cutters). But who imposed the idea of life being fair on us to begin with? Looking around at those who have and those who have not, it’s clear that life is far from fair. There will always be those who take advantage of others if given the chance. It is an irresolvable situation where no amount of shouting will prompt people to follow the rules we’ve created as a society. 

And when I think about it, didn’t I get what I wanted, which was to see the Acropolis? It may not have been in the exact timeframe I wished, but I accomplished my primary goal: so why be distracted by lesser pursuits such as making sure everyone is following the rules? Like the car who cuts us off in traffic to get ahead, will our emotional reaction really change the situation for the better and work us closer to our goal? In Paul’s second letter to the Corinthian church, he reminds us to not lose sight of our main goals: “Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal” (4:16-18). By focusing on the reason for being there that day, I can catch my emotional response, consider the situation rationally, recognize what is and is not in my control, and respond with my eyes set firmly on my goal.

It is important to not lose sight of why we do what we do, i.e.—what our true motivations are. When Paul wrote to the Galatians, he encouraged them to look beyond those whose motivations were not pure: “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time, we will reap a harvest if we do not give up” (6:9). When we are faced with unfairness, it is not only important to observe our reactions but to also determine if the loss is real and/or worth getting upset over. You may be right in how you feel, but it is more important to be healthy than right. Choosing when to react and when not to is key to your mental and emotional health. And by learning to know when to react and when to accept the situation, you will find a greater inner peace that satisfies not only your needs but helps you to climb that hill and reach your goals.

Amen.

Put Your Foot Down with Life’s Ultimate Hack

Control can be achieved in the smallest of places.

(I am on vacation for the next two weeks, so this devotional is a repost from March 2019. Enjoy!)

Chances are that your grandmother had a cure for whatever ailed you, one that wasn’t listed in the medical journals. Whether it was potato slices on the forehead to treat a headache, wart removal via duct tape, or banana peels on poison ivy, she was onto something. Modern day internet users would call these approaches “life hacks,” strategies, techniques, or tricks used to increase productivity or efficiency. (There are tons of websites dedicated to them.) I employ my own hack to help me sleep better, and there’s a good chance you’ve been doing it, too.

My wife and I have always had our differences when it comes to, well, everything. Where I like to spend, she likes to save; she prefers staying home whereas I like going out; I enjoy the attention of a room where she would prefer to melt into a wall. Thankfully, we have a lot of core similarities with one another, but a key contentious difference has always been the temperatures we enjoy: she prefers to feel blazingly hot, and I enjoy a much cooler temp. Most times, it’s not an issue (we’ve learned the art of the compromise) but where it plays the largest role is at bedtime.

Looking at our bed, you will see a distinct height differential between our two sides. She only sleeps well if she sweats out the night, yet for me, if someone touched my body and didn’t know better, they’d swear I was a corpse. So, her side of the bed looks like a cut scene from the Princess and the Pea and my side has about as many covers as an army barrack cot. With this difference, she radiates a lot of heat, and I suffer hot spells. So, I’ve employed a life hack: keeping a foot outside of the covers. It keeps me cool despite rising temps around me.

Many do it, but few understand why it works. According to the website “The Cut,” a foot outside of the covers helps regulate how we sleep:

The skin surfaces of both our hands and feet are unique…both in that they’re hairless and because they contain specialized vascular structures that help with heat loss. Specifically, the hands and feet contain blood vessels called the arteriovenous anastomoses, which—coupled with the lack of hair on the bottoms of your feet—are perfectly designed to help dissipate body heat.

Who knew that something so small could control so much? And the life hacks don’t stop there. Our body is filled with tiny controls everywhere, small designs that oversee your whole body’s reactions. According to BoredPanda.com, if you have a tickle in your throat, scratch your ear and it’ll go away. Having trouble falling asleep? Blink your eyes really fast for 1 minute, and you’ll start having trouble keeping them open. (Tried this last night: it actually works.) Also, research has shown that each ear hears different tones better than the other. So, if you are having trouble hearing that person speak to you while in a noisy room, cup your right ear, which is better at picking up words and speech patterns, whereas your left ear would be better utilized at hearing music over a long distance.

The point is that when we work to overcome a large issue or control an overwhelming situation, we tackle it with our whole being and tend to overdo it, but the key might be not to work hard but to work smart. Looking for the small controls that can steer our lives’ direction onto the right path might be a better approach. Think of it this way: the rudder of a large boat is possibly the smallest moving part on it, but it controls the direction of the entire ship. Similarly, a bit in a horse’s mouth has the same potential. So, for us, what small part of ourselves can we utilize to redirect our lives?

Almost all religions and cultures point to the tongue as the guiding factor. Elders and leaders have cited the tongue as the muscle that can raise nations or destroy lives. Proverbs 15.4 writes that “the soothing tongue is a tree of life, but a perverse tongue crushes the spirit.” It has that much control. The Psalmist also knew how powerful the tongue can be, as when he asks God to “set a guard over my mouth, Lord; keep watch over the door of my lips,” (141.3) making the ability to carefully choose words a priority in his life.

So, a taming of the tongue may be the ultimate life hack. If we can utilize it for good, we can more tightly control the direction of our lives. Easier said than done, right? Yet, there is a very simple life hack that controls the tongue and avoids catastrophe: listening. When you are listening, you are not speaking. If we choose listening instead of speaking, we exponentially decrease the chances that will derail our lives with our tongues. By listening, we are taking in and considering, whereas when we speak, we are giving out and influencing. When we listen, we don’t pretend to have the answers or solutions, and we become empathetic to other people’s needs. Also, the chances that we will influence someone or something in the wrong way decreases significantly when we don’t speak. Calvin Coolidge once said that “no man ever listened himself out of a job.”

We were given two ears and one mouth for a reason, as we should listen twice as much as we should speak. This week, spend more time listening to others and less time responding to them. Perhaps the ultimate life hack is as simple as this: talk less, listen more. By listening when we are usually speaking, instead of misguiding other people about how they should be living their lives, we can learn to regulate our tongues and redirect lives in a way that promotes not control but empathy and care.

Amen.

The Overwhelming Burden of Others’ Generosity

Just because you think others need it, doesn’t mean that you should be giving it.

(I am on vacation for the next two weeks, so this devotional is a repost from March 2019. Enjoy!)

With the rise of the internet and the proliferation of comment threads, we are living in the age where even the most uneducated and ill-informed are given a voice and granted a compulsory audience. Opinions: everyone’s got one, and we’ve all had them forced upon us at one time or another. Everyone seems to know exactly how to solve our individualized problems, solutions which we apparently weren’t aware of until said individual came into our life.

This unsolicited, unwarranted advice was especially prolific when my wife was pregnant. Up until that point, I had no idea that everyone else was an expert on my life. From how to deliver, to how to feed, to how to raise—everyone had some bit of wisdom to drop, without anyone considering that maybe we might know just a little bit about what was best for us. The problem with unsolicited advice is that the person giving it assumes that the individuals receiving it can’t figure it out on their own. It’s an assumption of naivete and ignorance that doesn’t consider others’ needs. So, what could possibly be worse than unsolicited advice? Unsolicited generosity.

Like giving lifesaving CPR to a non-drowning beached sunbather, unsolicited generosity forces itself upon the recipient, where the giver doesn’t consider what the receiver wants or needs, and the giver is acting more out of a need to give than a need to provide.

I have a friend, who whenever I go to her house, fills up a bag of gifts made up of things lying around, most of which are sweets, something we don’t much keep at our house. I love that she wants to give, but the burden of her generosity often weighs heavy with the receiver. At least with food, I can eat a little and then privately throw out the rest, claiming that it was delicious, but when someone gives me a book as a gift, one that they think I should read, how I fudge that one is anyone’s guess.

Similarly, my student’s mother was going through chemotherapy, and to help, the other students set up an online document where people could sign up to provide meals for the family. The assumption was that the family couldn’t provide for themselves during this difficult time (mostly true) and that everyone needed to inundate them with food for the next four months (not true). When I checked the food sign-up sheet to add my own name, I noticed that almost every slot for the next four months was filled, with the occasional day off here and there. Most see that and think, great: the family must be so relieved. However, I saw it a different way.

Instead of signing up in one of the few remaining slots, I approached the student and asked her if the family actually needed that many meals. Her response was that they had so much food coming into the house that the family was incredibly grateful for those days when no one had signed up. There was no possibility that the family could eat so much, so they were throwing out most of it, except for the days when no one signed up and they could enjoy leftovers. It reminded me of a time in our family when we lost someone close to us, and everyone brought over enough pasta, sandwiches, and cookies to feed a small army. Forget the fact that the carb count was through the roof: so much food went bad because everyone’s heart was in the right place, but no one considered what we, or this family, really needed.

Like unsolicited advice, when we give without consideration, we are satisfying the urge to feel good about ourselves instead of selflessly seeking out the needs of others and giving them something they could use. By not signing up for that meal plan, I was giving the family something they needed more than another lasagna: a day off.

So, when we give, how should we give? John the Baptist, in Luke 3, tells us that, “Anyone who has two shirts should share with the one who has none, and anyone who has food should do the same” (v. 11). What is clear in this verse is that if you have more than someone else, you should give it to them, but the underlying message is that you should also seek out the person who doesn’t have what you have two of. Don’t just give freely; consider who needs what you have, and then give it to them.

Even Jesus quantifies our giving, suggesting that we give not what we want to give but what is needed to receive: “Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake?” (Matthew 7.9-10). Clearly, it’s not about the act of giving but about considering the needs of the recipient. In the latter verse, Christ suggests we “give good gifts” instead of just giving what we want to give. Putting thought into your giving, and not into your act of giving, focuses on the receiver, whereas the latter puts the spotlight on how good you are at being generous.

Christ, along with various other world and religious leaders, has always stressed the heart over the hand. “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others” (Philippians 2.3-4). This week, when you give, think before you act. Consider if your action is motivated by your desire to feel generous or by the needs that exist in others. Let your giving be selfless, and let it consider how others will respond. Don’t let your generosity be a burden to others but let your giving consider their needs and be focused not on how much you want to provide, but on how much the recipient has been provided for.

Amen.

Be Thankful or the Windigo Will Devour You

Having more than you need shouldn’t translate to greed but to a desire to share.

Are you grateful enough for the things you have? If not, the Windigo might get you.

Our culture is filled with some really scary monsters. The Boogeyman was always lurking under our beds when we were little. As we grew and watched movies, depending on your age, you were either afraid of a giant killer shark, a hockey masked knife-wielder, a burnt man who visited you in your dreams, a ghost-faced killer, a clown, or a combination of these. But what you should really be afraid of is the Windigo.

Ten feet tall with frosty hair, giant strong arms ready to snatch you, feet like snowshoes, it stalks the dead winter nights. Ready to eat you with its yellow fangs and chewed off lips that reek of hunger, all centered around a heart of ice, its cannibal tendencies will turn you into one, too. As a story based in Native American folklore (the Anishinaabe and Algonquian people of North America and Canada), the Windigo hunts and eats, and the more it does, the more it wants to. With insatiable desires, the tale was created not just to frighten children but to scare us as a morality tale.

The word Windigo literally means “fat excess” or “thinking of oneself,” according Robin Wall Kimmerer, author of the book Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants. Thus, a Windigo not only refers to a scary abominable-like monster but to a person whose selfishness has overcome him or her to the point that self-control and satisfaction are not achievable. It is the dangerous hunger within us that cannot be stopped when we become obsessed.

The obvious connection is substance abuse, where drugs, alcohol, and various vices can never be enough. Those controlled by them never reach a point where they have had enough, which is very Windigo-like. Yet it also refers to human greed, as echoed in Ecclesiastes 5:10: “Whoever loves money never has enough; whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with their income.” A love of money is at root of the Windigo mentality, as is becoming overindulgent with material possessions. Many in society want to the point that they cannot stop. Isaiah warns us of such an overindulgence: “Woe to you who add house to house and join field to field till no space is left and you live alone in the land” (5:8).

Author Kimmerer argues that we live in a Windigo economy, where the wealthy have more than they need and the poor have so much less. We have a consumption-driven mindset, where the wealthy are celebrated for having so much, coupled with a lack of desire to share. Supply and demand make us insatiable, and the Windigo mentality is thus destroying us all. 

With this idea then, to kill the Windigo in society and within ourselves, she presents the idea that we should only take what we need in life rather than what we want. We must live a lifestyle where we are not overcome with desire for more than we need but are satisfied with what we have. When we overtake, we strip our society and the earth of what it needs to continue.

Being an Environmental professor, Kimmerer has conducted many experiments that display the idea of taking more than what we need. She conducted one such experiment, where she had three fields of harvest one season. In one field, she took more than she needed, another she took exactly what she needed, and the third, she took much less than she needed. The only field to successfully restore itself in the next season was the field where she took only what she needed. (In fact, the two other fields both had similar issues restoring themselves for the next harvest.) Kimmerer identifies a reciprocity that exists between us and the land, where each gives back to the other and people should take only what they need. By establishing that relationship, everyone gets what he or she needs and the ravenous desires of the Windigo are put at bay. 

If we adopt that same mentality amongst ourselves, we can live in an era not of want but of satisfaction. If we defined wealth as having enough so that one can share, rather than having more than one needs, we would achieve more empathy amongst ourselves and not hoard what we have while others have none. 

Yet it is hard to defeat the want within us, the Windigo, something we all feel. Our desire for more is deeply ingrained in us, but there is an antidote: gratitude. Realizing the many blessings we have in life and being continually thankful for what we have helps us recognize that what we have is often enough. 

As an example, the Anishinaabe school children begin each week not with a Pledge of Allegiance but with a Thanksgiving Address, where they thank the earth for all it provides for them. They thank the water, animals, plants, medicine and herbs, trees, birds, weather, ancestors, stars and heavens, teachers and creators. The list is long and detailed, as each section breaks down the provisions from each, but it sets a tone that makes everyone very aware of what they have and how blessed they are that these things have been given to them. It establishes a reciprocal responsibility between themselves and these gifts. And seeing these everyday things as gifts, they are more respectful of them, rather than those who see them as things they deserve. Being grateful for what we have helps us combat a Windigo economy that constantly tells us to buy more (which never creates true happiness), when really we should share more (which creates lasting happiness).

In his letter to the Ephesians, Paul writes, “Sing and make music from your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ” (5.19-20). Being grateful for all we have helps temper the desires for more within us and leaves us satisfied, unlike the Windigo who always wants more. By spending more time being grateful for the world around us, we then see it as a gift, and in turn learn to share our wealth rather than hoard it. Remember to not let your inner Windigo control you, but let thankfulness and satisfaction with what you have control how you live.

Amen.

In Too Deep? It’s Because You’re Not an Island

Getting overwhelmed comes from the one ability you might lack: asking for help.

Our dog Phoenix is a determined little thing. Of the two dogs we have, she’s clearly the smarter one and knows just what she wants, and doesn’t. She prefers the gentle petting touch of little children and older women, and does not like to be roughed by the hands of teenage boys. She likes her quiet, her comfort, and the finer things in life.

She also likes to go after other animals. Living in the woods, there are a host of woodland creatures for her to pursue. She will chase birds, squirrels, cats, and the foxes that live next to us. Unlike her brother, she always comes back to us afterwards, whereas he tends to forget where he lives. She is also always listening to us; she just doesn’t always respond to what we want. She hears our commands to come back, looks right at us, and chooses to ignore us.

We’ve been at the beach house this summer, and Phoenix loves to investigate everything around her, maintaining a desire to chase bunnies (of which there are many). She loves to go swimming in the bay, which is filled with a host of new creatures. That was when Phoenix spotted a duck swimming out in the water. She got it in her head that she was going to get that duck, so she started swimming straight out away from the land towards it. Our repeated calls to return were of course ignored, as she wanted that duck. It continued to swim out, and she continued her lengthy pursuit. 

At some point, and we could see this in her face, she realized that she was in way over her head. There was no getting the duck, and she was getting really tired—she had gone out quite far. Realizing her miscalculated decision, she turned herself around and swam back to us. Her furry canine brain rationalized the folly in her pursuit, and she returned to land.

It’s hard to know when you’re in over your head, when you’ve made a decision with a course of action that you should abandon. I’d previously written about how it’s okay to quit, that winners are those who know when to quit, but what about just being overwhelmed? How do you recognize when you’ve taken on too much? And what do you do about it?

If you are breathing, then you’ve definitely felt overwhelmed at some point. It’s natural to feel so. You probably decided to grit your teeth, dig in your heels, and carry onward. But where is the tipping point where you realize, like my dog, that you are too far from land and need to course correct? Thankfully, there are signs to recognize it. 

There are clear internal signals that you are in over your head, with stress and anxiety being in your life more so than usual. If you are consumed by them, those feelings probably stem from the disconnect between your head knowing how overwhelmed you are and the lies you keep telling yourself that you aren’t. You’re not ready to admit that you’ve either taken on too much or that the task at hand is not as achievable as you once thought, hence the stress. In fact, your goals may even seem insurmountable, which is most likely inviting depression, another sign. 

As for the external, it manifests itself in your schedule. Deadlines are missed, goals are not achieved on time, or personal commitments go the wayside. You are working when you should be eating, sleeping, spending time with loved ones, etc. The task consumes every free moment and each waking thought. You’ve become obsessed with completion, and your determined statements of, “I’m going to do this!” have turned into maniacal ones of, “I’m going to do this even if it kills me!”

Frequently, when we take on too much and become overwhelmed, it’s because we haven’t asked for help. We are surrounded by others who are willing to lend a hand, physically or emotionally, but unless we acknowledge the need for help, others don’t usually know to offer it. It’s natural to feel overwhelmed, as even Christ felt that way when He knew that he was going to be tortured and crucified. He knew He couldn’t do it alone, so He asked for help:

He withdrew about a stone’s throw beyond them, knelt down and prayed, “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.” An angel from heaven appeared to Him and strengthened Him. And being in anguish, He prayed more earnestly, and His sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground.

Luke 22.41-44

The Bible is filled with great people who took on more than they could handle but asked for help and succeeded as a result. When Moses was tasked with leading the Israelites, he told God that he was not good at public speaking, so God offered help, telling him, “I will help you speak and will teach you what to say” (Exodus 4.12). When Gideon was called to lead the Israelites, he thought it was beyond his abilities, but God told him, “I will be with you” (Judges 6.16). When David faced Goliath, he didn’t do it alone but relied on God for help, as he shouted to Goliath, “This day the Lord will deliver you into my hands” (1 Samuel 17.46). Notice how each of these figures didn’t get help until they asked for it. Help was always waiting for them, but until they asked, it wasn’t being offered.

Similarly, your help may be waiting at the door. Going at it alone can be an overwhelming undertaking. Talking to someone and asking for help lessens the burden and opens up your life to choices and self-care. If even the greatest of us needs help with life’s tasks, then we should never feel ashamed or embarrassed to ask others for a hand. Together, whether with God or with friends, you will be able to tackle that enormous job and accomplish that goal, and sharing that fellowship and feeling of accomplishment with another will just make it better.

Amen.

Conflict Is Inevitable, but Resentment and Anger Are Not

When others don’t apologize, it’s okay for you to move past the conflict.

Conflict is never easy to navigate. Most people try to avoid it at all costs. Some even allow others to walk over them to steer clear of an argument. It’s scary, but sometimes its necessary to achieve a situation where both parties are satisfied. So what happens when you choose to engage, and it doesn’t get resolved on both ends? Should you continue to harp on it until you get what you want?

I recently entered into a conflict with someone I’d known for years. She always had a somewhat sarcastic streak to her, but this time she had gone a little far with me. I was speaking to a group of people about a concern I had when she started to mock me. I decided that I was not going to accept or ignore her comments, so as scary as it was, I chose to engage in conflict. 

I told her that she should not speak to me like that, especially in front of everyone, because she was shaming me for who I was. She dismissed me immediately and doubled down on her comment. I could have ignored her, but I chose to engage in conflict again, telling her that she was being rude to me and that it was unacceptable. At that point, she began to back down, but she did not apologize as she should have.

Best case scenario is, of course, for her to apologize at some point to me, telling me that she was sorry for her derogatory comments. Maybe throw in an indication of regret with an expression of the importance of our friendship. But what happens when you don’t get those things you need after a conflict? In Luke 17:3-4, Christ instructs others: “So watch yourselves. ‘If your brother or sister sins against you, rebuke them; and if they repent, forgive them. Even if they sin against you seven times in a day and seven times come back to you saying, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive them.'” Yet, what happens when the world just continues to spin, life goes on, and no one repents?

When others hurt us, it’s important to stand up for ourselves and make our case, but then what? How long should we stay angry or resentful towards them when we don’t get that apology? Actress Carrie Fisher once said that, “Resentment is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die.” Holding onto a grudge seems to only hurt the person holding on to it, but don’t I want her to repent and apologize?

In the film O Brother, Where Art Thou? lead Holly Hunter expresses anger and frustration at her good-for-nothing husband George Clooney. She says all she needs to say to him, and then sums up with, “I’ve said my peace and counted to three.” She refuses to engage in the conflict any further, and now it is up to him to fix the situation. It’s a funny moment, but a true one, too.

When conflict does arise and we choose to express ourselves, it is important to say what needs to be said, but repetition of the point is only a form of manipulation. It doesn’t achieve the end goal which is to stop or alter the behavior. In Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, he teaches them: “In your anger do not sin: Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold” (4.26-7). Staying angry at someone doesn’t benefit us and only opens the door for us to stumble.

It made me think of how I should face my friend the following day since she never apologized. I thought, if I act like nothing has happened the next time I see her, am I treating it like it didn’t affect me? My words from the previous day haven’t changed or been withdrawn, so no, it won’t come across that way. More importantly, why belabor a point when you’ve said what you’ve had to say to someone? It’s not really our job to draw out a correction or rebuke: that’s between them and God. Instead, it’s our job to put the proverbial ball into their court: I’ve said what I’ve had to say and now it’s up to you to fix yourself. So what is the point in me holding on to any anger against her? My initial anger was a reaction to her words, but continued anger is a choice where I should be choosing peace and resolution instead. I said my peace and counted to three, so I don’t need to choose anger or resentment: I can choose peace.

The next day when I saw her, I chose to live peacefully with her instead of striking up further conflict. I had expressed how I felt, and she knew that I felt that way. Had I chosen anger instead, it would have prolonged the conflict rather than resolved it. This anger might have even empowered her to lash out at me because of how I was then responding to her. Choosing peace created a clear boundary between us—she knows where it is and knows what will happen if she crosses it again. Choosing anger would have redrawn it. By choosing peace, I am not pushing her to reform but allowing for grace to exist between us. Additionally, maybe she needs time to process what happened, to reflect on the situation. Choosing anger shuts that reflection down but choosing peace causes introspection.

In his letter to the Romans, Paul tells them, “Do not repay anyone evil for evil… If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone… Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”(12:17-21). Conflict is inevitable, but what isn’t is our reaction afterwards. Choosing peace afterwards allows for forgiveness to settle in, healing to take hold, and changes to begin. Choosing anger once conflict is over only prolongs the conflict and destroys any chance at the relationship being mended and continued. Additionally, letting go of anger and resentment only leads to inner peace as those feelings may be tearing you up from within.

The next time conflict finds you, instead of resentment, choose peace and allow for inner and outer healing to begin.

Amen.

Put the Phone Away and Think

Relying on technology for the answer doesn’t allow for curiosity and a sense of wonder.

With the advent of spring and new life and growth, a mother bird has built her nest in my dryer vent. The vent cover somehow got stuck open over the winter, and she took advantage of it. I realized it the day I was doing laundry in the garage and kept hearing small peeping noises from the wall. Since unhooking the vent for their safety, I’ve been enjoying their cries for food whenever I’m in my garage.

I discovered that the birds are house wrens. How did I figure this out? I have an app for that. “Merlin Bird ID” records bird calls and identifies them based on their song. I love having it as I finally can figure out which birds sound like what. It’s a great learning experience, yet it is also indicative of a fundamental problem in our technological society: a lack of wonder and curiosity. Those statements are seemingly contradictory, but I have a sound logic, and it all stems from my phone.

In listening to my students’ TED Talks this year, many railed against the addictive nature of social media (something I really don’t have much of an addiction to) and our phones in general (now, that’s a problem for me). It may be you, too: just go into the “screen time” setting on your phone and prepare for horror. 

So as a response, I’ve decided to not keep my phone with me that much anymore. I know it’s not a revolutionary concept, but it is for me because I didn’t really think it was affecting me that much. How wrong I was.

You don’t realize how many times you reach for your phone until it isn’t there any more. In observing this practice over the past few weeks, I feel that I can narrow down why I reach for my phone to two reasons: I’m bored or I need an answer.

As for boredom, that lesson didn’t yield any revelatory concepts. As expected, when downtime persists, like many I go to my phone to pass the time, usually with time-wasting games. Since I now don’t have my phone around as my default, I am exploring my environment and entertaining random thoughts which encourages reflection and deeper level thinking. As mentioned in previous devotions, our days are numbered here on earth, so “Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity’ (Ephesians 5:15-16).

But the more profound lesson is in the second scenario, that I use my phone to find answers, like which bird is using what call, who that actor is in the show I’m watching, or how the economy will be affected by current events. When these questions pop into my head, I immediately go to my phone, look up the answer, and satisfy my curiosity. What could possibly be wrong with that?

The issue is that our phones have become knee-jerk reactions to curiosity, id-pleasing knowledge machines that scratch that itch of knowledge. They give us the answer, but they don’t allow us to ponder the question. Instead of wondering about these things, I’ve gone straight to answering the question, which only delivers an immediate answer and doesn’t develop me as a thinker. Yes it makes me resourceful, but it doesn’t make me curious. The problem is that once we have the answer to our question, we move on and don’t think more deeply about what we are asking. The answer only scratches the surface of the issue.

If a phone can provide the answer immediately to me, it doesn’t allow me time to develop an answer to the question. With a phone, I might find out what bird is making that call to the nest in my dryer vent, but if I withhold the information, listen, and think instead, I become more curious and observant. If I don’t have an immediate answer, I begin to listen to the individual notes of the call of the bird, the pitch, and its cadence. I start thinking about the bird’s means of communication, how that call is teaching the birds in the nest, and what variations exist with changed messages. From there, I start thinking about the way nature communicates to itself through various messages, spoken and unspoken, animal and vegetable. Without a phone, I head down a rabbit hole that produces a great deal of pondering and wonder. Had I had my phone on me, it would have started and ended with the answer “house wren.”

We’ve been told in Colossians 3:2 to “set your minds on things above, not on earthly things,” but how can we when our answers are given to us so quickly with technology? How can we ponder the mysteries of the universe if something is always solving them for us? When we get that electronic answer, it shuts down our thinking process instead of furthering it. 

As teachers, we are taught Bloom’s Taxonomy, a pyramidal structure that ranks the various levels of understanding. At the bottom of the pyramid (the lowest level) is knowledge, which is just knowing information at the understanding level of a trivia question, or what a phone provides when we have a question. Above that level is comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. If we are satisfied with just knowledge, we will never seek out higher levels of understanding. In his letter to the church at Philippi, Paul writes: “Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things” (4:8), but how can we if we don’t learn to think? 

When my students graduate, one last bit of advice I give them is to “be curious,” as I’ve found that so many adults have lost that spark of curiosity in them that makes them such interesting people. By keeping our phones on us, we lessen that curiosity by externalizing our resources and outsourcing our thought process. We stunt our mental growth and capacity for thought and become boring people. We lose our curious nature and forget how to wonder about our world. This week, and maybe even this summer, leave the phone on its charger and go out and explore. Be curious, instead. 

Amen.

Common Sense Should Be More Common than It Is

Despite it being our most precious resource, we ignore it for wealth, fame, and power.

Years ago on a school field trip to another country, some of the students attending got themselves into a bit of trouble. While shopping, they decided to steal some merchandise from a local shop. They were caught, of course, and when the chaperones returned to our country, the powers-in-charge grilled them as to how this could have happened.

They were asked about where they were, how they were or were not monitoring the students, etc. They acted as if the chaperones were at fault for the incident, which of course they weren’t. Finally, they were asked one last question: “Did you tell them not to steal?” (I am not making this up.) I suppose they didn’t have a lot of faith in teenage common sense. 

Honestly, I can’t blame them (for the faith, not the insipid question). Teenagers display a wanton amount of bad behavior that does not fall in the boundaries of common sense. Whether it’s self-destructive behavior like cutting class and not studying, or group-destructive behavior, like trashing a classroom or hallway mosh pits, common sense seems instilled in only the select few. 

No one is truly sure where or how common sense is learned. Whether drilled into them when they are young or learned along the way, common sense is usually garnered through lessons, both easy and hard. We all learned not to touch the stove one way or another. Sometimes it takes several repeated mistakes to learn a common sense lesson (just ask people who have gone through multiple marriages), and sometimes it isn’t learned at all despite numerous failures.  

It is especially not common in robotics, as explained by theoretical physicist Dr. Michio Kaku. In his latest book Quantum Supremacy, he explains that common sense is one of the main issues when it comes to AI and robots. Referred to as “the common-sense problem,” the concept is that “things humans take for granted, that even a child can understand, are beyond the capability of our most advanced computers.” For example, he cites that computers may not even understand simple common sense ideas such as: “Water is wet, not dry; mothers are older than their daughters; strings can pull but cannot push, and sticks can push, but cannot pull.” To us, these things are basic, but to a computer, not so much. He explains that robots do not experience the world the way that we do, whereas “children learn these common sense facts because they bump into…things. They learn by doing.” What he and many others have discovered is that there are too many common sense concepts in the world for a computer to comprehend, so maybe it’s the same with us. 

You’ve probably heard a few common sense sayings one place or another. Even the Bible is filled with them, many by King Solomon, one of the wisest people ever.  He writes in Proverbs 10:4 that, “Lazy hands make for poverty, but diligent hands bring wealth.” Seems simple enough, that lazy people tend to not make money but hardworking people do, a mostly true adage. Additionally, he writes that, “The plans of the diligent lead to profit as surely as haste leads to poverty” (21.5). Again, seems like a no-brainer, that thought-out plans tend to lead more to success than quickly thrown together ones. 

Yes, these saying are pithy and embody truth, but what exactly is common sense? It is the ability to make a logical, sound, intelligent decision based on the information at hand. It is the ability to make connections and draw conclusions from empirical and experienced data, and better understand one’s environment as a result. Hence, that is why robots have such a difficult time with common sense because they are a programmed creation rather than a learning organism. Could AI eventually develop to the point of having common sense? It’s possible, but it may take a while since there is a great amount of it to learn.

Common sense is at the heart of every successful business, relationship, and life decision. To have common sense is to be a success. Even Solomon, the richest man on earth at the time, knew this:  “How much better to get wisdom than gold, to get insight rather than silver!” (16:16). In 1 Kings 3, when God tells Solomon he could have anything at all, Solomon asks for wisdom rather than power or wealth, because common sense lies at the heart of those accomplishments.

So if common sense is the most valuable commodity on earth, why do we lack it and not seek it out more? Here are the main reasons why:

Emotions – we sometimes let them rule our decision making instead of thinking things through, letting our emotions get the better of us. Thankfully, with some work, this issue can be resolved through reflection and personal correction.

Ignorance – we might lack a full perspective on the situation, not knowing all sides, thus we do not apply proper judgment. Often, this issue can be handled with exploration and patience.

Willingness – we are not as open as we should be, allowing ourselves to be ruled by a single thought or opinion. Perhaps we have been conditioned a certain way, lack the maturity to be willing, or are too fragile to consider other people and their approaches. This may be the most dangerous of the three, as it is most difficult to self-analyze and correct. The best way to help this issue is with the help of others or a professional.

Clearly, common sense is valuable and may not be as prevalent as we might hope. Since we can only change ourselves and not others, whatever it takes to build common sense should be tackled as often as possible. Actively seek it out above anything else. It may be the single most important tool when it comes to achieving happiness and success, so if you find that you are lacking, perhaps you need to build your common sense through a more logical, informed, and willing approach to life. Without common sense, you are nothing more than a robot bumping into the same obstacles repeatedly.

Amen.

Good Communication: It’s All in the Timing

Just because you want to share now doesn’t mean others want to hear just then.

We had been having internet problems all weekend from the storm, and even though I’m quite tech savvy, it was beyond my abilities and I needed assistance. My internet company wasn’t much help, as I couldn’t get anyone on the phone (which seems to be the norm nowadays), but I could put in a request for a callback for when an agent was available. (My call is important to them!…or so I’ve been told.)

I figured they’d get back to me an hour or two later, but there I was crawling into bed with nary an expert on the line. What I didn’t realize was that they would be calling me back at their convenience, something I realized when my phone started ringing at seven in the morning on a weekend. And if you’re anything like my family, that is well before anyone is awake.

I frantically grabbed for my phone next to the bed and silenced it. I supposed it was a minor annoyance we could all move past, but they called again. And again. And again. They called SEVEN times, leaving a voicemail each time (which is an extra buzz of the phone) until I just turned my phone off. 

Of course these calls were well beyond my control, and I hadn’t done anything wrong. But at 7 in the morning, not everyone can be rational.

Now, before I get into what my spouse did and said in her stupor, please know that she apologized later in the day, admitting that she was too tired to know what was going on. 

Having said that, she became furious at me that she had been awakened at such an unreasonable hour by what she thought was something I had done. She shouted a few random noises my way, blamed me for waking her, got up and wandered around, and finally got back into bed and fell asleep for the next few hours. And how did I respond during her tirade? I chose not to engage.

Many parts of me wanted to argue back and let her know that what was happening was not my fault. I wanted to claim that there was nothing I could do to stop these calls. I wanted to impress upon her that I hadn’t chosen that time for them to call me back. What I did do was say nothing, and that saying of nothing caused the situation to deescalate. 

One of a few mottos I have in life is that “you can’t reason with unreasonable people,” which is similar to “don’t argue with your spouse at 7 in the morning on a weekend when Verizon is calling.” Both indicate a similar sentiment, that there is a time and place for such a thing when cooler heads prevail. The author of Ecclesiastes writes that there is “a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace” (3.8). With any good couple, fighting is not only inevitable, it is encouraged. If a couple is not fighting, then someone is keeping it all inside which is not healthy for the individual or the couple. But the author knows that there is a time for such things, and it is up to discern when that time is.

For example, I am not much of a morning person. It’s not that I’m grumpy or ill-mannered at that time of the day—it’s just that my brain is still foggy from sleep and can’t comprehend or conceptualize big ideas. My spouse is aware of this morning disability, so she knows that if she has anything to tell me about or ask me, that she should wait a little bit for my head to clear. Similarly, she is not much of a night person, in that she spends the last few hours of her day unwinding and de-stressing. So any news, ideas, or decisions I want to bring to her should not be done then, as her stress levels will spike and her answers will not be wise or calm. 

My point is that good communication is all about timing. When we respond to people and situations, we frequently focus on the emotional desire to respond rather than on the calculated timing of our response. Just because we want to say something doesn’t mean we should say it—we should consider if the time is right to do so. I may have exciting news to share with my spouse, and I may be really thrilled to share it, but if it’s in the evening, it’s going to have to wait because she won’t receive it well.

Correcting someone should follow a similar path. I can remember in college, the group I hung around with were so overzealous that we would point out each other’s faults and flaws as soon as they were apparent. As you might imagine, this didn’t improve our standing with one another or give us a better ranking in heaven: it only bred resentment and more judgment. Paul writes to the Galatians that for those looking to correct faults, ”you who live by the Spirit should restore that person gently” (6.1), meaning that it is not about what we want but what the other person needs. And sometimes, that gentle restoration might not even be with words of correction but with the love that means letting them yell your way until they fall back to sleep and apologize later.

The right response at the right time can make all the difference in a relationship. Proverbs 15:23 tells us that “a person finds joy in giving an apt reply— and how good is a timely word!” In any relationship, remember that it’s not about you and what you need to communicate. It might be about the other person and what they need to hear, or not to hear, at that moment. Choosing the right time and words reflects the empathy we should foster in ourselves, as without it, we are likely to get the wrong response from those we love, something that no one wants at any time.

Amen.