Black Panther

It’s been a while since I’ve done a blog post about a movie. I must admit that it wasn’t my original plan to be writing about Black Panther this week, but it was so good and so impactful that I just couldn’t help myself. It shook me to my core. (One might even describe me as “shook.”) And so here I am again, writing to you about some superhero movie you may or may not have heard of.

But this won’t be a traditional movie review. I’m not really here to tell you what I liked or didn’t like about the film. I’m not going to analyze the visuals, the music, or even the plot, really. I’m here to tell you why this movie is important and why you should see it even if the superhero genre isn’t your thing. Because as much as Black Panther is an excellent superhero movie and a good movie in general, it’s also just good. It’s good for your soul. It’s good for the world. It’s good for humanity. And it matters.

To me, Black Panther sets itself apart by speaking deeply into some really important issues.

Oppression

The first thing you’ll notice about Black Panther is that it is a black movie. It was created by black artists, features black actors (including one playing a black superhero!), and portrays black lives in rich and full ways. And unfortunately, an important part of black experience is oppression.

If you’re unaware of the global, historical oppression of African peoples and their descendants, or if you think it’s good to get a refresher from time to time, this film is for you. From the modern-day streets of Oakland to the historical African savannah, Black Panther takes a wholistic view of oppression in a way that I’ve never seen on film before. It’s upfront, sympathetic, and real. It helped open my eyes to just how big a problem this sort of oppression is, and I think that’s something we all need.

Privilege

On the flip side, the film also spends a lot of time dealing with the concept of privilege. Where does it come from? What are its effects? What responsibilities come along with privilege, especially when it comes to the question of how one relates to those who are oppressed? The main character in the film finds himself in quite possibly the most privileged position in the world, and the arc of the film follows his process of figuring out what to do with it. As someone who also comes from a background of privilege, I related to T’Challa’s internal struggle and found it convicting to watch onscreen.

Isolationism

But his journey isn’t just a personal one; it plays out on a national level as well. If you know anything about the character of Black Panther, you know that he comes from the secretive African nation of Wakanda. In order to protect itself and its resources, Wakanda poses as a third-world country and refuses to interact with the rest of the world. This can’t last forever, though, and as the world gets smaller and smaller, Wakanda is forced to consider in what ways (if any) it will engage with the rest of the world. We in the United States, at least, find ourselves asking these same kinds of questions, so getting viewers to consider them is a success in and of itself.

Heroism

In the wake of these previously-mentioned factors, people are forced to make a decision: How am I going to respond to the wrongs I see the in world? How am I going to use my influence to make a difference? And without giving away too much of the plot, I’ll simply say that this movie does not shy away from portraying differing answers to this question. And ultimately, the film wants to know, “How does a hero respond?”

But it isn’t simplistic in its portrayal of other points of view, either. As I watched this movie, I saw parallels between the diversity of the characters’ worldviews and the diversity within real-world movements like the civil rights movement in the sixties and Black Lives Matter today. What the film left me with was an even stronger conviction for my view but a greater understanding and sympathy for other views as well. And that makes me want to do better so that I can help rid the world of the factors that lead to the less heroic worldviews in the first place.

Solidarity

Finally and most importantly, the film is a call for solidarity. The whole point of featuring black voices and black experiences is to draw others in and create a sense of unity. When one group suffers, we all suffer. And one when one oppressed group is set free, we’re all set free. Only together can we solve the centuries-long, world-wide problems that have been handed down to us. But we can each take steps to solve those problems, and the Black Panther is an excellent example of that.

A lot of this stuff isn’t new to you. Black Panther is close to my heart because it speaks to things I care about and write about. It touches on a lot of topics that are important to me, and it speaks to them in ways that I never could because of my lack of experience. So if you like reading what I have to say about these topics and want to know what people much more qualified than I am have to say, or if you’re tired of hearing me go on and on about this stuff and need a new perspective, or if you just want to be a better, more informed person, I hope you’ll check Black Panther out. I promise it’ll be worth your time.

Compassion as Intelligence

“If I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge… but do not have love, I am nothing.” —1 Corinthians 13.2

People tell me I’m a fairly smart person. I always make a point to inform them that I don’t deserve the honor, but that doesn’t stop them. They think this about me not because of anything I say or do, but because of some pieces of paper I have hanging on my wall. We tend to associate years in school with intelligence and assume that those who achieve higher degrees in academia must be smarter than everyone else. I’m not sure that we’re on the right track here.

Don’t get me wrong. I love school. I love studying and attaining knowledge about the topics I’m passionate about. That’s why I consider myself a lifelong learner and why I try to alway keep my mind open to new ideas. Study and learning should be admired and rewarded because they do add value to one’s life. They add knowledge, which can lead one to become more intelligent, which is a noble thing to be. But is it really the most important thing?

It’s pretty common knowledge that there are different types of intelligence. Some people are “book smart” while others are more “street smart.” One person might be incredibly gifted with music, but another is a genius at math. I find myself to be skilled with language, but I’m terrible at thinking spatially. (Don’t ask me to be your navigator or your interior decorator.) There are so many different kinds of intelligence that one can have, and it’s great that we recognize and celebrate these various ways that people can be smart. But there’s one type that often goes overlooked.

I believe that the highest form of intelligence human beings can attain is compassion. We don’t usually think of compassion as a form of intelligence, but it really is. It requires understanding people, seeing the world from other points of view, and making decisions based on that information. That’s pretty smart if you ask me. And it has some characteristics that set it apart from any other type of intelligence known to humankind.

Compassion can be applied in every area of a person’s life across their lifespan. It doesn’t matter who you are or what situation you find yourself in: Compassion always comes in handy. Because no matter what you do, you’re going to be doing it with other people. It could be a team of other people or a single partner. Either way, knowing how to connect with people, understand where they’re coming from, and communicate with them in a considerate way will always help you excel. It’s a skill that can be applied anytime and anywhere.

And it can be practiced by anyone. You don’t have to be a savant or a prodigy to be good at treating other people compassionately. You don’t even have to get up from your chair. Compassion is a skill that someone can practice regardless of their physical ability, mental capacity, age, or any other factor. It’s available to each of us if we’re only willing to open ourselves up to it.

It doesn’t require books or classrooms or teachers, either. Compassion isn’t so much something we learn externally as it is something we discover inside of ourselves. We’re each blessed with the God-given ability to love others the way God loves us. It’s in our programming. Learning to practice compassion is actually just unlearning the selfish and prideful ways we’ve learned to approach the world due to our brokenness. Really, compassion is the most natural form of knowledge because each of us already has it in us; we just have to get past all the junk and learn to embrace it again.

And more than anything, compassion has the power to change the world. Science, math, music, literature, language, and all of those other subjects are great, and they have a lot of potential to do good. But none of them come close to the impact that compassion can have on the world. A single act of kindness can change a person’s life. And a bunch of kind acts put together can alter the course of history forever. It can give us and others the ability to live our best lives, find fulfillment, and pass that kindness on to others. And there’s no limit to what that can do.

Compassion can be used anytime, anywhere, by anyone. You don’t need anything special to learn it because it’s already inside of you. And when you choose to practice it, you can influence the world in important, lasting ways. That’s why I think compassion is the highest form of intelligence we humans have available to us.

Throughout my studies, I’ve found that what impacted me the most wasn’t the information that made me smarter; it was the handful of experiences that made me a better person. I could spend my whole life learning every fact there is to know about theology, religion, psychology, and the like, but if it doesn’t change the way I approach the world, then what’s the point? It’s nice to be smart, but it’s a lot nicer to be good. And I think that this is the ultimate goal of education, knowledge, and intelligence in general: to form good people.

So yeah, we should study to learn the sorts of knowledge we traditionally think of when we talk about intelligence. But let’s not limit our understanding of it to that small set of skills. And may we never neglect to value, pursue, and reward compassion, because it’s the most important form of intelligence any of us can attain.

People Are People

It seems elementary, right? People are people. Well, duh. Everyone knows that. It’s not like that statement is saying anything new. It’s not saying much of anything at all, really. Saying, “People are people,” offers about as much information as saying, “Apples are apples,” or, “One equals one.” The statement is already self-apparent, so there doesn’t seem to be any reason to make it at all, much less write an entire blog post about it.

And yet, I constantly find myself needing a reminder of this fundamental truth: People are people. Because as hard as I try to practice compassion, empathy, and solidarity with others, I’m always tempted to deviate back to my natural, broken state. Selfishness, prejudice, and pride are constantly trying to sneak back into my worldview, and so I have to stay vigilant in order to keep these vices from infecting the way I treat others.

I don’t think I’m alone in this. At the end of the day, we’re all in the same boat. In my faith tradition, we call it “fallenness.” Others may refer to it differently, but we all recognize it. Humanity is plagued with this very accurate sense that we are misguided, broken, even lost. We have this tendency to focus on ourselves, our needs, our desires, and our opinions to the point of obsession. To the point that we can’t see anything else. To the point that we forget that other people are people, just like we are, with needs, desires, and opinions of their own.

It’s easy for us to understand that we are people. Each of us experiences our own lives as complex, important, and somehow central. We’re the heroes of our own stories. And whenever we feel like our personhood is being compromised in any way, we become immediately defensive of it. We don’t want anyone disrespecting us, neglecting us, or discounting us because we matter. We are people, after all.

But the second we look outside of ourselves, it becomes much more difficult to fully recognize someone’s personhood. We can’t experience other people’s lives firsthand the way they do or the way we experience our own. We can’t totally understand the complex feelings and experiences of another person, no matter how hard we may try. We can’t feel their hurt. We can’t feel their deepest needs. We can’t see things the way they do. All we can do is observe from the outside (when we even bother to do that), and that viewpoint offers us a tragically incomplete picture.

We struggle to recognize the personhood even of those closest to us. Growing up, we tend to think of our family members as supporting characters in our stories rather than as protagonists in their own. Far too often, we neglect to consider situations from our friends’ points of view and simply make decisions based on what we think is best. And who among us has not been guilty of prioritizing our own needs above those of our significant other, believing what we need to be more important than what they do? Even when we love someone, we are inconsistent about remembering that they are a person and treating them as such.

How much more difficult, then, it must be for us to recognize the personhood of people we seemingly have no connection with, or even those we perceive as being in opposition to us. We rarely, if ever, consider the fact that strangers on the street, or on TV, or in other countries, are people just like us. And even when we do, we often neglect to carry that recognition into it our conversation and decision-making.

It isn’t our default state to recognize that other people are people. But here’s the truth: People are people. And it’s our job to overcome the temptation towards self-centeredness and to consistently remember this truth. That’s what compassion is, really. And as we begin to practice recognizing this truth in our daily lives, we realize a few important things.

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We realize that other people have inner lives that are as rich, complex, and important as our own. Remember that comment someone made that hit you the wrong way because it brought up some difficult memories? That happens to other people, too. Remember when a stranger smiled at you on the street and it changed the trajectory of your whole day? You’re not the only one. Remember when you said something you didn’t really mean and became frustrated by the miscommunication? Yep, other people experience that, too.

Each of us navigates the world with a million different thoughts, emotions, memories, and more bouncing around in our heads at any given time. These things impact the way we act in the present, and the way others respond to them can have lasting effects into the future. It’s so easy for us to take these things into account when we consider our own actions, but we rarely do so when we consider the actions of others. We tend to evaluate ourselves based on our internal intentions, while we judge others only on their external actions.

Recognizing the complexity of others’ internal lives leads us to take into account the context of their actions as well as the actions themselves. Why did that person treat you that way? Did they just receive some bad news? Did you remind them of someone who had been mean to them in the past? Maybe other people are just jerks, but you can’t really know that until you get to know them, their history, and the way they think first. Once you do that, you’ll probably find that other people are just as well-meaning as you are, even though we all fail to act out those good intentions sometimes.

And this gives way to a really freeing practice: giving other people the benefit of the doubt. We’re always willing to cut ourselves some slack when we do something we’re not proud of because we recognize all of the complex factors that go into our decisions. How about we do the same for others? People are people, and if we’re going to give ourselves the benefit of the doubt, we should probably do the same for them, too.

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As much as recognizing the personhood of others serves as a reminder that they experience the world in much the same way we do, it also shows us that every person’s life experience and worldview is unique. Just as you contain a multitude of memories, beliefs, and opinions that shape who you are and how you approach the world, so does everyone else. And these various factors combine to create drastically different results.

Have you ever wondered how two intelligent, well-intentioned people can look at the same situation and come to opposite conclusions about it? We tend to believe that if everyone would just put away their biases, misguided opinions, and bad logic, they would be able to use their brains and all see the world’s issues the same way. (Specifically, we assume that everyone would come to the same conclusions that we’ve already come to ourselves.) But that just isn’t the case.

And that’s because every single person experiences the world in a different way. No two peoples’ stories are alike, and thus, no two people are alike. We all come from somewhere; we were all taught certain things growing up, and we all experienced things that caused us to either affirm or reject what we were taught. Believe it or not, every person on the planet believes that their opinions are just as correct as you believe yours to be.

But we don’t have to view this as a bad thing. Research shows that groups with more diversity are actually better at solving problems than groups made up of people from similar backgrounds. Sure, they have to work through differences of opinion, conflicting priorities, and clashing personalities, but once they’ve done that hard work, these groups actually come up with solutions that are more effective than anyone else could.

Every person’s experience is legitimate, and thus, every person gets a voice. Your memories, reflections, and opinions matter to you, and those of others matter to them just as much. And they should matter to us as well, because they are just as real and just as valuable as our own. I’m not saying that every opinion is correct or that all worldviews should be considered of equal moral merit. (I’m looking at you, Nazis. You can kindly shut up.) But I am saying that we have a responsibility to hear and seriously consider the opinions of others, because they are just as real as our own.

We can get stuck in a rut of thinking that our thoughts and opinions matter more than those of others simply because they’re ours. But we often forget that every single person on the planet feels the exact same way. It doesn’t have to be like this, though. When we humble ourselves, admit that we can’t possibly be right about everything, and truly listen to the experiences and opinions of others, we are opening ourselves up to a more wholistic, compassionate, and accurate view of the world. And that’s a beautiful thing.

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But more than anything, recognizing the personhood of others reminds us that other people matter. This is a simple truth, but one we all too often forget. We are ambitious, self-centered individuals who will do just about anything to get what we want, and in the midst of all that, we often lose our sense of the value of other human beings. It’s not that we purposefully decide that other people aren’t important. We just get so focused on our own goals, our own ideas, our own self-improvement, that we neglect to stop and consider that others matter just as much as we do.

The reality is that they do. Whether it’s your best friend, your worst enemy, or a stranger on the street, every single person matters. Each and every human being on this planet is a person with agency, intelligence, feelings, and something to offer the world, and thus every single one of them has value.

In my faith, we sum it up this way: Every person is created by God in God’s image, and thus, every person has worth. I think that’s beautiful. But you don’t have to believe in God to recognize that people have innate value. When you recognize that every other person is a person just like you, it’s not much of a stretch to recognize just how valuable they are. Because they are important. They matter.

No person is more valuable than any other. I matter a whole lot to myself, but I’m also called to remember that every other person I encounter matters just as much as I do. I’m no better than anybody else. My needs, desires, and goals are no more important than anyone else’s. And neither are yours.

We all need the same things: food, water, shelter. At the most basic level, we all want the same things: love, peace, fulfillment. Sure, our goals may differ and even seem to conflict, but that doesn’t mean that any one of us is any more or less important than any other. We’re all the same. We’re all equal. And we’re all called to care for one another.

Taking this truth and applying it in one’s life is difficult. It requires both depth and breadth, recognizing just how much a person matters and then applying that recognition to every single person on the planet. It’s hard, but it’s not impossible. We celebrate the best among us who have already recognized and practiced this truth, but in reality, it’s the responsibility of each of us to do the same.

It starts with us. We have to love and value ourselves. For most of us, that’s a natural practice most of the time. When we struggle with that, we have to start there before we can love anyone else. But once we’ve got that part covered, it’s time to look outside ourselves. It’s time to love other people the same way. It’s time to heed the great command, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” We start with those closest to us and work our way out until eventually, our compassion includes everyone in the world. And we can only do that by first recognizing the personhood of others, the truth that people are people.

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Your friends are people.
Your family members are people.
Your peers are people.
Your coworkers are people.
All of them: people.

Those you pass on the street are people.
Those you wait behind in the store are people.
Those you see on TV are people.
Those you read about on the internet are people.
Everyone you see is a person.

Those you agree with are people.
Those you disagree with are people.
Those you like are people.
Those you hate are people.
And those who broke your heart? Yep: people.

Rich people are people.
Poor people are people.
Politicians are people.
Criminals are people.
Doesn’t matter; still people.

Straight people are people.
Gay people are people.
Bisexual people are people.
Gender-nonconforming people are people.
You don’t have to approve of every aspect of someone to recognize the fact that they’re a person.

Christians are people.
Muslims are people.
Atheists are people.
Agnostics are people.
And everyone in-between. They’re people, too.

Welfare recipients are people.
Homeless people are people.
Refugees are people.
Immigrants—legal or otherwise—are people.
Society tries to de-humanize them, but we know the truth: They are people.

Foreign civilians are people.
Enemy soldiers are people.
Terrorists are people.
Dictators are people.
Nothing can change the fact that they are people.

Sex slaves are people.
Child laborers are people.
Victims of abuse are people.
All of the lost, forgotten, neglected, and ignored.
They’re people, just like you and me.

Every person is a person. Love them or hate them; agree with them or disagree with them; approve of them or not; it doesn’t matter. Every conversation, every decision, every opinion must begin with the basic premise that people are people. That is the only foundation for a just world. May we each do the hard work necessary to recognize and live out this fundamental truth in our lives.

People are people. Let’s treat them like it.

Sick

Hey, friends! I’ve been down with the flu this week, so I didn’t get a chance to finish up the blog post I was working on for today. But have no fear! That just means I’ve got more time to get it just right for next Tuesday.

In the meantime, the only reflection I have to share is this: Avoiding the flu for a few weeks, even despite the fact that everyone around me caught it, made me feel really good. Nearly invincible, even. So when it finally caught up to me, I was quite disappointed. I’m not special. I’m not immune. And when I start to feel a little too confident in myself, that’s when I’m ripe for a fall.

Fortunately, it only took a few days sick in bed to remind me to stay humble! If you’ve avoided the flu (or have otherwise started to get a little too self-confident), let my experience serve as a warning: We are all merely human.

That’s all I’ve got for this week! Check back next week for a new full-length post that I’m really excited to share. I hope you’re all doing well, and I look forward to writing to you again soon!

Hiccups

I’ve been at my job for a little over a year now, which means I’ve gone through the entire cycle once. I know what each part of the year, each major annual event, and each special service is like. Now that every single thing doesn’t seem so new and anxiety-inducing, I’m finally starting to feel like I can be proactive, get ahead, and excel at my work. This leaves me with a nice sense of confidence, accomplishment, and ultimately fulfillment.

But then, just as I’m getting into my groove, a hiccup comes along. Some small glitch sneaks into the system and throws everything off. Maybe I have to use a piece of software that I’m not familiar with. Or some lingering issue comes up that that I haven’t been able to solve for months. Or a new problem, something I’ve never encountered before, rears its ugly head. These hiccups come in all shapes and sizes, and they have a tendency to shake me to my core.

They don’t just occur at work, though. They happen everywhere. In my personal projects. My relationships. My schedule. Even my health. Just when it feels like everything’s going along smoothly, I hit a bump in the road. It happens without fail.

We refer to these types of issues as “hiccups” because they’re a lot like the hiccups we experience physiologically. They’re short, small, and seemingly benign. On their own, they aren’t too much cause for concern. But they’re also persistent, and they have the ability to build up and wear on us in a way that can be downright debilitating, not to mention frustrating and disheartening. Hiccups are small but powerful, and they can really bring us down if we allow them to.

And so I’m learning in this phase of my life to deal with hiccups in healthy ways. Maybe you are, too. If you’re like me and hate running into these types of problems, here are a few things to keep in mind.

Hiccups aren’t always your fault.

My first instinct when an issue like this arises is to blame myself. I think about the steps I took to get to this point and the things I could (read: should) have done to avoid it. I berate myself, doubt myself, and beat myself up to the point that this little hiccup becomes all I can think about. But here’s the thing: It usually isn’t even my fault.

We can’t help everything that happens to us. And as much as we like to think they are, our lives aren’t perfect. Hiccups are inevitably going to occur even if we do everything right. So immediately playing the blame game every single time probably isn’t the best approach.

And even if it is your fault, that’s OK. Everyone makes mistakes sometimes, and those mistakes have consequences. Suffering those consequences is unpleasant, but beating ourselves up for it doesn’t help. It only makes things worse. No matter whose fault it is, we’re better off not even bothering with blame when problems occur.

Because no matter whose fault it is, the problem is there, and it has to be dealt with. Wouldn’t we be better off using our energy to solve the problem rather than getting stuck in our heads beating ourselves up? The only way to compensate for a mistake—whether it’s your own or someone else’s—is to fix it.

So that’s what I’m trying to practice when these hiccups come up. I’m fighting my instinct to blame myself and rather choosing to focus on a solution. There’s always time after the fact to analyze the situation and use it as a learning opportunity. But in the moment, I’m much better off dealing with the issue at hand, and no matter what, I’m going to feel better once everything’s back on track anyway.

Hiccups don’t undermine your previous successes.

Hiccups have a tendency to disrupt my flow. I’m feeling secure, watching everything chug along as it should, and then all of a sudden, it all comes to a screeching halt. When this happens, it breaks my sense of security and seemingly taints all of the good stuff that came before it. Rather than remembering the 99 things that went right, all I can think about is the one thing that went wrong. This is negativity bias, human nature’s tendency to focus on the bad things that happen to us. And in cases like these, it’s nothing more than a lie.

We are pretty terrible at giving ourselves credit where credit is due. Every day, we’re winning small victories that we don’t even perceive. When you complete that minuscule, daily task for the millionth time, you don’t pat yourself on the back. But maybe you should. Especially in the midst of disruptions and mistakes, it’s important to remember that most of the time, we’re doing pretty well.

Imagine what would happen at your home or your job if you just stopped contributing. If, like a light switch, your input completely turned off. Sure, everyone else would probably get by, but how much harder would it be for them? Even if you just skipped out on one simple thing, someone else would have to do it, which means they wouldn’t be able to accomplish their own tasks, and the whole system would be thrown out of whack.

Here’s my point: Your contribution matters. Your successes, as small as they may seem to you, are important. And they aren’t cancelled out by one error every once in a while. On the whole, you’re putting more into your family, work, church, or whatever else it is you contribute to than you’re taking, and that’s something worth celebrating. So give yourself a little credit.

I’m the worst at this, but I’m getting better. Whenever I mess up, I try to remember the dozen times that same day that I did something right. When something I’ve done causes an inconvenience for others, I try to remember all the times I’ve made life easier for them. One hiccup doesn’t undo all of the positive things I’ve done, and I’m trying to keep that in mind.

Hiccups don’t define your future.

This one’s the real kicker. Once I’ve stumbled, I get scared. I lose confidence in myself and give up on the idea that I can be successful going forward. Every move becomes a struggle because I’m afraid I’ll do something wrong again, and then everyone will really know what a failure I am. I let myself believe that the issue at hand is a precedent for everything to come after it. And that can be really discouraging.

It’s far too easy for us to become disheartened the second our plans get messed up. We think that if everything can’t be perfect, there’s no point in trying at all. And if one part of what we’re doing is flawed, then we should probably give up on the whole thing. But that simply isn’t the case.

Hiccups are an opportunity for course correction. They’re small problems that put us on our toes and force us to reconsider things before any big problems arise. Yes, they let us know that something is wrong, but they don’t ruin everything. They don’t undermine all the work we’ve done and success we’ve achieved. They don’t have to be the final word.

Really, what it comes down to is seeing hiccups for what they are: small issues that keep us humble but don’t have to defeat us. They remind us that we aren’t perfect and keep us from becoming complacent. They push us to be more creative, more diligent, and more committed to excellence. Sure, they’re disruptive, but don’t we need a little disruption from time to time?

If you think about it, these interruptions are actually a blessing in disguise. So there’s no need to dread them or freak out when they come up. With the right approach, we can overcome these issues and ultimately come out better for them. Hiccups are annoying, but they make us better, and I for one am committed to embracing them rather than resisting them going forward. If you’re struggling to get past the hiccups in life, I’d encourage you to try doing the same.