Beyond Thoughts and Prayers →

Over on Ethics Daily, Jen Zamzow published a great piece on why offering thoughts and prayers after a mass shooting simply isn’t enough. In it, she introduces the psychological concept of moral licensing, in which performing a good behavior (like offering prayer for victims) actually decentivizes us to engage in any further positive action. She breaks it down better than I can, but basically, when we do something good, our brains are hardwired to let us off the hook for doing anything else. This has some dire consequences, as she explains:

Now we are all in danger of publicly offering our thoughts and prayers, giving ourselves a pat on our backs for offering our support and then failing to do anything else.

But prayer was never meant to be a substitute for action. Jesus did not tell us to merely pray for those in need; he said to help them. Feed them. Clothe them. Welcome them.

Even for those who genuinely believe in the power of prayer, it is clear that prayer is not enough to solve social problems like poverty, climate change and gun violence.

This why the knee-jerk “thoughts and prayers” reaction to every single tragedy in our world is so problematic. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard this idea that, “Well, I prayed about that shooting, and that’s all I can do. The rest is up to God.” This defeatist approach is not only bad theology; it’s a logical fallacy that our brains trick us into, as this article lays out.

Yes, we are supposed to pray about the evil we face in this world, and yes, our prayers matter a great deal. But we are called to do so much more than just pray. God’s primary method of acting in the world is through his people. That’s how he’s chosen to work. And as we sit on our hands expecting him to drop out of the sky and fix everything, he’s waiting for us to do the work he’s called us to.

We want to see the world become a better place. We ask God to make it so. And the good news is that God has already put in place a mechanism for improving the world: his people. Us. We could be the the answer to those prayers, if only we would choose to be. If you profess to be a follower of Christ, then you are called by God to take part in his healing work. Not just through your words, but through your concrete, real-world actions.

How do we overcome moral licensing and our own complacency in order to make a difference in the world? Zamzow’s article has an answer for that: “We must remind ourselves what we are praying for.” When we pray, we must also take time to reflect on what we’re actually praying for and how we can live out those values each and every day through what we do.

If we want to see the end of violent tragedies in our world, then we have to take action to counteract those tragedies. If we want to see peace, then we have to make peace. If we want to see healing, then we have to be healers.

We’re not called to pray and wait when we have an opportunity to have an impact. God calls us to pray and do. Prayer is powerful, but if it’s all we’re doing, then we’re falling short of our calling, and we will not make a difference. Prayer alone will not heal the world, but action rooted in prayer and conviction? That just might have a chance.

Memories

Quick note: I’d like to dedicate this week’s blog post to Linda Sisk, my father-in-law’s grandmother who passed away this weekend. While I never had the privilege of meeting her in person, I think it’s fitting that this article be written in her name. She was a wonderful, loving woman who left her family with many precious moments to remember her by. Please keep Stephen and his family in mind as they celebrate Linda’s life and mourn her passing this week.

It’s funny the things we forget. Not long ago, Katherine and I were talking, and I was trying to remember how long some friends of ours had been married. Were they coming up on their third anniversary? Or was it their fourth? I tried to reconstruct a timeline and piece the events together, but I just couldn’t do it.

I could remember flashes of individual moments. I remembered meeting them for the first time. I remembered being in their wedding. I remembered helping them move and staying with them their first night in their new house. I remembered meeting their son for the first time. (Is he two or three now?) But trying to put all of those flashes into a coherent timeline with years and dates was impossible without checking my calendar, which fortunately is quite detailed.

Truth be told, those events don’t feel like they took place all that long ago. I can remember them like they happened just yesterday: where I was, what I saw, how I was feeling. These memories, like many others, are so very strong in my mind because they’re precious to me. But our little exercise of trying to piece them all together made me realize how quickly I’ve become removed from them.

It’s one of the many paradoxes of the human brain: I can remember those moments like they just happened, but they also feel like they took place such a long time ago. I can recall pieces, but my brain has moved on from the details. I’m in such a different place now than I was then that it almost feels like it was a different person who did all of those things. Nevertheless, the memories are mine.

If you had asked me at the time, “Will you remember this?” my answer would undoubtedly have been, “Of course! How could I possibly forget this?” I like to think that I’ve got a pretty good memory, and those moments were very important to me. There’s no way I’d ever forget them. And that’s true to an extent. But over time, the finer details faded, and all that I’m left with now are the flashes.

I can recall feeling so proud and excited for my friend as I stood next to him in that chapel on his wedding day. But off the top of my head, I couldn’t tell you the date or time, details that mattered so much to me then. I couldn’t tell you the music that was played or the food that we ate. All I can tell you is that I was there, and I’m so thankful that I’ll always be able to say that I was a part of it.

I never pictured myself being one of those people who would reminisce and struggle to remember the details of when, where, and who, especially not in my twenties. But the older I get and the more I experience, the more I find myself holding on to the flashes and losing my grip of the details. What start out as vivid experiences eventually become distant memories—fond as they may be—and that’s not something I expected.

Hopefully this doesn’t come off as a lament. I realize that this is a perfectly normal part of life, and I’m not necessarily sad about it. I suppose I do find it a little disconcerting, though. And I don’t want to simply leave it there. Surely there’s something I can learn from this realization, right?

That’s something I’m still trying to figure out, but here’s what I’ve come up with so far: I want to recognize right now that someday soon, the things I’m experiencing today will all become nothing more than memories. No matter how wonderful or terrible or exciting or bland or in-between they may be, every experience I have is going to fade with time. The details will be lost forever, and all I’ll have left are the flashes.

And that inspires me to appreciate every moment even more. Because it’s fleeting. Even if I don’t want to admit it, I won’t always have this moment to hold onto. One day, it will be gone, so if I’m ever going to cherish it, I’d better do it now while I still have the chance.

This realization also makes me want to do a better job of documenting my memories. There are lots of ways of doing so: photos, journals, calendars, and more. Some people are really good at this, but I’m really, really not. That’s something I’d like to improve on, and writing this article might just be the motivation I need to start.

I don’t want to forget these precious moments. I want to do all I can to ensure that the flashes I do get to keep are as full as possible, and that they stay with me for as long as possible. If a bumpy trip down memory lane was what it took to help me realize that and do something about it, then I’d say it was well worth it. And if any of my ramblings have inspired you to make the most of your moments, too, then it’s even that much more so.

Here’s to cherishing every moment, to making memories worth keeping, and to enjoying those flashes for a long time to come. Thanks for reading, friends, and I’ll see you next week.

Experiments

I recently decided to change up my texting habits. Instead of typing with proper capitalization and punctuation like I usually do, I turned off the auto-caps feature on my phone and stopped putting periods at the end of my messages. I was hoping that this would give off a more cool and casual vibe in my day-to-day interactions, but that turned out not to be the case.

It actually had quite the opposite effect. My friends, and especially my wife, were immediately thrown off by the change and wondered if something was wrong, either with me or with my phone. When I assured them that everything was fine and told them what I was doing, they just sort of laughed and begrudgingly went along with it. I could tell they thought it was weird.

And so, my experiment lasted all of a day. Soon, I was going back into my phone’s settings and putting everything back to normal. I’ve returned to my proper form of texting once again. And I have to say that it was the right move.

If you’re like me, you sometimes grapple with the “What if?” questions of life. Some you’re able to test out: “What if I communicated differently over text?” Others you can’t: “What if I had studied a different major in college?” Others are just plain silly: “What if I took up bodybuilding? Or hibachi cooking?” Regardless, they come up from time to time, and it isn’t always easy to know what to do with them.

Sometimes, these question come from a place of regret. You wish you had done something differently in the past, and you wonder if your life would have turned out differently if you had made a better choice. I personally find regret an unhelpful emotion most of the time, and so I don’t dwell on it on the rare occasions it comes around. Regret can teach us to make better decisions going forward, but that’s really all it has to offer.

These question also might stem from aspiration. For one reason or another, you want your life to be different in some way. Maybe you want to be seen as more relatable, like I did. Or maybe you just want to get better at a skill or try something completely new. That desire, big or small, for things to be different can lead to a lot of “What if?” questions.

Most of my “What if?” questions, though, are really just a byproduct of curiosity. I’m a ruminator, and so my mind is constantly spinning. I’m also very interested in efficiency and productivity, and so I’m always thinking up ways I could do my everyday tasks differently and wondering if they might work. If you’re the curious type, you probably deal with lots of those kinds of questions, too.

So what do we do with all of these “What if?” questions that come up? It’s not like you can try out every one of them out with no consequences. You can’t A/B test your life, as much as that might be. Is there a way to satisfy those “What if?” question while staying realistic? I’d like to think so.

If those questions deal with your past, the best thing to do is to simply let them go. We can’t change history; we can only learn from it. That’s why dwelling on regret and the questions of how things could have turned out differently isn’t productive.

But if you choose to learn from the past and the questions that have arisen from it, maybe you can do differently going forward and create less of those questions for yourself in the future. That’s not regret, though. That’s growth, and it’s something we should each aspire to.

There are other “What if?” questions that we can learn from, too. Specifically the ones that are out of our reach to try out. If you find yourself constantly daydreaming about what life would be like as a professional athlete but that career path is out of your reach, maybe dig a little deeper into that question. What is it you’re really wondering about?

Often, our questions have layers, and as we peel back those layers, we can learn more about what we’re looking for. Do you want a sense of achievement? A community? Or maybe just some good, old-fashioned time outside having fun? Our questions have a lot to teach us about who we are and what we desire, so we shouldn’t be afraid to investigate them.

And of course, there are the “What if?” questions that you can try out. Some will be utter disasters, like my texting experiment. But others might turn out to be really meaningful. If you have a “What if?” question that you feel is worth testing and won’t cause unnecessary harm, you should go for it. You never know what you might gain by trying something new. It could be a hobby, a friendship, a talent, maybe even a career. You won’t know until you try.

Some people see “What if?” questions as a plague, something that weighs them down and makes them dream of another life. But I think of them as opportunities—opportunities to learn, opportunities to grow, and opportunities to try new things. All of that sounds positive to me, and that’s why I don’t shy away from questions like these in my own life.

Do you have some “What if?” questions of your own that are worth exploring? Maybe it’s time to dive in deep on some those, or even to start an experiment or two. One of the most exciting things about life is that it’s yours to make into what you want it to be. So what are you going to try first?

Making Space for Differently Abled Individuals in the Church →

Heather Avis, mother of two children with Down syndrome and author of Scoot Over and Make Room, wrote an article over on The Week about the relationship between churches and families with special needs. In it, she shares her own struggles with finding a place for her kids in the church and argues that it’s the church’s duty to find ways to include those who are differently abled.

As I've raised my kids and fought for an equitable space in this world for them, I have often found myself disappointed with the Church and its lack of inclusive practices. And I'm not alone. I've met countless other parents who have stopped going to church once they had a child with a different ability. The environment was just too difficult for their child to navigate and they did not feel welcomed anymore. Christian churches must do a better job.

Our society as a whole makes little to no room for people with special needs, and unfortunately, the church isn’t doing much better. When those with disabilities, especially children, walk into our sanctuaries, they often feel overwhelmed and unwelcome. Sometimes even unwanted. And that is simply unacceptable.

The good news of Jesus Christ is for everyone, and part of that gospel is that every single person is created in the image of and loved by God. If the community of faith can’t create space for some of the most vulnerable and overlooked people in our society to hear and be transformed by that message, then what are we even doing?

I don’t think it’s that churches don’t care about people with special needs. It’s just that creating space for them is inconvenient and often, churches often decide that being inclusive simply isn’t worth the inconvenience. This should not be so. It’s our responsibility to love and create space for everyone, even when it’s not easy.

And when we do, I think we’ll find our communities enriched by these people who suddenly find themselves included. They have access to skills and insights that neurotypical and physically capable individuals simply don’t have. The church needs these people if we’re going to be all that we’re called to be and reach the world with God’s love.

What does inclusivity look like in practice? That’s something I’m trying to learn about myself. We should be listening to experts like Avis and taking seriously what they have to say as we grapple with this question. Part of it is simply getting educated and learning how to speak on these topics. And of course, pastors and volunteers need training so that we can be prepared for new scenarios that will inevitably arise. That means it’s going to take time, money, and effort, all of which would be well spent.

Whatever form the solutions may take, it’s clear that something must be done. We can’t ignore the issue any longer. We can’t exclude these people any longer. Now that we know better, we need to do better. Will you commit to being an agent of change on this issue in your church?

Hot Takes

If you’ve spent any time whatsoever online over the past couple of years, you’ve probably come across someone dishing out their “hot take” on a given topic. Whether it be a tweetstorm, a selfie video rant, a screenshot from the Notes app, or a Facebook post so long that you have to hit the “Read More” button twice, these hot takes are everywhere. And boy are they hot.

For those who don’t know, a hot take is basically just an individual’s gut reaction to something. Raw, unfiltered, and often uncensored. These takes—or perspectives, if you rather—are hot because they’re both fiery and fresh. Without much consideration or planning, people simply throw their two cents’ worth out onto the internet, emotions and all.

This has always been part of the appeal of social media, right? Everyone gets a voice. If you have something to say, you can say it, and no one can stop you. But I‘ve noticed that practices like spilling tea (sharing the latest gossip) and dishing hot takes have become more prominent online as of late, even going viral, and it makes me wonder why.

I think that as our society has become more divided, it’s pushed us to highlight and value more and more extreme views and reactions. We want the content we take in to match the levels of outrage and discomfort that we ourselves feel. So even if we aren’t bold enough to share our own hot takes, we’re more than willing to seek out and share those that align with our views. We’ve all done it at some point.

Hot takes are also just more entertaining. Thoughtfulness and data aren’t as much fun as bold declarations and drama. People like to know what others think without filters or masks. So of course we’re going to tend towards the things that most catch our attention; that’s human nature.

But I wonder if dishing and taking in such hot takes all of the time is really good for us. Sure, they’re fun, and it feels good to know that there are people out there who have the same gut feelings that we do. But is that really what we need to hear all of the time?

We all react to situations with our emotions first. But then we go through the process of considering and filtering those emotions before forming a real opinion and speaking out. The truth is that decent people don’t fully agree with our their unfiltered gut reactions most of the time, and that’s why it’s usually best to take a breath before we speak.

Sharing and praising these hot takes can encourage people to skip the process of consideration altogether and go straight to speaking out. And once their opinion is out, they have to choose one of two options once they’ve calmed down: They can apologize and take back what they said, admitting that it came from an emotional place rather than a rational one; or they can double down on it, claiming that it really is how they feel. Often, they choose the latter.

And this doubling down on our most emotional of reactions leads to the normalization of what were once thought to be radical, even unacceptable, ideas. We become desensitized to just how harmful and irrational these ways of thinking can be because everyone seems to be doing it. It’s the new standard. So what’s the big deal?

The big deal is that when we’re relying on our emotions to process information, we aren’t being our best selves. We don’t make the best decisions. We approach the world from a place of fear rather than a place of compassion, and we think only of our own self-preservation. And that’s simply no way to live.

If we’re going to do our part to make the world a better place for everyone, we have to be willing to move past the easy hot takes and do the hard work of looking at the world from multiple angles, including those of people we disagree with. We can’t get sucked into bubbles and echo chambers, nor can we be content with simply shouting our views at the “other side” and refusing to listen to what anyone else has to say. That’s hot take culture, and it won’t get us anywhere.

Consideration. Processing. Listening. Caring. These are skills that help us move past the hot takes and into a place where we really can enact change. And I hope that these are skills we can all work on ourselves and share with others so that we can change the tide of the conversation around us.

One place you won’t find many hot takes is right here on this blog. I like to joke that I dish out “cold takes” here because my posts are deeply considered over a good bit of time. Rarely do I comment directly on current events in this space because I don’t think that’s the best way to use this platform for the greater good. So if you’re into hot takes, I’m sorry, but that’s not really what I’m about here.

That’s not to say that hot takes are completely devoid of value. There is certainly something to be said for having passion and commitment to one’s beliefs. But I think the real change-makers are those who can channel that passion into rational, actionable plans and communicate those plans intelligently to like-minded people. Yelling on the internet never changed anything for the better, but that same passion can be put to good use if one chooses to do so.

I’d even go so far as to say that there is room for righteous anger in the face of true sin and evil. Sometimes, we are morally compelled to speak out. But I think that clear-cut situations like those are fewer and further between than most people people’s hot takes. And I’m hesitant to ever say that my reactions to any given situation are true, pure righteous anger because I’m not perfect, and my emotions are usually selfish, not concerned with the welling of others. I’d venture to say that’s true of most people.

For the most part, I’d say it’s best to leave the hot takes behind us. We’re better, more compassionate people than our emotions alone allow us to be. So let’s practice compassion and consideration before we speak. When we do, I think we’ll find that our well thought-out words and deeds will actually have a far greater impact than our hot takes ever could.