Hopeful Thinking

I admit it. When I stub my toe and my husband Jamie makes a big show of sympathy, I actually like it. It makes me feel better.  I’m not sure why that is. I know that I’ve seen children fall, get back up, seemingly fine until they catch the eye of their mother. Then the waterworks start. Is that healthy? Am I being reasonable as a 5’10,” 200 lb, 54-year-old male who also wants a bit of a fuss when I even moderately injure myself?  Probably. We need sympathy in our lives. We need to feel that we are not alone in our suffering and that someone cares enough to help us work toward a solution. Sometimes the bandage on our knee seems to heal our injury better when it’s placed there by someone else who is mirroring the concern on our faces with concerned faces of their own. This is part of the soup of being a communal species. Empathy, sympathy, and compassion for one another tend to strengthen the bonds of a group or community because they are natural to us. And they are natural beca...

What precedes social change? Art. Always. Art informs us of our feelings, it puts words to our unformed thoughts. It connects us with the wider communities of people who are similarly troubled. It helps us gain the collective courage to take action. The creation of art is frequently the natural human reaction to oppression, for instance. When people have been oppressed, historically you can see their concerns communicated in the art of their time. Their paintings, their theatrical presentations, their books. Sometimes subtle, so as not to draw the ire of the establishment, but clear as day to those who are in sympathy with it. What effect does that type of art have upon a viewer? Sometimes it might make a viewer understandably angry that their worldview is being challenged or framed in such a way that they feel as if they are being accused of something. Or perhaps the viewer didn’t realize their actions had an oppressive effect and now they are inspired to change. Rare, but not impossi...

Unless you’re a prosecutor attempting to prove the motive of a criminal defendant, it’s okay to not always know why people do the things they do. Let it go. It’s preferable to your own peace of mind to resist the urge to draw conclusions. I watch a lot of people fill in the blanks on people's motives. It’s understandable. Most of us don’t just want to know the what, they want to know the why. We feel we are missing out, or worse, being made a fool of if we don’t have all the inside information. Admittedly, I do it too. But being an optimist in general, I tend to fill in the blanks about people’s motives on a basis of giving people the benefit of the doubt. I try to conclude that someone might be tailgating me because they really have to go to the bathroom. It is advice I have given before when coping with our need to draw conclusions. But unfortunately, many people are quick to conclude in the negative when they don’t have all the facts. Everyone makes these determinations in their...

Let’s begin with a fact. There is no proof that God exists. None. There is no empirical evidence that supports the existence of a divine higher power in any form. Let’s add another fact to the mix. No spiritual text on the planet would stand in a court of law proving the existence of God to an impartial jury. All that being said, I still believe in God. Consider for a moment your own view on the subject. Do you believe in It? I refer to God as “It” with a capital I because if there is a God, It would certainly be free of gender identity. Some people might take offense at thinking of God as an It, and, to be honest, the word it does lack a bit of humanity. But the alternatives of Him or Her feel like an open falsehood. And God wouldn’t be human anyway. Even though I’m aware that many contend that the male pronoun when used to describe God doesn’t really make a theological claim that God is actually male. But that nuance is beside the point in a patriarchal society. The male pronoun, whe...

I know I was a slightly unusual kid. I had these very deep, almost inexpressible feelings, I would approach strangers to ask them what they thought happened to them when they died. I deeply felt as though I was supposed to be “doing something” and would express as much to my mother. But as loving as she would be about it, there was no answer forthcoming about what that something might be.  As I proceeded through life, I couldn’t shake that feeling. It was like having a deeply emotional bond with a thought for which I had no words to express. A feeling of purpose, but with no understanding of the nature of it.  I came to realize that the feeling resonated most closely with kind acts. When I did a good deed, it reminded me of that feeling, that sense of the “something” I was supposed to be doing. And because it felt good to do things which resonated with that complex feeling from early childhood, I did more of it. I became something of a good deed doer for my own enjoyment. I di...

I read recently that our racial reckoning of 2020 has resulted in nothing, and that it appears as if the reckoning never happened at all. A piece of evidence presented for this, among other points, was that White politicians, family advocacy groups, and teachers are intensely reinvigorated in their efforts toward banning books by Black authors and those that challenge racial inequality.  I see that point of evidence in the opposite way, frankly. I think the new wave of resistance definitively proves that we’re actually getting somewhere. We have made them afraid of our success. We have gotten under their skin. They are lashing out in an attempt to reassert their now-lost supremacy. Why would they do that? I’m not saying racism is new, but it’s clear that there is a new, broadsweeping resistance movement (notably stemming now from only a remnant third of our country) who are attempting to put us all back in our place. That is the America they wish to revive. And despite the way pun...

We have a natural vetting process among our human community. One which no politician can curtail, nor parent activist dislodge.  Before I go further, I have a few questions. How effective is it to ban a book? Does it work? Does the book fall out of circulation thereafter? Do people immediately discontinue reading it? Or does it take on a life of its own bolstered by the controversy? And when we blacklist someone from polite society for unloving statements or hostile actions, what happens to them? These are examples along the spectrum of what we now refer to as “cancel culture.” To be considered here is the metric by which someone or something is genuinely canceled versus being launched into greater public awareness.  Once something or someone is offered up by society for cancellation for an offense, either real or imagined, that cancellation is either enforced or nullified by society. We are the true jury. The formula by which that decision is collectively made is often based ...

Is organized religion meant to be a permanent part of our human culture? If so, in what form? Because the decline in participation in religion, not only in our country but throughout the world, shows no sign of abating. Why might that be?  Statistics actually do tell us why that might be. A common factor among those who report upon why they’ve left their faith is that religion has failed us. They state that it has failed to live up to the very standards it claims to promote with regard to loving our neighbor as ourselves.  Of course, not all religious believers are examples of this failure. There are many devout and truly loving practitioners of religious faith. But they are not the loudest ones in the room. And those who wield scripture like a weapon are taking up nearly all the oxygen. They are turning away people in droves. At a minimum, this leaves a bad taste in the mouths of the honestly faithful. At worst, it compels them to turn from their faith entirely. For those who...

Our culture has a huge issue with boredom and laziness. Of course, there are good reasons for that, some of which, however, no longer apply to modern culture. In the past, idleness could be dangerous. It could mean starvation in the winter, for example, if not enough food was properly grown, harvested, stored, and prepared. It could mean that repairs go unmade, clothes unsewn, shelters unbuilt. There was no time to sit around contemplating one’s navel. Many have heard of the “seven deadly sins.” Sloth, a.k.a. laziness, is one among them. In Christianity, though, cloistered monks and nuns were historically advised of an eighth deadly sin as well. That known as acedia. Acedia comes from a Greek word that means “a lack of care.” It wasn’t so much a sin as a warning, however. Because the word was used to describe the types of despondency and dejection which are the hallmarks of despair. Something to which those who have shut themselves away from society in favor of a life of contemplation ...