This week, I want to dive into a memory lane moment that’s been tugging at my heartstrings, all centered around a term we’re all too familiar with — bullying. But, I’m not just talking about the kind we remember from the playground; I’m eyeing its more grown-up, yet equally damaging counterpart in our adult lives.

This grows from an incident I saw in the news that can only be classified as bullying, and it involves public figures, grown men. Frankly, it’s troubled me perhaps more than it should have. Let me tell you a story. There are some real parallels here.

My thoughts drift back to a childhood memory from Camp Ridgecrest for Boys — a memory that, oddly enough, has rippled through the years, influencing my understanding of kindness, courage, and the subtle forms of bullying that don’t always leave visible scars.

I was in the 6th grade, sharing a cabin with five other boys, one of whom, Ernie, had a stutter. His vulnerability became the target of another cabin mate, Herbie, who found a perverse delight in mocking him. Despite Ernie’s attempts to laugh it off, the bullying escalated until it reduced him to tears. Herbie accomplished what he set out to do. As a witness, my silence has since felt like complicity, a haunting reminder of the power of our actions — and inactions. I should have said or done something. As a 6^th grader, though, I guess I didn’t want to run the risk of being treated like Ernie had been.

The memory serves as a stark reflection on bullying, not just as a relic of our school days but as a shadow that can follow us into adulthood, morphing into forms that are harder to recognize but equally harmful. Adult bullying may not involve stolen lunch money or physical altercations, but it can manifest in workplace politics, social exclusion, or cutting remarks dressed as jokes, even to the extent of making fun of someone’s physical appearance or handicaps. These actions, though less overt, stem from the same desire to exert power over another.

As Christians, or simply as humans striving to be better, we’re compelled to ask ourselves, “What would Jesus do?” This question isn’t meant to invoke guilt but to encourage a profound introspection about our conduct and its impact on those around us. Jesus’ life was a testament to love, inclusivity, and standing up for the marginalized — a guidepost for our interactions.

Acknowledging feelings of complicity in the face of bullying is not an admission of defeat but a step toward growth. It’s a call to action, urging us to be vigilant and brave, to stand up against injustices, and to support those who are being diminished. Our silence can be as impactful as our words, and choosing to speak out can be a beacon of hope for someone in the throes of bullying.

As adults, we wield considerable influence — through our actions, our words, and our decisions about when to speak and when to listen. This influence gives us a unique responsibility to create environments (churches?) where respect and kindness overshadow the impulse to belittle or dominate. It’s about building communities where the Ernies of the world feel supported and valued, not for their ability to endure mockery but for their inherent worth as individuals.

This is an invitation — a call to reflect on our behaviors and the subtle ways we might contribute to or combat bullying in our everyday lives. It’s an encouragement to foster empathy, to be the ally that our younger selves needed, and to cultivate spaces where compassion drowns out cruelty.

In closing, let’s remember that the lessons learned on the playground have far-reaching implications. The way we navigate adult bullying, standing up for fairness and kindness, can transform our workplaces, homes, and social circles into havens of respect and understanding. By doing so, we honor the spirit of what Jesus taught, living out our faith through actions that speak louder than words.

Together, let’s pledge to be the change, to be adults who embody the virtues we wish to see in the world. Because in the end, it’s not just about preventing bullying; it’s about nurturing a society where every person is seen, heard, and valued — where the playground, the workplace, and the church are places of growth, not battlegrounds for dominance.

It’s not all about you. It never has been. Check this out:

“I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance. The poet’s, the writer’s, duty is to write about these things. It is his privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past. The poet’s voice need not merely be the record of man, it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail.” – William Faulkner

You just read the closing part of Faulkner’s acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize at the Nobel banquet at City Hall in Stockholm, Sweden, on December 10, 1950. The entire speech lasted about three minutes and, like the Gettysburg Address, has no fat on its bones at all. It was succinct, powerful stuff. I won’t post the whole thing, but it bears reading. Google it.

If you read Faulkner, you’ll find that his writings are packed with Christian themes (although his personal life, with multiple affairs, leads me to think that he lived his life just a little on the wrong side of the King James Version.) But I love the quote above, and here’s why:

It’s not all about you.

We can, if we aren’t careful, turn into self-serving little clods.

We live in this culture of outrage. We are offended by everything. Granted, some things are worth getting worked up over. But pity the one who goes through life looking for something to get enraged about. So they rant, and rail, and lash out at anyone who doesn’t see things the way they do. And, in offense’s worst state, they want those not agreeing with them shut down, silenced, banished.

I want to state unequivocally that wanting someone who disagrees with you to be silenced is cowardly and non-Christian.

What are you afraid of? Have we become such weenies that we are threatened by opposing viewpoints? To put a finer point on things, are we not as Christians so uncertain about our own beliefs that to be confronted with challenges causes us to run to the nearest rabbit hole?

Check out Faulkner again, and he implies that it’s not all about you. He states that we are capable of compassion, sacrifice, and endurance. In the context of believers, that implies that we can care and love for our enemies, that we can give ourselves to them and for them, and that we can stand up to anything hurtful or harmful – or unfair and inaccurate – that they might say to us. Actually, that sounds pretty Christlike to me.

Faulkner’s answer was found in words, in poetry, in soaring discourse. Read this again:

It is his (the writer’s) privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past.

That’s good counsel for the poet, and good counsel for us, too. We have that same privilege as we look to others.

But we can’t give away something that we don’t have. We are the end product of those before us who give us examples of courage, honor, hope, pride, compassion, pity, and sacrifice. More importantly, we have received the same examples from Christ Himself.

Here’s the point. Don’t miss the point.

To the extent that you can accept these strengths, divinely given, you can prevail against the ill winds of culture. You have a new Spirit in you, if you’re a believer. It’s a Spirit that will guide you away from blind outrage, away from perceived or real slights, away from any sense of entitlement you may have.

Life is hard. It’s SUPPOSED to be. You are supposed to struggle and contend. Without struggle, where would the glory be? No, see, you are supernaturally empowered to be gifted, to be a gift, to be an encourager, and to always and forever have hope. You don’t have to remain in the dark state you are in. O be joyful. You have reason to hope.

Comments are welcome and encouraged.

It may be that “getting even” with someone is something you’re plotting right now. “I’ll show them,” you say. “I’m gonna get them back. They will pay for what they’ve done.”

And so forth. We’re talking revenge here.

Problem is, getting even doesn’t serve any real purpose.

I grew up in a pretty cushy environment. I’m an only child. My parents were great. I was benignly spoiled. Mine was a loving family. There are some real plusses in growing up with Ward and June Cleaver.

I was a sensitive kid. That’s crossed over into me being a sensitive adult. I’m a true empath – not only do I know how you feel, I feel how you feel. That is for sure a blessing and a curse.

Back then that really strained my brain and played havoc with my heart and emotions. I spent a lot of energy trying to deal with all that. My tendency, then and now, is to quietly withdraw from negative situations and people. I just ain’t got what it takes to deal with those things for a prolonged period.

The byproduct of that would be a simmering desire to get even with someone who hurt me, or even more pronounced, getting even with someone who hurt someone else close to me.

On those dark days, I’d wonder – “Why me? Why can’t people be nice? Why don’t they just lay off?

Maybe you get this.

It might be that you’re the kind of person who feels it necessary to defend yourself, to put up a grim fight, to try to recover from wounds, or to figure out some kind of revenge – getting even, as it were.

I’m not going to judge you, but I do want you to acknowledge if this is true of you or not.

Getting even might give some bit of short-term gratification, but it won’t last, and you’ll probably feel worse after the fact. So let’s talk about some principles that might help you more than getting even would.

1. Don’t take it personally. It’s not you. It’s the other person with issues.

My former boss used to say “hurt people hurt people.” My stars, so much truth right there! When people are mean and unkind, those tendencies come from a wounded place. They are, as Mama would say, “acting out.” So hold onto this one. It’s the other person with the problems. You just happened to be the target of the moment.

2. God is sovereign, and He is in total control.

He is in charge. Whatever you are facing, whatever someone is doing to you or saying about you, is part of a grand strategy He is using to make you more like Him. You are His best project! You don’t have to like what someone is doing to you,  but there’s a plan in place. You may not be privy to it – you probably aren’t. The skill comes in learning how to evaluate things through His eyes. Having the mind of Christ, in other words.

3. The real enemy is Satan. He’s just using those people who are out to make you miserable.

It’s a matter of knowing your enemy. This is a sobering thought – that Satan could be using another human to “get” you. But, we also have to acknowledge that there are times when Satan uses us, too. There’s a pleasant thought! Here’s your smartest tactic, though: Pray for that person doing the attacking. They need Jesus whether they’re Christians or not. They need healing.

4. Keep your guard up.

That whole armor of God thing? You can read about it in Ephesians 6:10-18.

10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. 11 Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. 12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. 13 Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. 14 Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, 15 and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. 16 In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. 17 Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. 18 And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people.

There is a real battle out there to be fought, and it’s not to be fought with someone getting even with you. Save your energy for the real deal.

5. “Vengeance is mine,” sayeth the Lord. You are not His instrument.

Let God deal with the offender. He will be just. He’ll handle things the way He sees fit. He doesn’t need your help or advice. If this is about getting even, and making someone pay, God will decide what they need to pay, if anything. Let Him be God.  Actually, He already is.

I don’t need to get even. Revenge is something that causes me to take my eyes off God and focus on myself and what I perceive my needs are.

I do need to say, however, that it’s right and appropriate to set some personal boundaries. You may need to get creative and think of ways to limit contact with them. But to focus on getting even, embracing bitterness, and plotting revenge is just wasted energy. It won’t help. God will handle things in a way that is right and what will bring glory to Himself. You are part of His plan. You are not the plan.

God promises to take care of the persecuted and judge those who are cruel. He’s good like that.

Be well. Comments are welcome!

How do you know if you’re part of change that lasts?

A phrase I’ve heard a lot here lately is “tipping point.” In our current context, the question is: “Is the horrific death of George Floyd the tipping point to bring racial inequality to a resolution and change?”

I don’t know.

There have been plenty of events in history that were indeed tipping points. They brought about change that lasts. It hasn’t always been good change, but change nonetheless.

Subjectively again, the George Floyd tragedy somehow “feels” different for me. Ask me in 10 years if this was indeed a tipping point. We should know something by then.

What I’m more interested in today is your personal tipping point. What happens in your own life to bring about change that lasts?

Here’s my thesis: If it was genuine, it will last.

We’ve all been caught up in emotions and had all the “feels.” Then, when the emotions subside and the feels go away, we’re back to where we once were. I’m not discrediting the human need to feel good. We all know that feelings can be great betrayers. They will for sure lie to you.

So how do you recognize authenticity? How do you know if something is genuine?

If you want change that lasts, it needs to be because God has ordained it.

We could spend some time discussing what it means to hear God’s voice, how to distinguish it from the myriad other voices we’re being bombarded with. For me, it tends to be a still, small voice – although there have been times when God has had to holler at me to get my attention.

Here’s what I mean. Let’s say you’ve been faced with a personal crisis or need. If you’re a believer, you sought God for clarity, comfort, and direction. You acted as best you knew how.

You felt great. Life had purpose. There was a sense of direction. You forged ahead.

And then …

• After a few weeks, you went back into the world.
• You lived like the world.
• You acted like the world.
• All the promises you made vanished.
• Your head is back to just like it was.

Sure you got emotional. Things “felt right.” You got emotion. You thought you had change that lasts.

If you got it from the Lord, though – if it was of Him and not of you – then I want you to know it will last. 

Less of me. More of Him.

That is one of the great errors of our time. I’ve heard plenty of persuasive arguments. It would be easy to go with the ones that “feel right.”

If they are wrong, then history – personal and public – will eventually tell the tale.

Guard your heart. Make wise decisions. Don’t be swayed by populist voices if they aren’t from God.

And if it’s from God, even if you try to run away from it, you won’t be able to. That’s change that lasts.

You better pay me some attention this morning. I’m about to save someone’s sanity.

It’s about this corruptible political season. My blog is not intended to be a place for political musings, but I’m breaking my own rule here.

Because, this corruptible political season has much to do with your personal well-being and giving you hope and encouragement.

I was with our Mississippi Baptist disaster relief team in NYC following 9/11. Because of that work, I was placed on the World Trade Center Health Registry, a project that tracks the health and well-being of all those responders.

A few times a year, I am contacted by this group via email. Sometimes there are surveys. My responses are entered into a database so that they can study the aftermath of being involved in such a tragedy. Many first responders have been diagnosed with PTSD, in addition to other physical health issues.

One thing has intrigued me. It’s been shown that people in places like Kansas and South Dakota that have never been to NYC, or even KNOW anyone in NYC, have shown symptoms of and have been treated for PTSD, just as though they had been present during or after 9/11.

What researchers have found that those suffering had watched so much television, camped out online, and had immersed themselves in images from the tragedy to the extent that they experienced the same struggles as those who were on the ground in Manhattan.

Flash forward. It’s now 2020. Donald Trump has gone through impeachment proceedings. That’ll probably be settled Wednesday. At this writing, he’ll deliver his State of the Union address tonite. The Iowa caucus is one big mess. There’s plenty of evidence that we’re living in a corruptible political season right there.

Much as was after the World Trade Center attack, the media has breathlessly reported everything that is happening in the last few days.

I don’t care to comment on the rightness or wrongness of what is happening – that’s not my point. My point, and my concern, is that we all take stock in what constant exposure, even obsession, of what is happening in these politically charged days is doing to our minds, to our hearts, all of us.

Because, you gotta ask yourself – are you happy? Are you at peace? Do you have an inner source of comfort that the world can’t take away?

What I’m talking about is totally independent of what is happening in our country.

My fear is that if you find yourself constantly checking the web for Trump news, that if you camp out on one of the TV news outlets, that if you perpetually read blogs from people with your same world view, if you find yourself texting back and forth with your peers all the time, and find yourself bemoaning the ignorance of those who don’t see things as you do … y’all, you are POISONING YOUR SOUL. I am seeing it over and over.

I’m not making a case against being informed. This isn’t about sticking your head in the sand. It’s about you stepping back, evaluating yourself, and OWNING the condition of your heart.

If you’re finding yourself in a dark place, do NOT blame external events or circumstances. It’s all on you, you alone, because you can choose the state of your life right now.

Forget for a moment political garbage. Are you in a better place internally than you were a year ago? Is your heart settled and at peace? Because if it’s NOT, it’s time to change, to stand down, to not fill your heart and mind with corruption.

Stand down. Don’t obsess. You become what you think about. Get the heck off any social media that drags you down. Fill your mind with what is good and wholesome. Maybe volunteer at a homeless shelter. Rake leaves for a widow you know. But get out of yourself, quit bemoaning the awfulness of your state because what is happening “out there,” get involved in something that is life affirming and positive.

For me, that’s Jesus.

Again – look at what you’re doing to yourself.

Eventually, what you do to yourself is going to affect those around you, those you love, and one day you’ll find yourself looking back on these days and realize that this was the time you allowed your heart to become small and bitter, to your everlasting regret. That would apply to ANYONE no matter what their ideology.

Take stock of how you feel RIGHT NOW. Is this how you want to live your life, with your mind and heart in this shape?

Act now. You can change the course of your life. It doesn’t have to be this way.

Here’s what I’m clinging to: “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… and the God of peace will be with you.” Philippians 4:8 – 9b.

There is a common belief that ostriches bury their heads in the sand because they think that if they can’t see a predator, then the predator can’t see them.

This belief is a handy metaphor for the person who thinks if a problem is ignored it will simply go away.

Fact is, ostriches don’t bury their head in the sand. Ostriches dig shallow holes in the sand, and that’s where they lay their eggs. They use their beaks to turn their eggs several times a day. From a distance, it might look like they’re burying their head.

I’m going to advocate, though, that there are times when it’s appropriate for us to bury our heads in the sand – not as so to ignore a problem with the forlorn hope that it’ll go away, but rather picking and choosing what problems we can safely ignore simply because we need to guard our own hearts.

I ran across this cartoon a few days ago:

 I’m still sort of pondering this.

Disclaimer: I never want this blog to be a political platform for me or anyone else. So factor that out of your thinking, okay?

This is the awful reality. We are bombarded constantly with bad news. It’s everywhere. There are few safe places around that we can be protected from negativity.

It seems that some people absolutely thrive on awfulness. I look at my friends’ posts on Facebook, for instance, and am just brought so very low by what I read. It’s not a matter of me minding others having opposing viewpoints – it’s a matter of how those viewpoints are expressed.

And I think: “To what end? Why are people so desperate to score points against the perceived ‘other team’”?

• Part of it may be the joy of a “gotcha!” moment. As in, “I’ll point out how clueless other people are. That’ll be helpful.”
• Part of it is the old “preaching to the choir” mindset. It reminds those of like opinion that they are not alone. People enjoy having their posts “liked” and having folks agree with them.
• It might be that people post things to attempt to sway others to their viewpoint. There may be times when that actually worked, but I’d classify that as a miracle or exception.

Stepping outside of social media, think about other entry points into your mind and heart:

• The 24-hour news cycle. You gotta fill that time with something if you’re a newscaster.
• Cable news in general. In the latter days of my mama’s life, she’d have CNN or Fox or something on the TV round the clock. I would absolutely lose my mind if I had to subject myself to that.
• Ease of acquiring information. I’m just a click away from having access to most anything.
• Tech devices. I am currently armed with my iPhone. I’m typing on a keyboard on my iPad. My MacBook isn’t working, and it’s causing some anxiety as I wait for my appointment at the Apple Store. Am I in bondage to all this gee-whiz gadgetry? Are you? You decide.

I could go on. You get the idea.

Here’s the point. Where your mind dwells, that’s where your heart is, too. If you surround yourself with negativity, you become negative. Fill your mind with goodness, and goodness becomes a part of your life.

Some people may say that they can compartmentalize, and what they take in doesn’t influence them. I don’t buy that for a nanosecond.

This I believe: constant, willful exposure to the nastier aspects of our world ultimately devalues our souls.

Look. I have a degree in journalism. My day job is associate editor of a large religious newsjournal. I understand the virtues in being well-informed. It’s important to be curious about the world around us.

But – and it’s a huge but – how much information do you take in that you can actually take action on? If you hear about some tragedy in Hong Kong, and it makes you feel awful, what can you do about it?

Certainly you can pray. You should pray for any heartbreak in the world. You should pray that God’s presence be felt.

It makes sense for me, though, to protect myself from things I can’t do anything about. Look at that cartoon again. See where I’m going with this?

There are plenty of things you can’t control. But you can control, to a big extent, what you let come into your mind, and then into your heart.

If protecting yourself means burying your head in the sand, it might not be a bad strategy for your mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being.

Here are my thoughts. Take ‘em or leave ‘em.

• Restrict your intake of news. Again, this isn’t about being uninformed. It’s a matter of getting just enough to give you a sense of what’s going on around you. But to subject yourself to the same awful story over and over can’t be healthy.
• Focus on the things you can actually do something about. If you aren’t happy with someone in office, say, then vote them out. In the United States, we have this really cool reset button. Vote in your guy or girl next time.
• If there are things you are exposed to that you can’t do anything about – move on. Don’t dwell on the “what if’s?” I heard a neat term used in counseling a while back: “Catastrophizing.” It’s irrationally looking to the worst possible outcome of any incident or circumstance. Mama called it “borrowing trouble.”
• Ask yourself: “Do I find satisfaction in learning of and exploiting someone else’s failures?” If that’s so, then “Why am I like that?” is a sensible next question.
• Find a cause that’s worth investing your life in and do it. And do it while not taking advantage of someone else. If you’re passionate about animal rights, for instance, I think that’s terrific. Just don’t devalue people who aren’t as passionate as you. This comes under the category of “guarding your heart” because you’ll save yourself some frustration when you realize we all have things important to us. And those things don’t necessarily have to be the same.
• Restrict your “I’m right, therefore you’re wrong” impulses to a minimum. Who knows? Sometimes the other person might be right.
• There may be some people in your life that want to drag you down right along with them. Love them anyway. That gives you extraordinary power. But – choose, as best you can, how you interact with them.

Bottom line: Guard your heart. You can have a heart that is open and expansive and accessible. Perhaps, though, you’ve laid it out there to be abused.

You can’t control what others do to your heart. But you can control what you voluntarily put into it.

My goodness. There’s all sorts of irony in the title of this blog.

When I cobble these posts together, I purposefully try to be as broad as I can for people all along the faith spectrum. Most of the time, I’m writing what I want to hear for myself. I just kind of let you sit in.

Today, though, I am more in the camp of believers, Christians.

If you are a Christian, how well do you love?

You know I’m not talking about love in the sense of romantic love, or even love among friends and family. I’m not even talking about self-love, which is a big deal.

Nope – I’m talking about supernatural, God-ordained love.

That kind of love operates separate from feelings. It’s a love that is actually an act of the will. It’s a love that can’t be self-generated. It has to come from another source outside ourselves.

Because, y’know, in and of ourselves I simply don’t think we have the capacity for that kind of love.

Here’s my autobiographical note: This actually comes easy for me. It’s a capacity for love that God just has seen fit to give me, and I’m grateful for that. I can say without hesitation that, to the best of my knowledge and heart, I love everyone.

Which is NOT to say that I care to keep company with everyone. There are some people I’d just as soon see going as coming.

And, of course, there have been people who’ve hurt me.

What’s your response to that? Unless you’re a hermit (and some days that seems appealing – like my friend Becky Brown noted, “I could easily be a hermit, but God won’t let me”), you have had someone – or maybe multiple someone’s – wound your soul.

You’re gonna have to look hard to find benefit in that, right?

The benefit comes in how you respond to being hurt. Talk about self-revelatory! Hurt can teach you an awful lot about yourself.

So. Are you a grudge holder? Do you erupt in Jovian anger? Do you retreat just to sulk and brood? How about plotting revenge? Is that you?

Well, how about this in response to hurt: be kind.

Stay with me here, because I’m not being patronizing.

I will tell you that the world may not look favorably on you if your response to hurt is to be kind. That’s not the way things work, right?

Some of the kindest Christians I know have lived in a world that wasn’t so kind to them.

That is so intriguing. Not only does it fly in the face of conventional wisdom, it doesn’t even really make sense. That is not a typical response.

Yet there are those who have been through so much at the hands of others, and they love deeply. They still care.

Are there steps one can take to reach that state?

I’m not sure. I do know that it isn’t something to be found in our sinful, carnal nature. It has to come from a different place. I dunno. Some people relish unforgiveness. I’ve never known of a time when forgiveness was anything other than a virtue.

In giving this a lot of thought over the years – the reason why people choose not to forgive – I have come up with a handful of “why’s,” possible reasons why people cling to this unique misery of unforgiveness.

• They don’t understand mercy. Mercy is one of the most divine of all traits. We are simply thunderstruck by Jesus’ words from the Cross – “Father, forgive them, because they don’t know what they’re doing.” That’s mercy, right there, all encapsulated in a magnificent example of forgiveness.
• They prefer a hard heart to a tender one. Perhaps being tender hearted is viewed as weakness. I’d suggest that it’s a whole lot more courageous to be tenderhearted than it is to take a hard line.
• We are fallen people living in a fallen world. It’s hard to to be kind when the whole of civilization seems to want us to be harsh and inappropriately aggressive. I see so much hatefulness everywhere I turn. This is not, nor will ever be, a “political” blog, but given the current state of things … I mean. Mama said “if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.” Looking back, that might be a lot more wise (or certainly more kind) than I used to believe. What a toxic world! And don’t come at me with a statement like, “Jesus was controversial. Jesus was harsh. Jesus turned over tables and ran people out of the table.” C’mon, now. Really? Of course He did. But when your (or my) motivations are the same as Jesus’, we can use His tactics. Otherwise, it’s best that we stand down. This culture of outrage we have embraced doesn’t seem to help – all it does is make folks on the same side of an issue feel good (or empowered) about themselves. I don’t see many converts coming from rage.
• It’s simply easier to hold a grudge. It takes no effort. It feels good for a season. It makes you feel mighty and self-righteous. It feeds into that nature that says, “I’ll show you. I’m gonna hurt you back. And when I hurt you back, that’s gonna make me feel really, really good.”

“I can’t forgive,” you say. “I can’t be kind to him/her/them.”

Here’s my bottom line for the day:

Sometimes, it’s the Christians who have been hurt the most who refuse to be hardened in this world, because they would never want to make another person feel the same way they themselves have felt.

If that’s not something to be in awe of, I don’t know what it is.

“I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance. The poet’s, the writer’s, duty is to write about these things. It is his privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past. The poet’s voice need not merely be the record of man, it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail.” – William Faulkner

You just read the closing part of Faulkner’s acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize at the Nobel banquet at City Hall in Stockholm, Sweden, on December 10, 1950. The entire speech lasted about three minutes and, like the Gettysburg Address, has no fat on its bones at all. It was succinct, powerful stuff. I won’t post the whole thing, but it bears reading. Google it.

If you read Faulkner, you’ll find that his writings are packed with Christian themes (although his personal life, with multiple affairs, leads me to think that he lived his life just a little on the wrong side of the King James Version.) But I love the quote above, and here’s why:

We can, if we aren’t careful, turn into self-serving little clods. We live in this culture of outrage. We are offended by everything. Granted, some things are worth getting worked up over. But pity the one who goes through life looking for something to get enraged about. So they rant, and rail, and lash out at anyone who doesn’t see things the way they do. And, in offense’s worst state, they want those not agreeing with them shut down, silenced, banished.

I want to state unequivocally that wanting someone who disagrees with you to be silenced is cowardly and non-Christian. What are you afraid of? Have we become such weenies that we are threatened by opposing viewpoints? To put a finer point on things, are we not as Christians so uncertain about our own beliefs that to be confronted with challenges causes us to run to the nearest rabbit hole?

Check out Faulkner again. He states that we are capable of compassion, sacrifice, and endurance. In the context of believers, that implies that we can care and love for our enemies, that we can give ourselves to them and for them, and that we can stand up to anything hurtful or harmful – or unfair and inaccurate – that they might say to us. Actually, that sounds pretty Christlike to me.

Faulkner’s answer was found in words, in poetry, in soaring discourse. Read this again: “It is his (the writer’s) privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past.”

That’s good counsel for the poet, and good counsel for us, too. We have that same privilege as we look to others.

But we can’t give away something that we don’t have. We are the end product of those before us who give us examples of courage, honor, hope, pride, compassion, pity, and sacrifice. More importantly, we have received the same examples from Christ Himself.

Here’s the point. Don’t miss the point. To the extent that you can accept these strengths, divinely given, you can prevail against the ill winds of culture. You have a new Spirit in you, if you’re a believer. It’s a Spirit that will guide you away from blind outrage, away from perceived or real slights, away from any sense of entitlement you may have.

Life is hard. It’s SUPPOSED to be. You are supposed to struggle and contend. Without struggle, where would the glory be? No, see, you are supernaturally empowered to be gifted, to be a gift, to be an encourager, and to always and forever have hope. You don’t have to remain in the dark state you are in. O be joyful. You have reason to hope.

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