Two F-words and a Question

"Faith idles when character shrivels."

 ― Miroslav Volf

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Dear Kate,

Beware of anyone who can only tell you how we are fucked, while promising no vision of human flourishing in how one lives.

Such people would constantly call your attention to bad news you can't afford to miss, while blinding themselves and the world to the simple truths of profound goodness, that the sun rises and the rain falls, and merely these are good enough for you to live a life resplendent and resilient.

Such people would have more trouble with the first f-word in my opening sentence than the lack of the second in their vision of life.

They would tell you about the eleventh hour of our environment crisis, but not the first hour of their daily waking, the ecology of their heart so devastated that the anger and frustration must be externalized to burn brighter than fossil fuel in their crusade for justice, for victims faceless, while those closest to them they daily victimize they would rather face less.

They would collect for you on a silver platter (their sounding gong) the latest pandemic news, every tragicomic datum on why you should or should not get the vaccine, how the Grand Story started in Genesis is to come to the focal end of a needle point on which humanity stands--a pretty precarious piece of real estate for all of us to stay "in this together."

They would tell you about the Bible by misreading it, missing reading it, missing not when no one is reading it.  Ignorance about, indifference to any good news is the key.  Key to lock up words with power, creative and redemptive, persecuting and pursuing, speaking about our bads only because we are meant for good.

But that's only half of the story, my calling your attention to "these people."  How about the one in the mirror?  Why would we rather be told that we are all in a stinky game than to entertain the possibility of a good life well lived?  Why is "Squid Game" Netflix's biggest ever series launch?  When was the last time you spent hour after hour pursuing a vision of simple goodness? listening to words with power to speak powerfully into you and create a "global phenomenon" from the epicenter of your quaking heart?

Why?  It's my genuine question.  It is genuinely a question.

Yours