Writing about things that matter (to me)
Hey, friends! I'm sorry for breaking my regular posting schedule. I know you're not used to hearing from me on a Monday. I just wanted to let you know that Katherine and I are launching our wedding website, itsadundeel.com, today! That's where we'll be posting updates and details as we plan our wedding, so if you're interested in keeping up with all of that, be sure to check it out.
That's all for today. I'll see you back here tomorrow for a regularly-scheduled blog post!
Hey, friends! I wasn't able to write up a full article this week because I've been a little busy with a side project: planning a proposal! I put together an Easter egg hunt for my and Katherine's families on Sunday, and at the end, I asked her to marry me. She said yes!
You read that right. We're getting married! I'll put a few pictures from the proposal below, and I'll be sure to keep you posted throughout this entire process. This is something I've been dreaming about my whole life, and now that it's all happening, I couldn't be more excited!
Be on the lookout for more updates from me and Katherine in the near future, and be sure to check back here next week for a regular blog post. Have a great week, friends!
Last week, we talked about impermanence, the fact that nothing in this world remains the same over time. And it’s true that nothing we see or feel or create will last forever. But I hope I didn’t oversell impermanence to you, because there actually is at least one thing that will last forever: us.
We aren’t completely immune to the effects of change. After all, our bodies grow and develop over time, and our personalities change as well. But there is something core to each of us that remains throughout all of the growing, changing, and developing we go through. In my faith tradition, we call it the human soul. There are other words for it: true self, identity, essence.
Regardless of what you call it, it’s undeniable that there is something inside each of us that makes us who we are and does not change. That’s why you don’t call someone by a different name just because they grow a few inches or suddenly decide to change hobbies. That something is permanent, eternal endless. And it can be affected in profound ways by certain things. I thought that this week, we might talk about a few of them.
One of the things that sticks with us is the lessons we learn along the way. Whether it be through personal experience, study, passed-down wisdom, or observing others, we each pick up on certain truths as we go through life. These lessons shape us into who we are and change the way we interact with the world and with others. Sometimes, we learn a lesson that completely alters the trajectory of our lives. Other times, we learn tiny lessons that have more subtle, but nonetheless real, impacts. Regardless, these lessons are a part of who we are, and they go with us as we grow and change, and even when we die.
Another thing that sticks with us is grace, both the grace shown to us by others and the grace we ourselves choose to show. When someone gives us a gift or forgives us for something when we don’t deserve it, it shows us how deeply good humanity can be. And when we do the same for others, we share in that goodness in a powerful way. Grace makes us into more grateful, compassionate, empathetic people. In a word, it makes us better. And in that way, it has a permanent effect.
Of course, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention what I consider to be the greatest act of grace in all of the history: the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Jesus’ grace towards me has changed the way I live my life now as well as my eternal trajectory, and this one act has done so for millions of others, too. If you ever wonder what grace is or what it can do, Jesus is the perfect example to look to, and we would all do well to live into that grace and practice it in the way that he did.
Finally, love is the thing we do that has the most lasting impact of all. Loving others and being loved by them changes us at a fundamental level. Feeling loved by family, friends, and community allows us to feel secure and to be our truest selves. And loving others teaches us to sacrifice and give of ourselves in order to improve the lives of others. Love is the most wonderful and powerful thing that we humans can do, and when we choose to love, we are making an investment in people that will last forever.
So if you were a little discouraged by my explanation of impermanence last week, take heart. You do have an opportunity to do something that lasts forever, just not in the ways you might usually think. By sharing lessons, grace, and love with others, you can impact and form them in ways that will last far longer than anything you could ever earn or make. Because these things last an eternity, and what could be more meaningful than that?
There once was a Persian king who gave his wise men the most difficult of tasks: Come up with a statement that will always be true, no matter the circumstance, and inscribe it on a ring. This way, he could wear the ring and turn to it in times of uncertainty. After much time and consideration, the wise men came up with what they believed to be the universal statement, and they had it inscribed on the king’s ring. Excitedly, he placed the ring upon his finger and examined it to find out what his wise men had shared. And here’s what it said:
“This, too, shall pass.”
I’m not sure where that fable comes from. (I’m going to be honest: I got it from Sadie Robertson’s Instagram page.) And it doesn’t tell us what the king thought of the truth that his wise men brought to him. Maybe he was pleased with what it said because he took comfort in it. Or maybe he was enraged by his servant’s audacity to claim his reign wouldn’t last. Maybe he was scared by the truth of what his ring said. I don’t know. But I know that the more I think about their statement, the more I realize its truth. And its power.
Everyone knows deep down that nothing in this life is permanent. No circumstance lasts forever. No possession stays within grasp. And no person or connection remains unchanged for long. We live in a world of impermanence. Everything we have, everything we see, and everything we think makes us who we are will one day be gone. Even the very cells that make up our bodies are constantly dying and being replaced. Literally nothing we perceive lasts forever.
Most of us don’t like to think about that. Especially in the Western world, we tend to look at ourselves, our accomplishments, our possessions, and our ways of doing things and think, “This will last forever.” We try to accomplish goals and build monuments to leave our mark on the world and create something that will overcome the impending decay. But as Eastern wisdom has always known, and as human experience has come to teach us, there is no escaping death, irrelevance, or being forgotten. It happens to everyone and everything.
And though it might be jarring to recognize at first, this truth is actually quite comforting. It’s a reminder that the situation we find ourselves in at this moment is not where we’ll be for the rest of our lives. Our experiences are ethereal; they come, and they go. If you’re hurting, you can hope in the fact that you won’t hurt forever. If you’re disappointed or frustrated or unfulfilled or angry or just plain tired, don’t get bogged down in thinking that life has to be this way. This, too, shall pass.
This recognition that the way things are isn’t the way things have to be can both spur us to create change and allow us to accept the things we can’t change. When we overcome the tendency towards defeatism, we see that there are things about our circumstances that are within our power to change: our attitude, our reactions, our outlook. And that makes it easier to tolerate the things we don’t like but can’t change, and to trust that those things will change naturally in time.
But there’s a flip side to this truth as well: If the bad things will inevitably pass, so will the good things. If we’re lucky, we can remember a time in our lives when we were happy, care-free, and completely fulfilled. But most of us probably aren’t there now, and none of us can live in that place full-time. Because as great as life can be at times, something always sneaks in and causes issues.
This should inspire us to practice humility. When we are successful and things are going well, we must remember that they won’t always be this way. We can’t let our own pride trick us into thinking that we can always be happy. We can’t be. But if we recognize in the midst of our happiness that it isn’t going to last forever, we can at least enjoy it without becoming distraught whenever it does inevitably go away.
The key, I think, is found in the practice of non-attachment. It’s not that we don’t enjoy the good things in life or dislike the bad things. It’s that we don’t become too attached to any of those feelings, or for that matter, the things that cause those feelings. We can experience the highs and the lows of life in such a way that we aren’t so affected by them that they control us. We stay in control by keeping ourselves in check, and that is accomplished through remembering this simple truth.
As the band OK Go says in their catchy song (and impressive music video), “Let it go. This, too, shall pass.” That statement applies to both the bad things we experience and the good. The truth is that everything is going to change eventually. So we can’t cling to anything, lest it go away and we be left with nothing. But we can’t become completely detached from the world, either. Instead, we can hold on to things loosely, fully experiencing and being affected by them while recognizing that they will soon go away.
No matter where you find yourself, whether it’s in a good place or a bad place, I hope this post is encouraging to you. I’ve been intentional about practicing non-attachment in my own life for several years and found it to be incredibly helpful. Maybe you will, too. Just remember that no matter what you’re going through, whether you love it or hate it, it’s not going to stay the same forever. After all, this, too, shall pass.
Cussing. Swearing. Using wordy-dirds. Or as Captain America puts it, “Language!” Whatever you call it, profanity is a contentious topic. Some people balk at any reference to four-letter words, while others sprinkle them into conversation without missing a beat. Most people don’t even notice if a naughty word or two gets thrown around during a movie, but I know some who invest in special TV equipment just for filtering out foul language. They make some adults blush, most children giggle, and every stubbed toe feel just a little bit better. (Don’t act like you’ve never said one, at least in your head.)
And everyone has their own idea of what a cuss word is. We each have a list in our heads of words we’ll never, ever say, at least not in public. Is it OK to make references to profane words, maybe just by saying the first letter? What about writing out the first and last letters with funny characters in the middle? I’m sure most of us have used a word at some point that horrified a friend or family member who considered it a cuss word when we had no idea. It seems like we spend a lot of time thinking about and potentially trying to avoid this subjective list of words that have been deemed “bad” by society.
But what really makes these words bad, anyway? Sure, they’re impolite in many social circumstances. Some might even call them offensive. You probably wouldn’t use them in front of your grandma. And you certainly don’t want to say them in front of children who don’t understand how to read a room before opening their mouths. But is there anything about the words we consider “cuss words” that makes them innately negative or destructive?
I’m not trying to make light of these words or those who have strong opinions about them. I understand the inclination to avoid them. But lately, I’ve started to wonder if we’re focusing our attention on the wrong kinds of words. Because I’ve noticed that the people who spend the most time avoiding cussing tend to be the most likely to overlook something a lot more dangerous: slurs.
Slurs are words that are used to demean, dehumanize, or otherwise disrespect a human being or group of human beings, usually based on some sort of stereotype. For the sake of decency, I won’t give you a list, but you can probably think of a few yourself. These words are objectively, morally reprehensible because they are created and used to be hurtful. Their intention is to cause harm to someone else, something we all know that language can do. In short, these words are hateful, and that is what makes them bad words.
I’ll give one example, and I hope I handle it tastefully. I have been horrified by the rampant, relentless use in our culture of the r word. Originally used as a medical term to refer to someone with an intellectual disability, this word has been hijacked by popular culture and used to refer to someone who is stupid, foolish, or nonsensical. And that misappropriation, that use of the term as a way to insult another person, has rendered it a slur.
Many of us are privileged enough to have no experience whatsoever with the feelings of marginalization and devaluation that come with being identified with a word that’s used as a slur, and so it’s hard for us to picture what that’s like. But I’m asking you to try. Imagine that there was a word that described a characteristic that you did not choose and could not change. Something that made you different. Something that was a part of your identity that you could not get rid of. And then someone else, who doesn’t have that characteristic and experience, comes along and starts using that word in place of the word “idiot.” How would that make you feel? When I think about it, it makes me feel pretty low.
I’m not saying that people who use the r word mean to be hurtful by using it. They probably just picked it up from someone else and started using it without thinking about what it actually means. But here’s the thing: It doesn’t matter your intention. A slur is a slur, and it’s immensely hurtful to those affected by it.
We don’t have the right to look at someone who’s already had a rough go of it and say, “Your experience doesn’t matter. Only mine does.” That word doesn’t belong to us; it belongs to them. And when we take it and misapply it, it is an attack on the identities and self-esteems of people who have struggled enough as it is. People who have done nothing wrong. People who deserve our consideration and respect.
It’s an exercise in empathy, and that’s not an easy thing to do. I understand that. But if we’re going to be good, kind, loving people, monitoring our language and removing hate speech is a part of that. You can’t claim to love someone if you’re harming and marginalizing them with your words at the same time. Being sympathetic means recognizing the experiences of others as equally valuable as your own, and sometimes, that means adjusting the words you use to make the world a more welcoming place for others.
The r word is just one example, by the way. There are countless more, and we all use them, even if we don’t know it. It was recently brought to my attention that my use of the word “lame” to describe something that’s boring or disappointing is actually an ableist slur. At first, I thought (like many of you might have just now), “That’s ridiculous!” But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that using that word could make someone who’s disabled feel like they’re a bore or a disappointment, and I would never want to do that. Would you?
Some might ask, “If we start down this road of monitoring our language, when will it end?” And here’s my answer: It’ll end when we’ve removed every single insensitive, hateful slur from our language. Every last one. They have no place in decent society, and it’s wrong for us to participate in the marginalization of others. It may not matter that much to you because it doesn’t affect you or your loved ones personally, but it’s a daily struggle for those who’ve already been mistreated and cast aside already, as well as countless others who love them.
Ableism. Racism. Sexism. Classism. Ageism. We communicate all of these biases and more when we use slurs in our everyday language. I for one am committed to removing all of them from my speech, and I hope you will be, too. Avoiding cuss words is great if that’s what you feel led to do, but if you continue to allow this sort of hate speech into your conversation, then you’re still using bad words. Let’s agree to work together and remove them all, shall we?
