Witt's End

It's been a stressful time for many. I've been feeling that. And it's made the annual ritual of finding and expressing gratitude difficult for me. But I felt like I needed to give it an honest go.  Family, music, art, the landscapes I call home, our two cats, and my wife (so family again). I'm not as bad off as I think sometimes. And that's something.

I am in a new place. And it’s shocking how fast I got here. If you want to have a wake up call, re-examine your faults based on the harm they’ve caused others. Emotional, physical, spiritual. All the sudden your most common sins are not the absences in obvious conformity; no they’re the simple slights and harms to others. I just did this over the past weeks and let’s just say I feel really convicted by it. It's led me to a place where  I am completely reevaluating what it means for me to sin.  It’s startling to make realizations about how we treat others.  The worst damage is often a much smaller slight than we had imagined, or even unintentional. I’ve spoken in the past of the danger of rating sins. I still think that matters, especially when we judge others. But I’ve softened on how I feel about that when it comes to self evaluation. When we judge others we are often examining them in the abstract and out of context. We can’t pass judgement without complete knowledge of...

Soft hearted. Kind hearted. Those were things that were used as slightly insulting euphemisms about kindness. Those were criticisms bandied about by people whose opinions and praise I valued. The charges that brought those terms up, caring about people.  I used to be ashamed and embarrassed of my kindness. Truly I used to be ashamed about caring. Which in my faith now, the place I am now, feels insane. There’s nothing more Christlike about seeing suffering and doing what we can to relieve it. “If you do it to the least of these,” has echoed in brain since I heard it. Yet I used to be ashamed about trying to do that.  It’s funny because my entire adult life has turned into service, of some kind. I began with a mission. I went into the military, where I was a medic. I came out into healthcare. I still work in mental health and substance treatment, in a role requiring me to leverage my vulnerabilities and personal experiences. I have volunteered at a crisis line. My entire adult ...

The majority of members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints just voted for Donald Trump for President of the United States, again.  I’m not surprised but I am pretty confused. Again. Especially because their faith and the stances of the church are not always in line with Donald Trump’s. I’m giving the benefit of the doubt because we all have to compromise on policy. I just hope that regardless of who we voted for we can agree to support some of the specific policies the church endorsed that he does not. So I  have a few questions and examples here: First thing I would ask. How does Trump's policies align at all with the church's stances on immigration? Will you support the DACA recipients that are now under attack? What about his proposed mass deportations? His reductions of refugees? When Trump was serving his first term as president he opposed the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program (DACA). He reduced refugee admissions and legal immigration. ...