Sometimes, in the face of big problems in the world, doing everything we can do feels inadequate.
Consider this episode’s question, asked by Lexi in the Humanize Me Facebook Group:
“Today I find myself missing prayer. I just finished watching Last Week Tonight and it was about family separation. They played a clip of a child recently reunited with his mother and he was crying and saying she didn’t love him. It was absolutely heart wrenching. My helplessness weighs heavy on me tonight. I can give money and protest and vote but my it feels small. I used to spend moments like these in prayer and I would leave feeling as though I had somehow actually done something. It was a way for me to feel like I could shut the door on that grief and move through life like normal. But as I’m typing this I think that maybe that was my problem. I shouldn’t move on from this grief. I should feel it fully and find more actionable steps to prompt change.”
Bart Campolo begins a multi-faceted answer, but partway through begins to doubt his own wisdom on this. After some reassurance, we see it through to the conclusion: we should do whatever we can, and give ourselves a break about what we can’t.
