Amanda – People of Wonder

January 8, 2026November 30, 2025

Call Me a Heretic, But the Bible Isn’t What You Think It Is

“I love you,” she said, “I just don’t love what you’re doing. I mean, I love you, but I hate your sin.”

The “sin” she was talking about was me, as a woman, being a music pastor.

Meanwhile, she was the Sunday school superintendent and got to oversee male Sunday school teachers.

I went to college to become a church musician. I focused on music, church history, and undergraduate theology. I studied piano, organ, singing, choral directing, music composition, worship leading, and devotional writing. I worked on public speaking and took the honors leadership track to learn what it takes to lead in evangelical Christianity.

I was thoroughly trained and equipped for this position, and yet I was still “wrong” for being made in a woman’s body.

It would have been okay if I held the title of “organist,” but the title of pastor was, apparently, sacred and exclusive to men.

It was okay for me to sing in church, but not to speak. All because of two sets of verses: 1 Corinthians 14:34–35 and 1 Timothy 2:11–12, which state that the author (traditionally attributed to Paul) didn’t allow women to speak in church. Bible-purists take this literally, for all women, ignoring the complex context surrounding these verses.

In many evangelical circles you’re taught that the Bible is God’s actual words: infallible, inerrant, perfect, useful for every kind of teaching. Some will go so far as to say you don’t need anything else to understand life—everything you need is within the pages of the Bible. And you are not to question what the Bible says; you are to take it at face value. Literally. Women must remain silent and not have authority over men.

I find this view very confusing and contradictory. I mean, I certainly love the Bible—but not in the way they mean. I’m sure I’ll be called a heretic for this, but it won’t be the first time I’ve been ostracized for my beliefs, even when I considered myself conservative.

How can we say that God wrote the Bible when Paul explicitly says he wrote it? “See with what large letters I am writing to you with my own hand” (Galatians 6:11).

The Bible was written by people (with the exception of the Ten Commandments, which the story says God literally wrote on tablets of stone in Exodus).

What the Bible actually is, is a collection of writings from different people groups across different ages. These writings show how particular communities experienced and understood God.

One of my favorite examples of this is the story of Noah and the ark.

In seminary, we had to choose a text and build a case about whether that text was literal or allegorical. At the time, I would have taken Noah’s ark as a literal story. But the Bible isn’t a modern history book—it’s more like an oral history. That means a Bible story may be a story told to offer wisdom (like “the boy who cried wolf”), not a journalistic report.

Around the same time period as the Noah story, there were several different Mesopotamian flood myths. They all had similar themes: an angry god or gods destroyed the earth with a flood, and the hero of the story built a boat to survive. You’ll find these stories in the Epic of Gilgamesh, the Epic of Atra-Hasis, and the Sumerian Epic of Ziusudra. In Greek mythology, Zeus sends a flood and the hero and his wife survive in a wooden chest. There are similar stories in Hinduism and Mandaeism as well. In many of these stories, the gods are angry at humanity.

So what made the story of Noah’s ark different?

Noah’s ark takes the shared flood motif and spins it to show that Israel’s God is not just another angry, fickle deity. Noah is saved, and God puts a rainbow in the sky as a sign of a promise: never again will God destroy the earth by flood, showing that God is not angry with his people.

Whether or not someone reads it as strict history, it certainly functions as an epic reworking of a common ancient story to show that the Israelites viewed God differently than the surrounding cultures viewed their gods.

The challenge of the Bible, then, isn’t to try to apply all of it literally, but to discern what parts of the text are wisdom stories, what parts are poetry, what parts are law codes, letters, laments, etc.—and how each of those genres speaks to us. Jesus himself spoke in parables and stories, so why would we not expect something similar throughout the rest of Scripture?

But wait, there’s more.

The Bible wasn’t just handed to us by God as a leather-bound, complete edition. It evolved over years of community life in ancient Israel and the early church. The source material is complex—we have bits and pieces of manuscripts that don’t always add up neatly to a complete whole. Some of the sources and manuscripts are contradictory. Why? Because scribes made copies of copies, by hand.

There was no single, complete “master copy” to check their work against. They just copied the last copy they had. They made errors. They made word choices. They made their own adaptations. So if the source material sometimes contradicts itself, how can we say that the Bible is absolutely inerrant? If we know the scribes made mistakes, how can we insist there aren’t any?

Take some of the harshest lines about women. Many biblical scholars argue that the most restrictive passages—especially in 1 Timothy, and even a couple of debated verses in 1 Corinthians—may not reflect Paul’s own voice at all. The Pastoral Epistles are widely seen as written later in Paul’s name, which means the “women be silent” lines in 1 Corinthians were not a command made by Paul. If that’s true, then the verses that make women “less than” would be reflecting later church politics and patriarchy more than the heart of the gospel itself.

Modern-day translators also have a hard job. They want to be “true” to the text as much as possible, but there is still a lot of leeway in their translations. You might be surprised to learn that there is also a bit of biased marketing involved in Bible translation.

New translations of the Bible are always created with a particular audience or market in mind. Translation committees and publishers know the theology and expectations of the people they’re serving. And the wording of passages—especially controversial or “clobber” passages—is often shaped by those expectations. Basically, the difficult verses tend to get translated in ways that relate to the established theology of the denomination or group who is most likely to buy that Bible version.

Then there are other adaptations of the Bible over time. For example, the English word homosexual does not show up in a major Bible translation until 1946, in the Revised Standard Version. Before that, translators used other English words for the tricky Greek terms in those verses—things like “sodomites” or “abusers of themselves with mankind.” Many scholars argue that those ancient words referred to exploitative or abusive sexual practices—sex used as power over another—rather than mutual, loving same-sex relationships as we understand them today. But the introduction of the modern word homosexual into the text created a passage that was used to exclude certain people from church life, rather than love and include them.

So when someone tells me, “I love you, but I hate your sin,” while using this complicated, human, shaped-and-reshaped library of texts as a weapon—especially against women in ministry—I can’t help but ask:

Is the problem really me?
Or is it how we’ve chosen to read, translate, and wield the Bible?

Those hurtful words didn’t change my theology and they certainly didn’t make me repent. What they did do was chip away at my sense of worth and drive an unbridgeable wedge between that Sunday school superintendent and me. Because if we’re really trying to be true to the Bible’s deepest pulse, we won’t use it to squeeze people into our tiny boxes of “right” and “wrong.” We’ll stay open to how other communities and individuals actually encounter God, even when it doesn’t look like us.

And that, to me, is the beauty of the Bible. We don’t know God because He dropped a perfect rulebook out of the sky. We know God because generation after generation of people, from wildly different cultures and contexts, met something Holy and tried to name it. We get to listen in on all the different ways they experienced Him.

So if my call, my body, or my voice don’t fit someone’s narrow reading of Scripture, that doesn’t make me less called, less loved, or less faithful. It just means their view of God is too small—and I’m no longer willing to shrink my life to fit it.

January 7, 2026November 29, 2025

The Blessings and Challenges of Food Banks

I’ve been on the giving end and I’ve been on the receiving end. And in a dark time, a food bank can be a beacon of hope. I’m grateful for these community bright spots. They’re usually staffed with friendly volunteers who want you to be fed and feel good. They happily hand out boxes and bags, trying to make the world a better place one meal at a time. They are supportive and they are expert organizers. And they want to help you.

But it can be a bit… complicated for both the givers and the receivers.

Food banks gather food from a variety of sources. They collect and organize individual donations, and they pick up items from grocery stores that are expiring, not selling, discontinued, or can’t be sold for some other reason. It’s a lot of work.

It’s wonderful to get food when you’re hungry. But it can also be hard to feed a family with food bank food because you never know what you might expect.

Sometimes what you receive just isn’t easily usable. You might get a dozen sausages that didn’t sell because they were so hot and spicy that store shoppers didn’t want them. Now you’re looking at multiple meals of something you might not even be able to eat, much less feed to small children.

Maybe you get a box of Hamburger Helper, but one box isn’t enough for your family and you can’t afford the hamburger anyway, so it sits in your pantry waiting for a better month.

The store’s bananas weren’t kept at the right temperature, so legally, they couldn’t sell them. Now you have an entire box of just-starting-to-rot bananas sitting in your trunk, and the smell is so bad you can’t stomach them.

And sometimes there are treats—orange juice, limeade, even a blueberry pie once, though the top was smashed. You take what you get, because you need food. And you absolutely don’t want to be ungrateful, even though it hurts a little bit knowing the only treat you can afford to give your kids is a smooshed pie.

I’m not complaining, just trying to share a realistic picture of how food banks operate and how they need more funding and help to get people healthy, usable food.

Some months, you’ll get plenty of organic chicken breasts to stock your freezer, with creamy mustard sauce, and bags and bags of frozen green beans that your kids love. You get lots of dried beans, which are both healthy and shelf stable. Rice and pasta are a win, too, because they are easy to use and pretty universal.

But let’s be honest, it can be a challenge to create meals from the assortments you receive. It can also be fun to try something new and different that you might not have thought of otherwise.

Food banks really do the best they can with what they have. They distribute food as fairly, and to as many people, as possible. But they can only give out what shows up. That supply is unstable, and it isn’t always allergy-friendly or culturally appropriate. Much of it is what grocery stores couldn’t sell, or what people found in their own pantries that they didn’t want to eat either.

At the same time, the demand for food banks is increasing while the supply chain has become more volatile. Food insecurity is high, and prices for food, rent, and utilities have risen. That means more people need more help, more often. Donations are unpredictable, transportation costs have increased, and some USDA programs that supplied food banks have been paused or cut.

A lot of pantry food is ultra-processed and shelf-stable. Fresh food is harder to store and distribute because it requires refrigeration and time. Even when workers try to offer healthier options, the logistics are tough.

And getting food from a pantry isn’t always easy. It can mean hours waiting in line (sometimes missing work to so, which is a trade-off), limited pickup hours, complicated paperwork, and the embarrassment of needing help in public.

Food banks are essential emergency infrastructure, and many are innovating. But they can’t substitute for income supports and anti-poverty policy. The sharp edges you see—nutrition gaps, inconsistency, stigma, rationing—come from trying to solve a systemic problem with a voluntary, surplus-driven system.

Everyone wants to feel good about “sharing their food” by donating what’s been sitting in the back of the cabinet. I’m not saying that’s wrong. But if you really want to help your local food bank, consider giving cash. Your dollars go further because food banks have better purchasing power, and they can buy what people actually need—fresh staples, culturally familiar foods, allergy-safe options—rather than hoping those things show up by chance.

Food banks are a lifeline. They bridge the gap for people whose SNAP benefits aren’t enough, and for people who don’t qualify but still need help. We should support them—while also pushing for the structural changes that would make them less necessary in the first place.

January 5, 2026November 29, 2025

The Sunday School Trauma that Shaped My Politics

I was raised in a conservative evangelical family. And like a lot of typical evangelical kids, I was shown graphic images of abortions from an early age. Those photos were gory, bloody, and seared into my brain. It was indoctrination under the guise of education. It worked. I grew up repulsed by abortion. I was determined never to have one.

But I don’t believe abortion should be illegal.

My religious upbringing gave me trauma, not ownership over other people’s bodies. I can live with my own convictions without turning them into laws that bind strangers.

Evangelicals often insist abortion is “clearly unbiblical” because “life begins at conception.” But the Bible is not as clear as the slogans. Scripture never plainly says that conception is the moment a fertilized egg gains full personhood. It doesn’t spell out when a soul arrives. There is no verse that reads, “At conception, a full human life begins.” That certainty comes from church tradition—tradition treated like eternal truth even when it isn’t.

In fact, abortion wasn’t even a major evangelical political talking point until the late 1970s. Before that, conservative evangelical leaders were mobilizing around a different cause: protecting segregation and the private Christian schools built to preserve it. When the IRS and courts moved against racially discriminatory schools’ tax-exempt status, evangelical power brokers fought back. Figures like Jerry Falwell and strategists like Paul Weyrich helped organize what became the Religious Right in response to that threat. As segregation became publicly indefensible, conservative strategists sought a new banner to unite followers—something emotionally charged and more palatable. They found it in abortion. They framed it as “defending the sanctity of life,” proof-texted the Bible to support their position, and rallied people with fear and horrific pictures. Historians document this shift clearly, even while noting it was part of a larger political realignment. (Bloomberg School of Public Health)

Even inside the Bible, the moral framework evangelicals claim isn’t as obvious as they pretend. Scripture repeatedly uses “breath” as a marker of life—God forms humanity and then breathes life into it.

And in the world of ancient Israel, women and children were not treated as fully independent individuals in the way we understand personhood today. That’s horrific to modern ears, but it matters for interpretation. In the legal codes, the penalty for murder is death; the penalty for causing a miscarriage is not death but a fine—compensation for loss. Translation debates exist, but many scholars see this as evidence that fetal personhood was not treated as legally identical to a born person in that context. (Bloomberg School of Public Health)

Some people point to the Numbers 5:11-31 passage as “God showing how to cause an abortion.” I don’t think that text is meant to be clinical instruction, and I’m not using it as a proof that the Bible is necessarily pro-abortion- the intent of that passage is something else entirely. My point is simpler: the Bible does not clearly teach what modern Christian activists say it teaches about conception. If someone wants to believe life begins at conception on theological grounds, that’s their right. But it is not honest to claim the text makes that belief unavoidable.

Which brings me to the real issue: separation of church and state. We cannot create laws that control a woman’s body based on one religious tradition—especially when that tradition isn’t universally agreed upon even inside Christianity. The United States was founded on freedom of religion, not on enforcing any one faith’s doctrines through criminal law. We are not a fundamentalist Christian nation. Treating us like one endangers people whose beliefs—or bodies—don’t fit the mold.

And that danger isn’t theoretical.

Since abortion bans expanded after Dobbs, women have been denied or delayed emergency care because they were pregnant. Hospitals and clinicians fear prosecution if a life-saving treatment could be interpreted as ending a pregnancy, so care gets postponed until women are closer to death. Investigations and medical reporting show this pattern across multiple states—and it has already cost lives.

When lawmakers write pregnancy into criminal law, medicine becomes a legal minefield and women become collateral damage.

The same kind of dishonesty shows up in the war on Planned Parenthood. Federal funds have been barred from paying for most abortions for decades under the Hyde Amendment. (CDC)

So the push to defund Planned Parenthood isn’t about taxpayer-funded abortions. It’s about shutting down a place where millions of women get basic healthcare—contraception, STI treatment, and cancer screening. When those clinics lose funding, women lose preventive care, unintended pregnancies rise, and lives get riskier, not safer.

Pregnancy itself can also be dangerous in ways pro-life politics rarely names. For women in domestic-violence situations, one of the most lethal times in their lives is during pregnancy. Pregnancy can escalate control, trap women, and raise the risk of homicide.

A law that forces a woman to remain pregnant can also force her to remain in a violent situation.

And this is where the label “pro-life” collapses under its own weight. Because so much of what passes for “pro-life” politics is really just pro-birth—laser-focused on controlling pregnancy, and strangely indifferent to what happens to children once they’re actually here.

If your moral vision is truly about protecting life, you don’t stop caring at the delivery room door. You care about kids who are hungry, kids who need healthcare, kids whose parents can’t afford childcare. And you certainly care about kids who are being shot and killed in their classrooms. Firearms have been the leading cause of death for U.S. children and teens in recent years, surpassing car crashes and cancer. (Bloomberg School of Public Health)

And the country keeps logging staggering levels of gunfire in and around schools: the 2023–2024 school year was among the worst on record, and incidents on school grounds have remained extremely high. (Everytown Support Fund)

So the irony is brutal. Many of the same politicians who call themselves “pro-life” while banning abortion also block or undermine the kinds of gun reforms that medical organizations and policy research associate with fewer child deaths—universal background checks, safe-storage/child-access-prevention laws, and closing private-sale loopholes. (PMC)

Even when reforms are proposed, they are often stalled or actively resisted by conservative lawmakers and officials. (Roll Call)

They’ll force a woman to carry a pregnancy, but won’t fight nearly as hard to keep that child alive at school. That’s not a consistent ethic of life. It’s a selective one—paid for with children’s bodies.

What makes me furious is that the politicians working hardest to ban abortions are often the same ones trying to cut the programs that help women not need abortions in the first place: affordable healthcare, food support, housing stability, living wages, paid leave, and childcare. Outlawing abortion doesn’t erase the reasons women seek it. It just forces those reasons into darker, more dangerous corners.

Abortion bans don’t end abortion. They change who gets a safe one. Global public-health bodies are blunt: restricting abortion does not reliably reduce its incidence, but it does increase unsafe abortions and maternal harm.

Wealthy people will always have a means to get an abortion even if it’s illegal. They can travel, pay privately, and hire attorneys if they need to. For the rest of us, if we’re in desperate circumstances that necessitate an abortion, we’ll end up turning to unsafe measures because our lives depend upon it. That’s not moral. That’s class warfare disguised as virtue.

And yes, some people say, “Just don’t have sex.” But that advice ignores reality, especially the reality many evangelical women are raised in. I was taught that I was personally responsible for my husband’s faithfulness. That it was my job to fill his needs whenever, however—and whether or not I wanted to. In that culture, abstinence isn’t a simple choice. The integrity of your marriage is treated as depending on your compliance. Saying “just don’t have sex” is not a policy; it’s a refusal to see women’s reality.

So what happens when a girl is too young to safely have a baby? What happens when a child is abused and becomes pregnant? Forcing her to give birth isn’t “pro-life.” It’s forcing her to risk her body, carry trauma she didn’t choose, and then potentially have to co-parent with the man who harmed her. It ties her future to violence. How are we not angrier about that?

I may never choose abortion for myself. That is my right. What I refuse to support is making my trauma and my theology into someone else’s.

You can be morally uneasy about abortion and still refuse to criminalize women. You can value life and still value the living women who carry it. And you can follow your faith without turning it into law.

If you truly want to put an end to abortions, then let’s put an end to government control of women’s bodies and work towards eradicating the reasons women need them.

January 2, 2026November 29, 2025

When Being Poor Becomes a Show

Poor people aren’t zoo animals. Stop inspecting their carts, filming their food bank lines, and acting like unpaid auditors of their survival.

As a foster mom, my caseworker insisted that we take advantage of WIC benefits for our kids in care. She said they were eligible and that it was our job to use it on their behalf.

So I dutifully took my WIC checks to Walmart and spent hours—with small active kids in tow—trying to make the best decisions for them. Fast forward to checkout, where the cashiers clearly hated dealing with WIC checks.

“I’ve got another WIC here,” they’d yell with a big sigh to the manager.

“Fine, I’ll come check out the WIC person,” they’d snort back.

People behind me would huff and groan and stare at the purchases in my cart. I could feel their glares, see them examining the items I chose, all while my littles squirmed and wiggled.

It wasn’t the kids’ fault. Yet here we were, being made a spectacle of, pointed out for the entire checkout area to watch.

The Pumpkin Scandal

I was reminded of this recently when a disabled creator online talked about how she got flack for buying a pumpkin with her SNAP benefits. A pumpkin, for goodness’ sake. It sparked immediate controversy and judgment. How dare she buy something as much fun as a pumpkin! (Personally, I thought it was a great idea – edible decorations? That’s getting more for your money).

The problem isn’t the government providing help.

The problem is the public’s self-appointed role as auditor and judge.

The judgment strips recipients of their autonomy and humanity. The message is clear: if you need assistance, you don’t deserve dignity. You certainly don’t deserve to experience joy.

If you shop with SNAP or WIC and have certain items in your cart, you are going to be judged. Don’t you dare buy soda, cookies, processed food, or, by golly, something seasonal that could be mistaken for a decoration. You’ll get judged if you do.

Because if you’re poor, people act like you’re only “allowed” the bare essentials, and they must be perfectly healthy choices. Never mind that less nutritious, highly processed foods are often cheaper per calorie than “healthy” foods, and that many low-income neighborhoods (often referred to as food deserts), have little or no convenient access to stores with fresh food at all.

Why do onlookers feel entitled to judge other people’s food choices? Is it because you’re using “my tax dollars” to buy that? Does contributing to taxes give me the right to dictate what you consume with YOUR body?

Who gets to decide what someone else eats?

You wouldn’t walk up to a stranger in a coffee shop and tell them they shouldn’t be eating that pastry. So why are we blowing up the internet with judgment over another adult’s decision on what to eat?

There’s also this unspoken rule that recipients of aid need to “look” or “act” poor to be deserving of help. You’re not supposed to look happy. You’re not supposed to have pleasure or joy. Your food choices are reduced to survival only—you must live on rice and beans and be thankful.

So when a SNAP beneficiary purchases a non-essential, the reaction is anger. Anger that “their” money, their hard-earned tax dollars, are being spent on something as “wasteful” as joy.

Why is it okay for the wealthy to make frivolous choices – yachts, multiple vacation homes, fancy cars – while every dollar the poor spend is scrutinized and picked apart? Why does this double standard exist?

This kind of judgment ignores the reality that food access is restricted, and that in many areas, especially urban ones, high-calorie, processed foods are the cheapest way to stave off hunger.

We aren’t arguing over “issues.”

We are arguing over human beings.

Snap Qualifications

Our government has already decided that if you meet specific criteria—mainly having a low enough income for your household size—then you qualify for help. That process is done. No need to judge. No need to defame. No need to put people down.

The government already decided these folks need and deserve assistance. There’s no need to re-vet them in the checkout line. There’s no need for you, a passerby, to inspect their cart or silently decide if they deserve it. No point in shaming them on social media. It’s already been done.

And then there’s poverty as spectacle.

The local news channel recently showed up at a mobile food bank, filming people without consent and even asking for interviews. I find this reprehensible.

Spotlight the food bank? Yes, please. They are good people doing good work, and it’s important to show where people can find resources.

But betraying the privacy of folks who need help—during a time when people needing assistance are already subject to scrutiny, judgment, and scorn? That’s a big no for me. We can do much better than news crews filming vulnerable people in line at food banks without truly informed consent.

A person waiting in line at the food bank can’t just walk away to stay off camera—they need that assistance. And if it’s a car line, there is no room to drive away before being recorded anyway. It’s unfair to force media on them just to show the world, “Hey, look, this person needs help!” especially when people needing assistance are so harshly criticized.

Exposing recipients of aid isn’t good journalism. It’s poverty voyeurism, feel-good charity content that brings in views but doesn’t actually help anyone. It’s a massive invasion of privacy that can put them in harm’s way.

Stop the Judgement

I know you don’t like other people questioning your choices, so please don’t do it to someone else. Don’t analyze the shopping carts of someone who holds an Access card. Don’t huff and puff at people pulling out their WIC folder. Aren’t we all just trying to make it through the day?

If you have more than someone else, you have the power and the responsibility to help them, not the right to analyze and judge their choices.

I’ve said it before and I will keep saying it: your anger is misdirected.

The problem isn’t the poor.

The problem is corporate greed and policies that keep wages low, rents high, and healthy food out of reach.

If you’re angry, aim that anger at the systems that make it so millions of working people need SNAP and medical assistance just to survive.If you don’t like that so many people need help, do something that makes it possible for working people to earn a living wage.

The measure of our society isn’t how well we police the poor, but how hard we work to make poverty unnecessary. How are you going to help?

January 1, 2026November 29, 2025

Your View of God Doesn’t Come from the Bible

Your inner view of God probably doesn’t come from the Bible, not completely. How we understand and interact with God has been shaped by the relationship we had with our parents or caregivers from a young age.

We’re basically handed our “first God” in how our parents (or primary caregivers) relate to us. Later, people tell us about the God of the Bible, but deep down our nervous system is like, “Oh, you mean Someone like mom/dad?” and just copies and pastes.

Think about how you view God – what is God like to you? Do you feel like God is out there somewhere, watching from a distance? Or perhaps God is just waiting for you to make a mistake and sentence you to some horrible punishment? Or does God feel like a sweet grandpa, always loving, offering up an occasional treat?

Here are some examples to consider:

The Harsh God

If your parents were strict, harsh, or critical and unpredictable, perhaps you received lots of criticism but not much positive affirmation. Love felt conditional to you, based on behavior, getting good grades, always required to be pleasant. Perhaps punishments felt harsh, random, or your parents had issues with anger coming out of nowhere.

If this were your experience, you might feel like God is constantly evaluating whether you are following the ‘rules’ in the Bible. God feels strict, and you are always afraid of making a mistake. Prayer might feel like a performance rather than a conversation. You often find yourself apologizing and repenting. You might be really worried about sin.

Chances are, your parents didn’t make you feel safe, and you unconsciously apply that to God.

The Distant God

Maybe your parents were emotionally distant, unavailable, or just absent altogether. Perhaps they provided well for you, but you didn’t feel seen. Or maybe your family didn’t ever talk about emotions, and you had to keep your feelings to yourself. Or maybe your parents worked a lot, or divorce or illness kept them from parenting the way you needed.

If this resonates with you, even just a little, you might think God is far away and hard to connect with. Maybe you hold to the core beliefs of your denomination, but can’t help feeling that “God has more important things to do than care about my stuff.” Prayers feel like you’re talking to thin air, not to a present God. You might not expect God to listen or answer at all.

It’s like, if your parents didn’t see your needs, why would you even think that God would?

The Controlling God

Then again, maybe your parents were controlling or overprotective. This might look like lots of rules, lots of helicopter parenting, and independence was dangerous.

This could make you feel like God is that cosmic helicopter parent- always watching you, but mostly to stop you from doing something. You’re constantly seeking God’s approval and afraid to make decisions without a sign from God. You feel guilty about wanting to be independent or grow. Your spiritual life feels like you have to fit into a purity box.

You might feel like God doesn’t trust you to make good decisions because your parents didn’t allow you to grow.

The Moody God

Then again, maybe your parents felt inconsistent or like they had two sides or two modes. Maybe they were really warm and loving sometimes, but scary and cold at other times. Maybe you never knew which version you would get. You felt like you had to walk on eggshells, or you were always waiting for the other shoe to drop.

If this sounds like you, maybe God feels moody and unstable. You’re constantly worrying about making God mad, as if one wrong move will flip the switch from love to anger. You’re always trying to figure out if God is pleased with what you’re doing or mad. You might feel like love – especially God’s love – is unstable.

The Loving and Safe God

What if your parents were really loving, steady, and safe?

You were allowed to feel your feelings, and they were validated. Your parents probably apologized if they made a mistake. You were disciplined well, but it wasn’t scary or shameful. You knew you could make mistakes and still be loved.

You’re more likely to find that God is reliably loving, not just theoretically loving. You are comfortable being your real self with God, and can bring your doubts, struggles, and worries to Him. Your parents felt steady, and so does God.

There are all ‘caricatures’ of parenting styles, and chances are, you experienced a little bit of a mix of them. No, parents are not perfect, and I am not one to blame all our problems on them. Most parents are just doing their best, and as adults, we are responsible for who we become. But it does help us understand our emotional and spiritual patterns and how we relate to God.

Why Is This Important

This is important for a few reasons. First of all, our early childhood impressions of our parents were pre-verbal, so this affects our nervous system and our underlying view of God. You might say “God is love” and believe it, but deep down you think, “He just doesn’t really love me.” Or you feel you need to follow a bunch of rules to be spiritually mature or to be loved by God. You’re afraid God is going to get mad and punish you eternally, or you think God doesn’t care what you do.

But this doesn’t just affect you. It affects how you see others, too. A church might say they are welcoming, but only if you agree to act like them or follow their idea of what the Bible says. And this feels normal because your parents were overly controlling. But this also ostracizes people and excludes them from getting to know God.

If your parents shamed you when they disciplined you, you might feel ashamed to show up at church after a bad week. Or perhaps you feel anger or disdain for someone else, you made a mistake- you can’t interact with them because they might taint you in God’s eyes.

Where Do We Go From Here

There are many ways our view of God shapes our view of others. And it is really hard to read the Bible without these internal biases that we project onto God. It’s also really hard to see for ourselves.

We need to read our Bible with open eyes, rather than reading to confirm our current biases. This is hard work, and it isn’t fun to shake up what we’ve always thought to be true. We need to listen to others and be open to a different view of theology. You are not going to be tainted by listening to someone who thinks or believes differently from you – in fact, it might change you or reinforce what is true.

We also need to read the Bible and see how God actually views us. No matter how good or loving your parents are, God is infinitely more good and infinitely more loving. Fear, shame, disdain, hurt, betrayal, illness – none of those things ever ever come from God, and if you are subconsciously applying that belief to yourself or someone else, that is a belief that needs to change.

December 31, 2025November 29, 2025

Beyond the Canned Food Drive: Are Churches Settling for Feel-Good Charity?

I love seeing churches care for their communities. I love that people are giving, sharing, encouraging, and showing up for others. Every week I see food drives, donation bins, and outreach efforts in order to relieve suffering. It makes people feel good. It makes people feel they’ve done their part.

And yes, it helps — and yes, we should keep doing it. But after years of working in and with churches, I can’t help but ask: is it enough? Or have we settled for a kind of “token” charity that lets us check the box of “helping the poor” so we can feel better about ourselves?

That may sound harsh, but I mean it sincerely. It’s not that these efforts are bad. They’re good and necessary. But what if they’ve become a way for us to feel comforted rather than challenged? What if we’re soothing our consciences without addressing the deeper issues that keep people poor, hungry, or homeless?

Because let’s be honest: the systemic realities of poverty, inequality, and marginalization are not being solved by a few cans of soup. Sometimes it feels like we’re putting a Band-Aid on a gaping wound — and calling it ministry.

Jesus Wasn’t a Band-Aid Healer

Jesus didn’t come to patch things up; He came to turn the world upside down. And when He began His ministry, in a rather surprising move, He quoted the prophet Isaiah:

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because He has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor.” — Luke 4:18

His first priority was the poor and the oppressed. That’s not a side note in His message — it is His message.

And when He spoke about judgment in Matthew 25, He didn’t divide people by wealth, knowledge, or even belief. The dividing line was simple: “Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.”

For Jesus, caring for the poor wasn’t charity — it was personal. When you feed the hungry, you feed Him. When you give the thirsty water, you serve Him. And when you ignore those needs, you ignore Him.

Jesus also had strong words for the wealthy and comfortable. Remember the rich young ruler? Jesus told him to sell everything and give to the poor — not just a little, not just the extras, but everything (Matthew 19:21). That story makes us squirm in our seats because we really like our creature comforts. We’ve heard the story so often that we forget how radical it is.

Charity or Justice?

This is where the modern church often gets it wrong. We have become proponents of charity, but we’ve grown timid about justice.

Charity is giving a can of soup to a hungry person. It’s immediate, necessary, and good. It relieves suffering.

Justice asks why that person is hungry in the first place — and then works to change the system that keeps them hungry.

Charity treats the symptom. Justice seeks to cure the disease. We need both.

The “feel-good” model of church allows us to practice charity without ever having to sacrifice. We can donate our extras, write a small check, or give away last season’s coats. It costs us little. It doesn’t challenge our comfort, our habits, or our politics.

But this isn’t the gospel. Jesus didn’t die so that we could feel generous — He died to transform the world.

The Call to Transformative Justice

The gospel is not just about being kind to the poor — it’s about being in community with them.

Jesus didn’t serve people from a distance. He lived among them. He ate with them. He listened to them. Philippians 2:6–8 reminds us that Jesus left His divine privilege and became human — not to look down on us, but to walk beside us.

If that’s what Christ did, why do we so often build walls instead of bridges? Why do we, who have been given so much, feel entitled to more than those who struggle?

Justice calls us to more than generosity — it calls us to solidarity. It invites us to use our buildings, our budgets, and our influence to challenge systems that perpetuate poverty and inequality.

Imagine if our churches weren’t just centers of charity, but engines of justice.

What If We Actually Did What Jesus Said?

What if the church decided to move beyond “feel-good” giving and started living as good news for the poor?

What if, in addition to running food pantries, we used our buildings to host job training, financial literacy, and ESL programs?

What if we leveraged our collective voice to advocate for affordable housing, fair wages, and better-funded public schools?

What if we stopped “giving to” the poor and started partnering with them — building real, long-term relationships based on mutual respect and love?

That kind of work is difficult. It’s uncomfortable. It’s messy. It’s political. It requires listening to stories that challenge our assumptions and policies that stretch our compassion.

It’s easy to hand out a few cans from our pantry. It’s much harder to walk alongside someone who is hungry — to learn their name, to share a meal, to see the world through their eyes.

But that’s the work Jesus calls us to.

The Cost of Real Compassion

True compassion will always cost us something. It will cost our comfort. It will cost our time. It will sometimes cost our reputation.

Charity makes us feel like heroes. Justice reminds us we’re neighbors.

The early church understood this. They didn’t just give handouts — they shared everything they had so that “there were no needy persons among them” (Acts 4:34). Their love was radical, their generosity sacrificial, and their witness powerful.

Imagine if the modern church looked like that again — not just known for what we’re against, but for the deep, dangerous love we live out in the world.

So, Is It Enough?

It’s time for some deep self-reflection. Is our church’s “help” for the poor just enough to make us feel good — or is it enough to make a real, lasting change?

If the church dares to live like Jesus — to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly — then maybe the world would finally see Him not just in our charity, but in our courage.

Because Jesus didn’t come to make us comfortable. He came to make us compassionate.

And compassion, when it’s real, always leads to justice.

December 30, 2025November 29, 2025

The Shaming of Single Moms

Today’s social media tragedy was a mom on Threads bashing single moms for ‘living off the system’ and getting thousands of dollars in SNAP, WIC, and LIHEAP benefits. This stigma isn’t just unfair, it’s rooted in outdated ideas and stereotypes and totally ignores the structural barriers single mothers face. As a single mom, I can tell you just how hard it is to work while being the primary parent without family support.

Where Did the Stigma Start?

Well, traditionally, the nuclear family (a mom, a dad, and a couple kids) was considered the perfect family. And until the 70s and 80s, many women were trapped in bad marriages because they couldn’t have a bank account in their name, couldn’t necessarily own property, and could be excluded from a job simply for being a woman. Our grandmas’ marriages weren’t ‘better’ – our grandmas were trapped because they had no options to survive without a husband.

When women finally could leave bad marriages, society didn’t celebrate their independence—it vilified it. Ronald Reagan started the stereotype of the ‘welfare queen’ on his political platform, and sadly, it stuck around. Even today, the media often portrays single moms as being irresponsible or a big drain on their community.

But here’s the thing. Women simply don’t leave good marriages. Divorce is hard; divorce with kids is even harder. If a woman has left a marriage, there’s a reason.

I can’t stand the thought that says “if you can’t pay for your kids, you shouldn’t have had them.” Okay, well, no one gets married and has kids expecting to end up a single mom. It just doesn’t work like that, but roughly 40 to 50% of marriages end in divorce, with the rate of divorce for second marriages being even higher according to Census and Pew Research data. And if the person you are marrying isn’t already a parent, you cannot possibly know how they will be as a parent. You might think you do, but there is actually no way to know for sure.

There are some harsh realities in our society that many don’t want to admit, especially conservatives who ascribe to a more patriarchal view of marriage.

The Pay Gap Is Real

Women still get paid less than men. Women make roughly 80 to 85% of what men make “depending on dataset (BLS, Pew). Women still bear the brunt of childcare responsibilities, even when they are married. And women are still more likely to stay home with their kids and experience career disruption, which makes it hard to return to the workforce if they end up divorced.

In a divorce situation, trends are showing that roughly 80% of mothers are the primary custodial parent. That means the moms have the kids most of the time, are primarily responsible for their day to day physical, health, and educational needs, and the dads legally are not required to take their parenting time. That leaves 50/50 custody to just a few – around the 20% mark.

Childcare Costs Are Astronomical

In 2023, the average US cost for childcare was $11,600 for one child for the year. It isn’t much better for school age children because it’s much harder and more expensive to find childcare that covers random half days, holidays, and you certainly aren’t going to find someone to stay home with their kids when they are sick.

That’s like paying an $11,000 tax per kid just to go to work.

In my family, which is larger than most, we generally have one doctor/dentist appointment per week, and from October to March, we typically have one child home sick per week. That’s a lot of missed school – and work. How is a mom supposed to hold down a full-time professional job if she has to miss that much work? Especially considering she didn’t choose to be a single mom – who would? Unless being single was significantly better than being married.

And since many moms, who sacrificed their careers to manage the kids and households so their husbands could have a career, find themselves going back into a job after not working, they aren’t going to just start getting professional level pay. And if you have to work around your kids’ schedules, you’re going to have to make even more compromises on what kind of a job you can take. Jobs that are flexible enough to work around kids don’t pay well.

Let’s Break It Down

For example, even working for the school district as a food service worker – you probably only make $14 to $16 an hour. Walmart – $18-$20. Amazon delivery- $20-$22.

If you made $20 an hour full-time with no missed days, you’d have about $41,000 gross. Minus taxes, you’d have about $36,000 left. Subtract $11,000 for childcare, and you’re done to $25,000 for the year. A little over $2,000 per month. Rent is easily $1500 per month. The USDA suggested amount for groceries – the bare minimum – $432 for a mom and a child. So just covering the cost of childcare, food, and housing leaves you with about $68 per month to cover utilities (heat and electric), health insurance, copays, school expenses, oh and you need transportation to work!

She may get a little child support, but that’s probably only several hundred dollars – according to the US Census Bureau, the average payment is $430 per month, if it comes in consistently. There is a lot of resentment towards paying child support. That’ll cover sneakers, clothes, sports fees, and school supplies. We all know that doesn’t go very far.

It isn’t doable. And that isn’t the mom’s fault – it’s that the entire system is stacked against her from the very moment she got pregnant. She isn’t mooching – she’s pinching every single penny and still not able to make it work.

Safety Nets

This is why our government has safety nets like SNAP, WIC, and LIHEAP. This is to help families, the disabled, the elderly – who just can’t survive. This is the government recognizing that many full-time jobs do not pay enough to survive on.

It’s sad that we shame single moms for needing help. They didn’t choose to have to live this way and the whole welfare queen stigma is a farce (a political stereotype that’s been kept alive for decades, often for partisan gain) even though fraud rates are incredibly low.

Let’s stop framing poverty as a moral failure. It isn’t. It’s a systemic problem that needs to be addressed at the corporate level. Let’s stop shaming single moms for not being able to work a full-time professional job while single-handedly raising kids. There just isn’t enough flex time, PTO, and vacation time to make that feasible.

Instead of looking down on single moms, get to know one. Offer to babysit (if appropriate), pick up groceries, mow the yard, teach a kid to drive, or help with school carpooling. And most of all, when you hear single moms being shamed, speak up! I promise – they’re doing their best to survive and raise some really good humans.

Single moms aren’t drains on society—they’re proof of its resilience.

When we invest in them, we invest in children, stability, and the future.

The real shame isn’t that moms need help—it’s that we make them feel ashamed for asking.

Edited: Shoutout to Jenn Riedy for catching my child support error! The average amount across the US is $430 per month, but that amount can vary widely depending on the number of kids, parents’ incomes, etc.

December 26, 2025November 29, 2025

Why Does America Hate Snap?

Scroll through any social feed and you’ll see the same fight: who ‘deserves’ help eating?

America. The wealthiest country in the world. The country whose capital is getting a golden ballroom. And the country that still debates whether hungry people deserve to eat. SNAP is under fire; it helps millions, yet it’s highly stigmatized to the point that everywhere you look, people are arguing about this much-needed safety net.

How is this evening happening? I guarantee that someone you know – and probably someone you like – is in a position to need them. They just don’t talk about it because of the stigma, vitriol, and misinformation from people who argue without doing their research.

Hopefully, by now, we all know that SNAP is federal nutrition assistance for low-income individuals and families. Its scope is quite large, considering that over 40 million Americans rely on it. That’s about 1 in 8 people. I’m sure you know more than 8 people, so there are probably a number of people that you know who quietly rely on SNAP. Maybe if you knew who they were, you’d have more compassion.

SNAP mostly benefits children, seniors, people with disabilities, and working families who struggle to bring in enough money. SNAP is just a supplement, though; it doesn’t fully cover food costs.

Myths That Won’t Die

I’ve heard so many tired arguments over why people should not be on SNAP. Misconceptions like:

• Most people on SNAP don’t work.

• It’s full of fraud and abuse.

• It’s a handout for people who won’t help themselves.

• It’s easy to qualify and live off the system.

• People are buying steak and lobster.

• They don’t want to pay for someone else to get free stuff.

But the truth is:

• Many recipients are employed, but their low-wage jobs don’t cover necessities. Corporations depend on SNAP to cover the difference so they can pay their employees less and get a tax break for doing so.

• Fraud rates are actually very low, as low as 1-2%. Most fraud comes from people skimming SNAP benefits. And once benefits are stolen, they’re not reimbursed.

• Most benefits go to children, people with disabilities, or older adults who cannot work.

• SNAP benefits average around $6 per person per day. That’s not enough to feed a person; it just helps.

So Why Are People So Angry?

So why all the resentment? It’s not really about the food.

• In America, poverty is framed as a personal or moral failure. If you’re poor, it’s your own fault for not working hard enough. You should suffer because you didn’t do the right things or you made bad choices. But that’s not actually true; poverty is a systemic issue because wages don’t keep up with the cost of living.

• I see a lot of hidden resentment. Some people feel left out for not getting the ‘free handouts’, so they have a deep-rooted “what about me attitude” that just fuels their hostility. Why should someone else get a handout when I work so hard?

• SNAP has gotten stuck in partisan identity. It’s becoming a political symbol, divided along party lines, rather than a practical tool to fight hunger.

• Racial and Class bias is fueled by stereotypes about who uses assistance, which just amplifies the stigma and the anger surrounding it.

• Media distortion portrays high rates of fraud that aren’t actually there. But people get angry thinking their tax dollars are being wasted on criminals.

The Application Gauntlet

The application process is not easy. You can file online, but the website is not very intuitive at all. The questions are complicated. You need to provide your income, your expenses, citizenship, criminal history, bank statements, assets, utility bills, W-2s, child support, and proof of all of it.

Different supervisors have different interpretations of what counts as evidence, so if you are self-employed or have adopted children, things can get very complicated. Then you have to do an interview, which can be done over the phone. But if you miss the call, you usually can’t call them back directly. You have to leave a message with the call center and wait for them to contact you again.

If your situation is complex, you may need to talk to the supervisor a few times. But you can never directly call a caseworker or supervisor. It takes about an hour to get through on the main number; they take a message for you and present it to the caseworker, who will call you back within 3 days. If you miss the call because you are working, it can take a long time to actually speak to a real person.

A lot of people never apply because the process is so overwhelming, and they may not even realize they are eligible. It usually takes a month for benefits to begin.

If you see figures flying around online, they usually use the ‘max amount’ as evidence that people get ‘too much’ SNAP. But almost no one gets the max amount. It’s usually around $6 per person per day, which is very little compared to today’s cost of groceries. But SNAP is awarded on a sliding scale: higher income means fewer SNAP benefits, and lower income means more SNAP benefits. So someone just below the threshold may only get a few dollars in assistance each month, yet people get upset about that.

The Real Numbers

• About 41 million Americans use SNAP (roughly 1 in .

• Around 65% of recipients are children, seniors, or people with disabilities.

• Fraud rates are under 2%.

• Economic benefit: Every $1 in SNAP generates about $1.50–$1.80 in economic activity through grocers and local economies.

• Lifting power: SNAP kept nearly 3 million people out of poverty in 2022.

• Undocumented immigrants do not get SNAP.

Why It All Matters

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs states that kids need to be fed before they can learn. Adults need to be fed before they can work. But SNAP offers more than that. It offers stability. It helps people recover from poverty. It improves morale. It even keeps people alive.

Food insecurity and poverty are public health issues. It affects health, education, productivity, and family stability. You simply won’t have the energy to work hard or even concentrate if you are hungry. If you want people to work, they need to be fed enough to be able to do it.

I once knew a single mom who did everything she could to make it on her own. She made so many sacrifices, including barely heating her apartment, doing things in the dark because she didn’t want to use the lights, and ‘holding it’ so she could save pennies by not flushing the toilet. Imagine trying to make dinner for your toddler in the dark, risking bladder infections to save pennies so you have enough money to feed your child. That isn’t living, and that shouldn’t be happening in America when we have the means to stop it. The only thing we are actually lacking is compassion.

If you’re angry about SNAP, that reflects more on your personal beliefs about poverty than on the SNAP program. We have got to stop judging every minute detail of someone’s life just because they receive assistance. Let the experts handle that, trust me, they go through a complicated process to get those benefits.

We need to stop arguing and start looking for ways to make real change so people can thrive without assistance. We need to raise the minimum wage to a livable level, ensure affordable health care for all, and work together as a society.

If you’re angry about SNAP, channel it into curiosity. Look up how it actually works. Talk to someone who uses it.

Compassion and facts do more good than outrage ever will.

December 24, 2025November 29, 2025

Churches and the Baby Formula Scam

I saw a content creator call a whole bunch of churches pretending she’d run out of formula and her baby was hungry. Very few churches were willing to help. Now, I’m not thrilled with tricking churches like that. That’s a pretty dirty tactic, and it’s possible some of those churches saw through it and just declined politely. But it still exposed something: there are a lot of churches that are either unable or unwilling to help someone in immediate need.

Then I saw another creator completely lose it. She was crying, yelling, and cursing because the church does not and has not done enough. Her argument was, “If the church was doing its job, we wouldn’t have people on SNAP.” It was hard to watch her raw emotion and her pain for the church at large, but there was definitely some truth in what she said.

I grew up in a family that believed in small government, more freedom, and that it was the church’s job to care for the poor and the sick. The church I grew up in, along with several I worked in, had a discretionary fund the pastor could use to quietly help anyone in need, whether they were part of the church or from the community.

But here’s the part people don’t want to say out loud: if you want small government, you have to fund the alternative. If you want churches and charities to handle poverty relief, then churches and charities have to be resourced at the level of the need. If the alternative isn’t actually funded, society won’t just magically be okay.

I was taught by my church that government assistance was a concession. Because the church at large wasn’t doing enough. And while I have seen churches make herculean efforts to help their communities, they simply can’t do it all. At the same time, there are just as many churches that think having a few dollars a month in a discretionary fund is enough to say they “help the poor.”

There’s also a structural problem we never name: even if every church were generous, churches in poor areas have fewer donors and more need. The places that need the most help tend to have the least church money. That’s not a compassion problem; that’s a math problem. That’s why public programs exist, because they can pool resources across regions and income levels in a way a single congregation can’t.

What makes this even stranger is watching some evangelicals vote for “Christian identity” issues like putting the Ten Commandments in schools, prayer, abortion, whatever, while Jesus’ most concrete commands about money and poverty don’t show up in their policy priorities. They aren’t willing to vote for the things Jesus actually did: feed the hungry, heal the sick, help the poor. He literally told the rich young ruler to sell everything and give it to the poor. If we want the public sphere to reflect Christian values, why don’t we start with the ones about the poor and the ones Jesus actually repeated?

Meanwhile politicians keep saying the U.S. is the richest country in the world. If that’s true, why do we have people who can’t afford to eat? Why are we criticizing single moms, disabled people, and the elderly because they can’t make enough money?

I can’t believe that in 2025 this is still a polarizing issue—that so many people are genuinely angry about other people having basic necessities. That so many people think most folks on SNAP are freeloaders. I’ve seen the comments:

• “Most SNAP recipients are scammers.”

• “People don’t want to work.”

• “It’s all single moms making bad choices.”

And those are just a few.

But that’s simply not who most benefits go to. They go to kids, to the elderly, to disabled people, and to the working poor. The people we claim to care about. The part that disturbs me most is that these stereotypes exist mostly because of misinformation and people only looking to confirm what they already believe instead of finding out what’s actually true. Some of these people are so angry about the government helping people.

But the fix doesn’t have to be government or church. It can be both.

The local church can and should be out there meeting the community’s needs—because churches can do things the government can’t: build relationships, know names, offer encouragement, pray, walk with a family. And the government can do the things churches can’t: provide consistency, scale, and a floor that isn’t dependent on whether donations came in this month.

The truth is, the church has the calling but not always the capacity. Charity is beautiful but patchy. Government is impersonal but scalable. When we insist the church should do it all, while refusing to fund it anywhere near the level of national need, we create a gap and then we blame the people who fall into it.

So now what?

If you love the church, support policies that make sure people eat even when the church can’t. Do both. Get out there and love your neighbor, even the poor ones.

December 23, 2025November 29, 2025

I Bet You Won’t Read this Social Media Post

Social media is rewiring our brains and it is designed to do so.

I’ve been studying social media marketing and I’m sure we all know that social media is designed to hold our attention. The longer we stay on the app, the more money they make. Simple enough. But how does it work?

How the Brain Works.

Let’s think about how the brain works. I read a study comparing how we read when we read a physical paper book compared to how we read on a computer screen. The study showed that when we dive into a paper book, we read more deeply and thoroughly, whereas when we read an e-book, phone, tablet, or computer screen, we tend to scan for important details. Different parts of the brain ‘light up’ depending on what media we are using.

Another aspect of this is the dopamine hit we get when we come across the content we like. Or when someone likes or shares our post. It’s an instant reward and it’s highly addictive. The social media companies count on this, so they organize the app to keep you coming back again and again.

What Makes a Good Reel?

A ‘good’ Instagram reel is designed to catch your attention amidst thousands and thousands of other reels. It typically involves a visual hook and a text hook. The visual hook is usually something that is novel, shocking, a pattern interrupt. It could be the Gen Z shake where you see the movement of the camera as the speaker sets it down in front of them. It could be someone applying ChapStick, getting ready for bed, or moving on and off screen. The movement catches your attention long enough to stop the scroll, then the text hook takes over to keep that attention.

The text hook is usually a 7-to-9-word phrase or sentence that is written on a 5th grade level. It is often a negative phrase, makes a bold statement, something controversial – anything to suck you in long enough to keep your attention past 3 seconds. The longer the reel holds your attention, the more people it is shown to. How many times have you ever looked at a headline and thought, “That’s clickbait” and then clicked on it anyway? That’s a hook that works.

Over time, the brain begins to adjust to this. The more time you spend on social media, the shorter your attention span gets. And the more you crave that constant influx of dopamine. But there’s more to it.

Your FYP

Social media apps learn what content you like to watch. For example, if a new creator pops up in my Instagram feed and I watch one of their videos but don’t follow them, as I scroll through my feed there will be at least 2 more videos by the same creator. If you constantly watch cycling videos on YouTube, your FYP is going to show you more and more cycling creators.

That’s cool and all, but it is rewiring our brains to be very inward focused, even to the point of narcissism. The social media algorithm is giving us what we want all of the time and training us to expect to get what we want all of the time. Streaming apps mean we can watch whatever shows we want at any time. YouTube tailors every advertisement to our algorithm, so we only get ads for things we are likely to buy.

The Good Old Days

Do you remember way back when we had to use a TV Guide to find out when our show was going to be on TV? And then you had to sit through commercials – commercials that might not even apply to you in any way, but they applied to most people that would be watching the show. No more arguing with your sibling about who gets to pick the show – you can each watch what you want on your own device.

Now there are no more shared experiences – it’s all individual.

People are going to tell me that’s old-fashioned, and we need to keep up with the fast-paced world we live in. And to a point, I don’t disagree.

However, all social media is designed to give us what we want – and to teach us that we should always have what we want. And because all we see is what we care about, we don’t see enough of what other people care about. Our worldview shrinks right along with our attention span.

We’re Spoon Fed Sound Bites

The other challenge with social media is that it spoon-feeds us entertainment and information. We consume little bites over and over again. (We don’t have time to get into how social media is an easy way to spread misinformation or create soundbites of things that are too complex to be shared that way).

But if we want to enact real change in the world, if we want to make this earth a better place to live, we need to realize that being spoonfed is what babies get when they’re hungry because they cannot feed themselves.

So not only have we lost our attention spans and our ability to care about other’s needs and interests, we’re also losing the skill of critical thinking. Without critical thinking, we can’t figure out for ourselves why we have so many people in such a wealthy country struggling with food insecurity. We can’t see the weaknesses in our health care system – we can only see the symptoms of high bills and not enough coverage. We’re just waiting for someone to feed us the answer.

What’s the Fix?

Real change asks more of us than scrolling does. It asks us to read past the headline, to trace a problem back to its causes, research, to listen to people we don’t already agree with, and to sit in the discomfort of ‘this is complicated.’

Algorithms are designed to remove that discomfort. They hand us pre-chewed takes so we don’t have to wrestle with anything. But a society that won’t wrestle can’t repair. If we want better healthcare, fewer hungry families, less abortions, and stronger communities, we have to relearn the grown-up skill of feeding ourselves information — books, long articles, primary sources, conversations with actual humans — not just waiting for the For You Page to tell us what to think.

I’m not trying to kill social media. It has its place. But if we don’t counter its effects, we will slide deeper into “me first” and “what about me?”

Do Your Research

So let’s push back: read long, slow, deep. Listen to people who see the world differently. Have real discussions, even when you disagree. People who think differently than you aren’t your enemies — they might be the people who help you build something better.

Don’t just accept the sound bites you find on Instagram – especially the hate-filled ones that disparage suffering. Take your time and do the real research to understand the actual problem so we can critically think about a better solution. You got this!