1. The word “toxic” isn’t a new word for society. It’s the title of Britney Spears’ 2003 pop hit and was Oxford University’s word of the year in 2018. The word “toxic” seems to be spreading around the internet much like the nuclear waste that once defined the term. But this time, instead of just rants on toxic masculinity, social media “therapists” and self-help gurus are advising viewers to rid themselves of the “toxic” people in their lives. What makes a person toxic? How many red flags before you should say goodbye to a relationship? Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok would tell you that anyone who hurts your feelings or brings negativity into your life should be cut from your sphere. Dating culture doesn’t follow the baseball rule of three strikes, it’s more like the briefest glimpse of a red flag and you’re out!

In a phenomenal article for the Atlantic, Kaitlyn Tiffany dives deep into the recesses of social media’s relationship advice:

The advice is not just easier to find; it’s easier to follow, too. Earlier iterations of self-help often stressed the hard work of building and maintaining relationships, of opening up and connecting with others. That’s more arduous than simply removing from your social network anyone who causes you discomfort. […]

Why is this happening? Maybe young people have been inspired by the impermanence and infinite choice baked into online dating and social media. Maybe our brains have been pickled in wellness culture and “self-care” rhetoric, which stress the need to privilege our own well-being above all else. Or maybe we’re just good American capitalists, encouraged by the cult of individualism to think of ourselves as compelling brands, the main characters of cinematic star vehicles, the centers of the universe. […]

In the past few years, Millennials and Gen Zers have helped rejuvenate the concept of mutual aid, participated in some of the country’s largest-ever demonstrations in favor of racial justice, and expressed a renewed interest in organizing labor. Many of us are thinking hard about our interconnectedness and sometimes tying ourselves in knots trying to do the right thing.

But too often this does not square with the way we discuss our personal lives. I never feel quite so worried that I could die alone and unloved as I do when scrolling through the relationship-sphere, hit by so many emphatic declarations of who should be dead to me and why I should be dead to others.

It’s much easier to listen to people who validate your feelings than it is to actually feel your feelings. Just as it’s easier to ghost a partner, friend, or family member rather than experience the discomfort of misunderstanding and conflict. Life seems simpler when you only have yourself to take care of, but doesn’t that just leave us feeling more alone than before?

2. When I was younger I always thought that there would be some mystical voice that told me what I wanted to be when I grew up. Like a little leprechaun dreamer that whispered what my grand purpose was in life (sounds scary when I think of it now). It wasn’t until I got to my senior year of college that I realized this magical, decision-making voice was really just a myth. 

Not believing in the mysterious inner voice either, Benjamin Storey and Jenna Silber Storey created a course to teach college students about “the art of choosing.” With the end of college in sight, young people are overwhelmed by the seemingly endless possibilities ahead of them. But with the art of choosing, perhaps it doesn’t have to be so nauseating:

Our reticence is intended, in part, to dislodge our students from the idea that life’s purpose comes from some mysterious voice within. Once students are freed from this idea, they can consider the possibility that people can reason together about the best way to live. […]

To be asked to give reasons for one’s personal decisions is to entertain the possibility that such reasons exist. Thomas Aquinas, another author on our syllabus, calls the reason that is the orienting point of all your other reasons your “final end.” Those who discover that they have such final ends, and learn to assess them, see their way to the exit from the fun house of arbitrary decisions in which the young so often find themselves trapped. […]

Most students find, to their surprise, that they can locate their desires on this old map. This does not leave students feeling constrained, as they have often been led to fear. It leaves them feeling empowered, like wanderers suddenly recognizing the orienting features of a landscape.

The college system loves to spew pretty little phrases like “the possibilities are endless” or “your future is limitless” to motivate you. But in reality, those words can be paralyzing to people who are just trying to get through the week, one day at a time.

3. Looks like grades and scorekeeping weren’t left behind in college, as more employers and companies utilize software to track workers’ performance. I guess monitoring technology could make sense at a desk job that is entirely on the computer (not that I’m vouching for it). But did you know that some employers are using said software to track the productivity of hospice chaplains? A dystopian-esque article from the New York Times gives us some insight into the work life of hospice chaplains in Minnesota:

Every morning the chaplains would share on a spreadsheet the number of “productivity points” they anticipated earning. Every evening, software would calculate whether they had met their goals.

But dying defied planning. Patients broke down, canceled appointments, drew final breaths. This left the clergy scrambling and in a perpetual dilemma. “Do I see the patients who earn the points or do I see the patients who really need to be seen?” […]

Sometimes the chaplains sacrificed points, risking reprimand or trying to make them up later. But their jobs depended on meeting the standards. So they shifted whom they saw when, the time they spent and the depth of their relationships with the dying, some said.[…]

But last summer, Ms. Richardson and Mx. Thonvold came to the same conclusion: The metrics prevented them from fulfilling their calling. They quit.

Time and time again, we see that the law does not bear its intended effect. Looking to measure the efficiency of any ministry job will ultimately come up short — ministry is in the God business, and we know God’s ministry wasn’t efficient by any standard.

4. On a lighter note, for kicks and giggles, check out “It’s So Good to Catch Up Now That My Life Is Finally Going Better Than Yours” from Points in Case.

Sorry I’ve been out of pocket for what feels like forever. I’ve just been really busy with a whole bunch of stuff and purposefully avoiding any opportunities for a meaningful conversation with you until I could be sure that most if not all aspects of my life were going better than yours…

You know what they say: you can’t live in the past, when all of my achievements paled in comparison to yours, and if you try, I will find an excuse to end this brunch immediately.

For all you creative arts, communications, or philosophy majors out there, this one hits a little too close to home: “Dad Thinks Your Career Will Be A Great Stepping Stone to Something He Respects.”

And for all Good Samaritans out there who are worried about self-righteousness: “How To Put Your Grocery Cart Back Without Wondering If Anyone Saw and Thinks You’re A Good Person.”

5. Just as some people in the first century were expecting their messiah to be a king who would destroy the Roman empire, maybe we too, want to believe that Jesus will vanquish our political “toxic” (ha) enemies. However, Jesus’ life and ministry in the New Testament proves all of us wrong. In a striking piece in the New York Times, Tish Harrison Warren states that God is not a culture warrior. (Alexander Sosler recently wrote a brilliant essay for Mbird on a similar topic.) 

Her point is not to say that politics is unimportant, just that the human experiences of grief, loneliness, and despair are far more worthy of being addressed by the church:

In the news and on social media, God usually shows up when we are fighting about something … But when we primarily talk about God in the context of political or ideological debate, believers’ actual experience of God, worship and faith — not to mention spiritual virtues like humility, gratitude and kindness — often gets lost. God becomes merely another pawn in the culture wars, a means to a political end, a meme to own our opponents online or an accessory donned like a power tie. […]

Most people’s experience of faith is far more personal, rich, important and meaningful than can be summed up in our political sparring … Churches and other religious groups must continually highlight how our traditions address pressing issues that will never trend on Twitter or dominate political debates: problems like loneliness, despair, conflict in families, disappointment, grief, longing, loss and those all-too-human anxieties and insecurities that keep us up at night.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve been getting a lot of automated text messages that command: don’t forget to vote in the upcoming elections! And with the amount of politics we hear debated on the news, social media, or even family reunions, perhaps church can be a refuge from the noise — a rest from the external and internal conflict of our lives.

6. I’ve never watched Breaking Bad, but I know plenty of people who love the cult franchise. Even so, I found Miles Surrey’s writeup for the Ringer to be particularly grace-filled and noteworthy. Spoilers ahead for the finale of Better Call Saul’s last season:

Aside from the shared characters across its universe, Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul are studies in duality. But whereas Walt succumbs to the spiteful Heisenberg in his final moments, Jimmy sheds the Saul persona out of his love for Kim. It might not erase all the sins he committed across both series or the punishment he’s going to face, but Jimmy chooses to live with the better version of himself. In doing so, he shows a capacity for change that Chuck never thought possible for his brother. […]

Indeed, Better Call Saul has repeatedly demonstrated how difficult it is for someone to break free of what fate has seemingly assigned to them: an appropriate dilemma for a prequel to tackle, where some events are already set in stone. But if there’s any major takeaway from Better Call Saul’s final season, it’s how characters as far-ranging as Jimmy, Kim, and Nacho Varga have taken the difficult steps of getting off the bad choice road — even if it means a lifetime in prison, a civil suit taking everything you own, or accepting death to ensure the safety of a loved one.

Elsewhere, Brad East wrote convincingly about Jimmy’s change of heart in Better Call Saul.

7. This last one is a fascinating essay about Lucas Cranach by Ken Sundet Jones from 1517. It isn’t just a history lesson about a man who knew Luther; rather, it is also a beautiful example of the many ways the good news can be shared:

Literacy in early modern Germany was common primarily among the nobility. Tradespeople and peasants couldn’t read the pamphlets and books in which the educated and the noble encountered Luther. Technical treatises like On the Bondage of the Will would have been completely inaccessible. Even something as down-to-earth as the Small Catechism was encountered by them only through rote learning: memorization and recitation.

Thus, Cranach became the evangelical interpreter for the masses. If you couldn’t read the lines of text in Luther’s translation of the New Testament he’d completed while at the Wartburg, you could see the Bible stories included in the “September Testament” come alive in the lines of Cranach’s illustrations that accompanied. His marriage portraits of Luther and Katarina von Bora informed people of the illegitimacy of monastic vows. Just as with the catechisms and the new evangelical hymnody encouraged by Luther, Cranach delivered the gospel — but in picture form.

The featured image this week is the Cranach painting, “Damnation and Redemption”:

Strays:

• Plough ran an 1972 interview with Johnny Cash on his faith and music: “I really feel very strongly about this: there are those of us who are called to the ministry musically. And even though I’m not a very good musician, I feel what I’m singing.”
• The Psychology of Cringe Comedy
• Vox on Postmodernism and neoliberalism?
• The Mockingcast is soon back from summer break! Look for it to drop before the end of the month.

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