Jack Pelham

I heard someone complaining about conservative Christians who cause certain teens and preteens to commit suicide by refusing to call them by their preferred (atypical) pronouns. They were saying it’s unloving, and that the loving thing to do is to honor the confused person’s request to call them what they wish to be called.

So let me stop right here before I make my main point, so as to demonstrate at least one reasonable limit to propriety in calling people what they want to be called. Suppose that Billy at work were to insist that everyone call him Lord God Almighty. Would it be the “loving” thing for us to do, to comply with his wish? Or suppose that Freddy wanted to be called by the boss’ names—first and last. Or that Larry insisted on being called President of the United States. Or suppose that Tommy wanted to be called by some particularly-foul curse word or words—something of the sort that is frequently represented by characters such as #$@%&. Would it be the loving thing to do to call these people what they want to be called?

Billy can dish it out, but he can’t take it.

He’ll object to Larry’s church doctrine, citing particulars with which Larry is unfamiliar and challenging and questioning Larry’s position. And he looks down on Larry’s ignorance and his unwillingness to study the things he says he believes.

Funny, how after being such the champion
And wrestling with myself
To make myself accomplish
The hardest task first,
I am rewarded with neither cheers nor laurels,
But with the realization that the shortened to-do list—
Me having crossed out with a flourish the aforementioned
Heroically-accomplished first task—
Is still replete with a succession of
Newly-promoted successor hardest tasks,
For each of which I must again
Force myself into action.

And I think I could embrace the heroism of it all
Much better if it did not have to be my own.

See also The Hardest Task First, which was written a couple of hours before this one.

They say it’s important to do the hardest task first.
And along the way to trying to adopt that habit myself,
I have learned that the hardest task is not the hardest task itself,
But is making myself do the hardest task.

It is the mastering of myself,
To make myself do what ought to be done—
That is the hardest part.

See also After the Hardest Task First, which I wrote a couple of hours after this one.

Some live in the haze,
Where religion is not
Supposed to make sense—
Where it’s not supposed
To be rational and reasonable,
But is merely a collection of things
To be believed—
Whatever fuzzy version of it
One’s camp is promoting.

Beloved soul,
Locked up in your fortress,
Where little love can get in
And less can get out—

Where we must talk through the walls—
You within and me without—
Catching what we can of the muffled conversation,
And simply having
To do without the rest—

There is some sad irony
In one’s failing to act
For fear of losing
What he doesn’t really have, anyway.

In many ways, God is not like us. So it’s easy for us to misunderstand him. And yet in some ways, he is quite like us. So some of his character is easy for us to understand.

I want to write briefly about just one thing in God’s character that seems to throw a lot of us off: He is both kind and stern.

Consider therefore the kindness and sternness of God: sternness to those who fell, but kindness to you, provided that you continue in his kindness. Otherwise, you also will be cut off.

NIV Romans 11:22

This Earth does have its troubles—
Some we could fix, and some we must surely endure.
And sometimes we err in trying to endure what should be fixed,
Or in trying to fix what must be endured.
It’s our own call, and we swim at our own risk, it seems—
Figuring out later (or not!) when we mess up.

When politicians want to be elected, they need the support of the majority, generally speaking. But what’s the average cognitive state of the majority? Are they all highly-diligent thinkers with enough time on their hands to vet all the facts?

No!

The majority are busy, distracted people who don’t spend much time in reflection or in problem solving. They are given to biases, memes, and hearsay as their method of gathering information. And when they use logic, it’s not always sound logic, because they don’t put much thought into that, either.