What I’m saying is that it isn’t just that we feel angry or cynically withdrawn from one another in the midst of our unending pandemic hellscape because of some inherent, individual brokenness or lack of intestinal fortitude. It’s that our anger and withdrawal are symptomatic of far deeper (and pre-existing) feelings of hopelessness and worthlessness installed by a broken family system and maintained by a socio-economic system that has monetized our discontent as a form of frenetic fuel (spoilers: you’re reading this on Facebook).
And, thanks to the ways in which we have thoroughly internalized the values of capitalism, many of us have become quite practiced at quickly transforming the collective and individual pain of being alive into productivity, consumption and compelling Christian testimonies. God, in America at least, is always rebranding our pain for us.
Which is why, maybe now more than ever, it is so terribly important to give a full hearing to the deep complexity of our grief as a devotional act before immediately getting stitched up, freshly medicated and right back to work.
Read more at Baptist News.