“Faith can’t be lived on the private plane of the interior life. Faith is the very negation of retreat into oneself. Faith comes alive in the dynamism of the good news that reveals us as children of God, creates a community, a church, the visible sign of liberation in Christ.”-Gustavo Gutierrez

I think Christians in America often tend to emphasize confession and repentance of personal sins and neglect corporate sins. We tend to over-individualize the practice of faith and forget that we are part of a greater whole.

“God’s reign is not some far-off, distant place disconnected from the trials and tribulations here on earth. Rather, God’s reign is a present-day social, political, public, and personal reality evident among God’s people,” that is lived out on the margins with Christ. -Miguel De La Torre

UPDATE: Senator Deevers has pulled the bill in response to public backlash. It’s nice to know that our voices can still make a difference.

Haha this is the best take yet

…Thus the compassion of Jesus is to be understood not simply as a personal emotional reaction but as a public criticism in which he dares to act upon his concern against the entire numbness of his social context. Empires live by numbness.” From Brueggeman’s The Prophetic Imagination

…The norms of law (social control) are never accommodated to persons, but persons are accommodated to the norms. Otherwise the norms will collapse and with them the whole power arrangement...

…compassion announces that the hurt is to be taken seriously, that the hurt is not to be accepted as normal and natural but is an abnormal and unacceptable condition for humanness. Empires are never built or maintained on the basis of compassion...

You’re welcome! A friend of mine shared it and I found it very helpful.

5/ Build community: Share the cognitive load. Different people track different issues. Network intelligence beats individual overload.

Remember: They want you scattered. Your focus is resistance.”

-From Sociologist Jennifer Walter

4/ Practice going slow: Wait 48hrs before reacting to new policies. The urgent clouds the important. Initial reporting often misses context

3/ Remember: Feeling overwhelmed is the point. When you recognize this, you regain some power. Take breaks. Process. This is a marathon.

2/ Use aggregators & experts: Find trusted analysts who do the heavy lifting of synthesis. Look for those explaining patterns, not just events.

1/ Set boundaries: Pick 2-3 key issues you deeply care about and focus your attention there. You can't track everything - that's by design. Impact comes from sustained focus, not scattered awareness.

3/Agenda-setting theory explains the strategy: Multiple major policies compete for attention simultaneously & fragments public discourse. Traditional media can't keep up w/the pace, leading to superficial coverage. The result? Weakened democratic oversight & reduced public engagement. What now?

2/ Media theorist McLuhan predicted this: When humans face information overload, they become passive and disengaged. The rapid-fire executive orders create a cognitive bottleneck, making it nearly impossible for citizens and media to thoroughly analyze any single policy.