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Ever feel stuck? Like mentally, emotionally, or spiritually stuck in something you can’t change? At times, I have been stuck without even realizing it.

I remember being stuck in selfishness—having ambition only for myself. I remember being stuck in numbness—emotionally shut down, hardened, and incapable of real connection. 

When we are stuck, we need a disruption—something that breaks our negative patterns and opens our minds to a different way of thinking. This is articulated powerfully in the critically acclaimed biographical movie A Beautiful Mind:

I’ve always believed in numbers, in the equations and logics that lead to reason. But after a lifetime of such pursuits, I ask: What truly is logic? Who decides reason? My quest has taken me through the physical, the metaphysical, the delusional—and back. And I have made the most important discovery of my career, the most important discovery of my life: It is only in the mysterious equations of love that any logic or reasons can be found. I’m only here tonight because of you. You are the reason I am. You are all my reasons.

John Nash (portrayed by Russell Crowe), A Beautiful Mind (2001)

This film shows John Nash as a brilliant and successful mathematician. But when mental illness takes its toll, he gets stuck. And yet, through the support of his family and friends, he discovers what it means not just to have a beautiful mind, but live a beautiful life.

We all get stuck at some point in our lives, whether it’s mentally and emotionally, like it was for Nash, or spiritually, like it has been for me countless times. 

The danger is not being stuck; the danger is staying stuck. If we stay frustrated, discouraged, and defeated for too long, we start to believe that a stuck life is all there is. Eventually, we learn to be helpless and give up. 

But it doesn’t have to be this way.

In today’s Chemistry Lab, we’ll learn what keeps us stuck in learned helplessness, and how God can break us out of it by setting our hearts on fire.

From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us.

Acts 17:26-27 NIV84

Coincidences are often the hand of God orchestrating our lives so that we can discover him and his purpose. These discoveries can be sparked by the times in which we live, the places we visit, and the people we meet. On one of these occasions, my path crossed with a young man who taught me a chemistry lesson. 

Much like John Nash, he was brilliant. A remarkable personality. Leadership talent. A sense of humor that could change a room. A job with impact. A growing faith that made me believe he was going to change the world. 

Then one day, no one could find him.

Eventually, a few friends spotted him—alone, sitting in his car, smoking—a habit he had quit when he decided to walk with God. 

Suddenly, this young man who seemed like he had such a beautiful life before him became stuck in his mind. His mental state was no longer under his control; it betrayed him and undermined his spiritual life. It was heartbreaking to watch.

Coincidences are often the hand of God orchestrating our lives so that we can discover him and his purpose.

This experience taught me the serious importance of mental health. I learned what it means to love and serve someone, even and especially when they experience an unwelcome change to their brain chemistry. My capacity to care had to grow in ways it never had before. 

We all get stuck. This young man was stuck because of his brain chemistry. I, more often than not, have been stuck because of my spiritual chemistry. Either one or both can stop us in our tracks.

Getting unstuck requires examining both our brain chemistry and our spiritual chemistry.

Notebooks open. Let’s see what we can learn today.

Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, [29] for our “God is a consuming fire.”

Hebrews 12:28-29 NIV

Today’s element is fire — something the Scriptures say is a defining quality of God. Just as fire can change the chemistry of a substance, so God’s fire can change our spiritual chemistries. But before we learn how God’s fire can break us out of stuckness and change us from the inside out, we need to learn what keeps us stuck: learned helplessness.

Martin Seligman, the pioneering psychologist, coined the term “learned helplessness”—the state in which we stop trying because we’ve stopped believing anything will change.

I’ve found it’s one of the most common reasons people get stuck—in life,  leadership, and faith.

What is learned helplessness?

In his book Learned Optimism, Martin Seligman explains that we are born helpless. But the journey of human development is about gaining personal control over time. These quotes from the early chapters of the book explain how personal control develops:

Helplessness is the state of affairs in which nothing you choose to do affects what happens to you.

The long period between infancy and our last years is a process of emerging from helplessness and gaining personal control. 

Personal control means the ability to change things by one’s voluntary actions; it is the opposite of helplessness.

Martin Seligman, Learned Optimism

If all goes well in childhood, Seligman explains, we move from helplessness toward agency.

But when something breaks that progression—trauma, discouragement, chronic stress, or lack of nurture—we get stuck in a pattern of what he calls learned helplessness.

Learned helplessness is the giving-up reaction, the quitting response that follows from the belief that whatever you do doesn’t matter.

Martin Seligman, Learned Optimism

Why do we stay stuck?

Learned helplessness doesn’t only come from what happens to us. It grows from how we explain to ourselves what happens to us. 

Scripture agrees—our hearts and minds are powerful, but not always accurate in their interpretation of reality.

“The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?”

Jeremiah 17:9 NIV

The human heart is deceitful. Our hearts can tell us we have failed when we haven’t. They can tell us there is no hope when there is. They can tell us that change is impossible when it is not. 

The way our hearts explain events is what Seligman calls our “explanatory style”:

Explanatory style is the manner in which you habitually explain to yourself why events happen … An optimistic explanatory style stops helplessness, whereas a pessimistic explanatory style spreads it.

Martin Seligman, Learned Optimism

This, I believe, is more than a psychological pattern. Our explanatory styles have just as much to do with our spiritual chemistry as they do with our brain chemistry. We need to understand both to get the full picture. As we’ve discussed before, Jesus said the greatest commandment involves all four dimensions of life:

Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.

Mark 12:30 CSB

Brain chemistry may address one or two dimensions. Spiritual chemistry addresses another. But combining the two leads to a powerful spiritual breakthrough. Let’s start with understanding brain chemistry.

Why our brain chemistry matters

Brain chemistry refers to the way the brain communicates with itself through chemicals such as serotonin, dopamine, and more. Our brain chemistry affects our mood and our health. Some of us face genetic or neurological challenges that make it more difficult to have an optimistic outlook. Our brain chemistry can also be shaped by a more complex mix of external factors:

• Personal choices
• Family dysfunction
• Cultural influences that mislead and misguide us
• Friendships that, though sincere, are unspiritual and emotionally unhealthy

Whatever the source of our thought patterns, we must thank God for the tools he has revealed to help us heal—especially from the brain chemistry challenges we inherit or develop over time. These resources include doctors, clinical psychologists, psychiatrists, medications, and other support systems.

Tools like these are God’s wisdom revealed through science. Using them is not a sign of spiritual weakness.

It is the glory of God to conceal a matter; to search out a matter is the glory of kings.

Proverbs 25:2 NIV

We ignore, minimize, or misuse these tools at our own peril—especially when we believe our way is wiser than God’s.

There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death.

Proverbs 16:25 AMP

These God-given tools protect us when our brain chemistry betrays us or becomes unbalanced. In the same way, our spiritual chemistry can become unbalanced when we begin to rely on ourselves instead of God. And in the same way, God gives us spiritual tools to protect us and help us grow. As we use each of these tools in tandem, we become unstuck. We experience breakthroughs.

Brain chemistry + spiritual chemistry = breakthrough

“God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”

John 4:24 NIV

The unity between brain and spiritual chemistry is found in this verse. To truly live a full life walking with God, we must walk both in Spirit and in truth. This truth includes the medical and scientific wisdom God has revealed to help improve our brain chemistry. It also includes humbly submitting to God’s Word, even when it corrects our way of thinking.

Walking in Spirit is where spiritual chemistry comes in. As we learned in our last edition of The Chemistry Lab, God is Spirit, and he wants our spirits to align with his.

Spiritual chemistry is something I am still working to define. It’s difficult to put into words, but we know it when we see it. Just as brain chemistry is our brain’s chemical communication, spiritual chemistry is the communication between our spirit and God’s. It’s the way we explain God to ourselves, the way our spirit translates disappointment or sin into meaning, and the way we respond to God’s influence in our lives. It’s what ignites our souls and pushes us toward our destiny. 

Spiritual chemistry creates what I call FIRE within us: the Focused Intensity of Real Experience with God. 

• Focused — As we walk with God in Spirit and truth, our distractions and doubts melt away.
• Intensity — As we declutter our lives, we find the energy to sustain our focus on God. 
• Real —  As we look intently into God’s Word, we discover the truth about him and ourselves, truths which may be very different than our heart has led us to believe. The hopeless becomes hopeful and the impossible becomes possible.
• Experience with God —  As we open up the deepest parts of our hearts to God, our insights about him will turn into lived experiences that transform us from the inside out.

FIRE loosens the grip of learned helplessness. It changes the stories we tell ourselves about who God is and who we are.

The stories we tell ourselves

Psychologists attribute learned helplessness to our explanatory style—the way we explain failure and difficulty to ourselves.

In The Chemistry Lab, we expand this idea of explanatory style to something we call  story style. This is the story we tell ourselves to explain God’s role and our role in our failures and difficulties. Do we think he is punishing us? Disappointed in us? Ignoring us? Do we think he will answer our prayers?

Our story style will determine the quality of our spiritual chemistry. 

Four story styles

These four story styles show how our internal narratives shape whether we stay stuck—or walk in the fire of spiritual transformation.

How to identify your story style

To figure out your story style, ask yourself this question:

Did you …

Withdraw and think, “This always happens. What’s the point?”	This is a stuck story style.
Push through with no emotion or reflection?	This is a numb story style.
Pause to reflect and search for meaning in the pain?	This is a resilient story style.
Trust God and move forward with peace and clarity?	This is a flow story style.

We don’t stay in one story style forever, but we tend to default to one under pressure. Knowing our style helps us understand what spiritual chemistry we’re operating with—and what needs to change if we want to experience a breakthrough.

F.I.R.E. needs the right fuel

Here’s the hard truth: F.I.R.E.—Focused Intensity of Real Experience with God—won’t ignite in the wrong narrative environment.

• If we’re stuck, we won’t even try to light the match.
• If we’re numb, we might keep moving, but without connection to God’s presence.
• If we’re resilient, we’ll grow through the fire.
• And if we’re in flow, we’ll walk with God inside the fire—refined, not consumed.

Abraham Lincoln and the refining fires

“Every man is said to have his peculiar ambition… I have no other so great as that of being truly esteemed of my fellow men, by rendering myself worthy of their esteem.”

Abraham Lincoln (as quoted by Doris Kearns Goodwin, Leadership in Turbulent Times)

In my view, Doris Kearns Goodwin is the premier historian of Abraham Lincoln. In her book Leadership in Turbulent Times, she describes a Lincoln who dreamed not of fame or fortune, but of being worthy. He longed to live a life that mattered. 

But that ambition was tested by brutal setbacks. Two pivotal turning points defined Lincoln’s emotional and spiritual trial: the death of his first love and the collapse of cherished political initiatives. He experienced personal grief, policy failure, public criticism, financial collapse, and political obscurity. 

Lincoln spiraled into what Goodwin describes as  “melancholy and incapacitating depression.” Goodwin includes Lincoln’s own words from this period:

I am now the most miserable man living … Whether I shall ever be better I can not tell; I awfully forebode I shall not. To remain as I am is impossible; I must die or be better, it appears to me.

Abraham Lincoln

This is learned helplessness in its most emotionally authentic form—just as Martin Seligman defines it:

A giving-up reaction. A quitting response. A belief that nothing you do matters.
But Lincoln didn’t quit. Instead, he found purpose in his pain. These challenges became what the Bible describes as refining fires:

The crucible is for refining silver and the smelter for gold, but the one who purifies hearts by fire is the LORD.

Proverbs 17:3 GW

Gustav Niebuhr, a distinguished journalist and academic, offered insight into this transformation in the foreword to Elton Trueblood’s Abraham Lincoln: Lessons in Spiritual Leadership:

Trueblood’s reading of Lincoln convinced him that the man who wrote the Second Inaugural Address was not the same intellectually as the one elected president in 1860. He had undergone a searing transformation—“the fiery trial,” in a phrase Lincoln used. This experiential deepening opened Lincoln to a new understanding of how God works in the world.

Gustav Niebuhr, foreword to Abraham Lincoln: Lessons in Spiritual Leadership by Elton Trueblood

This transformation, which began in the depths of his early depression, reached its full expression in the crucible of his presidency.

Rather than surrendering, Lincoln began to rewrite his inner narrative. He didn’t silence his grief. He allowed it to inform his future choices to align his life with his noble ambition. 

That capacity to rewrite his inner narrative remained with him from his early life through the presidency; it is a central reason why he was able to lead the Union to victory in the Civil War.

He chose friendship.
He chose family.
He chose service.
He chose purpose.
He chose fire.

And the rest? History.

He had a transformation in story style, and that made all the difference.

The man by the pool

Now contrast this with another man, not in the 1800s but in the first century AD. We find his story in John 5.

Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish festivals. [2] Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. [3-4] Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. [5] One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. [6] When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to get well?”

John 5:1-6 NIV

He was a man with a disability, lost in a crowd of those with disabilities. Suddenly. he was seen. Not as part of the crowd, but as an individual. Not as a person with a disability, but as a person. Then Jesus asked him a question about his spiritual rather than physical condition: “Do you want to get well?”

When I first read this passage, I questioned the questioner. Maybe you did the same. Perhaps those listening in the crowd did, too. Why is Jesus asking a man who had suffered for 38 years if he wants to get well? Of course he does!

But we are wrong. The man’s answer is not yes.

“Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.”

John 5:7 NIV

Instead of saying what he wanted, he explained why he hadn’t gotten it. Instead of believing, he had become an expert in why he couldn’t be healed.

He had lost hope. He had lost faith. He had learned helplessness.

He believed healing required reaching the pool. And because he couldn’t reach it, he assumed even God couldn’t help him any other way. I’ve been there—explaining instead of believing. Maybe you have too. We often sound like the man at the pool:

• We are people-focused. (“I have no one …”)
• We are problem-focused. (“Someone always gets there first…”) 
• We are time-focused.(“It’s been a long time…”)

Just like Lincoln, this man had a story style—but his kept him stuck. And then, Jesus interrupted the inner narrative.

Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.”

John 5:8 NIV

And just like that:

At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked.

John 5:9 NIV

Jesus freed him—spiritually and physically. Then, after a tense confrontation with the religious leaders, Jesus circled back with a final word of truth:

“See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.”

John 5:14 NIV

With these words, Jesus made clear that it’s sin—our spiritual condition, not our physical condition—that ultimately limits what God can do in our lives.

Regardless of our brain chemistry or personal history, our spiritual chemistry matters. It determines how we respond when Jesus shows up. It determines whether we stay stuck…or pick up our mats and walk.

What happened to this man wasn’t a motivational speech. It wasn’t a psychological assessment. It was a spiritual transformation.

It was the Focused Intensity of a Real Experience with God. 

This interaction was focused; Jesus cleared away the man’s clutter of people, problems, and time to address his true spiritual condition. It was intense; Jesus came with power and strength that changed the man’s life. It was real; Jesus asked deeper questions that got to the true heart of the man, rather than staying on the surface.. It was a firsthand experience with God; Jesus had a conversation with him that led to real and lasting change, not intellectual insights.. 

This interaction with Jesus—the fire that ignites our spiritual chemistry—is exactly what we need when our story style gets stuck.

My conversations with many of you have convinced me of this: We all face the challenge of negative soundtracks running in our minds. These pessimistic story styles tell us that we are worthless, incapable, failures. We should give up, they say, because nothing we dream will ever come true.

They tell us that God is out to punish us, that he thinks we are inadequate, that he might forgive our sins but he won’t forget our failures.

There is a breakthrough to be had from our collective agreement about this narrative challenge, and it connects seamlessly with the idea of learned helplessness and addressing our story style.

I believe that our story style manifests from the language of our hearts.

As water reflects the face, so one’s life reflects the heart.

Proverbs 27:19 NIV

The heart can be damaged by the things we store in it — whether that be negative narratives about who we are or the sinful choices we make. When the heart gets damaged, it distorts our story. We need to protect our stories, which means we must protect our hearts from allowing anything to take up residence in them that can undermine God’s story.

Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.

Proverbs 4:23 NIV

Guard your heart above all else, for it is the source of life.

Proverbs 4:23 CSB

When our hearts are protected, they can thrive. Faith can grow inside them, writing a story of bold belief rather than discouraging defeat.

Then Jesus said to her, “Daughter, because you dared to believe, your faith has healed you. Go with peace in your heart, and be free from your suffering!”

Mark 5:34 TPT

This week, the word that keeps echoing in my heart is risk. How easy it is to say we live by faith—yet take no risks. This woman in Mark 5 lived a daring life, undoubtedly overflowing from a daring heart. Hers was not a life of risk-averse discouragement. Yet everywhere I turn, fear and unbelief conspire to make me risk-averse. And every day, they work to loosen my grip on the dreams God has laid on my heart.

Have you noticed this in your own life?

One of our readers, John, captured this tension beautifully in his response to last week’s Chemistry Lab on the powerful effect of spiritual flow.

John pointed to the unforgettable exchange in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, when Susan learns what kind of king Aslan is:

“Aslan a man!” said Mr. Beaver sternly. “Certainly not. I tell you he is the King of the wood and the son of the great Emperor-beyond-the-Sea. Don’t you know who is the King of Beasts? Aslan is a lion—the Lion, the great Lion.” “Ooh!” said Susan. “I’d thought he was a man. Is he—quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion.” “That you will, dearie, and no mistake,” said Mrs. Beaver; “if there’s anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they’re either braver than most or else just silly.” “Then he isn’t safe?” said Lucy. “Safe?” said Mr. Beaver; “don’t you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? ’Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.”

C.S. Lewis, The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe

How tempting is it to want a God who is safe? A God we can control.
A predictable life.

But Christ is not timid or tame—and walking with him will never be safe.

My takeaway is this: whether we consider ourselves agnostic, atheist, spiritual, or a lifelong believer, the adventure for which we truly long is the one offered by Jesus. It’s living dangerously. Not recklessly—but courageously. Boldly. As a dreamer. Risking the comfortable for the transformational. The less we choose to give in to the fearful story styles of our hearts, the more we see and experience the bold and dangerous dreams of God.

So, let’s take a look at how we can reinvent our story styles.

This week’s experiment comes from Chemistry Lab team member Alexis Colvin Allen, an ADHD coach with a background in psychology. She’s created a lab exercise to help us break through stuck story styles and take real, measurable action.

This experiment is meant to be done with a friend, whom we will call our “lab partner.” Together, we can help each other experience the F.I.R.E. and ignite a life of bold belief.

He touched their eyes and said, “Become what you believe.”

Matthew 9:29 MSG

Jesus could do the impossible, and his power was unlocked by the faith of people who believed this. He knew something that psychology is now starting to understand—we become what we believe. 

Neuroplasticity is the brain’s amazing ability to grow and adapt in response to life experiences. Our brains are flexible, shaped by habits, thoughts, and yes, beliefs, that form mental “routes” called neural pathways. Think of these like trails in a park — the more you use a pathway, the easier it becomes to follow, solidifying particular thoughts, beliefs, and behaviors. 

Just as we can learn to think negatively and feel stuck, we also have the power to train our minds to think both optimistically and faithfully and keep going. This takes actively training our brains to think differently, and deliberately choosing to fix our thoughts on something else instead. Yes, we become what we believe. But we can also choose what we believe.

Why am I so overwrought? Why am I so disturbed? Why can’t I just hope in God? Despite all my emotions, I will believe and praise the One who saves me and is my life.

Psalm 42:5 Voice

In your strength I can crush an army; with my God I can scale any wall.

Psalm 18:29 NLT

Despite our emotions, negative thoughts, or even past experiences, we can choose to believe in God’s ability to do the impossible. With this unshaken faith, God can help us scale any wall, overcome any flaw, and get through any circumstance. We are never helpless with God, as long as we believe we’re not.

Let’s get started on training our brain and heart to believe in what God can do.

1. Identify negative thought patterns in your story style

Before we move forward, we need to recognize where we currently have unbelief and learned helplessness in our story style. Together with your lab partner, write down your answers to these questions, along with any other negative thoughts you may have:

2. Identify your strengths

Make a list of your top 5-10 strengths. If you’d like, you can take something like the free VIA Character Strengths Survey to help you identify what these are. Together, give examples of how you see each other’s strengths and how they might be used to tackle challenges you’re facing. 

3. Make a “Shifting Mindset” chart

To change your pathways from routes of unbelief to ones of belief, take out a notebook or computer and work together to make this chart. Write down the challenge you are currently facing, along with the negative thought pattern or doubt that has dominated your mind. Then write down a way to approach the challenge with faith. Add scriptures to identify how God sees the situation you’re in. We’ve provided an example chart you can use as a guide:

4. Start small, but start now

Now that we have done a lot of work to start changing our mindsets, it’s time for action. Pick ONE of the items in “the challenge” column to tackle. Discuss and write down your answers to these questions:

5. Come up with a game plan for when obstacles arise

Discuss together what roadblocks might show up as you tackle this challenge, and especially what might tempt you to give up. Help each other create a game plan for how you will keep up faith and not give into unbelief or negative thought patterns. You can say “If _ happens, I will _.” Below are just a few ideas you can include in your game plan, but you can come up with your own:

• Stop yourself in the middle of negative thoughts and say: “This is actually an opportunity to…”
• Pick one or two of your top five strengths that you can use to tackle that obstacle.
• Switch negative “what if” thoughts to positive ones. For example, every time you ask, “What if this doesn’t work out?” respond to that thought with, “What if God does a miracle with this?”
• Pull out your chart and pick a scripture to repeat to yourself.
• Call a friend and ask them to help you talk through and reframe your thoughts.

6. Celebrate small wins together (make it a game!)

Throughout the week, tally/keep track of every time you choose one of the tools from your game plan to combat your unbelief and negative thought patterns. No matter how small, write down what went well. 

At the end of the week, meet with your lab partner to discuss what you tallied. What went well? How could you use your strengths and tools to tackle what didn’t go well? 

The Pharisees went directly from the synagogue to consult with the supporters of Herod, the Romans’ puppet ruler, about how they could get rid of this dangerous dreamer.

Mark 3:6 Voice

That phrase—dangerous dreamer—has stayed with me. It’s how the religious elites saw Jesus: threatening, disruptive, dangerously liberating, all because he opened the way for ordinary people to get unstuck and walk with God.

That’s what we’re trying to do here in The Chemistry Lab—reignite faith in a world that feels increasingly paralyzed.

Next week, I’ll share my “Lazarus Experiment”, in which I’ve identified five forms of learned helplessness.

But for now, please keep supporting us so we can stop living safe, risk-free lives as we build The Chemistry Lab. Keep responding with your thoughts and discoveries.

Let’s live by faith. Let’s become what we believe.

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1. Learned Optimism by Martin Seligman. Investing some time into studying Mr. Seligman’s ideas will help us discover that learned helplessness affects more of us than we might think. 
2. Leadership in Turbulent Times by Doris Kearns Goodwin. Years ago, I met and spoke with Doris Kearns Goodwin for a good length of time because of a scheduling mishap with her book signing. Anything she writes, I will read. This book distills the primary figures she has written about for decades. I highly recommend this for anyone in leadership or seeking to become a leader. The truth is, a lot of us (myself included) become leaders but are not prepared for aspects of leadership that will try the human soul. This book will prepare you and inspire you to take the journey.
3. Originals by Adam Grant. This book provides a foundation for learning to become who you were meant to be instead of what you think everyone wants you to be. 
4. The “Fire” playlist. Listen to “Fire” by CeCe Winans, “Dream On” by Ben Rector, and “Breakthrough” by Aloe Blacc while contemplating the freedom of living by faith and dreaming dangerously.

Finally, the world welcomed a new Pope, and while I am not Catholic, I think his perspective on the world and what it needs is worth noting. We will end on his quote until next week.

“There are many settings in which the Christian faith is considered absurd, meant for the weak and unintelligent. Settings where other securities are preferred, like technology, money, success, power, or pleasure,” Pope Leo said. “These are contexts where it is not easy to preach the Gospel and bear witness to its truth, where believers are mocked, opposed, despised or at best tolerated and pitied. Yet, precisely for this reason, they are the places where our missionary outreach is desperately needed. A lack of faith is often tragically accompanied by the loss of meaning in life, the neglect of mercy, appalling violations of human dignity, the crisis of the family and so many other wounds that afflict our society.”

Thank you if you made it this far, and please keep sending us your ideas, insights, and experiments. We really are going to do this together.

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