Elevate.

1. Constant panic and worryng about every little detail

My wound is not your thought experiment.

Before you jump in with lectures and lessons and explanations,

Before you play devil’s advocate or the contrarian angle or “all sides” or “nuance” or you point out the rare exception,

Before you start quoting (generalized one-sided) stats and facts and numbers,

Before you tell someone how they should feel and they need to “calm down” and “be more loving,”

Before you send videos from contradictory talking points of people who have no business speaking on what they’re speaking on,

Before you throw immediate suspicion to “wait for all the evidence” when what you’re really saying is that your mind is already made up,

Before you spiritualize or moralize or politicize or philosophize,

Before you say “what about what about what about”—

Lean in and listen.

If you dismiss pain,

you are dismissing a whole life.

If you dismiss a whole life,

you will never see their pain.

You know how you want to be treated. How you want your mother, father, brother, sister, children, to be treated. You already know. Don’t invalidate that dignity simply because it is someone else, someone “other.” Do not erase the Image of God in someone simply because you cannot see it: it is already and always there.

Listen. Look. Enter in the wound. Would this awareness make you come alive with action, for justice and compassion.

My pain is not your sandbox to build your castle and throne. You enter my pain when you enter my home.

My wound is not your thought experiment.

Take a deep breath and prioritize yourself.

Continue on if you must, but avoid the scrolls that become an endless doom. It’s important to stay informed, but one can only process so much at once, and this is a lot.

But it will be okay.