Blake Snow

writer-for-hire, content guy, bestselling author

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Tagged faith

When life gets complicated, cling to three spiritual pillars

Courtesy iStock

A friend recently asked what he should tell a youth group his pastor asked him to address. He had this grand idea about explaining all the ways the world is more challenging and complicated than before, especially for youth. He was then going to articulate several points on how to combat each complexity in deep detail.

Although my friend’s heart was in the right place, he was overthinking the issue. “Just acknowledge that life is hard, then reiterate how daily prayer, scripture reading, and church attendance draws us closer to God than any other habit.” Upon telling him this, he looked at me with newfound clarity and determination. “Thank you,” he said. “I’m gonna try this.”

When I saw him the following week, he approached me with a big smile. “It worked!” he exclaimed. “The kids loved the simplicity of the message.” I was happy to hear this.

But the truth is these three habits work for more than just youth. They are for anyone who feels overwhelmed by temporal challenges, moral dilemmas, or the spiritual demands of religion in general.

In short, daily prayer, scripture reading, and weekly church attendance has blessed my life and nurtured my faith more than any other spiritual habits.

The meaning of life: 13 things I learned from the world’s greatest thinkers

I don’t always study philosophy, but when I do, I make it count.

Case in point: A friend and I were recently discussing the human condition over email. Exhilarating stuff, I know. I’ll skip to the best part.

Basically, we decided that humans struggle to internalize both complex and simple realizations. Complex ones because they’re harder to grasp, and simple takeaways because we’re usually too distracted by temptations, desires, and pleasures to see them through, even if we believe in them (or so argues Aristotle; more on him later).

At this point, I asked my buddy, “So if humans struggle to comprehend both complex and simple ideas, what in the HELL are we good at?”

His reply, “Entertainment. And nothing else.” Full stop. The gravity and strategic double periods of his remark made me do this:

MGM Studios

MGM Studios

At which point I enrolled in a 36-course undergraduate class from Smith College. Not exactly. But I did download the audible version of the classThe Meaning of Life: Perspectives from the World’s Greatest Thinkers, from Amazon!

Having already graduated (go, fight, win!), I did this solely for my own enlightenment. Little did I know how much impact professor Jay Garfield’s masterful curriculum would have on my worldview, existential outlook, and shared beliefs with others.

Here’s what I learned:  Continue reading…

HOW TO HOPE: 10 ways to starve your fears

Credit: Blake Snow

My wife and I believe the world is inherently good and we want to indoctrinate our children to think the same. Not by ignoring society’s seedy underbelly. But with measurable evidence such as this that overwhelmingly proves the world is getting better and better.

To that end, my wife shared the following quote with our children and I over breakfast recently: “Feed your faith and your fear will starve.” In other words, people who are afraid are usually consumed by doubt.

But in my experience, we can replace that fear and doubt with hope and love by doing the following:  Continue reading…

Why America lost its religion (while still praying more than most)

Great writing from Derek Thompson for The Atlantic:

“As America’s youth have slipped away from organized religion, they haven’t quite fallen into wickedness. If anything, today’s young people are uniquely conscientious—less likely to fight, drink, use hard drugs, or have premarital sex than previous generations. They might not be able to quote from the Book of Matthew, but their economic and social politics—which insist on protections for the politically meek and the historically persecuted—aren’t so far from a certain reading of the beatitudes.

“Most important has been the dramatic changes in the American family. The past half century has dealt a series of body blows to American marriage. Divorce rates spiked in the ’70s through the ’90s, following the state-by-state spread of no-fault divorce laws. Just as divorce rates stabilized, the marriage rate started to plummet in the ’80s, due to both the decline of marriage within the working class and delayed marriage among college-educated couples.”

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