Facing our Stressterdays

Earlier this week, my dogs had their semi-annual trip to the vet. They like their vet, but they don’t always have fun there. (Needles and nail trims, oh my!) Alas, it was a day of no drama and lots of pets and treats, so all was well.

However, the stress had been real. And the next day, it was evident that their stress had manifested in their bodies. Their eating habits had been off, their sleep was a bit disturbed. Stress is real, and you just can’t logic with a dog.

I always plan for extra treats for the day-after-vet day. A little extra love, a little extra patience, a little extra time. A little bit of extra care can go a long way, after all, when recovering from yester-stress. In very short order, the effects of Stressterday are gone and forgotten (until the next trip!)

For us humans, we’ve been living in a time of high-stress for a while. The persistent stress of COVID, the ancillary concerns of economics and relationships, the reality that we don’t have the security we once believed: these stresses have been with us and affecting us in mind, body, and spirit. Add the anxiety-inducing headlines and it’s no wonder we too are feeling the stresses of today. Further to this, we seem as a society to have decreasing coping mechanisms and basic interactions and communications. This can only worsen our stress-o-meter.

So what do we do? First, we can focus on the reality of what IS rather than the perception of what IF. If we react to a created doom we are feeding our fears, but if we respond to the challenges at hand, we are likely to be in a better space. Also, if we remember to exercise the basics of interconnections, we can alleviate problems –such as speaking to one another instead of about one another, bringing tensions to the people best equipped to seek solutions (not gossiping or posting on social media), committing to collaborative efforts that build community.

And most of all: we can pray. Not because prayer will make everything better; but when we connect with the divine, our souls ground in the source of love. And love, we know, showers us with the gentle care and compassion we desire.

Today’s worry is enough for today, scripture tells us. Let’s respond to today’s worries appropriately, so that tomorrow we can face the day fresh and unaffected by stressterday.

Worth a thousand words?

"Pictures Everywhere"
CC BY-2.0 by François Karm. Source: Flickr

A few conversations this week have included the topic of pictures. They’ve been photography as a practice, and as a hobby; from re-touched photos to decorate a living space, to quick cell-phone snapshots to capture a memory.

In this era of digital, when the blurry or insignificant photos can just be deleted, we seem to have put a lower importance to pictures. We can see what they look like immediately (no waiting for the developed prints!), we can adjust the lighting and colouring ourselves, we can add filters and enhancements to the originals, we can even edit people in (or out) with the right software.

Pictures capture our travels, our relationships, our experiences. They honour moments, they remind us of amusements, they catalogue our days. The ones we choose to share tell a story, convey a version of our lives that we wish to project (be that authentic or aspirational – or somewhere in between).

If a picture says a thousand words, then, what do our over-full photo albums have to say about us? What are the emotions that these photos elicit? What characteristics do they portray, what values are they demonstrating?

For we know that the pictures we take show a side of who we are to the world – and sometimes to ourselves. Whether we are in the photo or not, we have participated in the moment: to revisit the picture is to revisit the moment, to both see and be seen. Which gives us the opportunity to consider if we like what we see.

My hope is that we don’t just lose the essence of the captured moment as we are surrounded by the abundance of images. My hope is that we don’t lose ourselves in the plethora of personae we present. And my hope is that we don’t lose sight of what really matters to us, when we are engaged in moments that are worthy of capturing.

"It could be a word!"

Some weeks ago, in a conversation with a friend, we both lost our words. We knew what we wanted to say, but ended up using sounds – that were not quite words. It was a vocal equivalent of an ellipsis, a space-filler in a sentence. The thingy, the whatchamacallit, the blah-dee-blah. There were hand motions at times, as we laughed and said "it could be a word!"

It was amusing, but we were able to continue in our conversation without going back to fill in those replaced non-words – because we didn’t need to. Our ideas had been conveyed, our thoughts communicated. "I know what you mean" was a regular comment.

And, after all, words are meant to communicate something; if the communication has taken place, then that’s fine… isn’t it?

I think in some circumstances: yes. Clearly, in the chat with my friend, we had enough context, history, and understanding to comprehend the gist of the message.

In other times, however, this type of thing could be problematic… when words have different meanings to different cultures (a cloud is a vapour mist in the sky, and online data storage), or are idiomatic (raining cats and dogs is not an atmospheric animal attack), or vary by language (saying one is embarazada in Spanish does not mean embarrassed, but pregnant), or have changed definitions over time (awful used to be positive, mean awe-full or amazing; it now carries a negative assessment of something): the whole meaning can be lost, or become offensive.

It can be helpful, then, for us to clarify that what we are saying or hearing is in fact accurate to the desired communication. If we’re speaking and see an unexpected reaction in our listener, we can clarify that we have been understood. If we are the listener who hears an outrageous or unlikely comment, we can ask for more information. If we’re reading things that have been written decades (or millennia) ago, we can be careful about understanding translation and context.

Words are powerful; and we are responsible for our own understanding. Especially if we have a strong emotional reaction to a collection of words, it can help us all to make sure that it has communicated what it needed to communicate.

Why Be Mean Over Wordle?

I have recently joined the masses who engage in the daily word game called Wordle.

It’s a website, with one game per day, where you get 6 chances to guess a 5-letter word; correct letters in the right place are green, correct letters but in the wrong place are yellow.

Part of this game’s spread to popularity has been the ‘share’ feature, where players can have their results shared on social media. The letters are not shared, just the coloured blocks and the number of attempts. Some people choose to share, but it's not required.

What has surprised me in the last couple of weeks has been the energy around the sharing of the game. When I first saw people sharing their results, the comments were complimentary and kind, a simple ‘way to go!’ type of thing. People connected over their shared efforts, those green and yellow squares giving a neutral opportunity to reach out with a word or two.

Recently, however, there have been comments that are less encouraging – some folks whose comments have become unnecessarily critical and harsh, expressing negativity against the person themselves (I saw a “only stupid people take 5 tries” this week!) Really, why would a elicit harshness like this?

There are other folks who are intentionally posting the answers (thereby ruining the game for that day for others who may see it.) It’s a juvenile thing to do, demonstrating selfishness and meanness (why be mean over a word game?)

It’s disappointing and disheartening that some folks feel the need to extend their displeasure - especially as there's no benefit to doing so, and it's a simple thing that doesn't change their lives. Meanness has no place in building community. And there are other ways to respond: people could choose to just not say anything cruel, or to ignore the Wordle posts and scroll past, or (worst case!) ‘mute’ the person posting them (a ‘snooze for 30 days’ feature is available on Facebook, after all).

What struck me most this week was the hostility of comments when it was revealed that the creator of Wordle was selling it to the New York Times – which leads to no changes for the players – yet so many chose to create horrible nastiness that was shared online.

In reality, I can’t imagine that this negativity actually stems from Wordle; I’ve not seen it be offensive in any way. Yet how people react and respond to Wordle is showing us a part of ourselves that might benefit from closer examination.

So we have the choice – in Wordle and in life – to be kind and compassionate to others, in how we interact. As Christians, we are regularly invited to love one another (Jesus) and to encourage one another (in Ephesians) and to stir one another up to good works (in Hebrews) (and many, many other places!). Let’s engage with one another with 5-letter words that show the world who we are: Faith, Heart, Grace.