Trust

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As a section editor at the newspaper where I worked, I occasionally received calls from people complaining that the paper was filled with “bad news.” They wanted “good news,” they said.

I had little patience with these callers because for a journalist, there is no “good” or “bad” news. There’s just news, and the journalist’s job is to deliver it as objectively and accurately as possible. Readers can decide how, and to what extent, it affects them.

Now as a consumer of news, I have a different perspective. I still want journalists to provide accurate, objective news, whether I like it or not. If news outlets provided only news that made us happy, we wouldn’t have an accurate view of reality and that would be dangerous. But I get almost depressed when, day after day, the news is depressing.

Interviewed over 200 girls
Recently, I heard a broadcast of an interview of Nancy Jo Sales, who wrote a new book called American Girls. She spent 21/2 years researching the book, interviewing over 200 teenage girls around the country about their social media and Internet usage.

She found that many boys ask for, and often receive, nude pictures from girls as young as 13. The girls feel pressure to comply, partly because both boys and girls are greatly influenced by porn, which studies show they are accessing regularly and frequently.

The girls also feel they have nowhere to turn for help. They obviously don’t feel comfortable talking to their parents, or any adult for that matter. Do they respond to these requests from the boys? Should they feel flattered they’re asked? What happens if they do or don’t comply? If they do, they run the risk of widespread on-line exposure. If they don’t, they risk retaliation by boys threatening to spread vicious rumors in an attempt to ruin their reputations.

The worst part? “Nobody talks about it,” Sales says.

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She also discovered a great deal of cyber-bullying, in which girls are most often the target. One girl, constantly seeking the approval of her on-line tormenters but never getting it, has attempted suicide several times. She gets “kill yourself” messages.

(The problem here, of course, is not the Internet and social media. It’s lack of parental oversight and involvement of parents in the lives of their children.)

The same day I heard news of an entirely different kind, but equally depressing, about the continued polling and electoral success of a presidential candidate who, judging by what he himself has said publicly, is a racist and bigot. This candidate’s world is inhabited by people he sees as “winners” and “losers,” keepers and throwaways. According to the polls and results from primaries, he is favored by a third of his party.

Of course, these news reports affecting society and our place in it don’t compare with the personal and familial problems many people have. So many are dealing with serious illness, financial ruin and upheaval in their families. Still, we seem to adapt our moods to the scale of our perceived fortunes, so even the news can make us sad.

So how does faith affect these perceptions and our reaction to them?

God ultimately in charge
People who sincerely search for God will eventually conclude that God is ultimately in charge and that wallowing in anxiety is useless and counter-productive. Of course, that conclusion – and applying it in our lives – doesn’t come easily. Humans are worriers. Trust is, however, an important benchmark in the search for God.

We only trust people we know, of course. That’s why doing all we can to “know” God – to the extent that’s possible – is so important. Prayer and study are indispensable to reach the goal of being able to say with the author of the Letter to the Romans in the Christian Bible, “If God is for us, who can be against us?”

I’ve used this prayer by Trappist monk and spiritual writer Thomas Merton in this blog before, but I think it’s worth repeating. It demonstrates the kind of trust people searching for God seek.

My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so.

But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope that I have that desire in all I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this, you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it.

Therefore, I trust you always, though I may seem to be lost in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.