60 Seconds for Thoughts on Thursday: Never, Ever Quit as Unreasonable as it Seems

Hello to you still listening in Kyiv, Ukraine!

Coming to you from Whidbey Island, Washington this is 60 Seconds for Thoughts on Thursday with your host, Diane Wyzga.

I look at the whole wide world and wonder, “Really? Is this the best we can do?” And yet, here in my own neighborhood we are no different. So, I ask the questions, seek to hear through the craziness, and remind myself that when I stand for something I will not fall for just anything.

As my dear friend and colleague Brandi Heather said to me in a recent crisis of faith: “Never, ever, quit as unreasonable as it seems!”

Someone else who did not quit, as unreasonable as that seemed, was  Martin Niemöller (1892–1984) a prominent Lutheran pastor and a complicated figure in German history. He emerged as an outspoken public foe of Adolf Hitler and spent the last seven years of Nazi rule in concentration camps. He is perhaps best remembered for his postwar words, “First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.”

Question: The reasonable thing is not usually the right thing. What if we don’t do what’s reasonable? What if we act from that place where we are our very best, unreasonable, unquenchable selves? Seek that place!