Last year, “Utne Reader,” an alternative magazine, asked its subscribers, “What are you thinking and obsessing about?” The answers reveal what’s going on in the minds of many people in today’s world–and in the minds of people who listen to sermons.
“My company is about to be bought out. What will the new structure be like? What if I get laid off?”
“Do I risk enough in my life?”
“Is an affair worth it? Resolved: No!, or maybe yes. Probably. Wait … “
“Why do most women (even fabulously hip ones) seem to hate their bodies?”
“The one thing I can’t get away from is feeling lonely all the time.”
“I’m worried that if I keep my standards too high I may never find an acceptable life partner. But I’m more worried about lowering my standards and being in another failed relationship. My strength/stamina to recover from emotional loss … is depleting exponentially each time–this scares the s— out of me, causes me to isolate [myself] and lose hope. I’m afraid that, at 33, I’m chewed up, spit out, and in general used up.”
“Why does my son have schizophrenia? What can I do to cure him? How do I care for him without going into the abyss? Why don’t meditation, imagery, prayer, and love cure him?”
“How can I eliminate my ex-husband from my life without committing a felony?”
“My serious obsession–one that is always with me–is finding my daughter, whom I so naively gave up for adoption 25 years ago. How could I have done this? I’ll be sound asleep and jerk awake with the thought of her in my mind. … May God forgive me.”
“Does my boss realize how much I play computer games at work?”
“How will I handle my parents’ death?”
“Should I get pregnant again? … [My] husband strongly objects to [the] idea of [a] second child but admits that he’d want another if money were no object. Meanwhile, I burst into tears every time another friend conceives a second or third child. This is breaking my heart.”
“I’m 44 years old. No mate; no kids; I sleep with my dog. What happened?”
“Do I have the courage to die by inches with cancer, or does it take more courage to end the suffering sooner with my .38?”
“Is it possible to participate in the American economy (driven by consumption, expansion, and a myth of corporate progress) and still live up to the ideals we teach our children and claim as our own (honesty, fairness, responsibility, accountability)?”
“Why is life, in essence, suffering?”
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Excerpted from Utne Reader (May/June 1995). Used with permission.
Copyright (c) 1995 Christianity Today, Inc./LEADERSHIP Journal
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Copyright © 1995 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.
