Misunderstanding

A Snapchat feature lets paying users see their position in their friends’ digital orbits. For some teens, whose friends are everything, it’s adding to their anxiety.

Snapchat+ subscribers can check where they rank with a particular friend based on how often that friend communicates with them. The result is automatically rendered in a solar-system metaphor: Are you Mercury, the planet closest to your friend? Great! Uranus? Bad sign.

“A lot of kids my age have trouble differentiating best friends on Snapchat from actual best friends in real life,” says 15-year-old Callie Schietinger. She said she had her own problems when a boyfriend noticed that he was Neptune in her solar system. He asked who held the Mercury position and when she told him it was a guy friend, he got mad.

More than 20 million U.S. teens use the app, though most don’t pay for Snapchat+. Young adults with those paid accounts have seen friendships splinter and young love wither due to the knowledge that someone else ranks higher on the app. Now, lawmakers, doctors, and parents are giving fuller attention to these apps and how they broadly affect kids’ mental health.

Callie and her boyfriend have since broken up, for other reasons. But that stress and the misunderstandings she has seen other friends experience have soured her on the feature. “It’s everyone’s biggest fear put onto an app,” Callie says. “Ranking is never good for anyone’s head.”

Garret Keizer was asked by his minister to visit an elderly parishioner, Pete, in a nursing home. Garret finds out that Pete loves bananas, so he starts bringing some on each week’s visit. Garrett said:

I was standing with my Chiquitas in line at the supermarket behind one of those people who seem to think they're at a bank instead of a store. She must have had three checkbooks. I shifted from one foot to the other, sighing, glancing at the clock. I wanted to catch Pete before supper. No doubt I was feeling the tiniest bit righteous because I was about the Lord's business on behalf of my old man, who needed his bananas and was looking forward to my company. And here was this loser buying an armful of trivial odds and ends and taking my precious time to screw around with her appallingly disorganized finances.

When I finally got through the line, I watched her walk to her vehicle feeling that same uncharitable impulse that makes us glance at the driver of a car we're passing just to “get a look at the jerk.” She got into the driver's seat of a van marked with the name of a local nursing home and filled to capacity with elderly men and women who had no doubt handed her their wish lists and checkbooks as soon as she'd cut the ignition.

In an episode of NBC’s sitcom, The Office, Michael Scott offers a humorously self-serving accounting of his weaknesses as a boss: “I work too hard, I care too much, and sometimes I can be too invested in my job.” Asked to list his strengths, he replies, “Well, my weaknesses are actually strengths.”

Call it the Michael Scott paradox. In telling stories about our lives, we have a habit of casting ourselves as the hero. Every day is a new chapter confirming that we alone are truly empathetic, courageous, and reasonable. Our strengths are obvious (or at least they should be). And our weaknesses are really strengths.

This penchant for valorizing our choices and motivations speaks to the fundamental fallenness of our nature. It tempts us to misremember, misconstrue, and misunderstand not only ourselves but those around us.

Possible Preaching Angles:

There are at least two possible ways to approach this illustration. 1) Ego; Pride; Self-Deception - The obvious lesson is that ego, pride, and a fallen nature can lead a person to overlook their weaknesses and fail to humble themselves and grow; 2) Humility; Identity in Christ; Power, spiritual - We might actually agree with Michael Scott if we realize that in Christ, our weaknesses are really our strengths “Therefore I will boast all the more gladly in my weaknesses” when his “power is perfected in weakness” (1 Cor. 1:26-31; 2 Cor. 12:5-10).

The inventor of the world’s first cellphone says he’s stunned by how much time people now waste on their devices. 92-year-old Martin Cooper made the declaration during an interview with “BBC Breakfast” responding to a co-host who claimed she whiled away upwards of five hours per day on her phone. “Do you really? You really spend five hours a day? Get a life!” he stated, before bursting into laughter.

Cooper invented the world’s first cellphone back in 1973. He came up with the idea to make a portable phone that people could bring with them into their car, but also take out of the vehicle and use while they were out and about running errands.

Once the device was completed, it was named the Motorola DynaTAC 8000X. It weighed 2½ pounds and was 10 inches long. It lasted just 25 minutes before it ran out of battery and took a whopping 10 hours to recharge. The phone didn’t hit the market for a further decade, finally released to the public in 1983. It cost a whopping $3,995.

Now, almost half a century after Cooper’s invention, Americans are hooked on their devices. A 2021 survey found that 46% of respondents spent five to six hours on their phones each day. 11% said that they spent a staggering seven hours or more on their devices.

In Fall 2022, the Gas app exploded in popularity among high schoolers, but a vicious, unfounded rumor caused its popularity to nosedive, confounding its founders in the process.

Titled after the internet slang “gas up” which means to flatter someone or give them good feelings, the app allows students to share anonymous compliments with their peers. But mere weeks after it reached No. 1 on the Apple store, rumors began circulating that Gas was being used for sex trafficking.

One user said, “I have a Glock and I’ll come into your house and kill all of you,” said Nikita Bier, the startup entrepreneur who founded Gas. “The messages are very detailed, and they’ll send like 150 of these messages because they’re so angry. We have had emails saying, ‘what you’re doing is disgusting and I’ve reported you to the FBI.’ We get countless messages every day from users about it.”

According to Bier, the rumors intensified after parents, teachers, news reporters, and public safety organizations amplified them without knowing if they were true or not.

One such agency was the police department in Piedmont, Oklahoma, which later had to post a retraction. Piedmont Police Chief Scott Singer later said, “That posting was the result of a post that was forwarded to us, which we later learned to be a bogus posting. As a result, we talked with the CEO of Gas, and we have determined it was a bogus posting. We have removed that from our Facebook page and informed the schools that any postings about that were discovered to be false.”

Bier says, “The app grows on its own, but dealing with the hoax requires a lot of labor.” He’s tried a variety of strategies to counter the misinformation, but it seems none of them are very effective. “The challenge is that you can only fight memes with memes. If it’s not easily screenshotable and exciting it’s not going to get more visibility than the original message.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

Nothing can ruin a good situation like poor judgment and unbridled gossiping. As Christians we ought to set an example both by what we say and what we choose NOT to say.

New York Times columnist Kashana Cauley knows a little something about regrets. She wrote, “My friends and I got tattoos so we could feel dangerous. Not very dangerous, because very dangerous people went to jail, but slightly dangerous, like a thrilling drop of botulism in a jar of jelly.”

She explains in the piece that when it came time to select her first tattoo, she picked a design of Chinese characters that she was told meant “fame and fortune.” But then she had chat with an older Chinese-speaking woman in a university locker room when they were changing clothes.

“She asked me what I thought the Chinese characters on my shoulder meant, and I told her. Then she asked me what I was at school to study, and I said law. She frowned and told me the tattoo was better suited for someone in the arts — that I should hurry up and get into the arts. We both laughed.”

But Cauley thought it would be different when she got a tattoo of her own name. As an African American descended from slavery, her knowledge of family history doesn’t extend very far. But a friend told her once that her name meant something beautiful and significant in Arabic. As a result, she looked up an online Arabic translation of her name, and got that design as another tattoo.

And she was satisfied with her choice … until she wasn’t. “For a few years I walked around confident that I had finally restored some meaning to my name, until an Arabic-speaking friend spotted my tattoo at lunch. ‘What do you think it means?’ she asked.”

Her friend’s response surprised her. “Instead of complimenting me on the beautiful, permanent version of my name needled onto my arm, my Arabic-speaking friend paused. Apparently, tattoo No. 2 was actually one of those 404 error messages, when an online search comes up blank. So my arm said, more or less: ‘Result not found.’”

“As a reluctant pioneer in the field of bad tattooing, I spent years afterward stubbornly telling people it meant ‘the eternal search.’ It sounded more elegant than ‘I didn’t find a correct translation of my name on the internet.’”

Possible Preaching Angle:

We can avoid embarrassing mishaps by asking for the counsel of others to help guide us through the major decisions we make.

As the Russian invasion into Ukraine drags onward, international approval ratings of Russian president Vladimir Putin have been, pardon the term, tanking. But for a certain subset of Canadians, the anti-Putin sentiment adds unacceptable insult to Ukrainian injury. And like other more serious international incidents, people are somehow blaming the French.

That’s because the French spelling of the Russian president’s name is “Poutine,” which is also the name of a French-Canadian diner staple: fried potatoes topped with gravy and cheese curds. This is why French restaurant Maison de la Poutine was subject to rude, harassing, and insulting phone calls throughout February and March. This is because people read the name of its signature dish – often called the national dish of Canada – and misinterpreted it as support for the Russian leader.

On its Twitter account, the restaurant was forced to issue a clarification, which included the following affirmation:

Poutine was created by passionate cooks who wanted to bring joy and comfort to their customers. La Maison de la Poutine has worked since its first day to carry on these values. Today it brings its most sincere support to the Ukrainian people who are courageously fighting for their freedom against the tyrannical Russian regime.

Another popular French-Canadian restaurant Le Roy Jucep, went even further, renaming the popular dish as “la frite fromage” (literally “the cheese potato”), so as to dissuade any presumed affiliation with Putin.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Names are important because they bestow honor. When someone behaves dishonorably, we besmirch the names we are given and others see those names as disgraceful.

On-air announcer Glenn Consor was doing what he’s paid to do at an NBA game: giving off-the-cuff commentary to the events as they unfolded. But this moment would end up being a notorious chapter in his broadcasting career.

Consor is the color analyst for NBC Sports Washington which covers the Washington Wizards. As such, he had a perfect view of Houston Rockets guard Kevin Porter, Jr. as he launched a game-winning three-pointer to defeat the Wizards on their home floor. In the shock of the moment, Consor said the following: “You’ve got to give credit. Kevin Porter Jr., like his dad, pulled that trigger right at the right time.”

Consor made the paternal reference because he assumed the Rockets guard was the son of former Washington Bullets standout Kevin Porter. But he was wrong. The father of the Rockets’ Kevin Porter Jr. did not previously play in the NBA.

However, back in 1993 Porter’s father did plead guilty to first-degree manslaughter in the shooting death of a fourteen-year-old, a conviction for which he spent four-and-a-half years in prison. So many fans were offended at the comment, because it appeared as though Consor was glibly making a double entendre of Porter Jr. and his father’s criminal background.

But Consor meant no such harm. He had no idea that his use of the phrase “pulling the trigger” would be interpreted literally and was mortified when he found out about his mistake. The next day he offered the following apology:

Please allow me to take this opportunity to sincerely apologize to Kevin Porter Jr., his family and the Rockets organization for the comments I made during last night’s game. I mistakenly thought that Kevin was the son of former Washington player Kevin Porter and was unaware that the words I chose to describe his game-winning shot would be in any way hurtful or insensitive. I have reached out Kevin to personally apologize and hope to be able to talk with him soon.

Possible Preaching Angle:

As Christians we are called to own up to our mistakes and ask forgiveness when our words hurt others, even when we mean no harm.

A "slip of the tongue" by an air traffic controller at Paris Charles de Gaulle airport saw two planes come within 300 feet of crashing into each other in July, 2020.

A United Airlines flight from Newark, NJ was making its approach to land at the same time that an EasyJet was preparing to take off for Malaga, Spain. The Newark flight was supposed to be assigned to land on runway 09L, as the Malaga flight was cleared to take off from runway 09R.

Due to an unfortunate slip of the tongue, however, the controller gave clearance for Newark to land on 09R, instead of 09L. Furthermore, the controller didn’t have direct line-of-sight access to runway 09R because of an equipment malfunction.

Eventually, the Malaga flight asked why the Newark plane was given clearance to land on their runway, and warned of the imminent collision. The Newark plane was instructed to abort the landing and ascend, but by the time it engaged the evasive maneuver, the two planes were only 300 feet apart.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Even in situations that seem routine, our words still have tremendous power to heal or hurt, build or destroy. Being careless with the tongue is akin to flirting with calamity.

The city of Detroit was in a campaign to reforest its streets after decades of neglecting its depleted tree canopy. However, the tree-planters met stiff resistance: Roughly a quarter of the 7,500 residents declined offers to have new trees planted in front of their homes.

Researcher Christine Carmichael found that the rejections had more to do with how the tree-planters presented themselves than it did with how residents felt about trees. The residents understood the benefits of having trees in urban environments—they provide shade, absorb air pollution, increase property values, and improve health. But the reasons Detroit folks refused was not that they didn’t trust the trees; they didn’t trust the city.

A couple of African-American women Carmichael talked to linked the tree-planting program to a painful racist moment in Detroit’s history, when the city suddenly began cutting down elm trees in bulk in their neighborhoods. As the women understood it, the city did this so that law enforcement could have better surveilance on their neighborhoods from helicopters after an urban uprising.

However, the government’s reason was that the trees were dying off from the Dutch elm disease. But it was the women’s version that led to their decision to reject the trees. It’s not that they didn’t trust the trees; they didn’t trust the city.

The women felt that the city just came in and cut down their trees, and now they want to just come in planting trees. But they felt they should have a choice in this since they’ll be the ones raking up the leaves when the planters leave. They felt that the decisions were being made by someone else, and they were going to have to deal with the consequences.

Failing to meaningfully involve the residents in the decision-making is a classic mistake. After all, who would turn down a free tree? Perhaps these people just don’t get it.

One Detroit resident whom Carmichael interviewed told her: “You know, I really appreciate you today because that shows that someone is listening. Someone is trying to find out what’s really going on in our thoughts. And maybe next time they can do a survey and ask us, if they would like to have us have the trees.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

Churches and small groups can learn from Detroit’s mistake. It is best to ask for members’ participation in planning and decision-making rather than making authoritative decisions without explanation or discussion.

The Billy Graham Center commissioned a survey of 2,000 Americans who don’t actively participate in religion—the “unchurched.” The survey asked these people about how they perceive Christians and Christianity. This included their view of Christianity, their willingness to talk about faith matters with Christians, how they would respond to being invited to a church event, and which types of invitations would they be most willing to accept.

The data found that many unchurched Americans think well of Christians and are open to engaging matters of faith. For example, 42 percent of the unchurched think that Christianity is good for society, 33 percent admire their Christians friends’ faith, and up to 67 percent would be willing to attend a church event (depending on the type of event). Richardson concludes that the unchurched include “a massive number of people who are open to being invited, persuaded, and connected to a local congregation.”

This analysis counters misconceptions about the unchurched. Christians commonly overestimate the hostility of the unchurched in matters of faith. We can slip into viewing them as mini-versions of Richard Dawkins—hostile to all things Christian. Not all of them will constructively engage us, of course, but many will.

A British Parliamentarian yielded the floor to a most unexpected interloper: his new iPhone. British Defense Secretary Gavin Williamson's iPhone his address to the House of Commons regarding Islamic State terrorists. It was triggered by Williamson's mention of the country Syria, which sounds confusingly similar to Siri, the iPhone's voice-activated virtual assistant.

"What a very rum business that is," interjected Speaker John Bercow, using "rum" as a synonym for "odd." In response, Williamson acknowledged the novelty of the moment. "It is very rare that you're heckled by your own mobile phone," he admitted.

Critics of the Secretary Williamson raised security concerns about the potential risk of carrying a device designed to eavesdrop into the kinds of highly-classified security briefings that come with the role, but a BBC source close to Williamson downplayed those concerns, saying he did not carry the phone into meetings deemed confidential or sensitive.

Potential Preaching Angle: Technology; Interruptions; Busyness; Stress—Contemporary life, with all of our gadgets and technology, can add stress and interruptions that we never intended. 2) Attention; Commitment; Distractions - Are we focused on the task the Lord has given us, or are we distracted and not giving the Lord's work our full attention?

If Ripley's Believe It Or Not ever ventured into the realm of cooking shows, this episode would defy the imagination. Three American college students living abroad accidentally started a fire in their apartment after purchasing pasta from a local market and attempting to cook it without any water.

Despite its almost universal availability, the young women insisted to fire department officials dispatched to the scene that their exclusion of water was an honest mistake, and that they genuinely did not know water was necessary in the process of cooking pasta.

Italian newspaper La Nazione confirmed the account, explaining that the damage was limited to a few articles of kitchen furniture. Naturally, the students' culinary adventure attracted jeering commentary, especially from Italian natives who've had their fill of ugly-American stereotypes.

Fortunately for them, though, one person who took notice was famed restauranteur Fabio Picchi. Instead of sarcastic barbs, Picchi offered the students a four-hour culinary lesson, which would conclude with lunch with the chefs at his restaurant in Florence.

"I feel guilty," Picchi told La Nazione.

"I feel there was a strong communication deficit on the part of this city. I think this can be useful to them, but also to us. Understanding is always—with simplicity and cognition—what is beautiful and necessary."

Potential Preaching Angles: Ignorance can lead to embarrassment, but a gracious response can promote healing. Even embarrassing mistakes can lead to redemption.

If you've never heard of an "accidental car theft," then perhaps a rather strange news story from Portland, Oregon, hasn't reached you just yet.

In late October, Erin Hatzi reported to police that her red Subaru Impreza had been stolen out of her driveway—according to her surveillance footage, "a woman [had] calmly enter[ed] her car and [drove] away" with it. Calmly, indeed: In fact, the woman had sat in the car for a couple minutes. "We were really confused because it didn't seem like the normal actions of a car thief," said Hatzi.

The next day, "[p]olice stopped a woman attempting to return the car outside of Hatzi's home." The driver offered up this explanation: The night before, "she had been sent to the neighborhood to pick up her friend's car and accidentally took Hatzi's vehicle instead." The friend did not see the car until that morning, and upon realizing the mix-up, left a note and gas money inside the car and sent it back to its rightful owner.

So what had happened? According to police, "older Subaru keys are interchangeable and can occasionally be used to open different cars."

Potential Preaching Angles: May this bizarre happily-ever-after news story remind us that while we might jump to immediate conclusions about our situation, God has a bigger picture in mind—a picture in which the car might be returned at the end.

A story is told of a man from Colorado who came to northern Minnesota one autumn for deer hunting. The Mid-westerners who hosted him planned to "drive the woods" the afternoon of the opening day of the season. They instructed their friend to walk down the road until he reached the ridge, and then stand on it in order to get a shot at any deer running out of the woods. After giving him a head start, they fanned out in a straight line and began walking slowly through the woods in his direction.

When they finally emerged from the woods, however, they were surprised to find no one standing on the ridge. In fact, the Colorado hunter was nowhere to be seen. They drove down the road looking for him, and eventually found him several miles away, still walking, still looking for the ridge. For a man who lived in the Rockies, the hump of earth pushed up on the far edge of the open field just beyond the woods simply didn't qualify in his mind as a "ridge." But in northern Minnesota, which is utterly flat as far as the eye can see, it is called a "ridge" to this day. And it is the only ridge around; if he had walked a mile or so further, he would have crossed the border into Canada.

Possible Preaching Angles: Marriage; Teamwork; Relationships; Parenting; Leadership; Church Boards—The problem arose because the hunter from Colorado had a different mental image or model of "ridge" than the hunters from Minnesota. The image we have of something—the way we picture it in our mind—can make a real difference in how we communicate with a spouse, a team member, a church member, and so forth.

Have you ever been singing a popular song only to discover that you're belting out the wrong lyrics? Misunderstanding lyrics is a common mistake that can take on a life of its own as seen with the single by Taylor Swift, "Blank Space." A misunderstood line from the song has taken on a life of its own. Some Swift fans think the song's line "got a long list of ex-lovers" is actually "all the lonely Starbucks lovers" including, apparently, her mom.

Well, now there's a scientific explanation for our goofed-up lyrics. It's called mondegreens. Dr. Mark Liberman, professor of linguistics at the University of Pennsylvania, explains the phenomenon: when you hear a song "you're getting an input signal that is muddled with background music, rhythms, and syllabification, explains making it hard for your brain to interpret everything at once."

Possible Preaching Angle:

It's harmless when it comes to song lyrics, but it may be harmful for our life in Christ. Getting input signals from the Bible or the Holy Spirit that are "muddled with background" noise can be dangerous.

In the late 1980s, the National Park Service noticed that the Lincoln Memorial was slowly crumbling and deteriorating. Why? Part of the problem was from water, both rainwater and cleaning water: Park Service crews were giving "the great marble statue of Abraham Lincoln and adjacent walls and floors a daily scrubbing," according to the Associated Press. But why where they cleaning the Lincoln Memorial so often?

Because of the huge mess left each day by sparrows and starlings. But why were so many sparrows and starlings attracted to the Lincoln Memorial? Because they were drawn by spiders. But why were so many spiders making their home in the Lincoln Memorial?

Because of midges, "small winged insects that breed in the muddy flats of the nearby Potomac River." Midges swarm into the air at dusk for mating, and when they did, they were drawn by the huge lights illuminating the memorial. The midges would smash into the limestone walls, and their protein remains drew the spiders, which drew the sparrows and starlings, which caused the mess, which caused the Park Service crews to clean every day, which brought extra water, which caused erosion.

Why was the Lincoln Memorial eroding? Because of the tiny midge. But you wouldn't find that out until you asked "Why?" four times.

Possible Preaching Angles: (1) Bible Study; Wisdom—You could use this story to illustrate the need to dig into the biblical text, asking questions first. (2) Sin; Confession—You could also use this story to illustrate the destructive power of sin and temptation. By allowing "small" sins and temptations (the "midges" of our lives) in our heart, we create the context for spiritual erosion. (3) Communication; Understanding; Misunderstanding—It also shows the need to ask good questions before we think we understand someone or someone's point of view.

In the age of the internet, most of us diagnose our minor illnesses and injuries with a trip to Google rather than a trip to the doctor. But as this hilarious comic from "The Joy of Tech" observes, a quick web search can make even the healthiest person a hypochondriac.

A skinned knee turns to "gangrene, complicated by necrophagous bacteria." That pimple becomes "cornu cutaneum horn growing on keratin mound," and before long, you're convinced that you're dying.

You can see the cartoon here

Possible Preaching Angle:

It's funny, but it also points to the power of good diagnosis—not understanding the cause of what you're suffering from is really a problem. For many of us, what's needed is clarity not just on what we're experiencing in our lives, but why. And if you want to know that, don't go to Google. Go to the great Physician, the cure of souls.

One day an old man was casually walking along a country lane with his dog and his mule. Suddenly a speeding pick-up truck careened around the corner, knocking the man, his mule, and his dog into the ditch.

The old man decided to sue the driver of the truck, seeking to recoup the cost of the damages. While the old man was on the stand, the counsel for the defense cross-examined the man by asking a simple question: "I want you to answer 'yes' or 'no' to the following question: Did you or did you not say at the time of the accident that you were 'perfectly fine'"?

And the man said, "Well, me and my dog and my mule were walking along the road … " And the counsel for defense said, "Stop, stop, I asked you, tell me 'yes' or 'no', did you say you were 'perfectly fine' at the time of the accident?"

"Well, me and my dog and my mule were walking along the road and … " The defense attorney appealed to the judge. "Your honor," he said, "the man is not answering the question. Would you please insist that he answer the question?" The judge said, "Well, he obviously wants to tell us something. Let him speak."

So the man said, "Well, me and my dog and my mule were walking along the road and this truck came around the corner far too fast, knocked us into the ditch. The driver stopped, got out of his truck, saw my dog was badly injured, went back to his truck, got his rifle, and he shot it. Then he saw that my mule had broken his leg so he shot it. Then he said, 'How are you?' And I said, 'I'm perfectly fine.'"

Possible Preaching Angles: (1) Communication; Listening—In order to understand someone (a friend, spouse, non-Christian), we need to listen carefully to what they have to say. (2) Worldview; Assumptions; Presuppositions—We all have assumptions, perspectives, or a worldview about reality. That worldview determines how we view and interpret the events of our life. (3) Bible Study; Interpretation—It also shows how we need to understand the context before we can rightly study and interpret the Bible.