Why I went quiet and why I'm still here

If you’ve been following along, you probably noticed I’ve been quieter over the last week or so. It wasn’t burnout, and it wasn’t because I ran out of things to say, trust me, there’s plenty happening. I went quiet because I needed to do some real soul-searching about whether I wanted to keep doing this at all.

Over the last year and change, I’ve written breakdowns, analyses, and reflections on what’s happening in our country. I’ve tried to explain systems, call out injustice, and offer some clarity in the chaos. And here’s what I’ve learned: the people who already agreed with me still do. The people who didn’t at the beginning still don’t. Some downplay what I say, some call me delusional or a libtard, and a few have even messaged me privately to tell me I’d be happier if I just stopped worrying about the world’s problems.

That last one really gets me, because it completely misses the point.

I am happy. I’m extremely happy in my life. I have a family I love, work that challenges me, and a life I’m genuinely grateful for. But I also see injustice happening around me every single day, and as a fellow human being, I feel a responsibility to call it out and work toward fixing it. Happiness isn’t about ignoring suffering, it’s about refusing to accept it as inevitable.

The theology that frustrates me

I’ve also been frustrated, honestly, my whole life, by the way so many of my fellow Christians talk about the future.

“The kingdom of heaven will be beautiful,” they say. “I can’t wait for the utopia of heaven.” And yeah, I agree, I think it will be, too. But nowhere in the Bible does it say you have to suffer on Earth in order to have a fabulous afterlife. Nowhere does it say we shouldn’t try to make our existence on this plane enjoyable for everyone.

Just because one person is being lifted up doesn’t mean you don’t also get lifted up. That’s not how love works. That’s not how justice works. And it’s sure as hell not what Jesus modeled.

But instead of working toward that, too many Christians I know spend their energy finding ways to exclude people instead of bringing them closer to Jesus. It’s exhausting, and it’s the opposite of what we’re called to do.

Why I’m still here

So I took the weekend to really sit with all of this and ask myself: Why am I doing this?

And here’s what I came back to: I initially started sharing my writing as a creative outlet for me. It was a way to process what I was seeing, to make sense of the chaos, to put language to the patterns I was noticing. It turned out that it was helping other people, too, so I kept going.

Today, I’ve decided I’m going to keep going again.

Not because I think I’m going to change the minds of people who’ve already decided I’m wrong. Not because I think one more Substack post will fix everything. But because I genuinely believe we can do better. We can be better. And right now, we need people who are willing to keep speaking out, keep pushing for a better world, and refuse to go numb while we navigate this enormous fascist moment we’re in.

So if you’re here because my words help you feel a little less alone, a little clearer, or a little more equipped to have these conversations yourself, I’m still here. And I’m not going anywhere.