It’s an antidote to the loneliness pandemic.
It’s an antidote to the loneliness pandemic.
Granville, Ohio — “You’re amazing!” Whit’s Frozen Custard shop on what looks to be Main Street America was invaded by joyful young people one recent Sunday night. After pizza, twentysomethings on a weekend religious retreat were hard to miss by locals walking their dogs or enjoying a cone. One of the young men told a mother how amazing she clearly is for being the mother of the children who were with her. An elderly woman walking her dog did the double take I’ve seen myriad times when I’m around this Hard as Nails ministry. At first, you’re not sure if you heard things right. When you realize you did, you just might be encouraged. Maybe because you needed to hear it. Maybe because you’re grateful there are young people who are not looking at their phones and are actually noticing that other human beings in the world are valuable.
Hard as Nails has a sense of urgency about it. People do not know they are loved. The founder, Justin Fatica, frequently will get high-school assemblies of boys to say, “I have a God who is my father who loves me very much.” Over and over. Because they probably still don’t believe it. But if they hear it enough, maybe they can get to talking with one of the missionaries who follows up after about what that could mean in their lives. While the missionaries know not to tell me that I’m amazing — because I know they say it to everyone! — I love that it’s their icebreaker. Because people have no idea how amazing they are by the mere fact that they are alive. And, yes, they are also capable of amazing things when they know that.
Our politics today is full of anger and angst. And it’s not going to get any better without this kind of field-hospital work. Hard as Nails has levels of missionary service, for young people taking gap years, or after. The ministry is a solution to the loneliness and depression we keep reading about and seem powerless in the face of. The novel idea to us today is critical: Actual human encounter. And fueled by the acknowledgment that we have been created by a Creator who loves us and doesn’t leave us to fend for ourselves.
“I’m a lost cause. Baby, don’t waste your time on me. I’m so damaged beyond repair. Life has shattered my hopes and my dreams.” Those are the searing words of the refrain of the country artist Jelly Roll’s song “Save Me.” He explains: “Somebody save me — me from myself. I’ve spent so long living in hell. They say my lifestyle is bad for my health. It’s the only thing that seems to help. All of this drinking, this smoking, is hopeless, but feel like it’s all that I need. Something inside of me is broken, I hold on to anything that sets me free.”
What he is turning to, of course, doesn’t help. But it’s all too familiar. In a reflection to the missionaries on retreat, I played Jelly Roll’s video and suggested that more people than not can relate on some level to his words. They might not be able to articulate it. But a leader even in the church who turns to scotch in the early evening may be self-medicating against his own sense of powerlessness before an impossible bureaucracy that wasn’t what he had in mind when he first wanted to give his life to serve God. That’s just one hypothetical. But we’re all surrounded by non-hypotheticals, and may be living one ourselves.
I would find young people telling me, “You’re amazing!” A little annoying if it weren’t so different from what people tend to hear from or about Christianity. Hard as Nails wants to bring people to the Gospel — and, as Catholics, to the Eucharist. Its track record is replete with conversions and reversions to Catholicism. Its focus is witnessing courage, authenticity, and obedience to young people. But whatever one’s age, it’s hard not to be affected. There is something contagious about the missionaries’ joy — especially when it’s not a surface-level joy. They live in the real world. In their formation they’ve had to confront their own “lost cause” feelings and know they are works in progress, with God’s grace. As the ministry’s name suggests, Jesus was nailed to the cross, and so no one is promised a life without pain. But there is love. Spreading love is its mission with the firm conviction that God does not leave anyone alone. “You’re amazing” is just a baby step at the custard shop. The dream is that it can be something of a movement by which Christians make sure Christians are not leaving anyone behind. Because these days, we sure are.
I do take Jelly Roll’s plea as a bit of a cry for help for our culture. Hard as Nails has the right idea about how to be a balm to souls in agony. Sensitivity to sin and suffering is key to its approach. We are all sinners. And we all suffer. Whatever one’s politics — and there are some people who couldn’t care less about politics, even as it seems to be our national never-ending reality-series obsession — this is meeting ground for encounter and service. And these front lines of love even tend to bear more fruit than politics — thanks be to God.
This column is based on one available through Andrews McMeel Universal’s Newspaper Enterprise Association.