It is not uncommon to hear someone say, half-laughing, that they didn’t even last a week. The remark is meant to be humorous, but it reveals something deeper. Failure in Lent has become social embarrassment rather than spiritual reflection. Success has become a badge of religious credibility. The language of repentance has been replaced by the language of achievement.

Whether you want to admit it or not, sex can never truly be casual. Even so, undergraduates routinely turn to it in college, as they seek after the “college experience,” in an effort to cure their own feelings of loneliness.

Friendship in 2026 has been complicated, to say the least. Loyalty often feels temporary, and delayed replies seem to come with an expiration date — even with missed calls and unread text messages. Only one thing remains constant: dogs.

I think sometimes God plants a desire in your heart long before you understand why. And sometimes the place you try to talk yourself out of is the very place you were meant to be.

The object of this article is not to scrutinize your personal upbringing, family or church; however, if your own questions were routinely shut down and reframed as a “lack of faith,” you might consider the uncomfortable reality that you were indoctrinated into your beliefs.

America is the greatest nation in the world, purely because of what we are made of and what we believe in. We believe in democracy. We believe in liberty, “a city shining upon a hill.” America is a place like no other, a light to all. Even if its light has dimmed, it can be brightened once again. The institutions we have lost our faith in can be trusted once again. Our nation will not be judged by how far it’s fallen, but by how tall it will stand after.