When 40% of the Workforce Becomes “Excess”
Block laid off 4,000 employees.
Block laid off 4,000 employees.
Nearly half its workforce.
They weren’t failing.
They weren’t collapsing.
They beat earnings expectations.
“Search the scriptures daily and see whether these things are so.” — Acts 17:11
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Block laid off 4,000 employees.
Block laid off 4,000 employees.
Nearly half its workforce.
They weren’t failing.
They weren’t collapsing.
They beat earnings expectations.
We live in a moment where “traditional marriage” is being aggressively simplified.
We live in a moment where “traditional marriage” is being aggressively simplified.
The pitch often sounds like this:
A husband should:
Parking advice, design asymmetry, and the strange rise of tactical grocery shopping
There’s a piece of modern driving wisdom that gets repeated with near-religious confidence:
“Always back into a parking space. It’s safer.”
The argument sounds airtight.
Back in when you arrive. Pull forward when you leave.
Better visibility. Faster exit. Tactical readiness.
Authority Is a Burden of Care
We keep arguing about policies.
Healthcare. Taxes. Immigration. Foreign wars. Student loans. Energy.
Those debates matter — but they are downstream.
Leadership is hard.
Anyone who has led a church, a business, a ministry, a classroom, a household, or even a team of two people knows the weight of decisions. The anxiety can be suffocating. We want to do the right thing. We want to follow God’s will. We don’t want to ruin the plan. So we pray:
“Lord, what do You want me to do?”
That sounds spiritual. It sounds humble. It sounds faithful.
When the U.S.
When the U.S. men’s Olympic hockey team laughed as President Trump joked that he would need to invite the women’s team too “or I’ll probably be impeached,” many people felt something instinctively.
Both teams won gold.
Both defeated Canada.
Both represented the country.
But in that moment, the women were framed as politically inconvenient — and the men laughed.
Provision precedes vision.
Before I started setting money aside intentionally, I had no idea what I would do with it.
There was always something more urgent:
Bills.
Upgrades.
Small comforts.
Future contingencies.
And when you live at that edge — even comfortably — imagination narrows. Your thinking becomes reactive. You manage, you optimize, you respond. But you don’t build.
How profit obsession leaves necessary work undone
We are not short on resources.
We are short on imagination.
We live in a country capable of designing hypersonic missiles, training large language models on planetary-scale data, and coordinating just-in-time supply chains that stretch across oceans. Yet somehow we struggle to clear snow quickly, rebuild bridges before they collapse, pay caregivers well, or create dignified work for people whose labor does not yield immediate profit.
The problem is not scarcity.
It is assumption.
When John Davidson, a Scottish advocate for people with Tourette syndrome, shouted a racial slur during the BAFTA ceremony, the room froze.
When John Davidson, a Scottish advocate for people with Tourette syndrome, shouted a racial slur during the BAFTA ceremony, the room froze.
The BBC and BAFTA apologized. Viewers were offended. Disability advocates explained coprolalia. Commentators debated whether the broadcast should have been edited.
And then a new claim began circulating:
Doug Wilson has said things like:
Doug Wilson has said things like:
“Women are the kind of people that people come out of.”
He has argued that the 19th Amendment — the amendment guaranteeing women the right to vote — was “a bad idea.” He has expressed support for “household voting,” where the husband casts the vote for the family.
“Fight for your marriage.”
“Fight for your marriage.”
It sounds noble. Courageous. Holy.
But sometimes what people call “fighting for your marriage” is actually something else entirely.
There is a certain question Christians have asked for centuries, sometimes politely, sometimes anxiously, sometimes with a raised eyebrow:
There is a certain question Christians have asked for centuries, sometimes politely, sometimes anxiously, sometimes with a raised eyebrow:
How do I know that sinner over there is actually saved?
It sounds spiritual.
It can even sound responsible.
But it is a dangerous question.
There’s a story often told in anti-bullying workshops.
There’s a story often told in anti-bullying workshops.
A classroom is locked in for the day. One student begins harassing another. The teacher asks, “What should the victim do?”
“Ignore it.”
“Fight back.”
“Tell someone.”
There is a quiet assumption floating around Christian internet culture:
There is a quiet assumption floating around Christian internet culture:
If something wrong is said publicly,
and you see it,
you are obligated to respond.
“Public teaching requires public correction.”
There is a commandment that comes before all the others.
There is a commandment that comes before all the others.
Not “do not murder.”
Not “do not commit adultery.”
Not even “remember the Sabbath.”
The first word spoken at Sinai was this:
How distraction protects the powerful and forgets the victims
There are two ways to bury a scandal.
One is silence.
The other is noise.
For decades, “midlife crisis” was practically a cultural rite of passage.
For decades, “midlife crisis” was practically a cultural rite of passage.
A red convertible.
A sudden career change.
A marriage in flames.
An existential panic dressed up as reinvention.
It was so common it became a joke.
There is a way to practice religion that slowly bends the entire moral universe toward the self.
There is a way to practice religion that slowly bends the entire moral universe toward the self.
It does not look selfish.
It looks reverent.
It looks solemn.
It looks pious.
But its center of gravity shifts.
Verse 1
Verse 1
Little Tommy Two Fingers worked his nubs to the bone,
Clocked in at six, coughed blood by noon, but never made a groan.
The whistle blew like judgment day, the gears began to scream,
“Efficiency!” the foreman cried, “We’re beating last year’s scheme!”
The river ran in colors no nature ever chose,
The air hung thick like velvet drapes inside our factory rows.
Tommy smiled through missing teeth, beneath fluorescent glow—
“Productivity is up!” they said. “That’s all you need to know!”
There’s a particular kind of political theater that feels familiar.
There’s a particular kind of political theater that feels familiar.
It doesn’t feel like oversight.
It doesn’t feel like governance.
It feels like a middle school bus ride.
“Do you know what a rubber is?”