When the World Numbs, Stay Tender
A Meditation by Rev. Cameron Trimble
“I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.” — Ezekiel 36:26
There’s a reason so many of us feel disoriented, not just because of what is happening around us, but because of what is happening to us. We are being conditioned to shut down—slowly, steadily, and almost imperceptibly. The barrage of cruelty, confusion, spectacle, and spin has a cumulative effect. It wears on our capacity to feel, to care, to respond with presence rather than reflex. We are being trained, through repetition, to expect harm, and then to normalize it.
That is the danger of this moment—not just political collapse or climate unraveling or the erosion of public trust—but the numbing of our souls.
In times like these, numbness masquerades as wisdom. It can seem like the smart choice to disengage, to go silent, to retreat behind a wall of indifference, self-righteousness, sarcasm or cynicism. But those strategies of self-protection eventually become self-abandonment. As Thomas Merton once taught, “The biggest human temptation is to settle for too little.” And numbness, however understandable, is too little for our full aliveness.
Tenderness, then, is not weakness—it is resistance in its most radiant form. It’s how we stay soft without surrendering. It’s how we walk through the world with our eyes open and our hearts intact. As my friend and colleague Rev. Traci Blackmon reminds us, “Prophetic resistance is only possible for those who still dream. You must be able to dream to see justice in the midst of it all.”1 Tenderness is the soil of that dreaming. It is the part of us that refuses to be numbed by cruelty or conformed to despair. When we reach for one another with care—when we peacefully protest, offer a gentle word, hold silence with someone in pain—we resist the Empire’s logic of separation. We bear witness to a deeper truth: that love, in its fiercest form, often shows up as gentleness.
When the world numbs, staying tender is a revolutionary act.
It’s not sentimentality, not bypass. It’s sacred refusal…
Refusal to stop weeping when harm is done.
Refusal to look away when truth is buried.
Refusal to close off when the world needs more openness, not less.
To stay tender is to remain attuned to the pain and the possibility. It is to become an instrument that can feel the tremors of grief and still catch the harmonics of joy.
The way forward is not found in shock or speed, but in our willingness to sit in the quiet, to return to our breath, to feel what is true, and to let that truth shape us into more faithful, courageous people.
We are in this together,
Cameron
Reflection Questions
Where have I felt myself go numb in recent weeks? What might that numbness be protecting—or preventing?
What does it mean for me to stay tender in a world that feels increasingly harsh?
Is there a practice, a place, or a person that helps bring me back to myself when I start to shut down?
A Prayer for the Day
Heart of Flesh
Spirit of Breath, When the world numbs, soften us.
Melt the armor we’ve built around our own tenderness. Guard us not with distance, but with discernment. Help us feel deeply without drowning. Let us carry pain without being consumed by it. Let us keep loving without illusion. May our hearts of flesh remain responsive, vulnerable, true.
Amen.
Spiritual Practice
Return to Sensation
Today, take time to reconnect with your body’s signals—especially when you feel overwhelmed, exhausted, or tuned out. Your body knows before your mind does that something isn’t right.
Choose a moment each day to pause and scan yourself gently: What’s numb? What’s aching? What’s alive?
Instead of judging or fixing, just attend—with kindness.
Place your hand on your chest or your belly. Let your breath meet your presence.
Say aloud (or silently), “I am here. I will not abandon myself.”
Let this become your daily act of sacred resistance, a refusal to go numb, a return to tender presence.
Upcoming Events That Might Be of Interest…
June 14, 2025 - On June 14—Flag Day—No Kings is a nationwide day of protest. From city blocks to small towns, from courthouse steps to community parks, we’re taking action to reject authoritarianism—and show the world what democracy really looks like. Find a protest in your city HERE. I will be out there with you!
SOLD OUT!!! July 20-25, 2025 - The Art of Wilding: A 5-Day Expedition in Wyoming for Women Leaders. Click here to learn more.
August 11, 2025, 2pm ET - Dr. Andrew Root and I will be hosting a 6 part series on Spirituality in the Secular Age based on his research. The dates are August 11, 18, September 8, 15, and October 6, 13. Mark your calendars! More on this soon.
September 4, 4:30pm ET - I will be collaborating with the Anderson Forum for Progressive Theology to host a conversation with Thomas Jay Oord on Open and Relational theology. It’s a FREE event. Register here.
October 15-18, 2025 - Converging 2025: Sing Truth Conference (all musicians invited!) at Northwest Christian Church in Columbus, OH. Register here!
I drafted a Strategic Framework for Congregations as we move into the coming years of increased authoritarianism around the world. If interested, you can download it here.
If you are a leader or member of a congregation looking for consulting support in visioning, planning, hiring or staffing, please consider Convergence.
Words Traci offered at an interfaith rally in Charlottesville, VA August 11, 2017 - a day so many of us remember.
I find myself wanting to find a quiet place and curl up......a cabin in the woods perhaps and come out once a month for groceries. You could shut the world out and just be-you and God.