The Sunday afternoon sun was hitting the dashboard as I drove home from church — my first time back in the pulpit in twelve months. My heart was still racing. I had shared a post about SermonCoach, and the comments were coming in like a storm. I had to pull over to the side of the road, the urge to fire back at the keyboard almost magnetic.
After getting home and grabbing some lunch, I spent time typing out more responses, caught in the cycle of emotional stimulation. Then a mentor called. We hadn't spoken in three years.
I stepped out for a walk. He joked about his reclusive approach to social media. I talked about my own re-engagement after a long season of willful invisibility. As I walked down the road in Pleasant Valley, the physical reality of the air and the quiet space began to settle the agitation in my chest.
That's when I realized the "Let Them" theory applies to me, too.
When I'm in those Facebook threads, I try to "let them" be angry, "let them" be wrong, and "let them" be exactly who they are. But the deeper practice is to "let" myself be, too. I have to let my heart race. I have to let myself feel the defensiveness. I have to let the ego flare up without letting it take the wheel.
If I can treat the visceral, heart-pounding sensation of a digital dogpile as a somatic experience rather than a command to strike back, I'm building strength. The contemplative tradition has a name for this: the Welcoming Prayer, as Thomas Keating and the centering prayer movement taught it — consenting to God's presence and action in the middle of the physical sensation rather than fleeing it.
I am turning the inflammatory, polarized landscape of our digital life into a gym for the soul.
When I stood in the pulpit two days ago and spoke about the necessity of letting the seed die, I didn't fully realize how that would play out in my inbox. It turns out, letting the seed die isn't just a metaphor for a massive life crisis. It is a micro-practice I perform every time I refrain from arguing in a comments section.
This practice of letting — letting the heart race, letting the ego flare, letting the digital noise happen — is exactly the kind of emotional regulation that makes a preacher effective. It's not just about drafting a sermon. It's about preparing the vessel that delivers it.
A non-anxious presence in the pulpit starts with a non-anxious presence on the phone. Or in the comment section. Or on the drive home.
The notification dings, the urge to type a response surges, and I take a breath. I let the heart rate spike, I feel the adrenaline, and then I keep walking. The screen turns off, but the capacity to stay centered in the middle of the noise remains.
The full essay — including the backstory of the sermon, the walk in Pleasant Valley, and the connections to contemplative prayer — is on Southern Legends. The sermon that started all of this: A Seed Must Die.
If you want to try the Socratic sermon prep method that sparked the debate: sermoncoach.app — no account needed to demo.