PRAYing it forward

 

Nathan Duq

I am starting to like prayers.

During one Sunday service in January, a lack of cellular signal deprived me of my usual digital distractions. I normally rely on my phone to keep my hands busy and prevent myself from fidgeting during the sermon. Without it, I was forced to engage more fully with the liturgy. When the time for prayer arrived, I stood there with no expectations and found myself unexpectedly drawn in. I experienced a familiar intimacy, seeking comfort in stillness rather than a screen. In that focused silence, I truly heard our pastor pray for a fellow churchmate’s success. I was deeply moved by how he wove encouragement and genuine trust in that person’s abilities into his prayer, a moment of sincerity I might otherwise have missed.

My whole life, I have lived inside prayers: family prayers, church prayers, school prayers, Sunday school prayers. They were always present, wearisome, and expected. Then it hit me. My pastor’s prayer reminded me of my parents.

The moment they close their eyes and bow their heads, something shifts. Their presence changes, as if the world fades and only God remains before them. What deepens this is that their prayers are never prepared. They stand before people, and before God, without a script. They speak from instinct, from attentiveness to those listening, and from a careful sensing of what God might want to say in that exact moment. All this unfolds within minutes. It is demanding work, yet deeply rewarding, especially when faith feels as though it is passed hand to hand after the final “Amen.”

With my mother, prayer arrives as calm and tenderness in every word. She becomes more expressive, yet never careless. Each sentence lands with intention. In life, she is a woman of few words, reserved and quiet. But in prayer, her voice carries weight. I believe her words are shaped by the burdened life she has endured, anointed not only by the Holy Spirit but also by the small, persistent hopes she has carried and fought for while she painstakingly yearned for a better life, surviving on the lower rung of society. Perhaps prayer is her refuge during unannounced trouble, that in moments where she is finally leading one in front of many, God touches her words with compassion, using them to heal others as He once healed her.

My father, by contrast, prays with intensity and force. In daily life, he is loud and expressive, often masking care with humor or frustration. Yet when his eyes close and his brow tightens, everything else falls away. What remains is a steady, encouraging voice, no longer joking or sharp, but anchored in faith. In minutes, he becomes both vulnerable and firm. He offers empathy and strength, giving people the humanity and hope they need before a service begins or as they prepare to return home. Perhaps prayer is his only space for emotion, a place where the world’s cruelty cannot reach him.

In these moments, when both of them offer their voices, courage, and tested faith, I hear the purest form of speech I know. It is unfiltered, emotional, faithful, and deeply human, a weaving of earthly longing lifted toward the One they cannot see, yet believe in completely.

Maybe the prayers that linger most come from those whose faith has been tested time and again. I do not believe that prayers are only for the most devoted, but that they are an instinctual avenue when things become too complex to be understood by our worldly minds and feeble bodies. Whether one believes that prayers can move mountains or not, prayer, in its truest and most human form, becomes something more: a steady mantra that strengthens the heart despite doubt, a final leap of faith held tightly when pushed beyond the ledge, a self-assurance that our problems are not isolated but a universal experience that can be solved through faith, or a quiet offering of hope for others who are starting to lose theirs.

I never disliked prayer, but I often found it tedious, having rarely seen it practiced with the conviction my parents embodied. Truly listening to our pastor that Sunday morning, rather than simply following along with closed eyes, gave me a new perspective.

I realized my parents are only two among many who, having reached the limits of their own strength, find solace in humbling themselves before God. In that humility comes relief, allowing us to be gentler with ourselves. By surrendering our burdens to a higher power, we are freed to act within our means, comforted by the belief that we are watched over and redirected.

I always knew my parents taught my brothers and me to pray for protection. But perhaps, beneath that, they were teaching me how to pray so that one day I, too, might become a beacon of faith, as they once were for me.

Why hope still matters to the young

 

I have often wondered if hope still mattered to young people when the meaning itself has become increasingly fragile. For many, hope is no longer loud or confident. It is quiet, careful, and sometimes difficult to hold on to. Still, it persists.

This quiet form of hope often goes unnoticed because it does not announce itself in grand gestures or dramatic declarations. Instead, it appears in small acts of perseverance: continuing to study despite uncertainty, showing up even when motivation feels worn out, and choosing to care in a world that often rewards indifference. These somehow ordinary choices reveal that hope, though quiet, remains deeply present in the lives of the young.

In many ways, hope has become a form of resistance against meaninglessness.

At a time when negativity is easily accessible and despair can feel justified, choosing to hope is an act of defiance. It is a refusal to believe that life is merely a sequence of obligations and disappointments. For young people, hope pushes back against the idea that the future is already decided or entirely broken.

The pace of modern life offers comfort and convenience, but it also comes at a cost. Many young people live with a constant sense of anxiety about the future, about missed opportunities, about whether our efforts will ever amount to something lasting. The search for purpose feels heavier when everything moves too fast.

The pressure to keep up is intensified by a culture that constantly measures worth through visible success. Moments of rest can feel undeserved, and slowing down is mistaken for falling behind. In this environment, hope becomes fragile because it is repeatedly tested by comparison and self-doubt. Still, many young people continue to search for meaning, even when the process feels draining.

When we are tired, it is easy to ask: Why keep trying?

This question does not always come from laziness or lack of ambition, but from exhaustion. When effort is no longer matched by reassurance or visible progress, discouragement immediately creeps in. This feeling of meaninglessness is not from personal doubts alone. It is deepened by disappointment with systems and institutions that fail to live up to their promises. When leaders fall short of their responsibilities, it becomes harder to believe that the future is worth hoping for. In a country where political divisions overshadow genuine public service, choosing hope can feel almost unreasonable.

Young people, who are often the most affected by long-term consequences of poor leadership, are left seeking a future shaped by decisions they did not make. This breeds frustration and skepticism, making hope feel immature. And yet, many still choose to hope, not because they are unaware of reality, but because surrendering to despair feels like giving up on the possibility of change.

I, too, have experienced this sense of hope diluting. I have always wanted life to go according to how I want it to be. However, life, indeed, is full of surprises. I faced uncertainties and self-doubts, which made me realize that leaving was easier than staying. However, “something” always pulled me back and made me realize that there are still a lot of good things that can happen, that not everything is lost. This “something,” I realized, was hope.

Hope did not remove my fears or instantly make things clearer. Instead, it gave me enough strength to remain present and continue despite unanswered questions. It reminded me that not knowing what comes next does not mean that what comes next will be meaningless.

I’ve learned that hope is not only a feeling but also a spiritual practice. It is the quiet trust that even in the midst of uncertainty, there is a purpose greater than my plans. In prayer, I have often found a stillness that reminds me: I am not alone in my struggles, and my life is not just a series of problems to solve.

In this tranquility, hope becomes less about control and more about surrender. It teaches patience and trust, allowing space for growth even when results are, for the moment, unclear.

In one of our classes, our professor assigned us books to read. I was assigned to a book by Viktor E. Frankl, “A Man’s Search for Meaning.” Frankl quotes the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche: “He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.” For me, this is hope in a single sentence.

Hope is that which gives a reason for us to continue, even when systems, institutions, leaders, or even our very selves are failing. Hope is the why to live for in life.

It is not false optimism, but a decision to believe that life is still worth engaging with, even in its brokenness.

Maybe hope matters, especially to the young, because it is not only our strength; it is also a gift. A quiet reminder that even when the world seems uncertain, we are still being guided toward something good.

Russell Vaughn Ceniza Tuyan

Breaking up with the dating app

 

Now that all my dating apps are uninstalled, I don’t have it in me to be ashamed of admitting I’ve had my fair (borderline desperate) share of window shopping for potential significant others. After all, my job doesn’t really give me space to meet a lot of people, so I’ve had many accounts set up on different apps.

There have been a few “matches” that led to so many boring conversations that I’m still not sure whether they actually found me interesting or if one of us accidentally swiped right. Needless to say, none of those “matches” equaled actual compatibility, nor have any meaningful relationships sprouted out of them. Zero actual matches with people, and instead, matches between characters and curated personas.

The only other period when I didn’t have a dating app was in mid-2024, when I thought I didn’t need one anymore because I’d met someone to fill that void in real life. But once that ended, I found myself dealing with a severe case of withdrawal from romantic affection. Suddenly, the dating apps were back. But something was different this time. It was no longer exciting. It wasn’t fun. And then I realized that the whole time I had invited the apps into my life, it had not been fun at all. Then I came to an even greater realization: dating apps will never work for me because my self-worth demands fairness to myself and my conscience demands fairness for others.

Bumble, my most frequently-used one, has a feature called “best photo,” which can determine which of the first three Bumble profile photos gets the most attention and then place it on top. The temptation would be to gather all the pictures with your best angles. Then, from that selection, weed out any pictures that don’t contribute to the persona you’re trying to present. Come up with a witty bio, one that aligns with your persona. This is not a one-time process. It’s an ongoing process of updating every time something impressive (and hence, attractive) happens to you. By the end of it, you’re your own brand manager.

This constant curation has worn me out over the years. At first, I thought I was being pretentious while everyone else was being real, but from the conversations I’ve had with people there, it became clear to me that everyone there was presenting a persona that was far different from their actual selves.

I had an entanglement with a person who had fallen in love with an idea of me that he had created for himself, and got very disappointed when I felt safe enough to reveal my humanity. After that, my growing self-worth gnawed at me to be immediately authentic, as well as unapologetically potentially unlikable. The act of depending on the algorithm and on strangers on the internet for acknowledgment that you look good in the pictures wasn’t sustainable. It was also happening during a critical period of my life when I was being misunderstood by many around me, and I needed to be sure of myself, no matter what. It wasn’t fair to myself anymore that I wasn’t applying the lessons I had been learning in my platonic and professional life to my romantic life.

It also wasn’t fair for everyone else that I wasn’t giving them my real self. The heartbreak had forced me to reflect that we really could fall in love with the idea we have of others instead of who they actually are. If someone could fall in love with a persona I didn’t create, who can say that can’t happen for a persona in a dating app that I did actively create?

If you want something sustainable, you would have to eventually break down that mask. They would have to re-learn you all over again, and that isn’t necessarily what most sign up for. How could I possibly demand that of someone and expect them to be fine with me going, “Actually, I lied on that profile. I’m not as interesting or likable as I seem to be. Here are facts about me I intentionally left out”?

I don’t think love works that way: “Love me first and then I’ll tell you the unlovable things later.” I think we are supposed to know people with the good and the bad, and then see if there is anyone you’re willing to love despite the less-than-desirable qualities. My life had already re-routed itself to be open to being unlikeable. I could easily just be honest and put the most authentic version of myself on the app, but that would mean getting back into the cycle of curation, only this time subscribing to a different set of criteria.

Of course, some people do end up together after meeting on dating apps—all the best for them, absolutely. I can never make assumptions, and I don’t have any ideas about the conditions that led them to that happy ending, but what I do know for myself is this: I’m not sticking around to find out.