Five Things Friday: Mar. 7, 2025 (Vol. 16)

Hey friends and other human beings! This week, I am back with another edition of Five Things Friday. This is a list of five things that have been buzzing around in my head this week — be they podcasts, books, news articles, hobbies, games, whatever.

This week, I talk about giant comets, skipping Lent and standing up for Ukraine. Thanks, as always, for reading and joining me on the journey!

Without further ado, here are five things for this Friday:

1. Don't look up

In my quest to take in media a bit more intentionally, I finally watched "Don't Look Up." The 2021 film depicts a not so fictional world in which astronomers discover a comet bound straight for earth. There's just one problem — no one will take it seriously. So much so that as the events of the movie unfold, there is a campaign to — you guessed it — not look up at the sky and avoid seeing the devastation looming overhead.

Considering the context, I'm sure when the movie came out, it felt like a spot on satire of what we had all just gone through with COVID. But in 2025, it feels downright and depressingly prophetic. We live in the land of 2+2=5 and the home of "crashing the economy can be a good thing" once again, or perhaps we never left.

Like any good satire, it is haunting yet hilarious. Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence are brilliant as the leads, with stellar support from Meryl Streep as president and a whole host of other brilliant performances.

I enjoyed the movie as a movie; as commentary on our present moment, though, I was very disturbed. Watch at your own risk!

2. Should we skip Lent this year?

That's the provocative question asked by Brett Younger, a Baptist pastor in Brooklyn, in a column this week for Baptist News Global. "I would like to skip Lent this year, because life already feels tragic enough," he noted.

"Do we really need extra sackcloth and ashes right now? We usually give up something for Lent and so much already has been taken away. Forty days of fasting and regret seems redundant."

This is my pick for "Best thing I read this week" because so much of what Younger had to say resonated with me. I've always been fascinated with the season of Lent, which began on Wednesday. Even though I no longer go to church much these days, I found my way to the back pew of Highland Baptist Church this week, searching for meaning, for hope, for some small reminder that I'm not alone in a time in America that feels so absolutely dreadful. Perhaps we should practice four years of Lent, rather than the traditional 40 days.

For now, I'll hold onto the reminder that I come from dust. Our liturgy tells us Ash Wednesday is a reminder of "what God can do within the dust, within the dirt, within the stuff of which the world is made and the stars that blaze in our bones and the galaxies that spiral in the smudge we bear."

3. Standing with Ukraine

After the president's reckless abandoning of Ukraine last week, my congressman, U.S. Rep. Morgan McGarvey, held a rally to support Ukraine. The speakers included local representatives and several Ukrainians who have made Louisville their home. I took my camera, of course, as I'm trying my best to document the local response to what's going on in Washington. It's my way of making sense of it, and doing something productive with my frustration.

The crowd numbered in the hundreds, possibly breaking a thousand — I'm bad at estimating crowd size. Many held signs of support for Ukraine: flags, banners and homemade signs bearing the phrase "Slave Ukraini." Just as many held signs decrying the president and Elon Musk, warning of the authoritarianism running rampant in the administration.

(All images © 2025 Chris Hughes)

One thing I haven't been able to get out of my head happened at the very end. A young girl came up to sing the Ukrainian anthem. Her voice was incredible, especially for someone so young. As she sang the stirring anthem, a man just behind me put his hand over his heart, raised his Ukrainian flag and sang along to the song of his homeland. I don't know that I've ever been more ashamed of my own country while being inspired by the patriotism he has for his.

4. Song of the week: Never Better by Wild Rivers

5. Words of the week:

This is the day

we freely say

we are scorched.

This is the hour

we are marked

by what has made it

through the burning.

This is the moment

we ask for the blessing

that lives within

the ancient ashes,

that makes its home

inside the soil of

this sacred earth.

-Jan Richardson, "Ash Wednesday: Blessing the Dust"