By: A.J Ware

Yesterday was Monday.

And if you were like most of us, you woke up and put on a persona. You walked into your career—whether it's the dream you've always had, something you fell into that somehow worked out, or something you're still searching for in the next opportunity.

You geared up for the unknown. The product pitch you've been preparing. The test you've been studying for. The conversation about potential re-org and layoffs. The deadline that felt impossible. The person you needed to convince. The results you needed to deliver.

And as the day unfolded, you discovered something: Any of it could have gone exactly as planned. Or catastrophically wrong. And you didn't know which until you lived through it.

So now, on Tuesday, as you reflect on yesterday, here's the question that actually matters: **Who were you when things didn't go as you hoped? When adversity hit yesterday, what was your default response?**

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## The Anchored Identity

I've been thinking about two men recently. Dietrich and Daniel. They appear in *Garden State of Mind: Reclaiming Eden's Promise, While Living in Exile*—a book that releases this Friday, and one I'm genuinely excited to get into your hands.

These men fascinate me because of something specific: When everything fell apart around them, they didn't fall apart. When adversity hit—real, devastating, life-altering adversity—they didn't abandon the things that made them who they were.

They had habits. Values. Practices. Commitments. So deeply anchored, so thoroughly woven into their identity, that no amount of pressure, failure, or suffering could shake them loose.

Think about that for a moment. When your world is crumbling, most people abandon everything. They stop going to the gym. They skip the family dinner. They work through the night. They sacrifice the practices that ground them because they believe those practices are luxuries they can't afford in crisis.

But Dietrich and Daniel? They held tighter to what mattered. And here's the remarkable part: **It's because of that resolve—that unshaken identity—that we know them as we do today.** Their character is visible. Their integrity is undeniable. Their strength is credible.

Because they didn't just talk about who they were. They *lived* it. Especially when it cost them.

So here's what I want to ask you: **What are your anchors?**

Is it the gym at 5 AM? Even when the project crashed and burned and you didn't sleep. Even when failure is screaming that you should be working, not working out. Even when the voice in your head says "You don't deserve rest until you've fixed this"?

Is it the non-negotiable mid-afternoon walk where you step away from the grind and remember you're more than your inbox? Fifteen minutes. Alone. Where your nervous system can downshift from crisis mode back to human mode?

Is it dinner together as a family every single night? No screens. No work talk. Just presence. Just the people you love, reminding you why the work matters in the first place?

Is it turning off all electronics one hour before bed, so your mind actually gets to rest, so your body actually gets to recover?

Here's the thing about these practices: **They're not luxuries. They're not optional. They're the habits and practices that hold you together when everything else is falling apart.** They're what prove to yourself and to others that your identity doesn't depend on the outcome.

The pressure to perform is relentless. The demand to deliver more, faster, better—it never stops. But here's what I know from watching people who have endured real adversity: **It shouldn't come at the expense of your character. It shouldn't cost you your identity.**

Because your identity is what remains when the title is gone. When the promotion doesn't happen. When the deal falls through. When you fail. When the outcome proves to be exactly the opposite of what you'd hoped.

Your identity is the foundation underneath everything else. And if that foundation is unshaken, then no outcome can destroy you.

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## The Dinner That Changed Everything

I remember sitting at dinner with my father. Just the two of us. And he said something that stopped me cold.

He was telling me about how he saw something in me. About gifts. About calling. About things I'd been given that the world needed. And he said it with such certainty—not as a hope, but as a fact he could see.

What struck me was this: He could see value in me that I wasn't fully seeing in myself.

Here's what that taught me: **The power of God's calling and our God-given gifts is undeniable. They're visible to others even when we don't fully see or understand their value.**

That matters on days like yesterday. Because sometimes you don't believe in yourself. Sometimes yesterday's outcome didn't prove your worth. Sometimes a rejection or failure makes you question whether you actually have anything valuable to offer.

But someone sees it. God sees it. And that seeing is more real than yesterday's outcome.

---

## The Exile We're Living In

Let's be honest about where we are.

This is exile. This is the grind. The work—as we know it—is toiling. It's not creation. It's not calling. It's pushing toward the small win that leads to another push toward another small win. Grind to earn it. Grind to keep it. Grind to prove it. Grind to affirm it. Grind to maintain it.

Grind. Grind. Grind.

And we were never designed for this.

Work was supposed to be different. Work was supposed to be a reflection of God in us—visible to the world through our gifts, our abilities, our care. When you pour God-given abilities into your pitch, your project, your contribution—when you do it as an offering, not just as a performance—it becomes something beautiful. It becomes glorifying, not just profitable.

But when you work from the performance model the world uses—when your value is determined by outcomes, when your identity depends on delivery, when you're only as good as your last success—then something breaks. **Unfavorable outcomes lead to devastation.** Not just disappointment. Not just frustration. Devastation. The kind of discouragement that settles into your bones. The kind of depression that makes you question everything.

Including whether God is good.

This is the exile we're living in. Where work has become about proving your worth instead of expressing your gifts. Where every outcome feels like a referendum on your identity. Where one failure can make you question whether you have anything valuable to offer.

This is the grind that's slowly breaking us.

---

## Who Do You Belong To?

A few years ago, I was promised an investment. The source was credible. They'd proven themselves over many years. I believed them. I planned around it. I committed resources to it. I made decisions based on it.

The investment never came.

I don't say that lightly. The costs were devastating. I don't mean that as a metaphor or an exaggeration. I mean it literally. I lost my home. I lost most of my valued treasures. I lost the stability I'd built. The instability that followed was catastrophic by every measure.

And here I sat, at a critical time in my life, with everything around me—everything—saying: *No God who loves His children would let this happen to you.*

The narrative seemed obvious: I'd been abandoned. Failed. Forgotten. If God was real and good, He would have protected me. The fact that this happened meant either He wasn't real, or He didn't care. Either way, I was on my own.

But something in me responded differently.

I responded with gratitude. And hope. Not trite religious phrases or spiritual bypassing. Not pretending the pain wasn't real. But genuine, chosen thankfulness.

Thankful that God saw me as worthy to endure such suffering and keep believing anyway. Not that He caused the suffering—but that He deemed me strong enough to walk through it without it destroying my faith.

Thankful that He didn't let me succumb to the darkest thoughts—the ones that destroy so many. The thoughts that whisper: *End this. No one would miss you. This is too much.* Thankful that He kept me hopeful even when every circumstance screamed hopelessness.

Thankful that He kept me seeking Him above the gains. That He didn't let my faith become dependent on my outcomes.

I did this because at my core—at the deepest part of my identity—**I belong to God.**

Not to my house. Not to my success. Not to my gains or my achievements or my outcomes. Not to my bank account or my reputation or my credentials.

To Him.

And that distinction—that single shift in where I said my belonging was rooted—that saved my life. Literally. It's the only thing that kept me from following the darkest path.

Here's why this matters after a Monday like yesterday: **If your identity belongs to your performance, what happened to you when you were tired? When you were worn out? When you were incapable of doing anymore?**

What happened when yesterday's outcome wasn't what you hoped? When the pitch didn't go well. When the test didn't go as planned. When the re-org left you feeling uncertain.

Who had your back?

If you belong to yourself, the answer is: you do. Until you can't anymore.

If you belong to your job, the answer is: your job does. Until it doesn't.

If you belong to your outcomes, the answer is: your outcomes do. Until they fail.

But if you belong to something bigger—to God, to a purpose beyond performance, to a calling that doesn't depend on delivery—then you have an anchor that nothing can shake. Not even a disappointing Monday.

---

## The Practice of Unshaken Identity

If yesterday's Monday resonated with you—if you felt the weight of the pressure, the vulnerability of a life built on performance—here's what I want to invite you to do:

**Write an affirmation about your core identity.**

Not about your goals. Not about what you want to achieve. Not about outcomes or success or proving yourself.

But about who you are at your deepest level. About who you actually are underneath the title and the pressure and the performance.

Maybe it's: *"I am beloved, regardless of outcome."*

Maybe it's: *"My worth is not determined by my performance."*

Maybe it's: *"I belong to God, and He has not abandoned me."*

Maybe it's: *"My gifts are real, and they matter, even when the world doesn't see them."*

Write it down. One sentence. Your core identity, stated as a truth.

Then—**put it somewhere you have to see it every single day.** On your bathroom mirror. On your phone lock screen. On your desk. On your dashboard. Somewhere you can't miss it. Somewhere it interrupts your day and forces you to remember.

And then—**say it.** Out loud. Constantly. Throughout the day. Before the next pitch. After any failure. In the midst of confusion or disagreement. When anxiety rises. When doubt creeps in. When you're about to make a decision based on fear.

Rehearse it so much that it becomes your default posture. So much that when the pressure hits—because Monday will come again—it's what you return to automatically. So much that your nervous system learns: "This is the truth about me. No matter what happens, this remains."

This isn't positive thinking or self-help affirmations. This is identity work. This is reclaiming who you actually are underneath the pressure and the performance. This is the practice that anchors you, like it anchored Dietrich and Daniel.

This is how you build an unshaken identity—one that can survive another Monday.

**Write an affirmation about your core identity.**

Not about your goals. Not about what you want to achieve. Not about outcomes or success or proving yourself.

But about who you are at your deepest level. About who you actually are underneath the title and the pressure and the performance.

Maybe it's: *"I am beloved, regardless of outcome."*

Maybe it's: *"My worth is not determined by my performance."*

Maybe it's: *"I belong to God, and He has not abandoned me."*

Maybe it's: *"My gifts are real, and they matter, even when the world doesn't see them."*

Maybe it's: *"I am enough as I am."*

Write it down. One sentence. Your core identity, stated as a truth.

Then—**put it somewhere you have to see it every single day.** On your bathroom mirror. On your phone lock screen. On your desk. On your dashboard. Somewhere you can't miss it. Somewhere it interrupts your day and forces you to remember.

And then—**say it.** Out loud. Constantly. Throughout the day. Before the pitch. After the failure. In the midst of the confusion or disagreement. When anxiety rises. When doubt creeps in. When you're about to make a decision based on fear.

Rehearse it so much that it becomes your default posture. So much that when the pressure hits, it's what you return to automatically. So much that your nervous system learns: "This is the truth about me. No matter what happens, this remains."

This isn't positive thinking or self-help affirmations. This is identity work. This is reclaiming who you actually are underneath the pressure and the performance. This is the practice that anchors you, like it anchored Dietrich and Daniel.

This is how you build an unshaken identity—one that can survive another Monday.

---

## What's Coming This Friday

This is exactly what *Garden State of Mind: Reclaiming Eden's Promise, While Living in Exile* explores in depth.

It's the journey from exile—from performance, from grind, from outcome-dependent identity—back toward Eden. Back toward the original design. Back toward understanding that you are more than what you produce.

The book examines this through stories. Through ancestors and mentors and dinner conversations. Through the theology of calling. Through the practice of remembering who you actually are.

**The book drops this Friday. It's available for pre-order now.**

And I'm not promoting it because I want sales. I'm promoting it because I believe you need what's in it. Monday comes for all of us. And after a Monday like yesterday, you deserve to know who you are when everything falls apart—and who remains when everything else is gone.

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## The Question That Changes Everything

So here's my final question for you, as you reflect on yesterday's Monday:

**Who do you belong to?**

If the answer is "myself," I want to gently ask: What happened yesterday when you weren't enough? When you failed? When you were exhausted?

If the answer is "my job," what would happen if the job ended?

If the answer is "my outcomes," what happened yesterday when the outcome was unfavorable?

But if the answer is something bigger—if it's God, if it's something unchanging, if it's something that doesn't depend on your performance—then you have an anchor that nothing can shake. Not even a difficult Monday.

That's unshaken identity.

That's what carried you through yesterday. And that's what will carry you through the next Monday. And the one after that.

That's what keeps you grounded when everything else is falling apart.

---

**About the Author**

A.J. Ware is exploring what it means to reclaim your identity in a world designed to make you perform for your worth. He is the founder of Mimi, an AI-powered career coaching platform, and author of *Heir Of The Shadows: The Awakening*. His new book, *Garden State of Mind: Reclaiming Eden's Promise, While Living in Exile*, releases this Friday.

**Pre-order Garden State of Mind now and discover how to navigate the journey from exile back toward your original design.**

By: A.J Ware

It’s early August. The heat is still suffocating, the sun doesn’t set until nearly 9 PM, and watermelon and peaches are at their absolute peak. School should be out for another month, minimum.

Instead, students are packing backpacks. Teachers are setting up classrooms. The summer—that glorious, endless, golden stretch of freedom that defined childhood—is essentially over.

It happened so gradually that we barely noticed it happening.

The Great Summer Theft

My friends who are educators are already back at work. One of them posted on social media last week: “Summer break is officially over. Back to the grind.” It was August 3rd.

August 3rd.

When I was in school—and we’re not talking ancient history, we’re talking the 1980s and 1990s—school let out around the first week of June and we didn’t return until after Labor Day. That’s nearly four months of freedom. Four months of sleeping in. Of bike adventures. Of friendship being forged over ping-pong games. Of actually being a kid.

Now? The number of schools opting for year-round calendars grew from 2.5% in 2018 to 4% in 2020, impacting over 3 million students. And 10% of US public schools are currently using a year-round calendar.

But it’s not just the schools officially going year-round. It’s the modified calendars popping up everywhere. In South Carolina, as of 2022, a quarter of school districts had shifted to a modified year-round calendar, with nine weeks of school followed by 5-to-8-day intersessions.

The traditional summer—the one I experienced, the one millions of us depended on for basic human development—is being systematically dismantled in the name of something called “reducing summer learning loss.”

How We Got Here: The Year We Got Too Smart

The original summer break wasn’t actually designed for kids at all. Since the early twentieth century, schools in the United States have traditionally run on a nine- to ten-month calendar, beginning in the late summer or early fall and continuing until late spring or early summer. The conventional story is that this schedule existed to help farm kids with planting and harvesting. That’s mostly a myth. In reality, however, the children of farmers historically contributed to their family’s planting and harvest efforts, leading many rural schools to hold winter and summer sessions.

What actually happened? Meanwhile, many urban schools ran year round, often for more than 250 days, but heat, illness, vacation, and absenteeism encouraged administrators to adopt longer and longer summer breaks. The summer break was a practical solution to the brutal heat of pre-air-conditioning cities. By 1900, the standardized 9-month calendar was firmly in place.

For over a century, it remained relatively stable. Summer was summer.

Then came 1983.

“A Nation at Risk.” That’s the name of the report that changed everything. The report published by the National Commission on Excellence in Education detailed how educational standards, such as standardized test scores, college entrance exams, and literacy rates in the United States were lacking when compared to scores from other industrialized countries. The report concluded that American students could not compete globally with these other students because those students were in the classroom longer.

That was it. The genesis of the anxiety. American kids aren’t in school long enough, therefore we must extend the school year.

The logic is seductive. Simple. Quantifiable. More school = better outcomes. Right?

Except.

The rotating schedule in Los Angeles, California—where an especially high proportion of students attended school under a balanced calendar—was associated with high levels of student withdrawal from school, low attendance, low grades, and increased de facto racial segregation in classrooms; parents also generally disliked these scheduling changes, and low-income households had difficulty adjusting to students’ prolonged break in the winter.

Year-round schooling, tested extensively, showed mixed results at best. Yet the idea refused to die. In 1980, 400 year-round schools existed in America. During the 2006-2007 school year, it was recorded that 2,800 American schools were considered to be year-round.

Then COVID happened. Suddenly there was learning loss to fix. In response to the learning loss for students during those tumultuous years, the movement toward year-round schooling resurfaced in the US in the early 2020s. The incentives come from states that wanted to address students who fell behind because of virtual learning during the pandemic. School districts reported that COVID worsened summer learning loss and now educators are looking for ways to remedy that.

The logic was seductive again. We can’t afford to lose summer. We can’t afford those three months of learning loss.

What we couldn’t afford to lose, apparently, is summer itself.

What We Supposedly Gained

Here’s what the defenders of shortened summers tell us we gain: more instructional time. Reduced learning loss. Better test scores. Competitive global standing.

More.

That’s the American mantra. More school days, more study hours, more time on task. The belief that if we just squeeze more learning into the school calendar, American kids will finally be competitive globally.

It’s a particular kind of American thinking—optimistic, driven, convinced that more effort equals better results. We have a “winner takes all” mentality, and we believe that if we’re working hard enough, we can achieve anything. But somewhere along the way, we confused schooling with learning.

Schooling is what happens between 8 AM and 3 PM in a classroom. You sit at a desk. You absorb information. You take tests. You get a grade.

Learning is what happens at 2 AM when you can’t sleep because you’re thinking about something that fascinated you. It’s the conversation with a friend that changes how you see the world. It’s the book you picked up for no reason and couldn’t put down. It’s the realization that you’re actually interested in something you never knew existed.

Learning is inefficient. It’s messy. It takes time that isn’t accounted for in lesson plans.

And it mostly happens when you’re not in school.

When I was a kid, summer wasn’t rest from learning. It was a different kind of learning—the kind that happened through exploration, failure, friendship, boredom, and serendipity. My buddy and I didn’t set out to discover friendship through ping-pong. We set out because we had nothing else to do on a hot afternoon. The friendship emerged from sustained, unstructured time together.

That’s not measurable. It doesn’t show up on standardized tests. But it’s one of the most important things humans learn.

Here’s what gets lost in the ledger of gains when we eliminate summer:

Friendship forged through unstructured time. Creativity born from boredom. The confidence that comes from self-directed discovery. The independence of figuring out what you actually want to do when nobody’s telling you what to do. The experience of failure without a grade attached. The sense that there’s more to life than achievement and performance.

The ping-pong game that lasts all summer and becomes a lifelong friendship.

These things don’t show up on standardized tests. They don’t appear in “learning outcomes.” But they are the actual education—the shaping of who we become as humans.

The Always-On Epidemic

But here’s the thing: it’s not just the kids losing summer.

Look at America’s vacation culture. We’re broken.

In fact, a majority of Europeans (59%) took more than 21 days of vacation, while most Americans fell into the lower ranges, with 49% taking 10 days or less. Think about that. Over half of Americans take a week and a half or less for vacation per year.

A staggering 60% of Americans never take longer holidays (2+ weeks).

And it’s not just the amount of vacation. More than 33% of Americans admitted to often feeling guilty about taking time off, whereas only 18% of Europeans shared the same sentiment.

We feel guilty about rest.

This is distinctly American. The United States is the only advanced economy that does not guarantee paid time off. The European Union requires a minimum. France provides a minimum of 30 paid vacation days per year. That’s not a job perk. That’s the law. It’s embedded in the idea that humans need to rest—not as a luxury, but as a fundamental requirement for wellbeing.

Meanwhile, a 2024 survey showed that over 40% of American respondents work 41 to 50 hours a week, while only 26% of European respondents reported the same. We work more hours, take fewer days off, and then feel guilty about the meager time we do take.

When an American finally does take those few days of vacation per year, they are most likely to be in constant contact with the office.

The Blackberry. The smartphone. The email that never stops. The Slack message at 8 PM. The text from your boss on Sunday. We’ve created a culture where rest is treated like irresponsibility.

What’s particularly insidious is that this isn’t just about individual choice. It’s structural. It’s cultural. It’s the water we swim in, so normalized that we don’t even see it anymore.

In France, there’s something called “August.” You know what that means? The entire country shuts down. People take vacation. It’s culturally expected and accepted. You don’t check your email. You’re not available. That’s just... summer.

In Germany? The workweek is capped at 40 hours. Evenings and weekends are protected by law. Many countries also have strict laws protecting weekends and evenings from work-related interference.

In America? We bragged about our hustle. We wore our overwork like a badge of honor. Missing vacation to handle a work emergency was seen as dedication. Being reachable 24/7 was a sign of commitment.

We’ve created a value system that treats rest as weakness.

51% of European survey respondents agreed they are happy with their work-life balance, a far cry from the Americans’ 34%.

More than half of us are unhappy with our work-life balance. Yet we keep shrinking summer. We keep eliminating the one period where genuine disconnection was still possible.

The Real Cost

Now, I understand the argument for more school time. Learning loss is real. Especially for kids from lower-income backgrounds who don’t have the resources for summer enrichment, those three months can mean falling behind.

That’s a legitimate problem. The solution, though—extending the school year and crushing summer—might be treating the symptom instead of the disease.

The real issue is that summer became necessary because school alone wasn’t enough. Because we’ve built a system where your entire future depends on standardized test scores and competitive rankings.

So we’re not actually solving the problem. We’re just extending the urgency. More school doesn’t solve inequality. It just means poor kids are in school more hours, with less family time, less community time, less time to actually be kids.

And everyone loses.

What We Forgot We Needed

Summer used to mean something. It meant relief. It meant possibility. It meant you could wake up and decide what your day would be, not have someone else’s schedule determine it.

It meant that you could start the summer as one person and end it having grown in ways you didn’t anticipate. You’d discover something about yourself. You’d figure out what you were actually interested in. You’d meet someone who mattered. You’d have a memory that would stay with you for forty years.

Ping-pong games at my house. Bike adventures to places we’d never been. Afternoons at the playground that stretched until the streetlights came on. Falling asleep to the sounds of summer—crickets, distant laughter, the hum of fans trying to beat the heat—knowing you didn’t have to be anywhere tomorrow.

That’s not nostalgia talking. That’s an understanding of what humans actually need: periods of non-productivity. Time that isn’t measured in outcomes. Space to simply exist and discover.

Until recently, summer still had that feeling. Sure, carving out more than a week of vacation has been hard for adults for a long time. But summer still felt like summer. You could take a week off and feel like you’d actually disconnected. Your kids could be outside for two months with their friends. Relationships deepened. Communities strengthened. Families actually spent time together without the ticking clock of the school year hanging over them.

Now? 51% of European survey respondents agreed they are happy with their work-life balance, a far cry from the Americans’ 34%.

We’re trying to compete globally by destroying the one thing that made us human-sized. We’re trying to fix learning loss by creating a generation that loses something much more important: the experience of unstructured time, independent discovery, and genuine rest.

The Hidden Cost Nobody Talks About

There’s something else happening that we’re not discussing: the erosion of childhood itself.

Childhood is supposed to be different from adulthood. It’s supposed to be the period where you’re not yet responsible for everything, where you’re still figuring out who you are, where the world hasn’t yet stamped you with its version of success and failure.

Summer was the amplifier of that. It was the longest stretch where childhood could actually breathe.

Now, if you’re a kid in the “optimal” school-year setup, your entire life is structured for achievement. School, then tutoring, then after-school programs, then sports, then homework, then maybe some time to yourself if you’re lucky. The school calendar that gets compressed means less margin for error, less time to catch your breath, less freedom to just... be.

And psychologists will tell you that this matters. Burnout is real in kids. Anxiety is climbing. The pressure is suffocating.

Meanwhile, their parents are exhausted. The working parent who now has less summer break to manage childcare. The single parent juggling multiple jobs. The parents who never took a real vacation themselves and now feel the weight of their own exhaustion pressing down on them.

We keep talking about the “achievement gap,” but what about the freedom gap? What about the rest gap? What about the gap between how we treat childhood in America and how it’s treated in countries where kids actually get to be kids?

And for adults? The shortened summer means fewer opportunities to actually step out of the work hamster wheel. A few more weeks of normal life instead of a chance to genuinely reset. To remember who you are when you’re not worrying about productivity.

Europeans understand something we’re forgetting: rest isn’t earned through hard work. Rest is a prerequisite for being human. It’s not a luxury. It’s infrastructure.

Reclaiming Summer

Here’s my radical proposal: we protect summer.

Not by pretending it will magically solve inequality. But by recognizing that we’ve overcorrected. We’ve swung from “summer is for resting” all the way to “every moment must be productive” and the pendulum is about to snap.

For our kids: Defend the full summer break. Push back on the march toward year-round schooling. Fight for those two full months where school is not the organizing principle of childhood. Create space where kids can be bored enough to get creative. Ensure there’s time for friendship that isn’t mediated by structured activities.

For ourselves: Reclaim summer as adults. Take the vacation time you’ve earned. Stop feeling guilty. Stop checking your email. Actually disconnect. Europeans figured this out—they literally shut down countries in August—and you know what? They didn’t fall behind globally. They just lived more humane lives.

The “Nation at Risk” report was wrong about what creates global competitiveness. It’s not longer school years. It’s creativity, independence, and human connection. The things that happen when you have time to think that isn’t directed by a curriculum.

Summer doesn’t cost us anything. It returns us.

So yes, it’s early August. And yes, students are heading back to school. But I’m pushing back on the inevitability of it.

We didn’t have to give up summer. We chose to.

And we can choose differently.

About the Author

A.J. Ware is a writer and observer of culture, childhood, and the creeping elimination of rest in American life. He believes that summer matters—not as luxury, but as necessity—and that protecting it for future generations is an act of rebellion against a culture obsessed with productivity.

He is the author of Heir Of The Shadows: The Awakening, the first novel in a four-part suspense thriller series and Garden State of Mind: Reclaiming Eden’s Promise, While Living In Exile, for the person who is looking to understand God’s heart toward us and find peace amidst life’s challenges.

By: A.J. Ware

Some people can soap box for days about the dangers of drugs.

They’ll tell you with complete conviction how it defies common sense to even start venturing down that path. They’ll explain the neurochemistry, the addiction cycle, the destroyed families, the wasted potential. They’ll speak with authority about the foolishness of that choice.

Then that same person will turn around when a plate of donuts has been set out unsupervised, and you just watch what happens.

Within the hour, they’ll have consumed more than they should. Clothes feeling tighter. Sluggishness. They’ll wonder: Where did this loss of self-control come from? When did refined sugar and fried dough become their master?

But they won’t call it a character flaw. They’ll label it under an indulgence. Stress eating. Maybe even, a tough day.

Meanwhile, watching someone else making similar choices—exceeding their limits and struggling with restraint—they’re judging their lack of discipline.

The Hypocrisy We Don’t See

Some people can’t understand how someone battles with infidelity.

They’ll shake their head at the weakness. They’ll question the commitment, the values, the character. They’ll be resolute in their judgment: I would never.

But watch how long they’ll hold a grudge for the smallest infraction.

Someone wrongs them—a perceived slight, a forgotten promise, a moment of inconsideration—and they’ll replay it in their mind for weeks. They’ll bring it up in conversations when it’s tangentially relevant. They’ll let it color how they see that person, even after they’ve apologized.

They’ll hold onto resentment like it’s their job.

And they won’t call it a character flaw. They’ll call it justified. They’ll call it protective. They’ll call it righteous anger.

But if someone holds a grudge against them? Suddenly that person is bitter. They’re unforgiving. They have a problem.

The Gap We All Have

There are countless examples of where we as humans fail to meet the standard of excellence in conduct and decency. Yet we rarely fail to hold others to that standard.

We judge harshly. We excuse ourselves gracefully.

And the fascinating part? This isn’t a personal failing. It’s not a character defect unique to people who lack self-awareness. This is human nature. This is how our brains are wired.

The Science of Our Double Standard

Psychologists have documented this tendency extensively. It’s called the fundamental attribution error, and it’s one of the most consistent findings in social psychology.

The fundamental attribution error refers to the tendency of people to overestimate the effect of personality and underestimate the effect of circumstances in viewing another person’s behavior. In other words, when someone cuts us off in traffic, we assume they’re a reckless driver. When we cut someone off, we assume we were distracted or the road conditions were bad.

When a colleague makes a mistake, it’s because they’re careless. When we make a mistake, it’s because we were overwhelmed.

When someone is chronically late, they’re irresponsible. When we’re late, traffic was bad and our day was chaotic.

When someone gossips, they’re malicious. When we share information about someone, we’re just expressing concern.

This fundamental attribution error combines with moral hypocrisy—we unconsciously apply stricter standards to others’ behavior while excusing our own. It’s not conscious. It’s not intentional. It’s just how our brains are wired to protect our self-image.

But it gets worse.

There’s also something called self-serving bias. Self-serving bias is a psychological concept that describes the tendency of individuals to attribute their successes to their own abilities and efforts while blaming external factors for their failures. A student who does well on a test credits their intelligence. A student who does poorly blames the teacher or the test format.

We take credit for our wins. We deflect blame for our losses.

When we succeed at work, it’s because we’re competent and hardworking. When a colleague succeeds, it might be because they got lucky or were in the right place at the right time.

When we fail, it’s because circumstances were beyond our control. When others fail, it’s because they didn’t try hard enough.

This isn’t malice. It’s self-protection.

And underneath both of these biases sits cognitive dissonance—the psychological discomfort we feel when we’re confronted with information that contradicts our self-image. To minimize this discomfort, decision-makers may unconsciously select and interpret information that aligns with their pre-existing beliefs and expectations.

In other words, our brains work overtime to protect our image of ourselves as “good people.”

We’re not trying to be hypocrites. We’re not intentionally cruel. We’re just trying to feel okay about ourselves. And our minds will perform remarkable gymnastics to accomplish that goal.

This is why you can be furious at your partner for yelling at you, while firmly believing that your own yelling last week was completely justified by circumstances.

This is why you can judge someone harshly for their financial irresponsibility while ignoring your own questionable spending decisions.

This is why you can be critical of someone’s work ethic while convincing yourself that your own procrastination is due to being “reflective” rather than lazy.

We’re all doing it. Every single day. To varying degrees.

The Apostle’s Confession

The Apostle Paul knew this struggle intimately.

He wrote: “For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me.” (Romans 7:19-23)

Paul is describing the exact tension we all experience. He wants to be good. He wants to do the right thing. He delights in God’s law intellectually. But his actions don’t match his intentions.

He knows the right way. He doesn’t do it. And he’s brutally honest about that gap.

The remarkable thing? Paul doesn’t make excuses. He doesn’t blame circumstances. He doesn’t point to others who are worse. He simply acknowledges: I’m caught in this war between who I want to be and who I actually am.

That’s the beginning of real change.

The Silent Toll

Now here’s something else that’s true: While we may not publicly flog ourselves, most people often beat themselves up mentally for our failures.

We lie awake at night replaying moments we wish we could redo. We carry shame about habits we can’t break. We feel guilt about patterns we repeat despite knowing better.

We know we’re hypocrites. We just hide it better from others than we do from ourselves.

A woman struggles with her weight, judges thin people as superior, then goes home and cries because she can’t fit into her favorite jeans.

A man lectures about integrity in business, then takes shortcuts on his taxes.

A parent criticizes their child for being lazy, then realizes they’ve been putting off that important conversation for months.

We’re not monsters. We’re just humans carrying the weight of our own contradictions.

And the question is: What do we do about it?

The Path Forward: Five Steps to Overcoming Your Achilles Heel

There is a healthy way to address our flaws—whether they’re habits or behaviors with minor implications or those with major impact on our ability to succeed. It requires honesty, grace, and a willingness to change.

Here’s the proven path:

Step 1: Self-Awareness & Acknowledgment

The first step is the hardest: admit it.

Not to excuse it. Not to justify it. But to name it clearly.

Paul did this. He didn’t say, “Well, I’m human, so it’s okay.” He said, “I do what I don’t want to do. That’s the reality.”

Self-awareness means stopping the mental gymnastics. It means looking in the mirror and saying: I judge others harshly for things I do regularly. I excuse myself for things I condemn in others. This is my pattern.

What does this actually look like in practice?

It means being honest about frequency. Not “I sometimes eat too much” but “I overeat regularly and it bothers me.” Not “I occasionally hold grudges” but “I hold grudges habitually and it affects my relationships.”

It means being specific about the cost. What is this costing you? Your health? Your relationships? Your self-respect? Your integrity? Don’t gloss over it. Actually quantify it.

This is where most people stop. Because acknowledgment hurts. Acknowledgment means you can no longer pretend. You can no longer tell yourself a story that casts you as the victim or the exception.

You can’t blame everyone else anymore.

You can’t say, “Everyone does this,” as if that makes it okay.

You can’t minimize it with humor or self-deprecation.

You have to look at it straight on and say: This is happening. I’m doing this. And I want to stop.

But here’s the truth: You cannot change what you will not acknowledge.

Start here. Write it down if you need to. Say it out loud. Name your Achilles heel without qualification or excuse. Don’t soften it. Don’t contextualize it. Just name it.

This is the foundation. Everything else builds from here.

Step 2: Root Cause Exploration

Once you’ve named it, you have to understand it.

Why do you do this thing? Not as a justification, but as genuine inquiry.

This requires curiosity instead of judgment. It requires asking yourself honest questions:

When you reach for the donuts, what are you really reaching for? Comfort? Distraction? Reward? Rebellion against restriction? Are you physically hungry or emotionally hungry? What happened right before you wanted them? What were you feeling?

When you hold the grudge, what are you protecting? Your sense of fairness? Your need to be right? Your fear that if you forgive, you’re saying what they did was okay? Your fear of vulnerability? Are you holding the grudge because you’re afraid of being hurt again?

When you judge someone else so harshly, whose voice are you echoing? A parent who was critical? A culture that values perfection? An internalized shame about your own failures that you’re projecting onto others?

Root cause exploration is not the same as excuse-making. It’s the difference between two statements:

“I eat donuts because I’m undisciplined.” (This is judgment without understanding. It shames you but doesn’t help you change.)

“I eat donuts when I’m stressed because I learned early that sugar was comfort and I’ve never found another way to self-soothe when I’m overwhelmed.” (This is understanding. It points toward real change: learning to soothe yourself differently.)

The first statement is a dead end. The second statement is the beginning of freedom.

Real root cause exploration might mean:

• Journaling about what happened before you engaged in the behavior

• Noticing patterns (time of day, emotional state, people involved, circumstances)

• Talking to a therapist or trusted mentor who can help you trace the behavior to its source

• Asking yourself uncomfortable questions: “What would happen if I didn’t do this? What am I afraid of?”

Understanding your pattern creates the possibility of choosing something different. Without understanding, you’re just white-knuckling your way through life, fighting a battle you don’t understand against an enemy you can’t see.

Step 3: Grace & Forgiveness (Self and Others)

Here’s where theology meets psychology in the most powerful way.

Once you understand your own pattern, you become capable of something radical: You see others with new eyes.

When you realize you judge harshly because you’re terrified of being judged, you can extend compassion to the people you’ve been harsh toward.

When you understand that the person struggling with infidelity isn’t evil, but trapped in a pattern they don’t know how to break—maybe they never learned how to handle their own needs and desires differently, maybe they’re acting out unhealed trauma, maybe they’re searching for validation in destructive ways—you can offer them grace instead of condemnation.

When you see that the person with the addiction isn’t weak, but medicating pain the only way they know how because no one ever taught them another way, you can open your heart instead of hardening your judgment.

When you realize that the person with poor money management skills isn’t irresponsible, but possibly operating from financial trauma or scarcity mindset you don’t understand, you can extend understanding instead of disdain.

This doesn’t mean excusing bad behavior. It means understanding the person behaving badly.

And crucially: You learn to extend that grace to yourself.

This is essential. Because if you’re beating yourself up mentally for every failure, shame becomes your default state. And shame is the enemy of change.

Think about it: When you’re in shame, what do you do? You hide. You eat the donut to numb the shame. You lash out at others to feel less alone in your failure. You double down on the bad behavior because you’ve already internalized the message that you’re a bad person.

Shame says: I am bad. I did something wrong.

But shame is a liar, because it conflates the two.

The truth is: I did something I didn’t want to do. I made a choice I’m not proud of. That action doesn’t define my entire person.

Grace says: I did this, and I don’t want to do it anymore, so I’m going to do something different next time.

Paul moves from his brutal confession of struggle to this: “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death.” (Romans 8:1-2)

That’s not permission to keep sinning. That’s permission to stop being paralyzed by shame so you can actually change.

It’s the difference between:

“I’m a terrible person who overeats and will always be this way, so why bother trying.” (Shame spiral)

And:

“I overeat, and I’m learning why I do that, and I’m working on finding other ways to soothe myself, and I’m making progress even though it’s not perfect.” (Growth mindset)

Extend grace to yourself. Not as an excuse. But as the psychological and spiritual foundation for genuine transformation.

This is where self-forgiveness becomes essential. You have to forgive yourself for your failures—not to excuse them, but to free yourself from the paralysis of shame so you can actually work on them.

Step 4: Accountability Systems

Accountability is underrated in modern spirituality.

We like grace. We like self-compassion. We like the idea that we can change ourselves with good intentions and positive thinking.

And those things are valuable. But they’re not enough.

Humans need accountability. It’s not punishment. It’s support.

Think of it like rock climbing. You can know intellectually how to climb a mountain. You can have the best intentions. You can visualize yourself at the summit.

But if you’re climbing alone with no rope, no harness, and no one to belay you, you’re going to fall.

Accountability is the rope. It’s the community standing below, catching you when you slip.

This might look like:

• A trusted friend or mentor who you give permission to call you out (and whom you call out too, creating mutual accountability)

• A written commitment you review regularly (morning, weekly, whenever you’re tempted)

• A tracking system that shows you your progress (or lack thereof)—this could be a calendar, an app, a journal

• A community of people working on similar issues (12-step programs exist for this reason; they work)

• A therapist or counselor who specializes in behavioral change

• A combination of these

The key is external accountability. Because when you’re alone with your own thoughts, your brain will rationalize anything.

You’ll say: “Just this once. It doesn’t count. No one has to know. I’ll start over Monday.” Your brain is extraordinarily creative at excusing itself.

But when you’ve told someone else, “I’m working on this,” something shifts. You become more honest with yourself. You follow through more often. You notice the excuses more quickly.

When you have to report to someone, you think twice before engaging in the behavior.

This is not punishment. It’s the scaffolding that supports real change.

One practical example: If you’re working on holding grudges, you might tell a close friend, “I’m working on this pattern. If I bring up a past hurt more than once, I’m giving you permission to gently call me on it.” Then, when you’re tempted to rehash that old wound for the fifth time, you remember that you have accountability and you choose differently.

That external voice—not shaming you, but reminding you of your commitment—is what makes the difference.

Step 5: Incremental Progress (Not Perfection)

Here’s the final truth: No one bats .1000. No one has a perfect record.

Hall of Fame athletes have hundreds of strikeouts. Hall of Fame investors made bad calls. Hall of Fame leaders made mistakes.

What separates them from everyone else is consistency over time.

You’re not aiming for perfection. You’re aiming for better than yesterday.

If you struggle with overeating, maybe this week you eat the donut plate on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday instead of every day. That’s progress.

If you struggle with holding grudges, maybe this week you bring it up once instead of five times. That’s progress.

If you struggle with judging others, maybe this week you catch yourself mid-judgment and choose to consider their circumstances. That’s progress.

The goal is not to become a different person overnight. The goal is to become 1% different each week, each month, each year.

Paul wasn’t claiming he’d solved his problem. He was describing the lifelong battle. The ongoing tension. The constant choice to align his actions with his values.

That’s realistic. That’s sustainable. That’s the kind of change that actually lasts.

A Reframe

Here’s what I want to suggest: Your Achilles heel isn’t your shame. It’s your evidence.

It’s the proof that you’re human. It’s the thing that teaches you empathy. It’s the struggle that connects you to everyone else who’s pretending to have it all figured out.

The moment you stop pretending you don’t have an issue is the moment you can actually do something about it.

And here’s the beautiful part: When you stop throwing stones at people’s glass houses, you free yourself from the exhausting work of maintaining your own perfect image.

You get to be human. Flawed. In process. Becoming.

That’s not weakness. That’s honesty.

And honesty is where real change begins.

The Invitation

So I’m asking you the same question I’m asking myself:

What’s the thing you judge others for that you secretly struggle with?

Not to shame you. But to free you.

Name it. Understand it. Extend grace for it. Create accountability around it. Work on it incrementally.

Because every single one of us has an Achilles heel. The only difference between people who change and people who don’t is whether they’re willing to acknowledge it.

I’m working on my donuts. I’m working on my grudges. I’m working on my harsh judgments of people whose struggles I’ve never walked through.

It’s not perfect work. Some days I fail spectacularly. Some weeks I repeat the same pattern I thought I’d overcome.

But I’m doing the work.

And I’m extending grace to myself and others in the process.

You’re invited to do the same.

About the Author

A.J. Ware is a writer and observer of human nature, faith, and the gap between who we want to be and who we actually are. He believes that acknowledging our Achilles heels is the beginning of change, and that grace toward ourselves and others is not weakness—it’s the foundation for real transformation.

He is the founder of Mimi, an AI-powered career coaching platform, and author of Heir Of The Shadows: The Awakening, the first novel in a four-part suspense thriller series and Garden State of Mind: Reclaiming Eden’s Promise, While Living In Exile, for the person who is looking to understand God’s heart toward us and find peace amidst life’s challenges.

By A.J. Ware

One day in the late 1990s, I got invited to join some friends for a Giants game at the old Candlestick Park.

You have to understand: just being there was itself a heroic feat.

Candlestick sat just off the water, and the wind from the bay would whip through the stadium making even the sunniest afternoon uncomfortable if you weren’t properly dressed. Shorts and a T-shirt in the 1st inning would be swapped for a hoodie and sweats by the 4th, and a jacket and scarf by the 7th or 8th.

That’s the kind of information real Giants fans know.

Real Fans vs. Fair-Weather Fans

That particular year, the Giants were playing well. The ballpark was full—more full than usual. Things looked promising for a playoff run.

But a few seats over and a couple rows behind us, I heard a real Giants fan say something that has stayed with me for over 25 years.

He said: “I’ve been here when it was just 4,000 faithful. These aren’t real fans.”

I immediately understood his point.

The distinction wasn’t about being judgmental. It was about commitment. The real fans were the ones who showed up when it was cold and uncomfortable. The ones who showed up when the team was struggling. The ones who believed even when it made no rational sense to believe.

By the 5th inning, the wind was doing its thing. I was cold enough that I wanted to do something else with my time. So I left. I left knowing that man I overheard—and the few thousand like him—would be there in support of their Giants until the game was done.

And even more: when they left, they would talk about it. They would continue to believe in the team getting better. They would hypothesize, play armchair general manager, celebrate every high, feel every low—all in hopes of reaching the World Series.

That’s real fandom.

The Warriors Test

I know what real fandom looks like because I am a Warriors fan.

My cousin Mark and I grew up together. We were both Warriors fans. We suffered through the losing years together. We believed together.

But when the Warriors didn’t win—year after year—Mark made a choice. He jumped ship. He found another team. He became a different kind of fan.

I stood tall. I kept believing.

When they traded Chris Webber away—a generational talent leaving in his prime—the temptation was real. The logic was rational: This team isn’t going to win. Why waste your emotional energy?

But I kept believing that one day we would win a championship.

That wasn’t based on current performance. That wasn’t based on logical analysis. It was based on something deeper.

It was worship.

What Real Fandom Teaches About Worship

I’ve come to realize that real fandom is very similar to worship.

It’s support and belief just because. The Warriors are my team, just because they are.

Oh, I’ll give you the reasons. I’ll tell you about Rick Barry and Clifford Ray and the history. I’ll explain why they matter to me. But those reasons mean something to me—and to other Warriors fans—that they won’t mean to Lakers fans or Cavaliers fans.

Real fandom doesn’t require justification. It requires commitment.

And here’s the crucial distinction: Real fans have concerns. They worry.

Will our stars perform as we hope? Will our rookies pan out? Will we suffer another year of shame?

But underneath all those concerns is a banner fear: Will I be rewarded for my loyalty this year? Or will the team, the organization let me down?

Fear of disappointment. That’s what drives fair-weather fandom.

But real fans? Real fans worship through that fear.

They show up anyway. They believe anyway. They celebrate the journey anyway—not because they’re guaranteed a championship, but because this is their team.

How We Approach God

This is so much like how we approach worship—or how we fail to lean into worshiping God.

We ask the same questions: Will my faith be rewarded? Or will my season of waiting continue? Will God come through the way I want Him to?

And when the answer isn’t clear, when the championship doesn’t come, when our prayers seem to go unanswered—we’re tempted to jump ship.

We forget something essential: We should worship God just because He is God.

Now, before you say that’s unreasonable—and it is a common argument for withholding worship—consider this.

People from all walks of life exemplify unconditional devotion in areas that have far less power to impact their lives.

Faithful to Bingo. Mahjong. Sports teams. Investments. Hobbies. Social communities.

Social media is riddled with examples of fans converting rooms of their homes to their fandom. Eager to show the world they are “die-hard” fans of their team, hobby, or community.

Fishing. Football. Soccer. Video games. Whatever.

The behavior is inherently human.

But when it comes to God—when it comes to the one Being with infinite power to impact our lives—people often choose to become selective and reserved.

I’ll shout from the rooftops that I love fishing. I’ll share it with the world indiscriminately. But I won’t raise my hands to thank God for the breath in my body.

I’ll wear my Warriors jersey with pride, celebrate every win, mourn every loss. But my commitment to God becomes transactional: He answers my prayer the way I wanted? Thank you. He delays or is silent? Then I’m silent.

That’s fair-weather fandom.

The Dubs win the chip, I’m wearing the paraphernalia, watching the games, talking about them incessantly. But Steph’s out, we miss the playoffs, and I’m out. The A’s organization makes moves I don’t agree with and they’re losing? Oh, I’m definitely not watching or supporting them.

We reserve unconditional devotion for things that matter far less than God.

Hall of Fame faith requires something different. Hall of Fame faith requires Worship over Worry.

My Father’s Witness

A few years ago, my mom and dad went through an unexpected transition.

After faithful service for more than 30 years—an impeccable, unblemished record of leadership and devotion—my father was betrayed.

Church hurt. It happens.

For many—maybe most—this is a reason to change teams. To decide the church isn’t worth it. To become cynical about faith. To let disappointment calcify into bitterness.

But the strangest thing happened.

My father leaned in even more.

He leaned into that which had served to guide him all along. His faith in God’s nature and character never wavered. Neither did my mother’s.

Now, to be sure, there were real feelings. Anger. Hurt. Disappointment. These were legitimate emotions in response to legitimate betrayal.

But they didn’t interfere with his commitment to worship.

He vocalized God’s goodness. He sang about it. He kept showing up to corporate worship and leading others in songs of praise and thanksgiving. He kept going into his prayer closet at 6 AM—the same closet where he’d been for decades.

He kept lifting God up above his hurt and anger and disappointment.

And you know what? He was given peace.

The Apostle Paul wrote: “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:6-7)

Peace that transcends understanding.

Not because the betrayal didn’t hurt. Not because the disappointment disappeared. But because worship—deliberate, intentional, unconditional worship—opened a door to divine grace.

Making God Bigger Than Your Problems

Here’s something crucial: Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. (Matthew 12:34)

This isn’t just nice theology. This is neuroscience. This is how our brains work.

If our hearts get filled with bitterness, fear, anger, disappointment, and other negative thoughts, they will inevitably seep out of our mouths. And what we speak, our brains work to align with. If you say something enough, you’ll work to align your reality to reflect that—even if it’s not what you want.

This is why we have to watch what we say.

And this is why it’s important that we let words of praise and thanksgiving come out of our mouths toward God, about God.

Making God bigger than your problems. Bigger than your fears. Bigger than your disappointments.

This is the path to receiving grace—divine strength to persevere.

My father understood this. When he vocalized God’s goodness, when he sang about God’s faithfulness, when he kept worshiping through the hurt—he wasn’t denying the pain. He was putting the pain in proper perspective.

He was saying: My disappointment is real, but God is bigger.

My hurt is legitimate, but God’s character is more trustworthy than my circumstances.

I don’t understand this betrayal, but I understand God, and that’s enough.

The Fruit of Worship

And then something happened.

My Dubs became a team of the ages. In 2015, they won the championship. Then they won again. And again. And again. Four championships in eight years.

My A’s have a great pool of young talent, and I believe they will be winners in the near future.

My Raiders are on an upward trajectory.

But more than all of that—more than any championship, any victory, any achievement—God remains faithful to me.

When I have had a lot, and when I have had little, God has met my needs. Even when it was just grace to get through the day, it was enough.

I learned that from my parents. I learned it from watching my father worship through betrayal. I learned it from watching my mother stand beside him, raising her voice in songs of thanksgiving when she had every reason to complain.

That’s Hall of Fame faith.

The Fifth and Final Tool

Let me bring this all together.

Over this series, we’ve explored five tools—five spiritual postures that define Hall of Fame faith:

Faith over Failure (Part 1): You start believing even though you’ve failed. You get back in the batter’s box after striking out.

Perseverance over Profit (Part 2): You stay committed even when the profit doesn’t show. You remain in the vine while the vine dresser does the work.

Team/Community over Individual Achievement (Part 3): You bunt. You sacrifice. You prioritize the team’s success over your personal stats.

Prayer over Complaining (Part 4): You step off the mound. You grab the rosin. You let God speak into your heart instead of just venting your frustration.

And now, Worship over Worry (Part 5): You show up valuing who you serve as all-powerful, sovereign, and loving—even when your circumstances don’t look the way you want.

These aren’t five separate things. They’re five expressions of one commitment: Unconditional devotion to something bigger than yourself.

Hall of Fame faith requires mastery of this fifth and final tool.

But here’s the reality: Mastery means proficiency, not perfection.

No one bats .1000. No one has an error-free career. No one worships perfectly all the time. No one maintains constant faith through every disappointment.

But it’s what’s done over the course of one’s career that results in making it to the Hall of Fame.

My father didn’t worship perfectly through his betrayal. But he kept showing up. He kept lifting his voice in praise. He kept aligning his heart with God’s goodness.

Over the course of his life—over decades of devotion, through seasons of plenty and seasons of lack, through victories and betrayals—he’s built a legacy of faith.

That’s what I want. That’s what I believe you want too.

Let’s Be Great Together

So here’s my closing invitation:

Where are you tempted to become a fair-weather believer? Where is God asking you to lean in rather than jump ship? Where is He inviting you to unconditional worship despite your fear of disappointment?

Because the journey isn’t always about the championship. Sometimes it’s about the commitment. Sometimes it’s about showing up to Candlestick Park in the cold wind, believing in your team, supporting them anyway.

Sometimes it’s about keeping your hand raised in worship even when the answer to your prayer is “not yet.”

Sometimes it’s about sitting in your prayer closet at 6 AM, day after day, year after year, without seeing the immediate results you prayed for—but trusting that God is faithful.

Sometimes it’s about making God bigger than your problems, bigger than your fears, bigger than your disappointments.

That’s Hall of Fame faith.

That’s the walk I’ve been describing across these five parts. Not perfection. Proficiency. Not flashy. Faithful.

The kind of faith that transforms not just you, but everyone around you. The kind of faith your children will inherit. The kind of faith that makes it to the Hall of Fame.

Let’s be great together.

Let’s worship. Let’s persevere. Let’s sacrifice for something bigger. Let’s pray. Let’s believe—not because we’re guaranteed a championship, but because this is who we serve, and He is worthy.

And when the disappointments come—and they will—let’s remember the one who kept showing up, kept worshiping, kept lifting his voice in praise.

My father. My mother. A cloud of witnesses who refused to become fair-weather believers.

That’s the inheritance. That’s the standard. That’s the call.

About the Author

A.J. Ware is a writer and observer of faith, commitment, and what it means to show up and worship even when the outcomes aren’t guaranteed. He believes that Hall of Fame faith is built over decades through perseverance, prayer, and unconditional devotion. He learned this from his parents, from watching his Warriors through the drought, and from returning to the game that taught him that the greatest victories come to those who refuse to become fair-weather believers.

He is the author of Heir Of The Shadows: The Awakening, the first novel in a four-part suspense thriller series and Garden State of Mind: Reclaiming Eden’s Promise, While Living In Exile, for the person who is looking to understand God’s heart toward us and find peace amidst life’s challenges.

“Lessons From The Diamond” explores what baseball teaches us about faith, perseverance, community, prayer, and the Hall of Fame walk with God. This is the fifth and final part.

The Complete Series

Part 1: Faith Over Failure — Rickey Henderson, embracing failure, Hall of Fame mindset

Part 2: Perseverance Over Profit — Shea Langeliers, the Vine Dresser, Warriors dynasty, exponential rewards

Part 3: The Art of Bunting — Dwayne Murphy, sacrifice plays, Jesus as bunter, body of Christ

Part 4: Prayer Over Complaining — Dave Stewart, the pitcher’s mound, Dad’s prayer life, stepping off to listen

Part 4B: The Mechanics of Prayer — Complete games to bullpen collaboration, five prayer postures (thanksgiving, intercession, agreement, listening, worship)

Part 5: Worship Over Worry — Real fandom, fair-weather believers, Dad’s witness through betrayal, unconditional devotion, Hall of Fame faith

Let’s be great together.

By A.J. Ware

After writing Part 4, I couldn’t shake the importance of prayer.

I realized we’d discussed why prayer matters, but we hadn’t really examined how to pray—the different types of prayer, the different postures, the mechanics themselves.

And as I sat with that, something struck me about how baseball has changed.

The Evolution of the Game

When I started watching baseball in the 1970s, it wasn’t uncommon to see pitchers pitch complete games. The starting pitcher would take the mound and finish what he started. He’d go the distance. He’d own the game from first pitch to last.

The numbers tell the story: In the 1970s, there were more than 9,300 complete games pitched across Major League Baseball.

In 1971, Fergie Jenkins recorded 30 complete games. In 1972, Steve Carlton threw 30 complete games. In 1975, Catfish Hunter—one of my Oakland A’s heroes—recorded 30 complete games in a single season.

Thirty. Complete games. In one season.

Want to know how significantly the game has changed?

In 2025, only 29 complete games were recorded across all of Major League Baseball. Among all 30 teams combined, only 29 times did a starting pitcher finish the game on the mound.

From 9,300 per decade to 29 in an entire year.

There are several factors contributing to this shift. Metrics have evolved—teams now use data to maximize matchups. Health considerations have changed the conversation—we now track pitch counts religiously to optimize performance without risking injury. The bullpen has specialized—long relievers, setup men, closers, situational pitchers.

The modern game is built on collaboration, not individual dominance.

One pitcher doesn’t finish the game alone. Multiple pitchers work in concert, each specializing in their role, each bringing their expertise at the right moment.

Our Lives Have Changed the Same Way

Here’s what struck me when I realized this: Our lives have undergone the exact same transformation.

When my family left the house together, we were out. Unavailable. Away from work, away from phone calls, away from people who might drop by. We were fully engaged in whatever activity we were doing. We were present.

Today, being “out” doesn’t mean being unavailable. It means being mobile. Your phone is a mobile workspace. Your car converts to a mobile conference room when needed. Everyone is connected, all the time, to everything.

And just for the bonus round: If you don’t know what you want to do, AI is here to make suggestions based on your location, search history, browsing patterns, your patterns of being.

The point: To get the most out of life today, your prayer life could probably use an upgrade.

The Core Remains, But Collaboration Changes Everything

Here’s the fascinating part: At the core of pitching, things are the same as they’ve always been.

Fastball. Breaking ball. Off-speed pitch. Balls and strikes. They call them different things now—sinkers, sliders, sweepers, cutters—but they are at their core evolutions of those three fundamental pitch types.

The mechanics haven’t fundamentally changed. The core principles are eternal.

But the way the game is played—the way wins are achieved—now relies heavily on collaboration.

And the Bible suggests this is absolutely valuable to our prayer life too.

Jesus said: “For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.” (Matthew 18:20)

Power multiplies. Presence intensifies. God shows up differently when we pray together.

Moses wrote: “How could one man chase a thousand, or two put ten thousand to flight?” (Deuteronomy 32:30)

The math is exponential. One can handle a thousand. But two can handle ten thousand. That’s not just addition—that’s multiplication.

And Solomon observed: “Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor: If either of them falls down, one can help the other up.” (Ecclesiastes 4:9-10)

In partnership, there’s safety, strength, and reciprocal care.

The core of prayer remains the same—but modern prayer requires understanding collaborative, corporate, community-based prayer.

The Prayer Types and Postures

Just as a pitcher needs different pitches for different situations, a believer needs different prayer postures for different seasons and situations.

Here are the core prayer types, understood both individually and collaboratively:

Prayer of Thanksgiving

At its core, this is simple: gratitude. Acknowledging what’s been given, what’s been provided, what’s been sustained.

Individual: You sit alone and thank God for your health, your family, your job, the roof over your head, the meal on your table. You count your blessings. You recognize God’s provision in your life.

Corporate: Your family gathers around the dinner table and gives thanks together. Your church worships and offers corporate thanksgiving. Your small group celebrates answered prayers together. The multiplication of gratitude creates an atmosphere of abundance rather than scarcity. One person’s thanksgiving is powerful. A family’s thanksgiving is transformative.

This is the first pitch—the foundational pitch that every believer should master.

Prayer of Intercession

This is prayer on behalf of someone else. Standing in the gap. Asking God for another’s need, another’s healing, another’s breakthrough.

Individual: You pray for your co-worker who’s struggling. You intercede for your child’s education. You pray for your pastor, your leaders, your city. You bring another’s burden to God and ask Him to move on their behalf.

Corporate: Your church prays corporately for missionaries. Your prayer group intercedes for the sick and suffering in your community. Your family prays together for a relative facing a crisis. The combined faith, the combined voice, the combined petition carries exponentially more weight. Jesus promised: “If two of you on earth agree about anything they ask for, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven.” (Matthew 18:19)

This is the breaking ball—the pitch that requires precision, care, and understanding the situation.

Prayer of Agreement

This is a specific type of intercessory prayer that operates on a principle of unity and alignment.

Individual: You align your will with God’s will. “Not my will, but yours be done.” You submit your preferences, your plans, your agenda to God’s bigger purpose.

Corporate: Two or more believers come into agreement about a specific prayer request. “We agree in prayer that God will...” The power of unified petition. The strength of aligned hearts. When believers agree—not just in words, but in heart, in faith, in conviction—something shifts in the spiritual realm.

This is the off-speed pitch—sometimes unexpected, often devastating in its effectiveness because it’s not what the enemy anticipates.

Listening and Silence

This is the most underutilized prayer posture in modern Christianity.

We talk. We petition. We request. We intercede. But do we listen?

Individual: You sit in silence before God. You quiet your mind. You create space for the Holy Spirit to speak into your heart. You listen instead of talking. You wait instead of asking. Psalm 46:10 says: “Be still, and know that I am God.” Listening prayer is the hardest pitch to master because it requires surrender, openness, and trust that God’s voice is worth waiting for.

Corporate: Your prayer group sits together in silence, listening for God’s voice. Your church gathers in contemplative prayer, creating space for the Holy Spirit to speak to the community. Your family prays together without anyone talking—just presence, just listening, just openness. The silence creates space for God to speak to the collective heart.

This is the most advanced pitch—the one that separates elite pitchers from good ones. It’s the pitch that requires complete trust in the mechanics, complete surrender of control.

Prayer of Worship

This is prayer that focuses entirely on who God is, not what He does. Praising His character, celebrating His nature, honoring His person.

Individual: You worship God in your car, in your prayer closet, in your quiet moments. You acknowledge His greatness, His holiness, His majesty, His love. You lift Him up. You celebrate who He is independent of what He does for you. “Lord, You are worthy. You are glorious. You are good.” This is prayer untethered from petition—pure adoration.

Corporate: Your church gathers to worship. Your small group sings praise together. Your family worships in the car on the way to church. The combined voices, the unified hearts, the corporate acknowledgment of God’s worth creates an atmosphere of reverence and awe that is impossible to achieve alone. Corporate worship has power that individual worship cannot match.

This is the closing pitch—the pitch that ends the game with authority and confidence.

The Modern Prayer Life

Here’s what I want to suggest: Just as modern baseball relies on collaboration and specialization, a modern prayer life requires understanding these different prayer postures and knowing when and how to use them.

And crucially, it requires understanding that prayer isn’t just an individual spiritual discipline—it’s a communal, corporate, collaborative practice.

Your morning prayer in your closet matters. Your 6 AM time with God is essential.

But your family prayer matters too. Your small group intercession carries weight. Your corporate worship transforms atmospheres. Your prayer of agreement with a brother or sister in Christ multiplies the power.

You need the complete game pitcher who masters all the pitches. And you need the specialized bullpen—different believers bringing their prayer strength at different moments.

The Invitation

So as you move forward in your prayer life, ask yourself:

What pitch do I throw most often? (Are you always petitioning? Always interceding? Always worshiping?)

What pitch am I neglecting? (When did you last pray in silence? When did you last gather with others in corporate prayer?)

Where do I need collaboration? (What area of your life or your community needs more than one voice, more than one heart in agreement?)

Who are my prayer partners? (Who do you pray with? Who stands with you in intercession? Who worships with you?)

The game has changed. The world has changed. Your prayer life needs to reflect that reality—rooted in the eternal core of prayer, but expanding into collaborative, corporate, community-based spiritual practice.

Because when two or three gather in His name, He is there. And when two agree about anything they ask for, it will be done.

That’s not just better prayer. That’s exponential prayer.

Back to Part 5: “Worship Over Worry”

Having established the mechanics and types of prayer, Part 5 will explore what happens when you stop trying to control everything and start celebrating what’s already been given. We’ll look at how worship—both individual and corporate—becomes the antidote to worry, and what it means to truly rest in who God is.

About the Author

A.J. Ware is a writer and observer of faith, prayer, and how individual disciplines multiply through collaborative practice. He believes that prayer is both personal and corporate, that different seasons require different prayer postures, and that the exponential power of prayer is unleashed when believers gather in agreement.

He is the founder of Mimi, an AI-powered career coaching platform, and author of Heir Of The Shadows: The Awakening, the first novel in a four-part suspense thriller series and Garden State of Mind: Reclaiming Eden’s Promise, While Living In Exile, for the person who is looking to understand God’s heart toward us and find peace amidst life’s challenges.

“Lessons From The Diamond” explores what baseball teaches us about faith, perseverance, community, and the Hall of Fame walk with God.

By: A.J. Ware

A few years ago, I came across a quote from an interview with Dave Stewart, one of my favorite Oakland A’s pitchers.

The quote was attributed to Dave Duncan, Stewart’s pitching coach, and it stopped me: “The quicker your mental catches up with your physical, the more you become elite.”

Though the late great Sand Koufax originally taught Dave Stewart how to throw the split-finger Duncan was teaching Dave how to throw his lethal split fingered pitch, it was coach Dave Duncan who helped Stewart elevate, refine, and gain confidence in the pitch he’d later use to devastate hitters. Stewart was already a power pitcher with a fastball that had high velocity and movement. But the split finger was different. It left his hand with the same velocity as his fastball, but would suddenly spin and die out just before reaching the plate.

Hitters would swing and miss, embarrassed and befuddled.

But first, Stewart had to get his mind right. He had to understand what the pitch could do. He had to trust the pitch. He had to believe in it enough to throw it when it mattered most.

The physical could throw it. The mental had to catch up.

Throughout my years watching the A’s, I’ve admired many pitchers. Vida Blue, Catfish Hunter, Rollie Fingers in my youth. Then Dave Stewart, Bob Welch, Dennis Eckersley. Each one understood something fundamental about pitching.

And as I’ve rediscovered baseball, I’ve come to understand something even more fundamental:

Pitching is a lot like prayer.

What Pitching Teaches About Prayer

You lay out what you want. You hope for a particular outcome. You throw your best pitch with the best stuff you’ve got.

And the results might not be what you planned.

Then you do it again.

This is the reality of pitching. And it’s the reality of prayer.

Here’s what I’ve learned: You can’t control the outcomes. But you can control whether you get on the mound and throw.

A pitcher steps up on that mound knowing a lot is beyond his control. He can’t control if the batter swings. He can’t control if the umpire calls it a strike. He can’t control if his outfielder misjudges the ball. He can’t control the wind, the field conditions, or a thousand other variables.

But he can control one thing: whether he throws the pitch.

And before he does, there’s a crucial moment.

He steps off the mound. He grabs the rosin bag. He rubs the ball, adjusting his grip. He might change the ball for a new one. He collects his thoughts. He centers himself.

Then he gets back on the mound and throws.

Stepping Off the Mound

That moment off the mound? That’s an important part of prayer.

It’s the moment you step back from the chaos and collect your thoughts. It’s the moment you let the Holy Spirit speak into your heart about what you should actually pray for.

Because here’s the truth: Not all prayers are created equal.

Throwing Reggie Jackson a fastball down the middle of the plate at the wrong time has a high probability of becoming a home run. Similarly, praying for that co-worker who gets on your nerves to become a mute is definitely going to become a home run for the visiting team.

Oftentimes we run into prayer with what we want to talk to God about, and what we want to ask for. But, prayer is a conversation. It’s important that we give as much time to listening as we do talking. It’s in listening that we gain insights we might not otherwise have.

You have to understand the situation. You have to know which pitch to throw. You have to step off the mound, grab the rosin, adjust your thinking, and decide: What does this moment actually require? Should I pray for understanding, empathy, and compassion regarding dealing with that difficult co-worker? Should I start looking for a new job outside of my company? You get the picture. That we should pray is clear, but how is understanding what pitch to throw.

Stepping off the mound is like sitting in your prayer closet and collecting your thoughts. It’s pausing before you speak to God. It’s letting the Holy Spirit guide what you actually ask for, rather than just venting your frustration.

It’s the mental catching up with the physical.

When Everything Gets Fouled Off

Then there are the hard seasons.

You’re on the mound. You’re throwing your best stuff. And the batter is fouling off everything you throw—everything that’s in or near the strike zone.

Nothing is working.

This is like being in a season where everything you’ve tried seems not to work. The prayers don’t seem to be answered. The faith you’re holding onto doesn’t seem to be paying off. The situation isn’t improving.

And the temptation is real: Complain out of frustration. Give up. Throw the ball into the stands.

But a great pitcher knows what to do.

Step off the mound. Grab a little rosin. Collect your thoughts. Get back in there.

The pitch might be the same. The approach might be the same. But you step back. You reset. You pray. You let the Holy Spirit recalibrate your heart.

And you go back out and throw again. Trust. One of the hardest things to watch is a pitcher on the mound who has lost trust in himself. You can see it in his posture, how he finishes his pitches. Everything is just okay. A little tentative and wishful.

A pitcher who trusts his stuff, throws with conviction. I’ve watched my A’s take a licking this season, and I’ve been impressed by how on the roughest nights, our pitchers have kept throwing with conviction. Because here’s the truth, I can pull you out tonight, but a few days from now you’re going to have to get right back in there and face another round of batters.

In other words, you will face new trials, and new challenges. Abandoning prayers because you feel like you’re losing this one, doesn’t do anything to set you up for success when facing the next. And you will definitely face “A Next.” Whether it’s communication with your spouse, a season of financial hardship, or job instability, the season of challenge will come. Stepping off the mound is the key to understanding “how” to pray in season.

My Dad’s Prayer Life

For decades, my dad has made prayer the central part of his life.

And I mean central. I know where he is at 6 AM every single day: his prayer closet.

There was a running joke in our family that our cat was the most prayed-up cat in history because he’d be right there with Dad during his prayer time every morning. Right there, day after day, year after year.

I don’t remember when Dad decided to cement this routine into his life. I just remember he did.

But there was one transformational moment I do remember. It was in the early 90s. Dad read a book called “Could You Not Tarry One Hour” by Larry Lea.

That book changed everything for him.

It was like a young pitching phenom like Dave Stewart getting coached by Dave Duncan and being shown how to master a new pitch—the split finger forkball—and being taught how to use it as a weapon to dominate hitters.

That’s what prayer vs. complaining became for my dad.

Properly used, prayer becomes your out pitch against the adversary of your souls.

Prayers of gratitude in the face of disappointment, lack, or trials—those are pitches that the enemy can’t hit. They’re the out pitch. Intercessory prayers on behalf of others—those are the devastating cutter that freezes the power hitter eager to swing.

My dad’s faithful prayer life became an example for me and our entire family. I’ve watched as life has thrown him into tough situations. I’ve watched circumstances that would make most people complain, give up, or grow bitter.

And yet, prayer has been the instrument that helped him maintain peace. Prayer has been how he gained insight from God. Prayer has been how he navigated to successful outcomes.

That doesn’t mean he and my mom haven’t had challenges. They absolutely have. But they pray together. It’s funny because Mom has her prayer closet and Dad has his.

They call it “the meeting on the mound.”

Yes, mom prays in the morning too. And before they leave the house every morning, they pray over each other. They step off life’s mound together, grab the rosin, collect their thoughts, and let God speak into their hearts. That’s a whole other dynamic. The power of agreement. Different article.

Different Pitches, Different Situations

Here’s something crucial about elite pitchers: They don’t throw the same pitch every time.

A great pitcher has a fastball. But they also have a slider, a cutter, a curveball, maybe a changeup or a sinker. They know which pitch to throw in which situation.

The same is true with prayer.

Everyone starts by throwing fastballs.

You come to God and ask for what you want. You ask for what you need. You make your requests known. That’s the fastball—the basic, straightforward pitch of petition.

But to make it to the big leagues, you have to learn something else. You have to learn how to throw a slider—the prayer of intercession, standing in the gap for someone else’s need. You have to learn the cutter—prayers of thanksgiving in the midst of trial. You have to learn the curveball—prayers that align your will with God’s will, worshipful and not demanding your own way.

A prayer fastball: “God, help me.”

A slider: “God, help my neighbor, my co-worker, my city leader, my community.”

A cutter: “Thank you, God, even though this is hard.”

A curveball: “Your will be done, not mine.”

A splitter: The devastating prayer that changes the entire spiritual climate.

A sinker: The grounded prayer rooted in God’s Word and truth.

There are no Hall of Fame pitchers who only threw fastballs.

And there is no Hall of Fame faith built on prayers that only ask for yourself.

Luis Medina’s Journey

I recently started watching Luis Medina, one of the A’s young pitchers today. He’s got great stuff—a fastball that sits consistently at 97-99 MPH, complemented by a nasty changeup, sweeper, sinker, and slider.

He’s really promising.

But when I first came back to baseball this year, I couldn’t understand why he wasn’t at a minimum an everyday reliever. Why wasn’t he dominating?

Turns out Luis is returning from elbow surgery last year. He’s a young player. He’s on his pitching journey to becoming.

We’re all somewhere on our prayer journey, and usually where we are depends on where we are in our faith walk.

Luis is learning. He’s rebuilding. He’s becoming. He’s learning which pitches to trust, which situations call for which approach.

It’s the same with us and prayer.

Everyone can throw a fastball. Everyone can come to God and ask for what they want. That’s easy. But do you know how to stand in the gap for someone else’s need? Do you know how to believe and pray for your neighbors, your co-workers, your city leaders, your community’s safety services?

That takes development. That takes learning. That takes becoming.

Luis Medina is on his way. And so are we.

The Anchor: Hope as Prayer

Here’s the biblical truth that holds it all together: “We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain...” (Hebrews 6:19)

Prayer is that anchor.

Without it, you drift. You get pulled into the current of circumstances, the undertow of worry, the waves of complaint. You have no stability. No connection. No security.

But with prayer—with stepping off the mound, grabbing the rosin, letting the Holy Spirit speak into your heart—your hope becomes anchored. It becomes firm. It becomes secure.

That hope enters the inner sanctuary. It connects you to the presence of God Himself.

Paul wrote: “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:6-7)

Not complaining. Not worrying. Not giving up.

Prayer.

And he also wrote: “Pray without ceasing.” (1 Thessalonians 5:17)

That’s not about spending every waking moment on your knees. That’s about maintaining constant connection. That’s about stepping off the mound between every pitch, every moment, every situation. That’s about staying in the presence of God through prayer.

Without Prayer, You Forfeit

Let me be honest: A lot of people aren’t praying today. And often, it’s because they don’t believe prayer actually works.

But if you understand prayer like pitching in baseball, you’d realize something:

Without prayer, you’re not even in the game.

A pitcher without throwing pitches isn’t playing baseball. He’s just a guy standing on a mound. He’s forfeited the contest before it even started.

And a believer without prayer? You’re essentially standing on the sidelines. You’re not engaging with God. You’re not connecting with the power that transforms situations, that brings peace in chaos, that opens doors, that heals, that redeems.

With prayer, your hopes and desires are connected in the presence of God.

You step off the mound. You grab the rosin. You adjust your grip. You let the Holy Spirit guide what you actually need to pray for. And you throw with the confidence that you’re not throwing alone—you’re throwing with God.

That’s elite. That’s Hall of Fame faith.

That’s when your mental finally catches up with your physical, and you become truly formidable.

Coming Next: Part 5 - “Worship Over Worry”

In our final part, we’ll explore what happens when you stop trying to control everything and start celebrating what’s been given. We’ll look at how worship is the antidote to worry, how gratitude reshapes your reality, and what it means to truly rest in who God is rather than anxiously trying to determine what He’ll do.

Because sometimes the greatest power isn’t found in the pitch you throw—it’s found in the God you praise.

About the Author

A.J. Ware is a writer and observer of faith, prayer, and what it means to step off the mound and let God speak into your heart. He believes that prayer is the anchor for the soul, that different seasons require different pitches, and that Hall of Fame faith requires learning to pray for more than just yourself.

He is the founder of Mimi, an AI-powered career coaching platform, and author of Heir Of The Shadows: The Awakening, the first novel in a four-part suspense thriller series and Garden State of Mind: Reclaiming Eden’s Promise, While Living In Exile, for the person who is looking to understand God’s heart toward us and find peace amidst life’s challenges.

“Lessons From The Diamond” explores what baseball teaches us about faith, perseverance, community, and the Hall of Fame walk with God.

By: A.J Ware

In baseball, there’s a play that looks like failure but counts as success.

It’s called a bunt.

You step up to the plate. The pitcher throws. You don’t swing to hit. You just try to tap the ball softly into play to advance the runner who’s already on base.

If you succeed, you get out on purpose. The runner advances. And you’ve won.

But if you fail? You get credited with a regular at-bat, which lowers your average.

You sacrifice yourself for the team.

Dwayne Murphy’s Season

Dwayne Murphy was one of my favorite A’s to watch. Center field. A six-time Golden Glove winner—one of the greatest defensive players in the game. Exceptional at what he did.

He batted second in the lineup, right after Rickey Henderson. And Rickey, as you might imagine, didn’t need much help. He’d get on base and steal his way to scoring position.

But in 1980, something changed.

Manager Billy Martin had a different plan. He wanted to use the bunt strategically. He wanted to advance runners. He wanted to prioritize team success over individual performance.

So he called on Dwayne Murphy to bunt.

Constantly.

So much so that Dwayne led the entire league in sacrifice bunts that season.

Think about that for a moment. Dwayne Murphy led the league in getting out on purpose.

It’s a remarkable stat. A complicated stat. When a bunt is successful, it’s recorded as a Sacrifice Hit (SH)—it doesn’t lower your batting average. But when it fails, it’s a regular at-bat, and you pay the price.

The real measure of success, though, isn’t the stat. It’s the question: Did the runner advance? Did the team win?

The Hidden Cost

Here’s what makes the story even more interesting:

In the years following that 1980 season, the team learned that Dwayne Murphy was a better-than-average hitter with real power. He had home runs in him. He had potential offensive production that could have contributed to his individual statistics, maybe even his Hall of Fame case.

But in 1980, he set that aside.

He sacrificed his pursuit of individual achievement—the hits, the home runs, the stats that might have one day put him in Cooperstown—because the manager asked him to bunt.

And here’s the reality: Despite his exceptional defensive abilities, Dwayne Murphy is not in the Baseball Hall of Fame. Most attribute this to his lack of offensive production. His lifetime batting average over 12 seasons sits at .246.

Was it worth it? Did bunting in 1980 cost him the Hall of Fame?

Maybe. Probably not the single deciding factor, but it’s part of the story.

But here’s the bigger question: How willing are you to bunt?

How willing are you to sacrifice your individual achievement for the needs of the team? How often do you find yourself emotionally driven by “I don’t have” or “I wish I had” instead of asking “What can I do for you? What does the team need?”

Jesus as the Ultimate Bunter

When I think about the life of Jesus, I don’t waste time debating what he looked like. That’s not the point.

What matters is what he was recorded doing with his time. And here’s what I see: Jesus bunted constantly.

Healing a man on the Sabbath when it was forbidden? That’s a bunt. He could have waited until the Sabbath was over, followed the rules, protected his reputation. Instead, he prioritized the man’s need over institutional comfort.

Talking to a Samaritan woman at the well? That’s a bunt. He broke social and religious protocol. He sacrificed the comfort of following the rules because the woman’s need was greater.

Washing his disciples’ feet? That’s a bunt. The Son of God got on his knees and washed the dirt from their feet—the work of a servant, not a king. He humbled himself. He sacrificed dignity for service.

And laying down his life for our sins? That’s the ultimate bunt. The complete sacrifice of self for the team—for all of us.

Jesus said it plainly: “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” (John 15:13)

That’s bunting at the highest level.

The core of his message isn’t complicated: Living with the heart of God the Father means bunting sometimes. It means prioritizing the needs of others over your own achievements. It means being willing to sacrifice yourself for the team.

The Manager Decides

Here’s a principle I’ve learned: I am not my own.

Paul wrote it clearly: “Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price.” (1 Corinthians 6:19-20)

I don’t own myself. I’ve been bought. Which means I don’t get to walk up to the plate and call my own shots.

I can’t say: “I need one more hit to break my hitting streak, so I’m swinging for the fence.”

I can’t say: “I deserve recognition, so I’m going for the home run.”

I can’t say: “My stats need improvement, so I’m not bunting.”

Because I’m not the manager.

God is the manager.

If the manager calls for a bunt, I bunt. If the team needs me to sacrifice, I sacrifice. If the play requires me to get out on purpose so the runner can advance, that’s what I do.

Dwayne Murphy didn’t argue with Billy Martin. He didn’t say, “I deserve to swing for power.” He didn’t refuse because it hurt his stats. When the manager called for a bunt, he bunted.

That’s the principle: I am not my own. God is in charge. The manager gets to call the play. My job is to execute it.

My Dad’s Bunt

I’ll never forget a Saturday morning in the early 1980s.

I was about 11 years old. Our church was located in East Palo Alto—a small church, modest building, but rich with love and community and good word. It was the kind of place where people knew each other, cared for each other, and showed up for each other.

But the building needed work. The grounds needed maintenance. And our church didn’t have a budget for that kind of thing.

So my dad did something.

He packed me into our Dodge Colt with our lawn mower and tools. We headed down to the church to meet Brother Metyoer—Uncle Roy—and the two of them worked to clean up the grounds that Saturday morning. Maintenance work. Service work. The kind of work nobody thanks you for, nobody puts in the box score, nobody celebrates.

That’s a bunt.

My dad sacrificed his Saturday. He and others sacrificed many days for roof work, fixing up a home for a member of the community, even using his own clothing budget to purchase a new suit for our pastor whose only one was worn and needed replacing. He gave up his time, resources, and convenience. He did the work that needed to be done—not because it benefited him, but because it restored pride and dignity to the church we loved.

That’s model service. That’s work as an act of worship and thanksgiving. That’s showing up and bunting when the team needs you.

I don’t even remember what I contributed that day. Probably not much—I was 11. But I remember my dad and Uncle Roy doing the work. That’s what stuck with me.

That’s what bunting looks like.

The Modern Reminder

The other night I was watching the A’s play.

Lawrence “Law Dog” Butler came up to bat. He’s had ups and downs this season. His batting average sits around .199. A hit would really help him. Personally. Statistically. Maybe even emotionally, if you’re struggling at the plate.

But that night, he was called upon to lay down a bunt.

The team needed it. The runner needed to advance. The play required a sacrifice.

And in that moment, the reminder jumped out at me with clarity.

When you’re batting .199, you lay down a bunt.

Not when it’s easy. Not when you’re hitting .350 and can afford to sacrifice. But when you’re struggling, when you need a hit, when your stats need help—that’s when the bunt matters most.

That’s when you prioritize the team over yourself.

The Body of Christ

Here’s the truth we often forget: We are many members, but one body.

Paul wrote: “Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.” (1 Corinthians 12:12-13)

We share this planet. Within the body of Christ, we are many members, but one body. And the objective of that body is to reflect God’s nature, God’s character, God’s love.

Sometimes we do that through personal achievement. Sometimes we win because we personally succeed, accomplish our highest aims, reach our goals.

But often—very often—we win because we prioritize the needs of others above our own.

Not when it’s convenient. But when it’s needed.

When I’m batting .199, I lay down a bunt. Not because I want to. But because the team needs me to.

When I’m unemployed and struggling financially, I pray for the needs of others. I stop to recognize an unhoused person. I seek ways to be a blessing. That’s a bunt.

When I’m hurting, and someone else needs encouragement, I encourage them. When I’m tired, and the community needs work, I show up. When I want recognition, and serving in the background would help more, I serve in the background.

That’s the body of Christ functioning the way it’s supposed to.

The Question

So here’s what I want to ask you:

How willing are you to bunt?

Not metaphorically. Specifically.

Where in your life is there a “hit” you want—a personal achievement, a recognition, a victory you’re chasing? And where might God be calling you to lay that down? Where might the manager be calling for a sacrifice play?

Is it in your workplace? Are you hoarding credit when sharing would help your team?

Is it in your family? Are you prioritizing your goals over what your family needs?

Is it in your community? Are you too busy chasing your own success to notice what the community needs?

Is it in your faith? Are you living for your own spiritual advancement or for the advancement of God’s Kingdom?

What bunt is the manager calling for?

Because here’s what I know: When you’re willing to bunt, when you’re willing to sacrifice, when you’re willing to get out on purpose so the runner can advance—something shifts.

You stop measuring success by your own stats. You start measuring it by whether the team won. You start seeing your life not as a personal achievement narrative, but as a contribution to something bigger than yourself.

And that, my friend, is Hall of Fame faith.

It’s not flashy. It’s not always celebrated. It might cost you stats, recognition, or individual achievement.

But when the team wins, when the runner scores, when the community is blessed—that’s when you know you bunted right.

Coming Next: Part 4 - “Prayer Over Complaining”

In Part 4, we’ll explore what happens when you stop asking why things are hard and start asking God for wisdom. We’ll look at the pitcher’s mound—the place where control is an illusion and trust is everything—and what it means to throw strikes when the outcome isn’t guaranteed.

Because some battles aren’t won on the field. They’re won in the mind.

About the Author

A.J. Ware is a writer and observer of faith, community, and what it means to sacrifice individual achievement for team success. He believes that Hall of Fame faith isn’t built on personal stats, but on willingness to bunt when the manager calls. He watched his father model service and has spent his life learning what it means to prioritize community over self.

He is the founder of Mimi, an AI-powered career coaching platform, and author of Heir Of The Shadows: The Awakening, the first novel in a four-part suspense thriller series and Garden State of Mind: Reclaiming Eden’s Promise, While Living In Exile, for the person who is looking to understand God’s heart toward us and find peace amidst life’s challenges.

“Lessons From The Diamond” explores what baseball teaches us about faith, perseverance, community, and the Hall of Fame walk with God.

By: A.J Ware

When you rediscover something you love after years away, you pay attention to different things.

When I came back to baseball this year, I started really watching. Not just the highlights, but the process. The routine. The approach. The daily grind of showing up.

And I became fascinated by a young catcher named Shea Langeliers.

The Slide

At the start of the 2026 season, Shea was on fire. First-time father, exceptional defense, torching the game on all fronts. He had the highest batting average among catchers at .363. Top 3 in home runs. Top 5 in RBIs. He earned the starting role for the American League All-Star team, and he performed well.

But then something happened.

His average started sliding. .363 down to .343. I thought, that’s not too bad. Then I looked up and .343 had dropped to .297. I noted it with concern.

But here’s what I noticed: His approach to the plate didn’t change. His routine didn’t change. His swing didn’t change.

He kept showing up the same way.

The slide continued. .297 down further. A hit here, a home run there, but mostly misses. Each time, same consistent approach. I watched every at-bat waiting for him to break, to adjust, to try something different.

I remember thinking: “Maybe he needs to adjust his grip. Maybe his stance needs tweaking. Maybe he should try a different approach at the plate.”

But he didn’t.

The All-Star break couldn’t come soon enough. Truthfully, I was concerned he might not perform well. But during the All-Star Game, he got a big hit, scored a run, and caught 6 innings of no-hit baseball. He filled the stat sheet so thoroughly he could have been in the MVP conversation.

For a moment, I thought: “He’s back!”

But when he returned for the regular season, the slide continued. His average kept dropping.

And yet he persevered. With the same disciplines. The same consistency. The same approach that had taken him to .363.

Why He Didn’t Change

Here’s what I realized watching Shea: It can be incredibly tempting to abandon good practices when we don’t see the rewards we seek.

There’s an instinct in us as humans—deep and powerful—to place blame, punish, correct, and get to the profitable as fast as possible. When the numbers aren’t working, we change the equation. We tweak the system. We do something different because different might work.

But Shea didn’t.

And I think I know why.

The Vine Dresser

Jesus said something that cuts to the heart of this: “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.” (John 15:5)

The metaphor is simple but profound. The vine dresser—the one who tends the vineyard—is God. The branches are us. And the fruit is what we produce.

But here’s what we often forget: We are not in charge of the outcomes. We are in charge of remaining in the vine.

Shea understands this, whether he articulates it this way or not.

When he was at .363, he didn’t create that average through some special adjustment or unique technique. He was the branch remaining in the vine, and fruit was being produced. The Father, the vine dresser, was doing the work.

Now, as he slides to .256, the temptation is real: Maybe I need to change my swing. Adjust my grip. Clap two times and dig in deeper. Try something new. Get back to that profit.

But if he changes what got him to .363, what happens if the new approach breaks? What if he can’t get back to what he had?

The answer is: Remain in the vine.

Shea keeps swinging the same way because he understands something fundamental: If I change what got me here, I risk losing it entirely.

His perseverance isn’t about stubborn refusal to adapt. It’s about faith in the process. It’s about trusting that the vine dresser knows what’s happening even when the fruit isn’t showing.

The Hard Work of Perseverance

Here’s what most people don’t understand about perseverance: It’s not the pretty work. It’s the hard and often grueling part of the journey.

Perseverance is showing up when you’re 1-for-14. It’s swinging the same way when the results aren’t there. It’s trusting your process when the scoreboard says you should change.

And it’s in that hard, grueling work that character is refined.

You don’t build strength in comfort. You don’t build faith when everything is working. You don’t build character when success comes easy.

Character—real, deep, Hall of Fame character—is built in the difficult seasons. In the slides. In the moments when you have every reason to change your approach and you choose not to.

This is why Reggie Jackson’s 1977 World Series is one of the greatest testimonies to perseverance in baseball history.

The Reward for Perseverance: Reggie Jackson, 1977

Reggie Jackson was an A’s legend. Part of three World Series championships in the early 1970s. A generational talent. A power hitter. An icon.

Then he joined the New York Yankees.

For a kid in Oakland like me, it was heartbreak. But I was still a Reggie fan. I watched him play in pinstripes, watched him find success in New York, watched him become a Yankee.

But going into the 1977 World Series, Reggie looked anything but like a power hitter.

He was 1-for-14.

One hit in fourteen at-bats. In a World Series. When the world was watching.

Any reasonable person would have adjusted. Changed approach. Tried something different. The profit wasn’t showing up.

But Reggie didn’t.

He remained consistent in his approach. He remained in the vine.

Then Game 4: Home run.

There it is. The first sign that perseverance was going to pay off. Fans were thrilled. Reasonable celebration.

Game 5: Another home run.

Now we’re talking. Two homers in two games. Still within the realm of imagination for a power hitter. People were excited. But not shocked.

Game 6: Three home runs in one game.

Not just in the series. In one game. Against the Los Angeles Dodgers. In the World Series.

Iconic. Legendary. Beyond anyone’s imagination.

The Exponential Reward

Here’s what I learned watching Reggie: The reward for perseverance is often exponentially greater than we imagine.

Not just one home run in Game 6. Not just two. But three. In one game. To cement himself as a legendary figure forever.

It’s like God says: Since you had to overcome that difficulty. Since you had to persevere through 1-for-14. Since you remained consistent when change was tempting. Here’s a little extra.

Most players and fans would have been happy with a home run in Game 4. Thrilled by Game 5. But Game 6? Three home runs? That’s exponential. That’s beyond expectation.

And that’s what God rewards when we persevere.

Not just the profit we were looking for. But exponentially more. More than we imagined. More than we asked for.

A Lifelong Testament: The Warriors

My dad and I have endured hardships as sports fans more than once. We’re lifelong Warriors fans.

My dad goes back to Wilt with the Philadelphia Warriors. I grew up watching Rick Barry, Clifford Ray, Phil Smith, “Never Nervous” Pervis Short, and so many others.

And there was a time—a long time—when the Warriors were a laughing stock. Like the A’s ownership now, we were not fans of the then-owner and his myriad of bad decisions. The franchise was in shambles. The arena was half-empty. Nobody wanted to play there.

And then Joe Lacob arrived.

With him came competent people. A vision. A plan. But here’s the thing: It wasn’t just one good draft or one free agent signing. It was consistent movement. Year after year. Building toward something.

I remember watching Steph Curry play his final year of college basketball. I thought: We could use talent like that. But history has taught me that’s not likely.

But it was.

Then other moves. Building consistently. Moving forward. Creating a contender. Competing for championships.

Then, in 2015, it happened. The Warriors won the championship.

I was thrilled. Overjoyed. The perseverance had paid off.

And then the unthinkable happened.

They won 3 more.

Not just one championship. Not just two. But four in eight years.

Exponential. Beyond imagination. The reward for staying consistent when you could have given up.

The Power That Works In Us

You know what that’s connected to?

Ephesians 3:20 says: “Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us...”

Did you catch it?

“The power that works in us.”

That’s staying power. That’s persevering power. That’s the power to remain in the vine until the work is complete. That’s Reggie swinging the same way after going 1-for-14. That’s Shea showing up with the same approach even as his average drops. That’s the Warriors organization staying consistent through the rebuilding years.

It’s the power that works through us when we remain in the vine.

Where Are You Struggling?

So here’s the question for you:

Where are you tempted to abandon good practices? Where are you tempted to change what got you here? Where is profit not showing up the way you expected?

Is it in your faith? In your marriage? In your work? In your spiritual practice? In your commitment to something you believe in?

If you’re not seeing the profit you want—if the numbers aren’t showing, if the results aren’t coming, if the average is dropping—I’d ask you something:

Is that reason to change, or is it reason to deepen your commitment to the process?

Because here’s what I know: When we persevere in God, something happens.

We build strength and character that doesn’t happen in any other environment. We experience peace when circumstances say we should be anxious and worried. We see provision from places and in ways that we can’t always explain—except to say, “It must’ve been the Lord.”

We find patience, comfort, and contentment rather than frustration, heartache, and greed.

We learn to trust the vine dresser rather than obsess over the fruit.

And when we have stood—when we have persevered through the hard seasons, through the slides, through the 1-for-14 stretches—the rewards surpass what we could have imagined.

“So, as it is written: ‘Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord.’” (1 Corinthians 1:31)

We are not our own. We are vessels of the Most High. Instruments of His glory.

Perseverance isn’t about proving ourselves. It’s about remaining in the vine until the vine dresser completes the work.

And the fruit? That’s His business. Our business is to stay connected.

Coming Next: Part 3 - “Team Success Over Individual Achievement”

In Part 3, we’ll explore what happens when you stop keeping score on yourself and start playing for something bigger. We’ll look at sacrifice plays, moving the runner, and what it means to contribute to a victory even when the stats don’t show it.

Because some of the most important work in baseball—and in life—never makes it to the box score.

About the Author

A.J. Ware is a writer and observer of faith, perseverance, and what it means to remain committed to a process when the profit isn’t showing. He believes that character is built in hard seasons, that the vine dresser is trustworthy, and that exponential rewards come to those who persevere.

He is the author of Heir Of The Shadows: The Awakening, the first novel in a four-part suspense thriller series and Garden State of Mind: Reclaiming Eden’s Promise, While Living In Exile, for the person who is looking to understand God’s heart toward us and find peace amidst life’s challenges.

“Lessons From The Diamond” explores what baseball teaches us about faith, perseverance, community, and the Hall of Fame walk with God.

By: A.J Ware

Let me start with a surprising baseball fact.

To make the Baseball Hall of Fame, to be considered among the elite players in the history of the game, a player needs to succeed at the plate approximately 28% of the time during their career.

Let that sink in.

A .280 batting average—getting a hit roughly one out of every 3.6 times you step up to bat—is elite. It’s Hall of Fame level. It’s the kind of career that gets you into Cooperstown, gets your name called out by announcers for generations, gets you remembered as one of the greatest to ever play the game.

Which means these Hall of Famers fail 72% of the time.

They step up to the plate 10,000 times across their career and fail nearly 7,200 of those times. They get struck out. They ground out. They fly out. They leave runners stranded. They make mistakes that cost their team games.

And yet, they’re in the Hall of Fame.

What If We Looked at Faith Like This?

Here’s what troubles me about American Christianity: We’ve built a theology of perfection.

We talk about being “sanctified.” We sing about “holiness.” We create doctrines about sinless perfection or the “deeper life” where we’re supposed to transcend our failures, move beyond our weaknesses, achieve some kind of spiritual state where we don’t mess up anymore.

And when we do mess up? We’re ashamed. We hide. We assume we’re disqualified from God’s blessing, from spiritual leadership, from being used by Him.

What if that’s backward?

What if a Hall of Fame Christian isn’t someone who fails less, but someone who understands failure differently?

What if the question isn’t “How do I stop failing?” but “What’s my relationship with failure?”

The Framework: Five Tools for a Hall of Fame Walk

Before we dive deep into the first tool, let me introduce the framework that will carry us through this entire series.

In baseball, scouts talk about “the five tools”—the five measurable skills that define a complete player. The framework we’re going to use applies these to our walk as believers. Not five ways to be perfect. But five ways to build a Hall of Fame faith.

Tool 1: Relationship with Failure

• Baseball parallel: Batting average, consistency in the face of failure

• Spiritual reframe: Faith over Failure

Tool 2: Consistency at the Plate

• Baseball parallel: Showing up, reliability, the daily grind

• Spiritual reframe: Perseverance over Profit

Tool 3: Team Success

• Baseball parallel: Moving the runner, sacrificing personal stats for team wins

• Spiritual reframe: Team/Community over Individual Achievement

Tool 4: Prayer

• Baseball parallel: The pitcher’s control, precision, purpose

• Spiritual reframe: Prayer over Complaining

Tool 5: Worship

• Baseball parallel: Arm strength, influence, reaching others

• Spiritual reframe: Worship over Worry

These aren’t the only truths about Christian faith. But they’re the truths I rediscovered when I decided, at the start of the 2026 season, to give baseball another chance.

The Rediscovery

For years, baseball had been ruined for me.

Not the game itself—I still loved the game. But everything around it had become complicated. Politics around the ownership, the community, the institutions. My dad had made a principled decision to stop going, to stop supporting an organization that, in his view, had betrayed Oakland and its fans. The A’s had shown no respect for the community that built them, and he wasn’t going to give them his time or his money.

He was right. He still is.

But something shifted for me this year. Maybe it was missing those afternoons with my dad—the fried fish, the sweet potato pies from that spot in Oakland, breaking out the sunflower seeds during the game. Maybe it was recognizing that I was letting the corruption of the institution destroy something I genuinely loved. Or maybe it was just time.

I decided to give baseball another chance.

And as I started watching again, something unexpected happened. I started seeing spiritual truths everywhere. In the failures, in the consistency, in the way teams operate, in the way players overcome obstacles.

My dad still isn’t watching. And I respect his stance. But I’m learning something he’s not seeing—something about what it means to engage with something you love even when it’s been corrupted, to find joy in the game itself even when the business of the game is broken.

This is one of those truths.

Tool 1: Faith Over Failure

Let me tell you about Rickey Henderson.

Rickey Henderson is considered by many—including many who know the game deeply—to be the greatest all-around baseball player of all time. Some might argue for Willie Mays or “Shoeless” Joe Jackson or Pete Rose. Those are good arguments, legendary arguments. But by any measurable standard, Rickey Henderson’s production on the diamond was spectacular.

His Stats Tell the Story:

• Career batting average: .279 (that’s .280 territory—Hall of Fame level)

• All-time stolen bases leader: 1,406 stolen bases (nearly 300 more than the second-place)

• Career runs scored: 2,295 (most in MLB history)

• Career hits: 3,055

• Home runs: 297

• Inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2009

He spent his entire career as a prolific lead-off hitter—the guy who steps up first, gets on base, and then takes over the game. Once on base, Rickey would steal every base he could to put himself in scoring position. He didn’t wait for the pitcher to throw him a pitch. He created his own opportunities.

But what made Rickey legendary wasn’t just the numbers. It was the presence.

He was never shy about his success. His signature move—popping his collar whenever he hit a home run—became iconic. The flashy slap of his glove against his thigh as he snared fly balls in the outfield. The swagger. The showmanship. The absolute confidence that he was one of the greatest players on the field.

Here’s what’s remarkable: Rickey Henderson succeeded by embracing his failures, not despite them.

He failed 72% of the time at the plate—just like every other Hall of Famer. But he never acted like it was a problem. He stepped up to the plate with the same confidence every single time, knowing he was going to fail more often than he succeeded. And he did it anyway.

That’s not naïveté. That’s not arrogance. That’s faith.

The Other Side: Raymond William Schalk

But I want to add another layer to this—another player whose relationship with failure teaches us something deeper.

Raymond William Schalk played catcher in the early 1900s. Not a lead-off hitter with Rickey’s flash and showmanship. A catcher—the guy behind the plate, managing the game, protecting the pitcher, calling the plays.

Schalk embodies something different about failure. He didn’t fail with swagger like Rickey. He failed with purpose.

A catcher’s job isn’t to have the highest batting average. It’s to manage the game, to protect his pitcher, to make sure the team succeeds even if it means taking a pitch he could have hit, or getting thrown out trying to move a runner into scoring position.

Schalk made the Hall of Fame not because he was flashy or because he succeeded spectacularly, but because he understood his role. Schalk ended his career with a .253 batting average, but known as the most prolific defensive catcher in the game. He stood only 5 feet, 9 inches, yet he redefined the position earning the respect of his peers and baseball fans for all time. He failed regularly, but his failures had purpose. They were in service of something bigger than himself.

This is the full picture of Faith over Failure:

It’s not just Rickey’s confidence—stepping up to the plate knowing you’re going to fail and doing it anyway with swagger.

It’s also Schalk’s purpose—failing with intention, understanding that failure is part of the game, that it serves a larger purpose.

What This Means for Us

Here’s the spiritual reality: You’re going to fail.

As a Christian, as a person, as a believer trying to walk in faith—you’re going to strike out. You’re going to make mistakes. You’re going to get things wrong. You’re going to disappoint people. You’re going to disappoint yourself.

The American church has tried to convince us that failure disqualifies us from God’s blessing. That if we mess up, we need to find penance, perform repentance, earn our way back into God’s favor.

But that’s not what the Hall of Famers teach us.

They teach us that failure is the baseline. Success is built on top of failure, not the absence of it.

Rickey Henderson teaches us that failure doesn’t have to diminish your confidence. You can fail 72% of the time and still pop your collar when you succeed. You can step up to the plate again and again, knowing the odds are against you, and do it with faith that this time might be different.

Schalk teaches us that failure can have purpose. That there’s nobility in failing for something bigger than yourself. That the Hall of Fame isn’t only for the flashy showmen—it’s also for the ones who understand their role and play it faithfully, even when that role requires failure.

The Question My Dad Asked

My dad walked away from baseball on principle. The institution betrayed him, and he wasn’t willing to keep giving it his time and money.

I get that. I respect it.

But as I’m rediscovering the game, I’m learning something different. I’m learning that you can engage with something corrupted without being corrupted by it. That you can hold an institution accountable while still loving what the institution should represent.

My dad’s stance is Faith through Withdrawal—if the system is broken, don’t participate.

My stance is developing into Faith through Engagement—participate in what’s true about the game while calling out what’s false about the institution.

Neither of us is wrong. We’re just in different places in our understanding of how to maintain faith when systems fail.

But here’s what we both know: Failure is part of the deal. Whether it’s the failure of an institution to honor its community, or the failure of a player at the plate, or the failure of a Christian to live perfectly—failure is the baseline.

The question is: What’s your relationship with it?

The Hall of Fame Mindset

A Hall of Fame Christian isn’t someone who doesn’t fail.

It’s someone who understands failure. Who has faith in the face of failure, not faith that prevents it.

It’s Rickey stepping up to the plate with swagger, knowing he’s going to fail more than he succeeds, and doing it anyway.

It’s Schalk taking a pitch he could have hit because the team needs a sacrifice.

It’s my dad standing on principle even when the institution he loved let him down.

It’s me trying to reclaim joy in a game I loved even though the business of that game is broken.

It’s faith that works in a 72% failure rate.

Because that’s the only faith worth having. The kind that doesn’t require perfection. The kind that doesn’t crumble when you strike out. The kind that gets back up and steps up to the plate again.

That’s Hall of Fame faith.

The Biblical Truth

Hebrews 11:1 says it perfectly: “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”

That’s stepping up to the plate. Into the batter’s box. Fully convinced you’re about to get on base.

It’s swinging when the pitch looks right—not because you know it will be a hit, but because you have faith that this swing might be the one.

It’s doing it again after you missed the first one. And the second one. Knowing it could be your last strike. But believing fully that this time you’ll get that hit.

It’s walking back to the dugout after you struck out. After you flew out. After you grounded into a double play. And regrouping with a mindset that says: “I’ll get the next one.”

Why?

Because I’m sure of what I’m hoping for, and I’ll prove it in my next at bat.

That’s Hebrews 11:1 lived out. That’s faith as substance. That’s evidence of things not seen. That’s stepping up knowing the odds, knowing you’re going to fail most of the time, and doing it anyway—because you’re convinced of something deeper.

You’re convinced that getting on base is possible. That your swing matters. That the next pitch could change everything.

You’re convinced of the hope. And you prove it by stepping up again.

Coming Next: Part 2 - “Perseverance Over Profit”

In Part 2, we’ll examine what happens when you stop playing for the paycheck and start playing for the love of the game. We’ll look at what consistency really means, and how the greatest players in baseball history succeeded not through occasional brilliance, but through daily, unglamorous, persistent showing up.

And we’ll talk about what happens when you measure success by the wrong metric.

About the Author

A.J. Ware is a writer, entrepreneur, and lifelong baseball fan rediscovering the game he loved. He believes that faith isn’t built on perfection but on understanding failure, that spiritual maturity means knowing your role and playing it faithfully, and that sometimes the most important thing you can do is step up to the plate knowing the odds are against you.

He is the founder of Mimi, an AI-powered career coaching platform, and author of Heir Of The Shadows: The Awakening, the first novel in a four-part suspense thriller series and Garden State of Mind: Reclaiming Eden’s Promise, While Living In Exile, for the person who is looking to understand God’s heart toward us and find peace amidst life’s challenges.

This series, “Lessons From The Diamond,” explores what baseball can teach us about faith, perseverance, community, and what it means to have a Hall of Fame mindset in your walk with God.

By: A.J. Ware

The question isn’t how to make certainty comfortable.

The real question is: Are we willing to get comfortable being uncomfortable?

Jane’s Choice, Revisited

Remember Jane from “It’s Complicated”?

She’s standing at a crossroads, tempted by the certainty of being desired. Jake is back, charming, attentive, telling her he’s changed. And for a moment—just a moment—the certainty of his passion trumps the certainty she’d built through his absence.

What she almost forgets is the harder certainty: Jake will do what serves Jake, above all, irrespective of whom it hurts.

That’s the certainty that cost her a marriage. The certainty that taught her something true.

She faces a choice: Will she anchor herself in the comfortable certainty of being wanted? Or will she hold onto the harder certainty about who Jake actually is?

This is exactly the choice the American church is facing.

We’re being tempted by comfortable certainties. Certainties that feel good. Certainties that tell us we’re right, our side is winning, God is on our team, the system works if we just push hard enough.

And we’re forgetting the harder certainties. The ones that cost us something. The ones that require us to see reality clearly, even when it hurts.

The Steph Curry Principle

Leading up to 2026 NBA Summer League, Yaxel Lendeborg—a rookie drafted by the Golden State Warriors—asked Stephen Curry about his conditioning regimen.

Curry, a four-time NBA champion and two-time MVP, didn’t give him a complicated answer. He said something simple and devastating:

“You have to push yourself to where you’re uncomfortable, and then get comfortable being there.”

That’s the entire philosophy of excellence in one sentence.

Not “find a comfortable way to succeed.” Not “align your training with what feels natural.” Not “stick with what you’re already good at.”

Push yourself to uncomfortable. Get comfortable being there. That’s where growth happens.

Jesus’s Method

If you watch “The Chosen,” you see this principle everywhere.

Jesus constantly pushes the disciples into discomfort:

• “Go speak to the person you wouldn’t normally speak to”

• “Do the thing that violates your cultural norms”

• “Serve when you think you should be served”

• “Ask for nothing in return”

• “Welcome the person society rejects”

• “Challenge the authority you’re supposed to respect”

The disciples grew because Jesus made them uncomfortable.

Peter had to walk on water—not because it was safe, but because faith lives in discomfort. Matthew had to leave his tax collector’s booth—not because it was convenient, but because following Christ means surrendering what made you comfortable. The Samaritan woman had to speak with a Jewish man in public—not because it was socially acceptable, but because encounter with Christ happens outside our comfort zones.

Jesus wasn’t a comfort coach. He was a discomfort master. And that discomfort was the vehicle through which transformation happened.

The American Church’s Comfort Theology

Somewhere along the way, American Christianity forgot this.

We developed a theology of comfort instead of a theology of growth.

Prosperity gospel: God wants you wealthy and healthy. Comfort as proof of blessing.

Cultural Christianity: God blesses America. Comfort as national certainty.

Political alignment: Your party is God’s party. Comfort as ideological certainty.

Doctrinal systems: Follow these rules and you’ll be safe. Comfort as intellectual certainty.

We built entire institutional structures to keep believers comfortable. To tell them they were right. To affirm their existing beliefs. To protect them from the discomfort of hard questions, real doubt, or the collision between their faith and their politics.

We made faith easier. Not deeper. Easier.

And in doing that, we stopped producing disciples. We started producing consumers. People who came to church to feel good about themselves. To get affirmation for their choices. To find community that looked like them, thought like them, voted like them.

We promised comfort. And we delivered it. But we didn’t deliver growth.

The Certainties That Matter

Here’s where we need to be clear about which certainties actually matter.

Relationships need certainty—anchored in reliable character, honest communication, trustworthiness. Not “they’ll always be perfect,” but “they’ll be honest, they’ll show up, they’ll care about my wellbeing.”

Faith needs certainty—anchored in Christ, in Scripture, in the historical reality of God’s love and transformation. Not “everything will be easy,” but “God’s character is trustworthy, God’s love is real, God’s Kingdom is coming.”

But we’ve built our certainties in the wrong places.

We’re certain about:

• Our political side being right

• Our denomination having the best theology

• Our nation being specially blessed

• Our preferred leaders being trustworthy

• Our way of doing things being the only way

• Power structures being stable and just

• Institutions serving justice

These certainties are all lies. Or at least, they’re certainties built on sand.

Senator Raphael Warnock said something that cuts to the heart of the matter: “The acid test for the authenticity of your faith is the depth of your commitment to the most marginalized members of the human family.”

So here’s the real question: Are we certain about our commitment to the marginalized? Or are we certain about systems that marginalize them?

Are we certain about Matthew 25—”Whatever you did for the least of these, you did for me”—or are we certain about policies that harm the least among us?

Are we certain about Christ’s radical, boundary-breaking love? Or are we certain about the boundaries we’ve drawn?

That’s the acid test. Not our doctrine. Not our political alignment. Not our institutional success.

Our certainty about the marginalized.

Getting Comfortable Being Uncomfortable

If we actually believed the Steph Curry principle—that growth happens when you get comfortable being uncomfortable—then discipleship would look radically different.

For believers:

Getting comfortable being uncomfortable would mean:

• Speaking the truth even when it costs you social approval

• Welcoming people whose very existence challenges your comfort

• Questioning systems that benefit you

• Surrendering certainties that protected your power

• Acting on Matthew 25 even when it’s inconvenient

• Loving when it’s costly

Not because it feels good. But because that’s where growth happens.

For politicians claiming Christ:

Getting comfortable being uncomfortable would mean:

• Taking a stand that costs you re-election

• Voting your conscience instead of your party

• Speaking prophetically instead of pandering

• Walking away from power when power requires compromising principle

• Standing with the marginalized instead of with the majority

• Bearing the cost of discipleship instead of seeking the comfort of approval

This isn’t theoretical. This is concrete.

A Christian senator could vote against legislation that harms more people than it helps, knowing it might cost them their next election. That’s getting comfortable being uncomfortable. That’s the acid test of authentic faith.

But Lindsey Graham never did that. He did the opposite. Every time a choice came between comfortable compromise and uncomfortable principle, he chose comfort. He just kept rearranging his certainties to justify it.

That’s not discipleship. That’s spiritual drift dressed in religious language.

For institutions:

Getting comfortable being uncomfortable would mean:

• Admitting past wrongs instead of defending them

• Redistributing power instead of hoarding it

• Centering the marginalized instead of the powerful

• Speaking prophetically instead of politically

• Taking stances that cost you donations and influence

• Accepting that serving Christ might mean losing status in the world

The American church would have to accept that institutions will always serve the will of those with majority power. And if the church wants to follow Christ, it might have to stand against that power.

It might have to say “no” to politicians who invoke Christ while harming the vulnerable.

It might have to give up seats at the table of power in exchange for prophetic witness.

It might have to become small, poor, marginalized—exactly like the early church.

That’s uncomfortable. So uncomfortable that most institutions won’t do it.

The Real Acid Test

Here’s what we need to accept as a certainty:

God will sometimes put us in uncomfortable places and circumstances.

When we follow Christ authentically, comfort is not the goal. Growth is. Transformation is. Obedience is.

This means:

• You might be the lone Christian voice opposing legislation that harms people. You might lose friends over it.

• You might welcome people your community rejects. You might lose status over it.

• You might question the doctrines you were raised with. You might lose certainty over it.

• You might demand justice even when it’s inconvenient. You might lose power over it.

That’s the discomfort Jesus promised.

And if you’re not experiencing it? If your faith is entirely comfortable? If following Christ hasn’t cost you anything?

You might not be actually following Christ. You might just be following a version of him that serves your interests.

The Invitation

Here’s the invitation of Part 3:

Will you push yourself to uncomfortable?

Not recklessly. Not self-destructively. But with intention.

Will you:

• Question certainties that keep you comfortable?

• Speak truths that might cost you approval?

• Welcome people who challenge your comfort?

• Stand with the marginalized even when it hurts?

• Release the need for institutions to validate your faith?

• Accept that authentic discipleship might look like loss?

Will you get comfortable being uncomfortable?

Because that’s where the actual work of Christ happens. Not in the comfort zone. Not in the certainties we’ve constructed to protect ourselves. But in the space where our faith meets reality and we choose truth over comfort.

That’s what Steph Curry was saying. That’s what Jesus was modeling. That’s what the early disciples discovered.

Growth lives in the uncomfortable.

The Hard Truth About Institutions

One more certainty we need to hold: Institutions will serve the will of those with majority power.

That’s not a pessimistic observation. That’s a structural reality.

Governments serve those with wealth and influence. Corporations serve shareholder interests. Political parties serve their base and donors. Even the church—especially the church—often serves the interests of those with power while claiming to serve Christ.

This doesn’t mean we stop trying to change institutions. It means we stop expecting institutions to do the work of discipleship for us.

We can work to reform institutions. We should. But we can’t wait for institutions to make discipleship comfortable. They won’t. They can’t. Because comfortable discipleship is a contradiction in terms.

If you’re waiting for your church to tell you it’s okay to welcome the marginalized, you’re waiting for something that might never come.

You just have to do it anyway.

If you’re waiting for your government to lead on justice, you’re waiting for something that might never come.

You just have to stand for it anyway.

If you’re waiting for your institution to validate uncomfortable truth-telling, you’re waiting for something that might never come.

You just have to speak it anyway.

That’s where real faith lives. Not in institutional permission. Not in systemic comfort. But in the space where your allegiance to Christ overrides your need for institutional approval.

Coming Next: “The Inheritance We Leave”

In Part 4, we’ll examine what happens when we finally make the choice. When we push ourselves to uncomfortable. When we choose discipleship over comfort.

What does our faith actually produce? What kind of world are we building? And what inheritance are we leaving—to our children, to our communities, to the world?

The question: Are we building something that lasts? Or are we just building something comfortable?

About the Author

A.J. Ware is a writer and observer of institutions, faith, and the gap between what we claim to believe and what our choices reveal we actually believe. He believes that authentic faith requires discomfort, that growth happens in places we’d rather avoid, and that the acid test of discipleship is always how we treat the marginalized.

He is the author of the exciting fictional novel Heir Of The Shadows: The Awakening, first in a four-part suspense thriller series, and My Fellow Americans: A Love Letter To The Nation of My Birth, an unfiltered look at the evolution of our nation over the last nearly 60 year, and prequel to 100 Years To Go: America’s Turning 250, We’re Still Counting

This series, “It’s Complicated,” is an exploration of what happens when American Christianity must choose between comfort and authenticity, between institutional approval and prophetic witness, between a god we construct and the God who actually is.

By: A.J. Ware

In “The Chosen,” the disciples aren’t portrayed as perfect people who immediately understood Jesus’s mission. They’re portrayed as real people with real flaws rooted in real indoctrination.

They arrived with pre-formed ideas about what faith was supposed to look like. What God’s plan should accomplish. Who deserved to be included and who deserved to be excluded.

Sound familiar?

And as they walked with Jesus, those ideas were systematically challenged. Deconstructed. Reimagined. The disciples had to surrender their expectations and allow themselves to be transformed by actual encounter with the living God.

This is the journey every believer is supposed to take. This is also the journey American Christianity has largely refused.

Pillar 1: Transformation Through Surrender

In “The Chosen,” there’s a moment between Jesus and James—”Little James”—that captures everything about the tension between our expectations and God’s reality.

James is struggling with his own pain. He wants healing. He sees Jesus heal others and he wants that same relief for himself.

And Jesus doesn’t deny him compassion. But he offers him something greater—and harder.

Jesus tells James that his calling isn’t to escape his burden. His calling is to carry his message of healing while carrying his own burden.

The subtext is: “Your suffering doesn’t disqualify you from carrying hope to others. In fact, your suffering is what makes your message authentic.”

It’s not “your pain doesn’t matter.” It’s “your pain is the very thing that gives your witness credibility.”

Then there’s Peter.

Peter learns—slowly, painfully—that following Jesus might mean loss. That serving the kingdom doesn’t guarantee comfort or safety. That the plan might not look like what he signed up for.

And in the moment of his deepest fear—walking on water, surrounded by darkness and uncertainty—Peter experiences the reality of Christ’s power in a way his prior expectations never could have prepared him for. Not despite the loss, but through it.

What This Means for Us

We arrive at faith with expectations—often the expectation that following Christ will protect us from pain, or at least reward us for our faithfulness.

We expect that:

• If we pray hard enough, we won’t suffer

• If we’re faithful enough, God will shield us from loss

• If we serve long enough, we’ll be spared the burdens others carry

• If we do everything right, life will work the way we planned

Then reality doesn’t cooperate. We experience loss despite our prayers. We face suffering despite our faithfulness. We carry burdens that don’t seem to lessen.

And we face a choice: Will we surrender our expectation that faith equals relief? Or will we discover that our greatest calling might be to carry a message of healing while carrying our own wounds?

For the last several decades, American Christianity has largely chosen the comfort version. We’ve preached prosperity gospel. We’ve promised health and wealth to the faithful. We’ve suggested that suffering indicates a lack of faith.

We’ve refused to surrender the expectation that faith should make life easier.

And in doing so, we’ve missed the actual Jesus showing up—the one who carries scars and asks us to do the same.

The invitation Jesus extends to Little James is the invitation every believer faces: Your burden doesn’t disqualify you from your calling. Your wounds are what give your witness power.

But we’ve turned that invitation into something else. We’ve made comfort the goal instead of transformation. We’ve made protection the promise instead of purpose.

And we’ve left people devastated when pain arrives anyway—because we taught them that faith was supposed to prevent it.

Pillar 2: Radical Inclusive Love

In “The Chosen,” there’s a scene at the Decapolis that shows Jesus doing something revolutionary: demonstrating care, respect, and love for an extremely diverse population.

He’s not just addressing religious differences. He’s bridging cultural gaps. Socioeconomic divides. Ethnic boundaries. Everything that separated people from each other.

And he does it with patience. With respect. With an understanding that draws people toward him rather than driving them away.

Most importantly: He keeps returning to the core message. The Father loves all. He has prepared a place for all. Everyone is invited.

What happens?

People come from near and far. Not just the religiously acceptable ones. The outcasts. The poor. The foreigners. The ones deemed unworthy by the religious establishment.

They come by the thousands. Four thousand men, plus women and children. And Jesus doesn’t rush them through or minimize their needs. He spends days with them. He teaches them. He loves on them. And then he feeds them.

Love in action. Not sentiment. Not words. Action.

What This Means for Us

The American church has largely abandoned this model.

We’ve not just become intolerant of difference. We’ve become actively hostile to it. We’ve made “cultural purity” a spiritual value. We’ve weaponized faith language to exclude people. We’ve convinced ourselves that love means refusing to acknowledge people’s full humanity.

And we’ve done this while claiming to represent Christ.

This is where the Pharisee parallel becomes unavoidable.

Consider what’s happened in America over the last decades: Christian voices have been loud in the political sphere, loudly claiming that America is—or should be—a “Christian nation.” But let’s be clear about something: America is not a Christian nation. It never was. The founding documents don’t claim it. The founding figures weren’t unanimously Christian. The nation’s early history includes slavery, genocide, and systemic oppression.

But many Christian leaders have perpetuated this misconception. And far too many politicians have exploited that misconception to mislead masses of people with genuine faith.

The result? A modern version of Phariseeism that’s stunning in its hypocrisy.

Publicly, Christian politicians argue against programs that serve the vulnerable. They defund healthcare for the poor in the name of “fiscal responsibility.” They cut food assistance while simultaneously driving up the costs of basic needs in pursuit of higher corporate profits. They oppose affordable housing while supporting tax cuts for developers. They claim to care about families while voting against paid family leave, affordable childcare, and healthcare access.

But privately? They host leaders from communities they publicly refuse to serve—for political or economic gain. They accept donations from industries that exploit vulnerable populations. They build relationships with people whose work contradicts Christ’s explicit mandate.

This is the Pharisee hosting Samaritan leaders at his home while publicly refusing to serve Samaritans.

And it goes deeper than domestic policy.

Christian politicians turn a blind eye to genocide when it’s committed by a geopolitical ally. They remain silent on war crimes when the perpetrators are useful to their political agenda. They rationalize suffering in vulnerable populations because the alternative would cost them power or resources.

Meanwhile, they invoke Jesus’s name. They speak of faith. They position themselves as defenders of Christian values.

But Jesus’s mandate is unambiguous: “Love and respect for all, not just some.”

The Critical Distinction

Here’s something we need to be absolutely clear about: What the government does is political. But what a politician claiming Christ as Lord does has a different standard.

The government can make utilitarian calculations. It can weigh costs and benefits. It can prioritize some interests over others. That’s the nature of political governance.

But a person who stands in church, claims Jesus as Lord, quotes Scripture, and positions themselves as a defender of Christian values—that person is operating under a different mandate.

They’re saying: “I follow Jesus.” And Jesus’s mandate isn’t complicated. It’s not negotiable. It’s not subject to political expediency.

Love your neighbors. Feed the hungry. Clothe the naked. Welcome the stranger. Heal the sick. Visit the imprisoned.

Not when it’s politically convenient. Not when it serves your party. Not when it doesn’t cost you anything.

Always.

Lindsey Graham claimed to be a Christian. He invoked faith language regularly. He positioned himself as a defender of Christian values. He used Scripture to justify his positions.

But his votes? His positions? His unwavering support for policies that harmed vulnerable people while enriching the powerful?

That’s not Christianity. That’s the Pharisee argument dressed in Christian language.

And the American church didn’t just tolerate it. We enabled it. We supported it. We created theological frameworks to justify it.

We told ourselves that fiscal conservatism was a Christian value. That opposing government assistance was honoring personal responsibility. That we shouldn’t legislate morality—conveniently ignoring that opposing justice for vulnerable people is legislating morality.

We constructed an entire theology around the idea that what Jesus explicitly commanded—care for the poor, welcome for the stranger, justice for the oppressed—was actually the government’s job, not ours. Not our politicians’ job when they claimed faith.

It’s a brilliant inversion. And it’s the core of modern American Phariseeism.

The Hard Truth

Here’s the hard truth: The American church has become a tool of political power. We’ve been co-opted. We’ve allowed our faith language to be weaponized. We’ve allowed ourselves to be used to give religious cover to policies that contradict Christ’s explicit commands.

And we’ve done it while genuinely believing we were defending Christian values.

We’ve convinced ourselves that:

• Opposing healthcare for the vulnerable is “Christian liberty”

• Cutting food assistance is “personal responsibility”

• Refusing to welcome immigrants is “border security”

• Turning a blind eye to genocide by our allies is “realpolitik”

We’ve built entire theological frameworks to justify what Jesus explicitly condemned.

And the saddest part? We’ve done this while claiming to follow him.

Jesus’s mandate doesn’t have loopholes. It doesn’t have political exceptions. It doesn’t say “love your neighbors—unless it costs you,” or “feed the hungry—unless they’re from another country,” or “welcome the stranger—unless they might change the culture.”

It just says: Love all. Feed all. Welcome all. Serve all.

The question for every Christian politician isn’t “What serves my party?” It’s “What does Christ demand?”

And if those two questions have different answers—which they often do—then Christ’s mandate takes precedence. Not because we’re better than everyone else, but because we’ve claimed to follow him.

That’s not politics. That’s the actual cost of wearing Christ’s name.

Pillar 3: The Danger of Rigidity (The Judas Warning)

This is the most difficult pillar to discuss. But it’s also the most important.

Judas is portrayed in “The Chosen” as someone with genuine faith and genuine hope. He believed in Jesus. He wanted to follow. He had a vision of what Jesus’s mission should accomplish.

But his vision was rigid. Unbending. He couldn’t imagine that Jesus might have plans different from his own. He couldn’t accept that the Messiah might not fit the mold he’d constructed.

When Jesus’s actual plans began to diverge from Judas’s expectations—when the kingdom Jesus was building looked different from the kingdom Judas imagined—Judas couldn’t adapt. He couldn’t surrender. He couldn’t transform.

So he made a choice based on his rigid expectations. A choice that set in motion a cascade of consequences.

And when he realized what he’d done—when the weight of his betrayal became clear—Judas despaired.

Here’s the critical part: There was grace available for Judas. Just as there was grace available for Peter after his denial. Just as there was grace available for all the disciples in their failures and doubts.

But Judas couldn’t access it. Why?

Because he couldn’t accept it.

He couldn’t surrender the idea that Jesus should have worked according to his plan. And without that surrender, without the willingness to accept the actual Jesus and his actual grace, Judas was trapped. Condemned not by God, but by his own refusal to accept the reality standing in front of him.

What This Means for Us

This is where the warning gets personal.

How many of us are Judas? Not in the details of betrayal, but in the deeper pattern of rigid expectation combined with inability to accept grace that doesn’t fit our framework?

We believe Jesus is Lord. We have faith. We’ve committed our lives to following.

But we’ve also constructed a version of Jesus that fits our preferences. A Jesus who blesses our politics. A Jesus who agrees with our exclusions. A Jesus who validates our judgments.

And when the actual Jesus—the one who loves the stranger, who breaks bread with the tax collector, who heals on the Sabbath, who spends days feeding 4,000 people from different backgrounds—shows up in Scripture, our hearts often harden against him.

We don’t like that Jesus as much. He’s inconvenient. He challenges us. He asks us to surrender our expectations.

So we either reinterpret him until he fits our mold, or we ignore him in favor of a version of faith that’s more comfortable.

And here’s the danger: In refusing to accept the actual Jesus and his actual grace, we risk cutting ourselves off from the very thing that saves us.

Not because God withdraws grace. But because grace requires surrender. It requires the willingness to acknowledge that our expectations might be wrong. That our version of the story isn’t the actual story. That the Jesus we constructed might not be the Jesus who actually exists.

Without that surrender, we’re trapped in the prison of our own rigidity, unable to accept the love and grace that stands before us.

The American Church as Judas

The American church has become increasingly Judas-like.

We’ve constructed a Jesus who fits our politics. Who validates our exclusions. Who blesses our pursuit of power. Who agrees that some people deserve grace and others don’t.

And we’ve become rigidly committed to that version.

When we encounter the actual Jesus—in Scripture, in the poor, in the stranger, in the person whose existence challenges us—we often harden against him. We reinterpret him. We ignore the parts that don’t fit. We build theological frameworks to justify our refusal to accept him.

And in doing so, we risk what Judas risked: becoming so committed to our version of the story that we can’t access the grace that saves us.

We can’t accept that we might be wrong. That our judgments might be unfair. That our exclusions might contradict the heart of Christ. That our politics might not be what God cares about most.

And without that acceptance, without that surrender, we’re trapped. Trapped in our own righteousness. Trapped in our own certainty. Trapped in a faith that feels less like grace and more like judgment.

The Path Forward

The invitation of “The Chosen” is the same invitation the actual disciples received: Surrender your expectations. Allow yourself to be transformed. Accept the actual Jesus, not the one you constructed.

This means:

On transformation: We have to be willing to question our pre-formed ideas. To allow them to be challenged. To surrender the certainty that kept us comfortable. To discover that the real Jesus might ask more of us—and offer more to us—than we imagined.

On inclusive love: We have to stop building walls and start building bridges. We have to actively demonstrate care, respect, and love for people different from us. Not tolerance. Not acceptance grudgingly given. But the kind of radical, boundary-breaking love Jesus showed at Decapolis.

This doesn’t mean we condone everything. It means we don’t exclude people from fellowship because they’re different. We don’t withhold grace because they don’t fit our mold.

On rigidity: We have to be willing to let go of our constructed version of Jesus. To encounter the actual one in Scripture, in the poor, in the stranger, in the person who challenges us. To accept that his grace might look different than we expected. That his plan might not be what we signed up for.

This is uncomfortable work. It requires surrender. It requires transformation. It requires letting go of the certainty that made us feel safe.

But it’s the only way to actually follow Christ.

The Question for Us

The disciples faced a question: Will you follow the Jesus who actually showed up, or the one you expected?

Some of them chose the actual Jesus. They were transformed. They became instruments of grace that changed the world.

One of them—Judas—couldn’t make that choice. He clung to his expectations. He refused the surrender. And it destroyed him.

We face the same question.

Will we surrender our expectations? Will we allow ourselves to be transformed by encounter with the actual Christ?

Will we move from tolerance of difference to active, radical, bridge-building love?

Will we let go of our constructed version of Jesus and encounter the actual one, even if it requires us to reimagine everything?

That’s what “It’s Complicated” actually means. Not that judgments are impossible. But that grace—real grace, actual grace—is far more complicated and far more generous than we’ve allowed ourselves to believe.

It asks more of us. It asks us to surrender. To transform. To love in ways that challenge our comfort.

But it also offers more than we’ve been willing to receive.

Coming Next: “The Cost of Certainty”

In Part 3, we’ll examine what happens when we cling to certainty instead of embracing the complexity of grace. We’ll look at how institutions use certainty as a tool of control, and what it costs us—individually and collectively—to maintain the illusion that faith is simpler than it actually is.

The question: Is certainty worth the price we pay for it?

About the Author

A.J. Ware is a writer, entrepreneur, and observer of faith and institutions. He believes that the gap between the Jesus we construct and the Jesus we encounter is where real transformation happens. He is the founder of Mimi, an AI-powered career coaching platform, and author of Heir Of The Shadows: The Awakening, a four-part suspense thriller series and My Fellow Americans: A Love Letter To The Nation of My Birth.

This series, “It’s Complicated,” explores what happens when we’re called to something higher than ourselves—and what it costs us to refuse that calling.

A Note to All Readers

Family structure is the foundation upon which all other pillars are built. This part examines what strong families actually look like, debunks the myths that have been weaponized against Black families, acknowledges the extraordinary burden placed on working mothers, and shows why intergenerational coordination is not optional—it’s essential infrastructure for community advancement.

The Story That Changes Everything

A few weeks ago, just before the release of Heir of the Shadows, I was speaking with a good friend who lives in Connecticut. Let’s call her M.

M. and her husband have two sons, both in college. She works as a marketing executive. He works in broadcast media. They’re both highly educated, both successful in their fields, both committed to building a life together and giving their sons the foundation they need to thrive.

What struck me about M.’s story isn’t that it’s exceptional. It’s that it’s actually the norm among the people I know.

When I take inventory of my closest circle—my crew of six—three are married and have children. All three are married to their first and only spouse. All three have put their kids through college. All three have weathered the storms of life, managed the temptation to abandon ship, and stayed committed to building something lasting.

But here’s the plot twist that the mainstream narrative completely misses: Three of those same six people were raised in single-parent households.

Let me say that again: Half of the people in my circle who are successfully raising children today were raised by single parents.

This tells us something fundamental that contradicts everything mainstream media wants you to believe: The ingredient that determines success isn’t family structure alone. It’s the ingredients within that structure—commitment, values, resilience, intentionality, love.

The Myth We Must Dismantle: Black Fathers Are Not Involved

One of the most pernicious and harmful lies told about Black communities is that Black fathers are absent, uninvolved, deadbeats.

The data tells a completely different story—one that flatly contradicts the stereotype.

When Black Fathers Live With Their Children:

A CDC National Health Statistics Report found that when Black fathers live with their children, 70% remain more involved across a range of nurturing and involvement activities, compared with their white (60%) or Hispanic (45%) counterparts. Black fathers who live with their children were more likely than white or Hispanic fathers to bathe, change, or dress their children every day, more likely to eat meals with their children every day, and more likely to help their children with their homework every day.

Let that sink in: Black resident fathers are MORE hands-on with daily childcare than white or Hispanic fathers.

When Black Fathers Don’t Live With Their Children:

The stereotype suggests that non-resident Black fathers disappear. The actual data shows the opposite:

Black nonresident fathers were significantly more likely to spend time and engage in activities with their children as compared to Hispanic fathers. Black fathers also shared responsibilities more frequently and displayed more effective coparenting than Hispanic and White fathers.

More specifically: Black non-resident fathers (59%) are more likely than white (39%) or Hispanic fathers (35%) to see their children regularly (at least once a week).

Overall Father Involvement:

Black fathers were 2.8 times more likely to be highly involved in combined parenting care compared to white fathers.

Additionally, research examining patterns of father involvement among 2,040 unmarried non-Hispanic Black fathers revealed that 50.60% show high involvement, 18.09% are nonresident but moderately involved, 25.49% are highly engaged but low in cognitive stimulation, and only 3.82% show very low involvement.

That means 68.69% of Black fathers show high or moderate involvement in their children’s lives.

Here’s What This Reveals:

The stereotype that Black fathers are uninvolved is not supported by evidence. In fact, it’s contradicted by it.

• Black resident fathers are MORE involved than white or Hispanic fathers in daily childcare

• Black non-resident fathers are MOST likely to maintain regular contact

• Black fathers show BETTER coparenting than white or Hispanic fathers

• 70% of Black resident fathers are more involved than their white counterparts

Children of highly involved Black fathers exhibit optimal social–emotional functioning compared to children of fathers in other profiles. This matters. Engaged fatherhood produces measurable improvements in children’s wellbeing, education outcomes, and emotional health.

Research consistently validates what we’ve always known: children with actively involved fathers achieve better outcomes in education, emotional well-being, and social development. What was once portrayed as exceptional is becoming recognized as the norm: Black fathers deeply engaged in their children’s lives.

The Narrative Problem, Not A Behavior Problem

So if Black fathers are demonstrably MORE involved than white or Hispanic fathers, why does the stereotype persist?

The answer is simple: This is a story we tell about Black men, not a reflection of what Black men actually do.

The barriers Black fathers face aren’t laziness or lack of commitment. Research shows barriers to father engagement include conflicting work schedules, transportation challenges, financial strain, and the quality of the mother-father relationship. Notably, most Black men in father engagement studies believe that support programs should be for both mothers and fathers, suggesting their desire to be involved when given the opportunity and support.

The barriers are systemic. The commitment is real. The involvement is demonstrable.

And yet the stereotype persists. Why? Because selective narratives are more powerful than data when no one challenges them.

Sports heroes, rappers, and entertainers elevated from “broken homes” are promoted. Their stories sell. The millions of Black fathers showing up every single day—bathing their children, eating meals with them, helping with homework, maintaining contact despite systemic barriers—don’t get the same visibility.

We see what we’re told to see. And we’ve been told lies.

This is critical: Black fathers want to be involved. They ARE involved. Often MORE involved than their white and Hispanic counterparts. The narrative that portrays them otherwise is a lie that has real consequences—it affects how Black men are perceived, how they’re treated by institutions, what opportunities they’re offered, and how they’re valued in society.

We don’t need another barrier to Black men being seen as human, decent, and responsible. The stereotype is false. The data is clear. Black fathers matter. Black fathers are present. Black fathers are INVOLVED. Often more so than their white and Hispanic counterparts.

The Invisible Labor: Working Mothers and the Cost of Commitment

While Black fathers are stepping up in unprecedented numbers, Black mothers are carrying a burden that society refuses to acknowledge.

Let’s be direct about what working mothers—especially Black working mothers—are managing:

The Wage Inequity:

Black women working full-time, year-round make just 64 cents for every dollar a white man makes. For Black mothers specifically, they earn only 64 cents for every dollar paid to fathers. The “motherhood penalty” means mothers face an uncontrolled pay gap of 75 cents compared to fathers, a figure that hasn’t improved since 2024. Black mothers earn only 64 cents for every dollar paid to fathers.

Over a 40-year career, this wage gap can accumulate to nearly $1 million in lost earnings. That’s not abstract. That’s $1 million less to buy a home, save for retirement, invest in education, and build intergenerational wealth.

The Performance Barriers:

Black women with primarily white coworkers are more likely to be rated as low performers, bill fewer hours, and report more training hours compared to their counterparts. Black women are more likely than men of color, white women, and white men to experience workplace harassment.

The Reality at Home:

After work, these same women come home to be mother, wife, counselor, friend, daughter, and possibly caregiver to an aging parent. They manage the household. They manage the emotional labor. They manage the logistics of family life while managing a job that undervalues them, underpays them, and underutilizes them.

Many women feel forced to prioritize flexible schedules over higher wages to manage caregiving responsibilities. This choice—flexibility over advancement—has long-term costs. It affects promotion prospects. It affects retirement savings. It affects economic security.

This is not a personal failing. This is a systemic burden.

When we talk about family structure, we must acknowledge: Black mothers are holding together households, managing careers, navigating systemic discrimination, bearing the wage penalty, and doing it with resilience that goes largely unrecognized.

They deserve recognition. They deserve support. And they deserve better from institutions that benefit from their labor.

Intergenerational Coordination: The Hidden Infrastructure

Now let’s talk about something most people don’t recognize as infrastructure: intergenerational knowledge transfer and coordination.

I learned this through lived experience.

Growing up, I spent countless hours with my grandparents. Some of my best education came not in classrooms, but in their presence. I was there while my grandfather worked his late-night janitorial business—watching him take pride in his work, manage clients, build relationships. I spent time in his real estate office, learning how property and value work. I was in Big Momma’s garden, learning about growth, patience, seasons, and care.

I attended family gatherings where we celebrated each other’s achievements. I was present when the whole family piled into a car to watch my cousin Max compete as a gymnast—seeing how family shows up for each other, how we celebrate, how we belong to something bigger than ourselves.

I watched my grandparents and extended family pray together, support each other through crises, and demonstrate what it means to have roots and community.

This wasn’t babysitting. This was education. This was wealth transfer—not just financial, but knowledge wealth, relational wealth, spiritual wealth.

When elders are present and intentional, they become living textbooks on:

• Banking and financial strategy (from Part 5)

• Housing and property building (from Part 7)

• Health and wellness practices (from Part 8)

• Educational strategy and mentorship (from Part 6)

• How to navigate systemic barriers and still thrive

The Five Pillars Through the Lens of Family

This is where family structure becomes crucial to everything we’ve outlined in this series:

Education (Part 6) requires family stability. Parents who are present, elders who model the value of learning, extended family who help with homework, siblings who support each other—these create the conditions for educational success.

Banking (Part 5) requires intergenerational financial wisdom. Grandparents teaching about banking, parents modeling financial responsibility, extended family pooling resources for major purchases or investments—this is how financial literacy becomes lived practice, not just classroom knowledge.

Housing (Part 7) requires family coordination. Down payment assistance from parents, inheritance of property, family advice on homeownership, multi-generational households that preserve wealth—these are the mechanisms by which housing becomes a wealth-building tool rather than a cost center.

Health (Part 8) requires family knowledge and support. Grandparents sharing health wisdom, family monitoring each other’s wellbeing, extended family providing emotional and physical care during illness—this is the safety net that prevents health crises from becoming financial or emotional catastrophes.

Family (Part 9) is the foundation that makes all of this possible.

When the family unit is solid—when parents are committed, when elders are present, when intergenerational connection is intentional—the other pillars become achievable. When family is fractured or unsupported, all the other pillars become harder to build.

The Infrastructure of Intergenerational Wisdom

When family structures are strong and intentional, elders become repositories of irreplaceable knowledge:

• How to navigate institutions - Grandparents who’ve bought homes can teach the process. Parents who’ve built careers can mentor. Uncles who’ve started businesses can guide.

• How to access resources - Extended family networks know which banks are Black-owned, which schools are worth the investment, which neighborhoods are appreciating, where to find quality healthcare.

• How to manage adversity - Elders who’ve weathered recessions, health crises, job loss, discrimination—their experience becomes a roadmap for the next generation.

• How to build community - Family structures model what cooperation looks like, what accountability looks like, what showing up for each other looks like.

• How to stay grounded - In a world that constantly tries to diminish you, family reminds you of your worth. In a system designed to exploit you, family reminds you what you’re building toward.

This is not optional. This is foundational infrastructure.

The Call to Intentionality

Here’s where I want to pivot from analysis to action.

Take a moment right now. Take an inventory of your family.

If your elders are still with us:

You have a gift that many don’t. These grandparents, these aunts and uncles, these older siblings—they are living libraries of knowledge, resilience, and wisdom. They’ve navigated systems that tried to break them. They’ve built things. They’ve survived. They know things.

The problem? Many young people don’t know how to access this wisdom. We live in a culture that valorizes youth and treats age as obsolete. Your elders might be waiting for you to ask. They might be hoping you’ll spend time with them.

You need to be intentional. You need to schedule time. You need to curate their desire to spend time with you by showing up consistently, asking real questions, being present.

Ask your grandfather about business. Ask your grandmother about managing a household. Ask your uncle about navigating racism in the workplace. Ask your aunt about resilience. Listen. Learn. Record their stories if you can. Make them feel valued, because they are.

If your elders are gone now:

Then you’re the teacher. You’ve become the elder for the generation coming behind you. And here’s the hard truth: The generation coming along now doesn’t necessarily understand how to leverage their elders. So you might have to be intentional about inviting them in. You might have to reach out, create space, be the bridge.

But in either case, here’s what I want you to understand:

Spending time with two, three, or four generations of your family in one place, building deep connections across those generations, creating the conditions for knowledge transfer and mutual support—this is one of the most priceless gifts to your family’s legacy and the wealth this life holds for all of us.

It doesn’t require money. It requires time. It requires intention. It requires showing up.

The Convergence: Five Pillars, One Foundation

We’ve spent this series examining five pillars: Education, Banking, Housing, Health, and Family.

But Family isn’t just one pillar among five. Family is the foundation upon which all the others stand.

When families are intentional and connected:

• Educational achievement increases

• Financial literacy becomes practiced wisdom

• Housing becomes wealth-building

• Health outcomes improve

• Communities thrive

When families are fractured or unsupported:

• All the other pillars become harder to maintain

• Knowledge transfer breaks down

• Resources scatter

• Resilience erodes

• Opportunity diminishes

The path forward isn’t about choosing one pillar. It’s about strengthening all five, understanding that they’re interconnected, and recognizing that family is the connective tissue that holds them all together.

Final Word: This Is What We’re Building

We’re building a vision of Black community advancement rooted in five intentional pillars. But underneath all of it, we’re building something more fundamental:

We’re building families that understand their power.

Families that know they’re not just surviving—they’re strategically advancing. That understand their children aren’t just going to school, they’re entering a system they need to navigate. That recognize their money isn’t just being spent—it’s either building our institutions or someone else’s. That know their bodies and minds aren’t just dealing with individual health issues—they’re carrying the weight of systemic injustice that requires community healing.

We’re building families that are intentional about:

• Staying together through hardship

• Supporting each other across generations

• Transferring wisdom, not just wealth

• Showing up for each other

• Building institutions that serve us

And we’re doing this not as charity. Not as niceness. But as strategic community advancement.

Every family that stays committed despite pressure is an act of resistance. Every grandfather who teaches his grandson about business is an act of rebellion. Every grandmother who shares her garden wisdom is an act of power. Every cousin who encourages another cousin is an act of solidarity.

This is the foundation of everything else in this series.

A Final Inventory: Where Are You?

Before you finish reading this series, I want you to answer this question for yourself:

Where are you in the intergenerational timeline?

Are you the young person learning from elders? Are you the parent building for the next generation? Are you the elder with wisdom to share? Are you all of these at once?

Take a moment. Then take action.

Call that grandmother. Schedule time with that uncle. Invite that cousin. Show your kid what you know. Spend time with your family—real time, intentional time, generational time.

Because that’s where everything starts. That’s the foundation. That’s the pillar that holds up all the others.

That’s the Criss-Cross.

About the Author

A.J. Ware is a writer, entrepreneur, and observer of family systems and community power. His work explores how intentional families and communities become engines of advancement, how institutions are built, and what it takes to thrive despite systemic barriers. He is the author of Heir Of The Shadows: The Awakening, a four-part suspense thriller series, and non-fiction works My Fellow Americans: A Love Letter To The Nation Of My Birth and D.O.A: Enemy Of A Victorious Mind.

Through the Criss-Cross series, A.J. has examined five pillars of community advancement: Education, Banking, Housing, Health, and Family. Together, these pillars—rooted in intentionality, commitment, and strategic thinking—form the foundation for generational wealth, community resilience, and collective thriving.

A Note to All Readers

Health disparities in Black communities are not accidental. They reflect centuries of systemic exclusion from healthcare access, safe housing, economic opportunity, and mental health support. This part examines the data, tells the stories of those affected, and asks an uncomfortable question: Why are we asking talented young people to choose institutions that can’t provide basic health and wellness support when alternatives exist? And why aren’t those alternatives—particularly HBCUs—properly resourced to compete?

The Arresting Data: A Crisis That Shapes Who’s Raising Our Athletes

Here are the facts that matter:

Overall mortality: The death rate of 910.8 per 100,000 population indicates Black Americans experience approximately 9% higher overall mortality than the general population. More critically, Black men face severe mortality risks—with a 70.3-year life expectancy falling 5.8 years below white men.

What this means in family terms:

These aren’t abstract statistics. These are parents who die in their 60s or early 70s. Grandparents who aren’t at the table. Aunts and uncles whose health is failing.

Estimates of 2022 Census data indicate that over 5 million young people under the age of 18 may be caring for an aging adult, or an adult with a disability. More precisely, there are approximately 1,623,000 youth caregivers (ages 15-18), representing 9.2% of their age group. Non-White individuals are disproportionately represented as youth caregivers.

What the research shows about these young caregivers:

Youth caregivers spend approximately 25 minutes per day on caregiving activities. Youth caregivers spend 42 fewer minutes per day on educational activities and 31 fewer minutes in class, compared to their peers. They are less likely to be enrolled in school and spend significantly less time on educational activities, which may have long-term implications for their educational attainment and economic stability.

Now connect this to student athletes:

Imagine a young athlete with exceptional talent. They’re excelling in their sport. They’re recruiting. Universities are calling.

What you don’t see in their highlight reel:

• They’re helping care for a parent with hypertension or diabetes

• They’re managing the stress of knowing their family member’s life expectancy is years shorter than their peers’ families

• They’re already functioning as a caregiver while trying to develop athletically and academically

• They’re carrying the weight of family health crises and mortality that their white peers aren’t carrying

Then college comes.

They need an institution that understands they’re not arriving as a fresh slate. They’re arriving already emotionally and physically depleted from caregiving. They’re arriving with the stress of premature family mortality baked into their nervous system.

Power Four schools with well-resourced mental health services, comprehensive healthcare, and supportive communities can begin to meet these needs.

HBCUs, with comparable resources, could do the same.

The gap isn’t about whether institutions should provide support. It’s about ensuring HBCUs have the resources to do it equally.

The Question That Should Haunt Us

Here’s what we’re implicitly asking of young student athletes today:

“Don’t go to University X, despite its prestige. Don’t take advantage of the financial package. Don’t access the institutional support systems that a well-endowed school can provide. Choose an HBCU instead—not because it will serve you better, but because it’s more conscientious. Because supporting Black institutions is cause-based. Because you should sacrifice your own wellbeing for something bigger than yourself.”

But let’s be honest about what we’re really asking:

We’re asking them to endure prolonged suffering with no end in sight.

We’re asking them to forego the comprehensive mental health services that Power Four schools provide—services funded by multi-billion-dollar endowments. We’re asking them to manage housing insecurity, food insecurity, and the weight of survival while trying to excel athletically and academically. All in the name of “supporting the community.”

That’s not fair. That’s not right. And we shouldn’t ask it.

Here’s what we should be saying instead:

“We’re going to close the resource gap between HBCUs and Power Four schools. We’re going to ensure that HBCUs have endowments comparable to power conferences. We’re going to provide the same mental health services, housing security, food access, and student support infrastructure. Then, when you choose an HBCU, you won’t be sacrificing anything. You’ll be choosing an excellent institution that happens to be rooted in your community.”

The goal isn’t to convince student athletes to suffer for a cause. The goal is to build institutions strong enough that they don’t have to choose between wellbeing and culture fit.

Allen Iverson: The Case Study That Embodies Everything

Allen Iverson’s story shows us what happens when talent meets systemic barriers—and what happens when community intervenes.

The Home Insecurity:

“Growing up was hard, man. We had busted plumbing, so there was sewage sh** floating around our floors. Sometimes we had no lights, because it was a question of food or the light bill, and my mom wasn’t about to let us go hungry. So I’d hit the playground morning, noon, and night.”

Allen wasn’t in poverty because his family didn’t work. His mother worked. She did what she had to do. But structural economic exclusion meant that even work wasn’t enough to provide basic utilities, safe housing, or food security.

The Athletic Genius:

Allen was a nationwide phenomenon. He was the AP High School Player of the Year in both football and basketball. He was headed to Georgetown. His future was bright.

The False Prosecution:

On February 14, 1993, at a bowling alley in Hampton, Virginia, a fight broke out. Allen was 17. Conflicting reports exist about who started it. What everyone agrees on: it was racial in nature. What’s unconscionable: Allen Iverson, a Georgetown basketball player, was convicted on three counts of maiming by mob related to the 1993 fight at a bowling alley in Hampton, Va.

He was charged under a Civil War-era statute originally designed to protect Black people from lynching. The sentence: 15 years in prison.

Consider the context: This was just a bowling alley brawl, in which three or four people suffered basically minor injuries. None of the white men from the bowling alley was charged. Only the Black teens were arrested.

Allen was the most famous teenager in America. The legal system wanted to make an example of him.

The Rescue:

Allen Iverson’s story could have ended in prison. It could have ended with another talented young man lost to a system that punishes Black excellence.

Instead, Georgetown coach John Thompson intervened. When Allen’s mother visited Coach Thompson in jail pleading for help, he listened. He visited Allen at Richard Milburn High School in 1994. He convinced Allen to take a scholarship to Georgetown.

During his freshman year at Georgetown, Iverson averaged twenty points, 4.7 assists, and 3.5 steals per game and was named the 1995 Big East Rookie of the Year and Big East Defensive Player of the Year.

In June 1996, Allen Iverson was drafted #1 overall by the Philadelphia 76ers.

Why This Matters:

Allen’s story touches every pillar of the Criss-Cross series:

1. Home insecurity (Part 7) - sewage in his home, no lights, food uncertainty

2. Educational opportunity (Part 6) - high school excellence, Georgetown scholarship

3. Systemic barriers (entire series) - false prosecution, racial bias in the legal system

4. Community power (Part 2-5) - John Thompson’s intervention, community support during his trial

5. Health & wellness (this part) - the stress, trauma, and mental/emotional weight of growing up in survival mode

Allen survived because:

• He had exceptional talent

• His mother refused to let him fail

• A mentor (Coach Thompson) believed in him

• The broader community mobilized during his trial

But how many Allen Iversons are there without those resources? How many have the talent but not the support system? How many fall through the cracks?

That’s the question we must answer.

The Mental Health Crisis: Where Can Young People Go?

Let’s talk about what young people in Black communities are experiencing:

The Numbers:

In 2024, Black/African American adults were 36% less likely than U.S. adults overall to have received mental health treatment in the past year. In 2023, Black/African American high school students were 8% more likely than students nationwide to report attempting suicide in the past year.

More specifically: From 2007 to 2020, the suicide rate rose 144% among 10- to 17-year-olds who are Black.

Black youth are experiencing mental health crises at alarming rates. Yet Black adolescents significantly lower odds of utilizing any mental health treatment relative to non-Hispanic White adolescents.

Why the Gap?

Barriers include:

• Limited access to affordable mental health services

• Shortage of culturally competent providers

• Stigma around mental health in Black communities

• Historical mistrust of healthcare systems (based on centuries of abuse and neglect)

• Lack of school-based mental health resources

• The weight of living under systemic racism, which directly impacts mental health

Young people are experiencing trauma—from police violence, from economic instability, from housing insecurity, from educational inequity. They’re watching their communities struggle. They’re managing stress that their white peers don’t face.

And when they reach out for help, the systems often fail them.

Where Can They Go?

HBCUs can be that place.

Intergenerational Trauma: Understanding the Deeper Layer

Dr. Joy DeGruy’s work on Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome examines something crucial: the multigenerational impact of slavery and systemic oppression.

The premise is this: Trauma doesn’t end with the generation that experiences it. It passes down. It shapes how families function. It affects stress responses, trust patterns, emotional regulation, and mental health across generations.

When you understand this framework, you understand why health disparities persist even among Black families with resources. You understand why anxiety and depression are so prevalent in Black communities. You understand that the mental health crisis isn’t a personal failing—it’s a systemic injury.

And you understand why institutions that provide comprehensive mental health support—that understand this trauma framework—are essential, not optional.

The Case Study That Shows What’s Possible: Hurmon Hamilton

Hurmon Hamilton’s life began with profound medical trauma.

As an infant, he suffered a tragic medical incident that left him severely scarred. He was traumatized before he even had words to understand trauma.

He was raised by his great aunt and uncle in a small town in Louisiana. Despite being labeled “learning disabled” by schools, he excelled in college.

Hurmon is a graduate of Grambling State University, an HBCU.

From that foundation, grounded by his faith, Hurmon went on to become a dynamic pastor and leader. He was among those responsible for bringing universal healthcare to the state of Massachusetts.

Today, Hurmon is the Senior Pastor of New Beginning Community Church in the Bay Area—a highly respected leader, husband, father, and visionary who spearheads serving communities locally, nationally, and globally.

Why is this relevant?

Hurmon’s story shows what happens when an HBCU nurtures talent and potential. When an institution believes in a young person despite the labels society has placed on them. When education, community, and support combine to produce not just individual success, but community impact.

Hurmon didn’t just escape poverty. He became someone who fights for healthcare equity—because he understands what it means to lack access.

HBCUs produce these leaders. They take young people with potential and give them the foundation, support, and community necessary to thrive.

The Infrastructure Gap: Why HBCUs Must Be Properly Resourced

The crisis in Black health outcomes isn’t random. It reflects:

1. Healthcare access gaps - fewer clinics, fewer doctors, lower quality services in Black communities

2. Mental health service deserts - psychiatrists and therapists concentrated in wealthier areas

3. Preventive care failures - people waiting until crisis to seek help because ongoing care isn’t accessible

4. Systemic distrust - earned through centuries of medical abuse and current discrimination

HBCUs can interrupt this cycle by:

• Providing comprehensive healthcare and mental wellness services to students

• Training healthcare providers who understand Black health disparities

• Creating mental health infrastructure on campus

• Building pipelines into healthcare professions for Black students

But here’s the critical piece: They can only do this if properly funded.

When HBCUs have comparable resources to Power Four schools, they can offer:

• On-campus clinics with culturally competent mental health providers

• Preventive healthcare programs

• Mental wellness initiatives that address systemic trauma

• A supportive community that prioritizes student wellbeing

• Faculty and staff who understand the specific challenges Black students face

When they lack resources, they can’t.

The Real Choice We Should Offer Young People

Imagine this scenario:

A gifted student athlete is being recruited by a Power Four school and an HBCU. Both are offering scholarships.

At the Power Four school:

• Prestigious degree

• Excellent athletic development program

• Housing security for student-athletes

• Comprehensive mental health and wellness services

• Career development and professional networking

• Endowment-funded student support systems

At the well-resourced HBCU:

• Excellent education (equally rigorous, differently focused)

• Athletic development program

• Housing security for student-athletes

• Comprehensive mental health and wellness services

• Career development and professional networking

• Endowment-funded student support systems

• Plus: Community of people who understand your lived experience, faculty committed to your development as a whole person, pipeline into professional success with culturally competent mentorship

This should be a real choice between institutional equals. Right now, it’s not. Right now, Power Four schools have the endowments that enable them to offer comprehensive housing, food security, mental health services, and student support systems. HBCUs often can’t match that institutional capacity because they lack comparable resources.

That’s not about the quality of HBCU education. It’s about institutional capacity.

When HBCUs are properly funded—when they have endowments comparable to Power Four schools—they can offer exactly what Power Four schools offer. They can compete from a position of institutional strength, not from a position of need.

Then a talented young person isn’t choosing the “elite” school or the “alternative” school. They’re choosing between two excellent institutions based on culture fit, educational philosophy, location, and what they want from their college experience.

That’s the real choice we should be offering.

Why This Matters Beyond Individual Stories

Health disparities in Black communities affect entire regions:

• Economic productivity - When people are sick or dying prematurely, they can’t work, build businesses, or contribute to economic growth

• Education - When students are managing health crises or mental health struggles, they can’t focus on learning

• Social cohesion - When communities are experiencing high rates of suicide, addiction, and premature death, social fabric tears

• Systemic resilience - When healthcare is inequitable, entire systems become fragile

Investment in Black community health is investment in regional prosperity.

The Path Forward: Building the Infrastructure

We need:

1. Better funding for HBCUs - Particularly for healthcare, mental health, and student wellness infrastructure

2. Community health initiatives - Local organizations trained to address trauma and mental health

3. Healthcare provider pipeline - Support for Black students entering medicine, nursing, psychology, and social work (many through HBCUs)

4. Policy change - Enforcement of healthcare equity standards, investment in underserved communities

5. Transparency - Colleges (Power Four and HBCU alike) should disclose how they’re supporting student mental health and wellness

But most importantly: We need to stop asking talented young people to choose between opportunity and wellbeing.

When HBCUs are properly resourced—when they can genuinely compete with Power Four schools in every dimension except name recognition—then that choice becomes real.

Then a young person with housing insecurity can choose to attend an HBCU that will house them, feed them, and support their mental health—instead of choosing between an “elite” institution that might leave them struggling.

The Bigger Picture: Five Pillars Converging

This is where all five pillars of Criss-Cross converge:

• Education (Part 6): Quality education requires healthy students

• Housing (Part 7): Stable housing is foundational to health

• Banking (Part 5): Economic security reduces stress and improves health outcomes

• Health (Part 8): Wellness enables people to participate in education, work, and community

• Family (Part 9): Strong families provide the emotional infrastructure that health depends on

You can’t solve one pillar without addressing the others.

And you can’t ask young people to excel in education, athletics, and personal development while denying them basic health and wellness support.

The Question for Our Community

We’ve built a series examining how Black communities can become more self-sustaining. We’ve explored institutional advancement, banking equity, housing justice, and educational excellence.

But none of that matters if we’re losing young people to preventable health crises. If we’re asking them to choose between opportunity and survival. If we’re not providing the mental health and wellness support they need.

The question is simple: Are we ready to fully resource the institutions that serve our communities?

Because until we do, we’re not offering genuine choice. We’re offering desperation dressed as opportunity. We’re saying to talented young people: “Choose between the well-resourced institution and the underfunded one.” That’s not a choice—that’s a surrender.

Coming Next: Part 9—Family Structure and Intergenerational Coordination

In our final part, we’ll examine how strong families create the foundation for everything else in this series. We’ll explore the systemic barriers that have destabilized Black family structures, and the strategic approaches to rebuilding intergenerational coordination, economic cooperation, and collective power.

The Criss-Cross series closes with a question about what we’re building for generations to come.

About the Author

A.J. Ware is a talent acquisition professional, entrepreneur, and writer deeply committed to understanding the systems that either enable or constrain community advancement. His work explores the intersection of institutional capacity, community power, and individual potential. He is the founder of Mimi, an AI-powered career coaching platform, and author of Heir Of The Shadows: The Awakening, a four-part suspense thriller series.

A.J. believes that thriving communities are built on five pillars: education, banking, housing, health, and family. Criss-Cross is his examination of what it takes to strengthen all five.

I’ll never forget the day my friend showed up with a different phone.

We’d been loyal to the same device manufacturer for years. It was just what we used. What we knew. What felt right. And then one day, he walked in, pulled out a competitor’s phone, and my immediate, visceral reaction was: What was he thinking? Had he lost his mind?

He tried to sell me on it. “The picture-taking capabilities are fantastic on this thing!” he said, showing me the camera quality. He talked about the processing speed, the display resolution, the battery life. By every rational metric, he had a compelling argument.

I was completely unmoved.

Not even remotely open to considering it. Not because I’d researched the competing device and found it lacking. Not because I had data proving my manufacturer was superior. Not because I’d rationally evaluated the options and made an informed decision.

I was unmoved because... I just was. My loyalty was absolute. Impenetrable. Immune to logic.

Why?

That question haunted me. Because here was someone making a rational argument—backed by actual evidence of superior performance—and I was completely incapable of hearing it. My mind wasn’t even open to the possibility. The emotional allegiance to my device manufacturer was so strong that logic simply couldn’t penetrate it.

This wasn’t a decision I’d made. This wasn’t something I’d chosen based on careful evaluation. This was something that had chosen me.

And that realization started me down a rabbit hole: What actually determines customer loyalty? What is it, at its core? And more importantly—do we even understand what it means?

You walk into your favorite coffee shop. Without thinking, you order the same drink you’ve ordered a hundred times. You don’t compare prices. You don’t evaluate alternatives. You just... show up.

You’ve been with the same service provider for eight years. You complain about them regularly. Your friend switched and pays half what you do. But you stay anyway. Why? You’re not sure.

You wear a certain brand. You’ve never researched whether their products are actually better. You just know their logo. You trust it. You feel something when you use it.

Is that loyalty? Or is that something else entirely?

Here’s the uncomfortable truth: Most of us don’t actually know what our loyalty means. We presume we do. We think we understand why we keep coming back to certain brands, certain stores, certain experiences. But if you really interrogate your own behavior—like I had to that day when my friend showed me his phone—you might find that you’re not being loyal at all. You’re being manipulated. You’re being exploited. And worst of all, you’re probably okay with it because you don’t understand what’s actually happening.

This matters. Because if you don’t understand your own loyalty, you become vulnerable to manipulation, exploitation, and profound disappointment. You become a consumer who doesn’t actually know what they value.

The Neuroscience of Loyalty: Why You’re More Vulnerable Than You Think

Let’s start with something uncomfortable: 95% of your purchasing decisions happen subconsciously.

You read that correctly. Not most. Not some. Ninety-five percent.

This means that when you think you’re making a rational decision to buy from a brand, you’re almost certainly making an emotional decision that your brain is then justifying with logic after the fact. You’re not choosing Patagonia because you’ve rationally evaluated their sustainability metrics. You’re choosing Patagonia because something emotional is happening in your brain that makes you feel aligned with their values.

That emotional pathway is powerful. Customers with genuine emotional connections to brands have 306% higher lifetime value and are willing to pay premium prices, recommend the brand obsessively, and tolerate minor failures that would cause other customers to switch.

Here’s the manipulation part: Companies know this. They’ve known it for decades. They don’t market to your rational mind. They market to the 95% of your brain that makes decisions before your conscious mind even engages.

When you see a Disney commercial, you’re not being shown a rational argument about entertainment value. You’re being shown nostalgia. Magic. Family moments. Childhood wonder. The company is directly hijacking the emotional neural pathways that make you feel something, and that feeling creates loyalty.

When Patagonia shows you a documentary about environmental activists, they’re not presenting data about carbon emissions. They’re creating an emotional story about people fighting for something they believe in—and inviting you to be part of that story.

This is where loyalty lives: not in rational evaluation, but in emotional connection.

The neuroscience is clear: 82% of emotionally engaged customers will always buy from brands they trust. Compare that to only 38% of customers with low emotional engagement. The emotional connection is the differentiator.

But here’s the problem: Emotional loyalty can be manufactured. It can be exploited. It can disappear in an instant if the emotion is betrayed.

The Current State of Loyalty: It’s Declining and Nobody’s Talking About It

Let’s look at what’s actually happening in the market:

The Collapse in Numbers:

• 2022: 77% of consumers remained loyal to specific retailers and brands

• 2024: 69% of consumers remained loyal to specific retailers and brands

• 2026 (Current): 65% of consumers remain loyal to specific retailers and brands

That’s an 8-percentage point drop in just two years, and the erosion is accelerating, not slowing down.

If the current trajectory continues—and there’s every indication it will—here’s what we can expect by 2031:

• 2027: 61% (continued 4-point annual decline)

• 2028: 57%

• 2029: 53%

• 2030: 49%

• 2031: 45%

Stop and think about that number. In five years, if current trends hold, fewer than half of all consumers will express loyalty to any specific brand.

That’s not a marketing problem. That’s a fundamental shift in how human beings relate to the companies they do business with. That’s the erosion of the emotional connections that have been foundational to brand strategy for decades.

What this means in practical terms: A company that currently enjoys customer loyalty from 69% of the market will, if it doesn’t fundamentally change, watch that number collapse to 45% by 2031. That’s a loss of nearly 25% of their loyal customer base in five years—not because they lost customers to competitors, but because those customers stopped being loyal at all.

The Ethical Loyalty Paradox:

What’s replacing traditional loyalty is something called “ethical loyalty”—consumers staying committed to brands specifically because those brands align with their personal values.

The numbers look promising on the surface:

• 2023: 25% of consumers driven by ethical loyalty

• 2024: 30% of consumers driven by ethical loyalty (a 5-point increase)

• 2025: 27% of consumers driven by ethical loyalty (a 3-point decline)

• 2026: 24% of consumers driven by ethical loyalty

Wait. Read that again. Ethical loyalty grew from 25% to 30%, then immediately dropped to 27%, then to 24%.

This isn’t growth. This is disillusionment.

Here’s what happened: In 2024, consumers got excited. Companies were talking about their values. They were making statements about sustainability, social responsibility, ethical practices. Consumers thought they’d found brands that aligned with them. The number of people expressing ethical loyalty jumped 5 percentage points.

Then in 2025, those same consumers discovered something: The brands’ stated values and their actual practices didn’t align.

Consumers realized they’d been seduced by messaging, not authenticity. They watched companies make grand proclamations about environmental sustainability while continuing extractive practices. They saw brands championing social justice while maintaining discriminatory supply chains. They noticed that the “values-driven” companies were still prioritizing shareholder returns over the values they claimed to champion.

The result: Disillusionment. Ethical loyalty is now declining at roughly 3 percentage points per year.

If this trend continues, here’s the projection through 2031:

• 2027: 21% of consumers driven by ethical loyalty

• 2028: 18%

• 2029: 15%

• 2030: 12%

• 2031: 9%

By 2031, fewer than 1 in 10 consumers will express loyalty based on values alignment.

This is the crisis nobody’s talking about. Because what it means is: The gap between what brands claim and what they actually do is destroying consumer trust. And that trust destruction is accelerating.

Why? Because consumers are learning something important: Brands that claim to align with their values often don’t.

Consumers are realizing they’ve been manipulated. They thought they were being loyal to a company that shared their values, only to discover that the company’s values are actually about profit margins, not principles. And that realization is destroying loyalty faster than almost anything else.

The data shows a market in transition—one where traditional loyalty is collapsing (45% projected by 2031), and the values-based alternative that was supposed to replace it is failing even faster (9% projected by 2031).

This creates a vacuum. And into that vacuum steps manipulation, transactionalism, and consumer apathy.

People aren’t becoming less loyal because they’re changing. They’re becoming less loyal because they’ve been betrayed by brands that promised alignment while practicing exploitation.

And that’s where the three case studies become essential. Because they show us what happens when brands are authentic versus what happens when they betray loyalty.

Case Study 1: Disney—The Slow Compromise

Walt Disney had a vision. It was specific. It was rooted in something deeper than profit.

His mission: Create a place where families could share happiness and knowledge. Where parents and children could enjoy each other’s company. Where nostalgia of the past met excitement about the future. Where imagination and wonder were the primary currencies.

Disney’s original philosophy was built on creativity, quality, and wholesome family entertainment. Walt believed in making people happy. Period. Not making them spend more. Not maximizing lifetime value. Making them happy.

For decades, that’s what Disney delivered. The brand became synonymous with magic, family values, imagination, and optimism. Parents brought their kids to Disneyland because they trusted Walt Disney’s vision. They felt safe. They felt like the company understood what families needed.

Then something changed.

Disney evolved from a company focused on “wholesome family entertainment” to a diversified global entertainment conglomerate. The mission statement shifted to: “entertain, inform, and inspire people around the globe through the power of unparalleled storytelling.” The vision became: “to be one of the world’s leading producers and providers of entertainment and information.”

Notice the difference? Walt’s mission was about creating happiness and knowledge. Disney’s current mission is about entertainment and information. Walt’s vision was about families sharing time together. Disney’s vision is about market dominance.

The company’s official strategic priorities are now: “revenue growth, market share expansion, profitability improvement, and sustainable returns to shareholders.”

Nowhere in that list is “wholesome family entertainment.”

Disney has pivoted toward content that appeals to the broadest possible audience. Some of this content conflicts directly with Walt’s original values. The company has been criticized for content that many families find inappropriate, for pricing that excludes middle-class families from park experiences, for corporate decisions that seem to prioritize shareholder returns over guest experience.

But here’s the crucial part: Millions of people remain loyal to Disney anyway.

Why? Because the emotional connection was built so deeply during Walt’s era that it persists even as the company’s actual values diverge from what built that loyalty. Parents take their kids to Disney because they remember their own magical experiences. The nostalgia is so powerful that it overrides the cognitive dissonance of realizing the company no longer actually believes what it used to believe.

This is the Disney paradox: People are loyal to an image of the company that no longer exists.

That loyalty is vulnerable. Because eventually, children who never experienced Walt’s Disney will grow up. And they’ll have to choose: Do I value the nostalgia, or do I value authenticity?

Case Study 2: Jimmy “The Greek”—The Instant Collapse

On January 15, 1988, Jimmy “The Greek” Snyder had built one of the most successful personal brands in sports broadcasting history.

For 12 years, he’d been a fixture on CBS’s “The NFL Today.” He was famous for his ability to predict game outcomes. He was influential in bringing sports gambling into mainstream consciousness. He had personality, charm, and the kind of celebrity that made him a household name.

He was in the midst of contract negotiations with CBS for a lucrative three-year deal.

Then, in a single interview with a Washington D.C. television station on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, he made comments about Black athletes that were widely interpreted as racist. He suggested that Black athletes were physically superior due to “selective breeding during slavery” and implied that if Black athletes continued to dominate sports, white coaches would disappear.

CBS fired him immediately.

He expressed regret. He said his words were misinterpreted. He attempted a brief comeback in sports commentary.

But he never worked in entertainment again. He died broke in Las Vegas.

One moment. One statement. Loyalty completely evaporated.

Here’s what’s fascinating about the Jimmy “The Greek” case: It reveals something crucial about loyalty—it’s not actually about consistency or quality or value. It’s about trust. The moment trust was broken, everything was lost. The 12 years of reliable content didn’t matter. The personality didn’t matter. The predictive ability didn’t matter.

What mattered was: Do I still trust this person? The answer was an unambiguous no.

This is the opposite of the Disney situation. Disney’s loyalty persists despite a betrayal of values. Jimmy’s loyalty dissolved instantly upon a single betrayal of trust. The difference: Disney’s betrayal happened gradually over decades. Jimmy’s happened in minutes.

The lesson is unsettling: You could spend 12 years building loyalty, and lose it all in one moment of poor judgment. The emotional connection that took years to build can evaporate instantly when trust is broken sharply.

Case Study 3: Patagonia—Loyalty Built on Authenticity

Patagonia is perhaps the most interesting case study because the company does something that most brands consider suicidal: It explicitly tells customers to buy less.

Patagonia’s founder, Yvon Chouinard, built the company around a mission: “Save our home planet.” This isn’t window dressing. This isn’t a marketing slogan. This is the actual operating principle of the company.

Patagonia practices radical transparency. The company publishes detailed information about the environmental impact of every product. Customers can trace exactly where their jacket was made, who made it, what environmental impact the manufacturing had, and what the company is doing to reduce that impact.

Patagonia gives 1% of all sales to environmental causes. They’ve contributed over $140 million since 1985. They’ve certified over 90% of their product line as Fair Trade, distributing over $31 million in Fair Trade premiums to 85,000+ workers.

In 2021, the company made a bold decision: It banned all corporate branding options on custom orders. This means that companies can’t buy Patagonia gear with their logo on it. The company essentially said: We don’t want to be used for corporate branding. We want to be authentic.

Most business leaders would consider this insane. You’re turning away revenue to stay true to your values.

Yet Patagonia generates over $1 billion in annual revenue and has a Net Promoter Score of 60—among the highest in retail.

Why? Because people trust them. The emotional connection isn’t built on manipulation or manufactured nostalgia. It’s built on the simple fact that Patagonia’s actions align with its stated values. There’s no gap between what the company says it believes and what it actually does.

This creates a different kind of loyalty. It’s not the blind loyalty born from childhood nostalgia (like Disney). It’s not the fragile loyalty that can shatter in one moment (like Jimmy). It’s the durable loyalty that comes from consistent alignment between stated values and actual behavior.

What This Means: The B2C, B2B, and B2B2C Breakdown

Loyalty works differently depending on the relationship.

B2C (Business to Consumer): This is where we see the most emotionally-driven loyalty. Consumers choose brands based on how they feel. Disney thrives in B2C because the emotional connection is powerful and personal. Patagonia thrives because consumers feel they’re part of a movement. This is where the 95% subconscious decision-making is most evident.

B2B (Business to Business): This is where loyalty is supposedly more rational. Contracts, pricing, service levels—these matter. But here’s the truth: B2B loyalty is also driven by emotional factors. Companies stay with vendors they trust, even when competitors offer better pricing. The relationship matters. The person managing the account matters. Trust matters. Once that trust is broken (like Jimmy), recovery is nearly impossible.

B2B2C (Business to Business to Consumer): This is where loyalty gets complicated. A manufacturer might have strong relationships with retailers, but if the retailer doesn’t promote the product, the end consumer never knows it exists. Loyalty exists at multiple levels, and if it breaks at any level, the entire chain fails.

In all three models, the pattern is consistent: Emotional connection drives loyalty, but trust determines durability.

The Question for You

Let me pose this directly: What does your loyalty actually mean?

Think about the brands you’re most loyal to. Maybe it’s a grocery store. A food brand. A salon. An auto manufacturer. An electronics maker. A beverage. A clothing company.

Now ask yourself:

• Do I stay loyal because this brand genuinely aligns with my values, or because I’m comfortable with it?

• Have I ever actually investigated whether their corporate values match my personal values?

• If I discovered that this brand’s values conflicted with mine, would I switch, or would I stay anyway?

• Am I loyal because of the product quality, or because I like how I feel when I use it?

• Is my loyalty built on authentic alignment, or on manufactured emotional connection?

Here’s the uncomfortable part: Where you spend your money says something about what you actually value, not what you claim to value.

If you say you value sustainability but buy from companies that engage in greenwashing, you’re not being hypocritical—you’re revealing what you actually value. (Convenience trumps principles, apparently.)

If you say you value family, but you remain loyal to companies whose content and pricing policies make it harder for families to access their products, you’re revealing what you actually value. (Nostalgia trumps principles.)

If you say you value ethics, but you stay loyal to companies with questionable labor practices because they’re convenient, you’re revealing what you actually value. (Convenience trumps principles.)

This isn’t judgment. This is clarity.

Because once you understand what you actually value—not what you claim to value—you can make more intentional choices about where your loyalty goes and what that loyalty actually means.

The Deeper Question

The title of this article asks: What is the heart of customer loyalty?

But maybe the better question is: Do we even care?

Because if 95% of our purchasing decisions are subconscious, and most of our loyalty is driven by emotional manipulation rather than authentic value alignment, then perhaps we’re not really choosing our loyalties at all. Perhaps we’re just being led.

That’s not to say you’re stupid. You’re not. You’re human. And humans are designed to respond to emotion more than to logic. Evolution built us this way. Marketing just weaponized it.

But here’s what’s interesting: Patagonia has proven that you don’t have to choose between emotional loyalty and authentic loyalty. You can create genuine emotional connection by being authentically aligned with your customers’ values.

Disney proved that you can coast on historical loyalty even as you betray the values that built it. But that coast has an expiration date. Eventually, customers will wake up.

Jimmy proved that trust is fragile and loyalty is temporary when you show your real character in the wrong moment.

The question before all of us—as consumers and as brands—is this: What kind of loyalty do you actually want to build?

The answer to that question might say more about your values than anything else.

The Bridge: From Understanding Loyalty to Deploying Consumer Power

Here’s what we know now:

We understand brand psychology. We know that 95% of purchasing decisions are subconscious. We know that emotional connection drives 306% higher lifetime value. We know that companies spend billions to hijack our decision-making processes because they understand how loyalty works.

We have enormous purchasing power. Black Americans control approximately $1.4 trillion in annual purchasing power. That’s not theoretical wealth. That’s real money changing hands every single day. Money flowing to Disney, McDonald’s, Target, Coca-Cola, Apple, Nike, every major brand on Earth.

Yet here’s the uncomfortable question: If we understand how brands deploy loyalty psychology to capture our spending, why can’t we deploy that same understanding to advance our own institutions?

Consider this: If 80% of Black American households committed just $10 per month to supporting HBCUs—through direct donations, endowment funds, or strategic investment—that would generate approximately $1.3 billion annually over five years.

$1.3 billion.

To transform HBCU endowments. To upgrade athletic facilities. To expand research programs. To provide housing and food security for students living in cars. To create the institutional infrastructure that changes generational trajectories.

We don’t have a resource problem. We have a deployment problem.

We’re capable of being loyal to Disney despite their values betrayal. We’re capable of spending money on products that provide temporary pleasure or long-term harm. We’re capable of staying with brands that show us zero transparency about their labor practices or environmental impact.

Yet when the conversation turns to our own institutional advancement—to our own HBCUs, our own banking infrastructure, our own wealth-building mechanisms—suddenly it’s “complicated.”

It’s not complicated. It’s a choice.

The question isn’t whether we can organize our consumer voice around something we believe in. We’ve already proven we can. We do it every single day with brands that exploit us.

The question is: Do we understand our own power? And are we willing to deploy it for ourselves?

This is where the conversation gets bigger. Because loyalty isn’t just an individual psychology question. It’s a strategic question about power, resources, and intentionality.

The Criss-Cross series explores this in depth—examining the Five Pillars that build self-sustaining Black communities: education, banking, housing, health, and family structure. It asks: What would change if we redirected even a fraction of our $1.4 trillion in annual purchasing power toward building these pillars ourselves?

But that conversation can’t begin until we understand something fundamental: We’re not passive consumers. We’re strategic investors. And every dollar we spend is an investment in someone’s future—either someone else’s, or our own.

The question isn’t whether we’re capable of loyalty. We are.

The question is: Who deserves it?

About the Author

A.J. Ware is a writer, entrepreneur, and observer of human behavior. His work explores the gap between what we claim to value and what our actions reveal we actually value. He is also the founder of Mimi, an AI-powered career coaching platform, and author of Heir Of The Shadows: The Awakening, a four-part suspense thriller series available on Amazon.

A.J. is interested in the intersection of business, behavior, and authenticity—and why so few organizations actually achieve alignment between their stated values and their actual practices.

A Note to All Readers

Housing is where Americans build generational wealth. Exclusion from homeownership means exclusion from the primary wealth-building mechanism in America. This part examines how centuries of housing discrimination have prevented Black families from accumulating wealth—and what it would take to reverse it. This matters to everyone whose region’s prosperity depends on stable, thriving communities.

The Story That Reveals Everything

A principal at an elementary school in the San Francisco Bay Area—one of America’s wealthiest regions—noticed one of his students struggling. The young man was missing assignments, arriving late, unable to focus. The typical markers of a student falling through the cracks.

The principal decided to visit where the student was listed as residing.

What he found was a car. In a parking lot. That was home.

The student wasn’t sitting in the car to look cool or escape the sun. He was sitting in the car because that’s where he and his parent slept. The parent was on the steps nearby, talking with neighbors—not by choice, but because there was nowhere else to be.

The principal’s instinct was to help. He brought a tablet so the student could complete his assignments. He spent time teaching the young man how to use it.

Then reality hit.

The student had no way to charge the tablet. No electricity. No outlet. No access to power.

Looking at the empty candy wrappers and chip bags scattered around, another question emerged: What is this kid eating?

This is one story. But it’s not an isolated one. Thousands. Tens of thousands. More. Children in America—in wealthy regions, in wealthy states, in the wealthiest nation in the world—are living in cars. In shelters. In unstable housing. Unable to focus on education because they’re focused on survival.

This is not accidental. This is the result of 150+ years of systematic exclusion from the primary wealth-building mechanism in America: homeownership.

And it matters to all of us.

Why Housing Matters: The Generational Wealth Connection

Here’s something crucial that often gets overlooked: Homeownership is not just about having a place to live. It’s about building wealth that gets passed down.

When a white family in the 1950s bought a home for $20,000, that home appreciated. By 2024, that home might be worth $500,000 or more. And by 2026, that home would be worth $600,000 to $700,000 or more. The original family didn’t just get housing. They got wealth. They got collateral they could borrow against to start a business. They got an asset to pass to their children.

Their children inherited not just a house, but wealth. That wealth meant they could afford college without debt. It meant they could start a business. It meant they had a safety net.

When a Black family was prevented from buying a home in that same neighborhood—through redlining, through discrimination, through exclusion—they didn’t just lose housing. They lost generational wealth. They lost the ability to pass assets to their children. They lost the pathway to economic security.

That student living in a car in the Bay Area? His parent can’t pass down a home. Can’t pass down wealth. Can’t pass down the stability that creates opportunity.

Housing isn’t a side issue. It’s the foundation of generational wealth. Exclusion from housing is exclusion from the primary mechanism by which American families build and transfer wealth.

The History: Redlining and Its Ongoing Effects

The Federal Housing Administration, created in 1934 to help Americans buy homes, came with a map. On that map, neighborhoods were color-coded. Green neighborhoods (safe for investment) were predominantly white. Yellow neighborhoods (declining) had some people of color. Red neighborhoods (hazardous) were predominantly Black.

The policy was explicit: Do not lend in red neighborhoods. Do not invest in Black communities.

The impact was devastating and measurable. Black families were systematically prevented from buying homes in appreciating neighborhoods. They were confined to neighborhoods marked as ‘hazardous.’ This was an overt attempt to ensure both the perceived and actual valuation of Black communities remained lower than others. Marking these areas as hazardous, unsafe, and with deteriorating conditions replaced the need for red lines on a map. The strategy was equally effective, and far harder to prosecute.

When the Fair Housing Act was passed in 1968, redlining became illegal. But its effects didn’t disappear.

Redlining ended legally in 1968. But its effects persist in 2024.

Neighborhoods that were redlined 50+ years ago are still experiencing lower property values, lower investment, worse schools, worse health outcomes, higher crime, and greater poverty. The original exclusion from wealth-building created generational disadvantage that compounds across decades.

And redlining never truly ended—it just became more sophisticated. Banks still engage in lending discrimination. Appraisers still undervalue properties in predominantly Black neighborhoods. Predatory lenders still target Black borrowers. The mechanisms changed, but the exclusion continues.

The Current Reality: The Data

Homeownership Rates:

• White Americans: 75% homeownership rate

• Asian Americans: 60% homeownership rate

• Hispanic/Latino Americans: 49% homeownership rate

• Black Americans: 45% homeownership rate

A 30-percentage-point gap between white and Black homeownership means millions of Black families excluded from wealth-building.

Median Home Values and Wealth:

• Median white family wealth: $188,000

• Median Black family wealth: $24,000

That’s an 8-to-1 wealth gap. Directly tied to housing exclusion.

Property Valuation Disparities: We discussed this in Part 5, but it’s critical here: A 2022 Freddie Mac study found that homes in predominantly Black neighborhoods were undervalued by approximately $48,000 on average compared to identical homes in white neighborhoods.

For a family trying to build wealth: a $48,000 valuation gap means $48,000 less in collateral, $48,000 less to pass to their children, $48,000 less in life savings.

Multiply that across millions of Black families, and you’re looking at hundreds of billions in stolen wealth.

Lending Discrimination: Black borrowers with identical credit profiles to white borrowers are denied mortgages at higher rates, offered higher interest rates, and steered toward subprime products. The cumulative effect: higher monthly payments, more expensive homes, less wealth accumulation.

What This Means: The Generational Wealth Cascade

A white family buys a home in 1980 for $80,000. Over 40 years, it appreciates to $500,000. They:

• Build $420,000 in equity

• Have collateral to borrow against for education, business, emergencies

• Pass down a $500,000 asset to their children

• Create a foundation for their children’s financial security

A Black family, excluded from that same neighborhood, rents instead. Over 40 years, they:

• Build zero equity (rent payments go to a landlord)

• Have no collateral

• Have no asset to pass down

• Have no foundation for their children’s financial security

The difference: $500,000 in lost generational wealth per family. Multiply that across millions of families over generations, and you understand why the racial wealth gap exists.

It’s not because Black families don’t work hard. It’s because they were systematically excluded from the primary wealth-building mechanism in America.

HBCUs and Housing: An Institutional Response

Here’s where HBCUs become relevant to this conversation.

Many HBCUs are located in communities experiencing housing instability. Students arrive from neighborhoods marked by disinvestment, poverty, and instability. Some students, like the one in the Bay Area story, are experiencing housing insecurity.

HBCUs provide not just education. They provide:

• Housing: On-campus residence halls giving students stable shelter

• Food security: Meal plans ensuring students don’t go hungry

• Stability: A community and institution that invests in their wellbeing

This is why HBCU endowments matter. A well-resourced HBCU has the capacity to:

• Maintain quality housing for students

• Provide comprehensive meal plans

• Offer emergency financial assistance

• Create an environment where students can focus on education instead of survival

An underfunded HBCU struggles to provide these basics. Students live in aging dorms. Meal plans are limited. Financial aid for emergencies is scarce.

Additionally, HBCUs own valuable real estate. Well-resourced HBCUs can invest in their campuses, maintain their physical plants, and potentially expand their institutions. Underfunded HBCUs watch their campuses deteriorate.

The Ed Reed Story: Why Individual Solutions Aren’t Enough

Consider the case of Ed Reed, a Pro Football Hall of Famer and legendary NFL safety, when he was hired as head coach at Bethune-Cookman University in December 2022.

Reed arrived with star power, institutional knowledge, and serious intent to elevate the program. He worked with his legal team to craft contract terms that included provisions and resources needed to support student athletes. However, the university declined to ratify his contract and wouldn’t make good on the agreement they had in principle.

But here’s what’s crucial: Reed wasn’t asking to use his own personal money. He was partnering with investors and billionaires who were committed to investing in his vision and building new facilities at Bethune-Cookman. However, when the university failed to ratify his contract, these investor commitments were put on indefinite pause.

The facilities problems Reed identified were severe and real. Football players had to share helmets because the program lacked enough equipment. There was no practice field on campus; the team prepared at a nearby stadium. Students protested mold in residence halls and dorms throughout the campus. The proposed renovation plan included a new practice field, locker room, laundry facility, and storage space with a cost estimate of $5,082,004.

The synthetic turf field alone would cost almost $800,000—several times more than Bethune-Cookman’s annual athletic department budget of approximately $15 million.

The lesson: Even a Hall of Famer with outside investors willing to fund improvements couldn’t overcome the systemic resource constraints. The university couldn’t commit to contract terms for resources it didn’t have. The potential funding partnerships dissolved.

It wasn’t until after Reed’s departure and subsequent student protests that Bethune-Cookman committed $10 million to facility repairs.

This story reveals something essential: Individual heroics and star power aren’t solutions to systemic underfunding. HBCUs don’t need saviors. They need structural, sustained resourcing that enables them to operate with the same resources as their peer institutions.

Strong HBCU endowments enable institutions to provide the housing, food security, and stability that allows students from unstable backgrounds to focus on education. Without those endowments, even the best intentions and outside support can’t overcome resource constraints.

The Systemic Barriers: Redlining Never Ended

Sophisticated redlining continues today:

Appraisal discrimination: Black homeowners’ homes are appraised lower than white neighbors’ identical homes. A Black family refinancing their home might discover their property is worth $50,000 less than the white family next door—not because of the property, but because of the appraiser’s bias.

Lending discrimination: Banks approve mortgages for white applicants at higher rates than Black applicants with identical creditworthiness. The practice is illegal, yet it persists.

Gentrification and displacement: When neighborhoods become desirable (often after being systematically disinvested), property values rise. Black families who’ve maintained homes through decades of disinvestment suddenly can’t afford property taxes. They’re forced out. White and wealthier families move in. The community is transformed—and Black families lose the appreciation they finally could have benefited from.

Predatory lending: Subprime mortgages targeting Black borrowers at higher interest rates. Balloon payments. Terms designed to trap families. When these mortgages fail (as designed), families lose their homes and their equity.

What Needs to Change

Fair lending enforcement: CRA compliance (like we discussed in Part 5) must extend to mortgage lending. Banks must demonstrate they’re lending fairly to Black borrowers or face consequences.

Appraisal reform: Appraisers must be trained to eliminate bias. Appraisals in predominantly Black neighborhoods should not be systematically lower than comparable homes in white neighborhoods.

Community land trusts: These organizations buy land and hold it in trust, keeping it affordable and preventing displacement through gentrification. Expanding community land trusts in Black neighborhoods protects families from being priced out.

Down payment assistance: Federal and state programs helping Black families afford down payments level the playing field.

Wealth-building education: Teaching Black communities about homeownership, investing, and building generational wealth.

Investment in disinvested neighborhoods: Public and private investment in neighborhoods that were redlined, improving schools, infrastructure, and economic opportunity.

Why This Matters to Everyone

A student living in a car can’t focus on education. A family without housing stability can’t participate in economic opportunity. A community without homeownership can’t build wealth.

When entire regions are excluded from wealth-building, entire regions stagnate. Schools suffer. Businesses don’t grow. Communities don’t thrive.

When we enable Black families to build wealth through homeownership, we strengthen entire regions. Stronger schools. Thriving businesses. Stable communities. Economic participation.

This isn’t charity. It’s regional economic development.

The Path Forward

Part 2.5 outlined a strategy for closing the HBCU endowment gap, which directly supports students experiencing housing and food insecurity.

But it’s not enough to support students after they arrive at HBCUs. We need to address the root cause: systematic exclusion from homeownership and wealth-building.

That means:

• Fair lending enforcement

• Appraisal reform

• Community investment

• Wealth-building support

• Political will to dismantle systems that were intentionally designed to exclude

The story of the student in the car isn’t a tragedy that requires charity. It’s evidence of systemic injustice that requires systemic change.

And when we make that change, we all benefit.

Coming in Part 8: “Health and Wellness: Building Community Resilience from the Inside”

In the next installment, we’ll examine how health disparities are rooted in housing insecurity, economic stress, and systemic barriers—and what community-led health initiatives could transform health outcomes across generations.

About the Author

A.J. Ware just released his first fictional work, Heir Of The Shadows: The Awakening, a four-part suspense thriller series. The Collector’s Limited Edition is available now on Amazon (https://a.co/d/06iASaqp). Additionally, you can find his non-fiction books My Fellow Americans and D.O.A.: Enemy of a Victorious Mind at www.aj21stories.com.

A.J. is a talent acquisition professional with more than 30 years of recruiting and consulting experience. His Super Objective is to help others remove the roadblocks standing in the way of maximum success and fulfillment.

A Note to All Readers

Education is the foundation upon which every other pillar rests. It determines opportunity, earning potential, health outcomes, housing access, and generational wealth. When we invest in educational excellence for all communities, entire societies advance. This part examines why that investment is critical—and why HBCUs represent a unique opportunity to transform American education.

Education has never been optional in the Black American story.

From the moment enslaved Africans understood that literacy was power—so forbidden by law that teaching someone to read could result in severe punishment—education became more than academics. It became freedom. It became dignity. It became the pathway to participation in a nation that was systematically denying it.

When slavery ended, freedmen built schools before they built homes. They understood: education was the foundation of everything else.

Through Jim Crow, through separate-and-unequal systems, through relentless underfunding, Black communities maintained an unshakeable belief that education was central to Black advancement. We created HBCUs because we believed in the power of education. We sacrificed to send our children to college because we valued education. We created institutions of excellence on shoestring budgets because education was—and is—non-negotiable.

The evidence is undeniable: Black graduates have shaped American medicine, law, engineering, science, business, culture, and democracy. HBCUs, despite controlling less than 3% of educational resources, produce 25% of Black STEM graduates. Black women are now earning bachelor’s degrees at higher rates than any demographic.

So here’s the critical question: If the Black community has always valued education this deeply, if we’ve demonstrated excellence consistently despite barriers, why do current gaps exist?

The answer isn’t about culture or values. It’s about resources. It’s about systems. And it’s about what happens when we finally invest in communities that have proven they will maximize that investment.

The Data Reveals: Resource Gaps, Not Ability Gaps

Let’s start with what the numbers actually show.

Early Education Investment

When we look at early childhood education enrollment, we see an interesting pattern: Black children are enrolled in preschool at rates (51%) comparable to white children (49%), and higher than Hispanic children (41%).

This should tell us something crucial: Black families are choosing to invest in early education at similar rates to white families. The barrier isn’t valuing education. It’s access and cost.

The Parental Investment Gap: What It Actually Shows

Here’s where the data becomes revealing. 36% of Asian American students receive high or very high levels of parental financial support for college, compared to 14% of Hispanic/Latino students, 12% of American Indian/Alaska Native students, and 10% of Black students.

This gap exists. But what does it mean?

It doesn’t mean Black parents value education less. It means Black families have fewer financial resources to deploy. Black wealth was systematically denied for centuries through slavery, Jim Crow, redlining, employment discrimination, and ongoing economic barriers.

The gap reflects structural inequality, not cultural values.

Where the Resource Problem Becomes Visible: College Attendance and Completion

Asian Americans attend college at 73% rates, white Americans at 55%, Hispanic Americans at 45%, and Black Americans at 43%.

Again: this is a resource story. Lower-income families have fewer resources to pay for college. Black families, on average, have lower household wealth (a direct result of centuries of exclusion from wealth-building). Lower wealth means lower college attendance.

But here’s the critical finding: When Black students do attend college, their ability is evident. The gaps aren’t about intelligence or potential.

The Achievement Gap: A Measure of Opportunity, Not Ability

For the class of 2020, average SAT math scores were: Asian students 632, white students 547, Hispanic/Latino students 478, and Black students 454. In terms of meeting college-readiness benchmarks: 80% of Asian students, 59% of white students, 31% of Hispanic/Latino students, and 24% of Black students met the math benchmark.

This gap is real. But here’s what research reveals: Both Asian and White students with poorly educated parents often achieve higher SAT scores than Black students with highly educated parents.

This is not a measure of ability. This is a measure of opportunity.

A Black student with a highly educated parent still faces systemic barriers (neighborhood school quality, access to test prep, healthcare disparities affecting test day performance, historical trauma affecting stress resilience) that limit test performance. A white or Asian student with less-educated parents may still access resources through more privileged zip codes, school districts, or family networks.

The SAT gap is a measure of resource inequality, not intellectual inequality.

What Happens When We Remove the Resource Barrier: Graduation Rates

Here’s where it gets interesting. When Black students do graduate college: 21% complete in 4 years compared to 45% of white students and 50% of Asian students.

The gap persists. But it’s smaller than the SAT gap. Why? Because once enrolled in college, the resource and support environment matters more than a single test score. Institutions that support their students see higher completion rates.

This is our clue: Better resourcing and support environments close gaps.

HBCUs: Excellence Under Constraint

Now here’s the case that transforms everything.

HBCUs operate with remarkable constraints:

• Average HBCU endowment: $250-300M for top institutions

• Ivy League average endowment: $24.5B

• Power 4 average: $4-6B

• HBCUs operate with 3-5% of the resources of peer institutions

And yet: HBCUs produce 25% of Black STEM graduates.

Think about that. With 3% of the resources, HBCUs produce one-quarter of Black STEM talent. These are the engineers, doctors, researchers, and scientists who advance the nation.

What are HBCUs doing right? They’re creating:

• Supportive environments where students see themselves reflected in faculty and peer communities

• Mentorship networks built on generations of institutional knowledge

• Cultural alignment between student identity and institutional mission

• High expectations paired with high support

• Community that extends beyond the classroom

HBCUs prove something essential: When institutions combine educational rigor with cultural alignment and community support, Black students achieve at the highest levels despite resource constraints.

Imagine what HBCUs could produce if they had resources equivalent to their peer institutions.

The Case for HBCUs as Premier Institutions

This is the critical reframe.

HBCUs are not:

• A “separate track” for students who couldn’t get into traditional institutions

• Remedial institutions with lower standards

• Compensatory education for students with “deficits”

• Second choices

HBCUs are:

• Premier educational institutions offering rigorous, competitive curricula

• Proven talent pipelines producing graduates who excel in medicine, law, engineering, business, and every field

• Communities of excellence that have maximized resources for 150+ years

• Institutions of choice for Black students who value both academic rigor AND cultural community

The difference isn’t lower standards. The difference is cultural alignment and institutional mission.

What Proper Resourcing Would Enable

If HBCUs had resources equivalent to peer institutions, we wouldn’t lower standards. We would:

Expand research capacity. Howard, Spelman, Morehouse, Hampton, and peer HBCUs could launch research initiatives competing with any R1 university. Imagine the medical breakthroughs, engineering innovations, and scientific advances.

Expand faculty recruitment. HBCUs could compete for the top scholars in every field, not just those committed to HBCUs’ mission. The best researchers could choose HBCUs because they want to, not because they’re willing to sacrifice resources.

Expand student support. Tutoring, mentorship, internship placements, career services—all could be fully funded, not cobbled together through grants and community support.

Expand facilities. Laboratories, libraries, technology infrastructure could match any institution. Students wouldn’t use outdated equipment. Research wouldn’t be limited by facility constraints.

Maintain cultural mission. None of this requires abandoning the unique value of HBCUs. In fact, it amplifies it. An HBCU with world-class facilities, faculty, and resources—PLUS the cultural alignment and community that makes HBCUs distinctive—becomes an institution of unparalleled excellence.

The Result: Premier Institutions That Happen to Be Black-Serving

The goal isn’t “diversity” in traditional institutions. The goal is excellence in institutions that have proven their commitment to Black educational success.

When you resource HBCUs properly, you’re not creating a “separate track.” You’re saying: “Here are institutions with 150+ years of proven excellence in educating Black students. They’ve demonstrated they can take limited resources and produce world-class graduates. Let’s remove the resource constraints and see what becomes possible.”

You’re investing in institutions that have earned the trust of Black communities precisely because they’ve always prioritized Black success.

Why This Matters: The Educational Pipeline and American Competitiveness

Educational excellence at every level creates a pipeline:

Elementary and secondary: When Black students attend well-resourced schools with excellent teachers, test score gaps narrow. But currently, gaps are wide: 80% of Asian students meet college-readiness benchmarks compared to 24% of Black students. This reflects school funding disparities, not student ability.

College: When Black students attend excellent colleges—whether HBCUs or traditional institutions—graduation rates improve. HBCUs prove this at scale.

Graduate and professional school: Only 10.6% of Black adults have graduate degrees compared to 27.2% of Asian adults. This gap reflects access and opportunity, not capability.

Career outcomes: Graduates from all institutions contribute to American innovation, leadership, and prosperity. When we exclude Black talent from the pipeline, we all lose.

The Investment Argument

We talk endlessly about closing “achievement gaps.” But the data shows: the gap isn’t about achievement potential. It’s about resource opportunity.

The investment case is simple:

1. Black communities have always valued education. The historical record is undeniable.

2. Black students demonstrate excellence when properly resourced. HBCUs prove this consistently.

3. Closing resource gaps doesn’t require lowering standards. It requires removing constraints from institutions that have earned the right to excellence.

4. Everyone benefits. More Black doctors, engineers, researchers, and leaders means a stronger America.

This isn’t charity. This is investment in communities that have proven they will maximize that investment.

What This Means for Action

Part 2.5 outlined a strategy for closing the HBCU endowment gap. Part 6 explains why that matters: HBCUs are not marginal institutions needing rescue. They’re premier institutions operating under constraint.

Proper resourcing of HBCUs—and improved funding of K-12 schools serving Black students, and increased access to college financial aid—doesn’t create a “separate system.” It creates the conditions for educational excellence to flourish where it has always been valued.

It ensures that when a Black student excels, they have a choice: attend a traditionally prestigious institution OR attend an HBCU with equivalent resources, aligned culture, and proven mentorship. Not because one is “better,” but because both are excellent in different ways.

That’s the goal. That’s the vision. That’s what proper investment enables.

Coming in Part 7: “Housing and Generational Wealth: Building Assets from the Ground Up”

In the next installment, we’ll examine how housing discrimination and lending disparities have prevented Black families from accumulating generational wealth, and what it would take to reverse centuries of exclusion from America’s primary wealth-building mechanism.

About the Author

A.J. Ware just released his first fictional work, Heir Of The Shadows: The Awakening, a four-part suspense thriller series. The Collector’s Limited Edition is available now on Amazon (https://a.co/d/06iASaqp). Additionally, you can find his non-fiction books My Fellow Americans and D.O.A.: Enemy of a Victorious Mind at www.aj21stories.com.

A.J. is a talent acquisition professional with more than 30 years of recruiting and consulting experience. His Super Objective is to help others remove the roadblocks standing in the way of maximum success and fulfillment.

Banking is oxygen.

Not metaphorically. Literally. It’s the infrastructure that flows through every other pillar of community strength.

Want to build HBCUs? You need banking infrastructure to move capital at scale. Want to enable homeownership and generational wealth? Banking. Want to support Black entrepreneurs starting businesses that serve their communities? Banking. Want to fund health initiatives, family stability, educational excellence? All of it flows through banking.

This is why the banking and capital mobility pillar is so critical. And this is why the current state of Black banking in America should alarm us all.

We have 36-40 Black-owned banks in America today. In 1976, we had over 50. We’ve been losing ground for nearly 50 years.

Those 36-40 banks hold approximately $6.4 billion in total assets. Compare that to the $1.4 trillion in Black purchasing power. Our banks hold less than one-half of one percent of the capital flowing through our community.

The rest—over 99%—flows to institutions that have no obligation, no incentive, and in many cases no track record of investing that capital back into Black communities.

This is the banking gap. And it’s more fundamental than the HBCU endowment gap because it determines whether we can even close the endowment gap.

The Community Reinvestment Act: A Law That Isn’t Working

In 1977, Congress passed the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA). The law was explicit: Banks receiving federal deposits have an affirmative obligation to serve the credit needs of low-to-moderate income communities, including communities of color.

It was a response to redlining—the practice of literally drawing red lines around Black neighborhoods on maps and refusing to lend there.

The CRA was supposed to end that. Banks were supposed to demonstrate they were serving minority communities or face consequences.

Here’s the problem: Fifty years later, the CRA is honored more in the breach than in the observance.

Systemic Failure 1: Property Valuation Inequality

Let’s start with homeownership, which is how most Americans build wealth.

A Black homeowner and a white homeowner buy homes on the same street. The homes are identical in every measurable way—square footage, age, condition, location.

When it comes time to refinance or assess value for property taxes, the Black homeowner’s home is consistently valued 10-20% lower than the white homeowner’s home.

This isn’t coincidence. It’s systematic.

A 2022 study by Freddie Mac found that homes in predominantly Black neighborhoods were undervalued by approximately $48,000 on average compared to identical homes in white neighborhoods. Over a lifetime, that’s hundreds of thousands in lost wealth for Black families.

Banks rely on these valuations. Lower valuations mean lower collateral. Lower collateral means lower loan amounts. Lower loan amounts mean less capital available for business investment, education investment, wealth-building.

The CRA should require banks to investigate and correct these valuation disparities. It doesn’t.

Systemic Failure 2: Loan Denials and Business Starvation

Black entrepreneurs face loan denial rates 2-3x higher than white entrepreneurs with identical credit profiles and business plans.

Why? Discrimination (illegal but persistent). Risk assessment models built on biased historical data. Lack of relationship banking with Black community members. Gatekeeping by loan officers who don’t see Black entrepreneurs as “bankable.”

The result: Black entrepreneurs can’t start businesses. Existing Black businesses can’t grow. Black communities lack the businesses that serve them—grocery stores, pharmacies, financial services, professional services.

And the communities suffer. Young people see no opportunity. Capital drains out. Economic desperation sets in.

The CRA should require banks to demonstrate they’re funding Black entrepreneurs at rates proportional to their creditworthiness. It doesn’t.

Systemic Failure 3: The Redlining Never Stopped, It Just Got Sophisticated

Redlining technically ended in 1977. But sophisticated redlining continues.

Banks won’t open branches in predominantly Black neighborhoods. They close branches in those neighborhoods (citing “profitability concerns”). They offer lower interest rates to white customers. They require higher down payments from Black customers. They charge Black borrowers higher interest rates (subprime lending to prime borrowers).

The effect is the same as the red lines on old maps: capital doesn’t flow to Black communities. Black wealth can’t accumulate. Black communities can’t build.

And here’s the cruel irony: These same banks are simultaneously extracting wealth from Black communities. High fees on checking accounts. Payday loans at exploitative rates. Overdraft fees that disproportionately hit lower-income customers. Predatory financial products marketed to vulnerable populations.

We’re funding their institutions while they starve ours.

The Black Banking Crisis: Why We’re Losing

Black banks exist. But they’re fragmented, underfunded, under-resourced, and invisible.

The Numbers Tell the Story

Black banks:

• 36-40 total

• $6.4 billion in assets

• Limited geographic reach (mostly concentrated in a few states)

• Minimal marketing/visibility

• No national brand

• No coordinated strategy

• No real power in Federal Reserve or banking system

Compare to Asian American banks:

• 150+ banks

• $100+ billion in assets

• Strong geographic distribution

• Visible, branded presence

• Coordinated community support

• Real influence in banking and policy

Compare to Latino banks:

• 70+ banks

• $50+ billion in assets

• Growing network and visibility

• Strong institutional support

• Coordinated growth strategy

The gap is not accidental. It’s the result of decades of underfunding, underinvestment, and lack of institutional support from Black community leaders.

Federal Reserve Shareholder Pool: Where Power Lives

Here’s where banking power actually lives: the Federal Reserve Board.

The Federal Reserve is the central bank of the United States. It sets monetary policy. It regulates banks. It determines how capital flows through the entire economy.

The Federal Reserve Board consists of regional banks—12 of them across the country. Each has a board of directors. Those directors are elected by member banks in that region.

Do you know how many Black-owned banks are represented on Federal Reserve boards across the country?

A handful. In some regions, zero.

This means Black communities have virtually no voice in the institutions that determine how capital flows through our economy. We have no seat at the table where banking policy is set. We have no influence on the decisions that affect our financial futures.

Compare this to Asian American banks and Latino banks, which have growing representation in Federal Reserve shareholder pools. They have influence. They have voice. They shape policy.

We don’t.

This isn’t a small thing. This is about power. And power determines who gets funded and who doesn’t. Who gets loans and who doesn’t. Who builds wealth and who doesn’t.

The Institutional Failure: Where Are Our Leaders?

Here’s what should alarm us most: We’re not treating this as a crisis.

The Congressional Black Caucus has significant power. They could demand that their members’ banks prioritize lending to Black entrepreneurs and communities. They could create a caucus lending initiative. They could tie campaign support to banking equity.

They haven’t.

The NAACP has been organizing for 100+ years. They could launch a national Black banking initiative. They could educate communities about the importance of banking with Black institutions. They could create accountability mechanisms for banks that violate the CRA.

They haven’t.

We acknowledge the financial literacy gap constantly. We talk about Black Americans not understanding credit, debt, investment, wealth-building. We design programs to teach financial literacy.

But we rarely talk about the banking infrastructure gap—the fact that even if every Black American became financially literate, they’d still be trying to build wealth in institutions designed to extract from them rather than invest in them.

Why haven’t we pushed our leaders on this basic need?

Why are we focused on teaching financial literacy while the banks we’re supposed to teach people to work with are simultaneously designed to prevent them from building wealth?

It’s like teaching someone to drive without ensuring there are roads to drive on.

What Banking Equity Actually Looks Like

Let’s be clear about what we’re asking for. This isn’t radical. Other communities have done it.

Option 1: Strengthen Existing Black Banks

Black banks exist. They’re serving communities. But they’re undercapitalized and undersupported.

What if:

• Black institutional investors (pension funds, foundations, universities) committed to banking with Black banks?

• Black corporations required that their banking operations use Black banks?

• Black professionals moved their personal banking to Black banks?

• Community giving campaigns funded Black bank capitalization?

A consortium of major Black institutions committing just $100 million in deposits would instantly strengthen the capital position of multiple Black banks. That capital could then be deployed for lending to Black entrepreneurs and communities.

Option 2: Grow Black Banking Infrastructure

The Black banking infrastructure is fragmented. We have banks in certain cities but not others. We have no national coordination.

What if we:

• Identified underserved regions and funded new Black banks?

• Created a coordinated lending consortium (like credit unions do)?

• Established a Black banking network with shared technology and services?

• Built national visibility and brand around “banking with Black institutions”?

This is exactly what Asian American banks did in the 1980s-90s. They went from fragmented local institutions to a coordinated national network with real power.

Option 3: CRA Enforcement and Accountability

The CRA is a law. Banks are supposed to comply. But enforcement is weak and sporadic.

What if Black communities:

• Filed formal CRA complaints against banks that weren’t serving communities?

• Demanded transparency on lending patterns?

• Organized CRA examinations to demonstrate discrimination?

• Leveraged media and public pressure when banks failed communities?

Asian American and Latino communities have done this effectively. They’ve used the CRA as a tool to force banks to serve their communities better.

We haven’t organized at that level.

The Cost of the Banking Gap

Let’s be quantitative about what this gap costs us.

Wealth building: If Black purchasing power ($1.4 trillion) flowed through Black banks instead of being extracted by other institutions:

• $6.4 billion in annual bank fees/interest captured by Black institutions instead of others

• $50-100 billion in lending capital available for Black entrepreneurs and communities

• Multiplier effect: Each $1 in Black bank lending generates $2-3 in community economic activity

Entrepreneurship: Black-owned banks would be incentivized to fund Black entrepreneurs (they are their customers).

• Current: Black entrepreneurs get 2% of venture capital

• Potential: With Black banking infrastructure, Black entrepreneurs could access $50-100B in growth capital

• That’s $500B-$1T in potential economic activity over a decade (McKinsey estimate)

Homeownership: Black banks would be incentivized to correct valuation discrimination and expand homeownership.

• Current: Property valuation gap costs Black families $48K per home on average

• Potential: With Black banking, we correct this and enable wealth-building through homeownership

• 4 million Black families × $48K = $192 billion in captured wealth difference

Generational wealth: Banking infrastructure enables wealth transfer.

• Current: Limited Black banking means limited inheritance of financial infrastructure

• Potential: Strong Black banking enables families to pass down banking relationships, investment knowledge, and capital

What We’re Asking of Our Leaders

This brings us back to an uncomfortable question: Why haven’t our institutional leaders made banking equity a priority?

The answer, frankly, is that they’ve been focused on other issues. Important issues—voting rights, criminal justice, education access. These matter.

But they’ve neglected the foundation upon which all of it rests: the ability to build and control capital.

You can have voting rights and still be economically dependent. You can have education and still lack wealth-building infrastructure. You can have access to opportunity and still be unable to finance it.

Banking is foundational. And we’ve treated it as peripheral.

This needs to change. And it needs to change now.

For the CBC: Make Banking Equity Non-Negotiable

The Congressional Black Caucus should:

• Audit how much their members bank with Black institutions

• Create a 100% commitment to banking with Black banks

• Tie campaign support to candidates’ banking equity records

• Use legislative power to strengthen CRA enforcement

• Create a “Black Banking” initiative with coordinated support

For the NAACP: Launch a National Banking Movement

The NAACP should:

• Create a national Black banking campaign

• Educate communities about the importance of banking with Black institutions

• Organize CRA compliance audits and formal complaints

• Build accountability mechanisms for banks that discriminate

• Coordinate with Black banks on expansion and growth

For Corporations: Make Banking Commitments

Major Black-serving corporations should:

• Commit to banking with Black institutions

• Move significant capital to Black banks

• Support Black bank expansion and growth

• Require suppliers/partners to do the same

For Communities: Move Your Money

Individual action matters. Communities organizing around banking can shift capital immediately:

• Move personal accounts to Black banks

• Organize workplace banking programs at Black institutions

• Create community savings pools at Black banks

• Support Black bank visibility and growth

For Subscribers: The Capital Deployment Strategy

We’ve outlined the strategic proposal for national HBCU endowment building in Part 2.5. That proposal requires $1B+ in grassroots fundraising and coordinated capital deployment.

None of that works without strong banking infrastructure to move that capital, maintain it, and deploy it strategically.

The detailed banking strategy—how to build Black banking infrastructure, how to organize capital mobility, how to coordinate community banking at scale—is coming in a detailed subscriber appendix.

For now, understand this: The banking pillar isn’t separate from the HBCU endowment gap. It’s foundational to solving it. A strong Black banking infrastructure means we can move capital internally, keep it circulating, and build sustainable wealth.

The Question in Front of Us

We’ve spent decades talking about financial literacy. We’ve created programs, workshops, curricula. And that’s valuable.

But we’ve spent almost no time talking about the infrastructure gap—the fact that even financially literate Black Americans are banking with institutions designed to extract from us.

The question isn’t “How do we teach Black Americans to manage money?”

The question is “How do we build the banking infrastructure that allows Black Americans to build wealth?”

These are not the same thing. And the second one is more urgent.

We need our leaders to ask it. We need our institutions to organize around it. We need our communities to understand it.

Because banking is oxygen. And we’re suffocating.

Coming in Part 6: “Education and Institutional Investment: Building the Pipeline from Elementary to Excellence”

In the next installment, we’ll examine how Black educational excellence at every level—from K-12 through HBCUs and beyond—is foundational to every other pillar, and what it would take to resource it properly.

About the Author

A.J. Ware just released his first fictional work, Heir Of The Shadows: The Awakening, a four-part suspense thriller series. The Collector’s Limited Edition is available now on Amazon (https://a.co/d/06iASaqp). Additionally, you can find his non-fiction books My Fellow Americans and D.O.A.: Enemy of a Victorious Mind at www.aj21stories.com.

A.J. is a talent acquisition professional with more than 30 years of recruiting and consulting experience. His Super Objective is to help others remove the roadblocks standing in the way of maximum success and fulfillment.

Here’s a statement that might seem controversial but is actually obvious: A strong, healthy, thriving Black American community is good for everyone.

Not just for Black Americans. For everyone.

And here’s the corollary: A weakened, resource-starved, struggling Black American community is costly to everyone.

This isn’t a moral argument (though it’s that too). It’s an empirical one.

When Black Americans thrive, communities thrive. When Black Americans are excluded from opportunity, entire regions suffer. When we invest in Black excellence, society benefits. When we starve Black institutions, we all pay the price.

This is important to say clearly because it reframes the question. The Criss-Cross series isn’t about charity or reparations or “helping the less fortunate.” It’s about enlightened self-interest. It’s about recognizing that your community’s health is tied to my community’s health. That your child’s future is affected by whether my child has access to excellent education and economic opportunity.

A strong Black America makes a stronger America. Full stop.

But here’s what’s also true: We can’t count on leaders to protect this. We have to look for it. We have to work for it. We have to insist on it in the spaces we occupy.

Let me show you why.

A Recent Example: When Merit Gets Replaced by Loyalty

In February 2025, President Trump fired General Charles Q. Brown Jr., the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff—the nation’s highest-ranking military officer.

Gen. Brown had over 40 years of service to the country. In 2020, as he was awaiting confirmation to serve as Air Force chief of staff, he gained national attention for a passionate video message about race.

He was replaced by Lt. Gen. Dan “Razin” Caine, a retired three-star general who served 34 years in the Air Force as an F-16 pilot and assistant commanding general at Joint Special Operations Command.

Now, compare the qualifications:

• Brown: 40+ years of service, 4-star general, proven leadership across decades, elevated by both Trump and Biden

• Caine: 34 years of service, 3-star general (lower rank), had to be pulled out of retirement

Why the swap? Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had said: “First of all, you’ve got to fire the chairman of the Joint Chiefs. But any general that was involved in any of the DEI woke s--- has got to go”.

And Trump has raved about Caine for years. At the 2019 Conservative Political Action Conference, Trump said he met Caine during a visit to Iraq.

So here’s what happened: A highly qualified, experienced military leader—who dared to speak about race and champion diversity—was removed and replaced with someone with fewer qualifications, pulled back into service because the president personally liked him and felt comfortable with him.

This is the problem. We can’t rely on institutions or leaders to make merit-based decisions. We can’t assume that systems will naturally protect excellence and fairness. We have to see it. We have to demand it. We have to insist on it.

The Data: Why This Matters to Everyone

Let me show you the data.

Spending Power and Economic Growth

Black Americans control approximately $1.4 trillion in purchasing power—the 13th largest economy globally if measured as a separate nation.

When that spending power is concentrated in communities with strong institutions, stable employment, and wealth-building infrastructure, it creates economic activity that benefits everyone. Businesses expand. Jobs are created. Tax bases grow. Communities stabilize.

Conversely, when Black communities are economically constrained—when poverty rates are high, when unemployment is disproportionate, when wealth-building is blocked—that $1.4 trillion in potential spending power is redirected, withheld, or reduced. The entire economy feels it.

The data:

• Every $1 in Black household income generates approximately $0.88 in broader economic activity in the community

• Communities with stronger Black middle class show 15-25% higher overall economic growth rates

• Neighborhoods that invested in Black-owned business development saw property values increase 20-30% over 10 years

• Cities with higher Black workforce participation and professional representation show lower unemployment across all demographics

Real example: When Black professionals moved into previously declining neighborhoods (Harlem, Brooklyn, parts of DC), property values increased, businesses opened, infrastructure improved, schools improved. White residents moved back. Overall community health improved. This wasn’t altruism—it was economic revitalization that benefited everyone.

Entrepreneurship and Innovation

Black-owned businesses represent one of the fastest-growing entrepreneurial segments in America. But they’re chronically underfunded.

Black entrepreneurs receive only 2-3% of venture capital funding despite representing 13% of the population. Black-founded startups receive 1/10th the funding of white-founded startups.

What’s the cost of this underfunding?

McKinsey research suggests that if Black entrepreneurs received funding proportional to their population share, the US economy would see $500 billion to $1 trillion in additional economic activity over the next decade.

Think about that. By excluding Black talent and capital from the innovation ecosystem, we’re leaving $500B-$1T on the table.

The data:

• Black-founded companies show 35% higher ROI than average startups

• Companies with diverse leadership (including Black executives) outperform on patents, new products, market share

• Black women entrepreneurs, despite receiving minimal funding, have highest success rate of any demographic

• Every venture capital dollar invested in Black founders returns 2.6x compared to 1.4x for white founders

Real example: Before the massacre, Black Wall Street in Tulsa, Oklahoma was the wealthiest Black community in America. Black-owned stores, banks, theaters, professionals. The community was thriving. Then it was destroyed in 1921.

What’s the counterfactual? How much wealth, innovation, and economic activity was lost? How different would Oklahoma look today if that community had been allowed to flourish instead of destroyed?

The Health Imperative: Your Health is Connected to Mine

When COVID-19 hit, the disparities were stark. Black Americans died at 2-3x the rate of white Americans in early waves.

Why? Multiple factors—lack of access to healthcare, crowded housing, essential worker status, medical racism. But fundamentally: a community with less wealth, less access, less power to protect itself.

Here’s what’s crucial: A virus doesn’t respect zip codes. When one community is devastated, it affects everyone. Variants emerge from under-resourced populations. Healthcare systems get overwhelmed. Death spreads.

Public health experts have repeatedly stated: We can’t have a healthy America without a healthy Black America.

The data:

• Black Americans have 20% higher rates of chronic disease than white Americans

• Life expectancy gap: Black Americans live 5-7 years less on average

• Maternal mortality: Black women 3-4x more likely to die in childbirth

• But when resources are invested: Every $1 spent on community health prevents $7 in emergency care costs

Education: When We Rise, Schools Rise

Here’s an uncomfortable truth: America’s school quality is tied to local property taxes. Wealthy neighborhoods fund excellent schools. Impoverished neighborhoods fund struggling schools.

When Black Americans were systematically excluded from wealth-building (redlining, discrimination, restricted access to good jobs), predominantly Black school districts became chronically underfunded. That’s not incidental. It’s structural.

The cost? Lower test scores. Fewer college-ready students. Fewer professionals in the next generation.

But here’s what’s revealing: When Black families gained access to wealth-building and moved to mixed or prosperous neighborhoods, school quality improved for everyone in those schools.

The data:

• Schools with higher Black professional and middle-class participation show 15-20% higher test scores overall

• Integrated schools outperform segregated schools by 20-30% on standardized metrics

• Districts that invested in predominantly Black elementary schools saw literacy gains that lifted entire district averages

• Regions with higher Black college completion rates show higher innovation, patent production, and professional-class growth

Crime, Safety, and Social Stability

There’s a direct correlation between poverty and crime. Not because of race. Because of poverty.

When communities lack economic opportunity, when young people see no path forward, when desperation is normalized, crime increases. Drug markets emerge. Violence spreads.

The cost to society is enormous: incarceration, enforcement, security, lost productivity.

But when communities have economic stability, when young people see opportunity pathways, when hope is present—crime decreases.

The data:

• Communities with higher Black middle-class presence show 20-30% lower crime rates overall

• Neighborhoods that invested in youth employment and educational opportunity saw 40-50% reductions in crime

• Every dollar in youth employment/education programs prevents $7-10 in criminal justice costs

• Stable, prosperous Black neighborhoods attract other residents, increase property values, improve quality of life for everyone

Innovation and Cultural Leadership

American culture originates here. Jazz. Blues. Hip-hop. Rock and roll. Gospel. Soul. These are American cultural exports that the world values.

All originated in or deeply shaped by Black American communities.

Innovation in music, art, dance, language—these are examples of Black cultural leadership that influenced the entire world.

Beyond culture: Black innovators have shaped technology (early computer scientists), medicine (vaccination research), science (hidden figures in NASA), civil rights (legal frameworks that protect everyone).

When Black Americans can fully participate in innovation and culture, America leads globally. When we’re excluded or constrained, America loses cultural and intellectual leadership.

The data:

• Diverse teams show 35-50% higher innovation metrics

• Companies with Black leaders and diverse workforces outperform on patents, new products, market share

• Universities with strong Black student and faculty presence produce more patents and cited research

• Cultural products created by or featuring Black artists generate billions in economic value

Political Participation and Governance

Black voter turnout is often the determining factor in elections. When Black Americans are engaged and voting, elections are decided by broader coalitions. When Black communities are depressed or suppressed, elections often reflect narrower interests.

A democracy where all voices participate is more legitimate, more stable, more representative.

The data:

• Elections with high Black voter participation show higher overall voter turnout across demographics

• Cities with strong Black political participation have lower corruption rates (more voices watching)

• Regions with higher Black civic engagement show stronger civic institutions and better outcomes across metrics

Here’s the Thing About Comfortable Mattresses

We all know what it’s like to sleep on the same mattress for years. It’s comfortable. It knows your body. You know how to move on it. There’s no learning curve. No adjustment period.

But all the while—even though you can’t see it, even though you don’t feel it consciously—that mattress is slowly destroying your back. By the time you realize the damage, it’s done.

This is what happens when we don’t insist on merit-based leadership. When we don’t demand fairness and balance in the systems that affect us. When we lean into what’s familiar and comfortable simply because it’s familiar.

We settle for leaders chosen because they’re liked personally rather than qualified professionally. We accept systems that have always excluded us. We don’t question—because questioning would be uncomfortable.

And all the while, the damage compounds.

General Brown was replaced not because he lacked qualifications, but because he dared to speak about race. A less-qualified replacement was selected because he made the president feel comfortable. And the entire military leadership structure became weaker for it.

But here’s the thing: We can’t count on institutions to fix this. We can’t trust that systems will naturally correct themselves. We can’t sleep on that broken mattress hoping someone else notices the damage to our spine.

We have to see it. We have to name it. We have to insist on better.

This is what the Criss-Cross series is really about. It’s not about waiting for institutional leaders to decide that Black communities matter. It’s about us deciding that we matter. That our children matter. That excellence and merit and fairness matter enough to organize around.

The Series Reframe

This is why the Criss-Cross series exists.

Not to make moral arguments about justice (though justice matters).

But to make practical arguments about self-interest.

If you want a stronger economy, you need a stronger Black America.

If you want healthier communities, you need healthy Black communities.

If you want safer neighborhoods, you need economically stable Black neighborhoods.

If you want American innovation to lead globally, you need Black Americans fully participating in innovation.

If you want democracy to work, you need Black Americans voting and civically engaged.

If you want merit-based leadership—in the military, in business, in government—you have to insist on it. You have to see when it’s compromised. You have to demand better.

The HBCU endowment gap isn’t a Black problem. It’s an American problem.

Closing it means more doctors, more engineers, more leaders, more innovation, more cultural power, more civic participation.

It means a stronger America.

That’s not charity. That’s enlightened self-interest. That’s recognizing that your child’s future depends on my child having access to excellence.

And that we can’t sleep on broken mattresses hoping someone fixes them. We have to wake up. We have to insist on change.

Coming in Part 5: “Banking and Capital Mobility: Building Economic Power from the Inside”

In the next installment, we’ll examine one of the five pillars—banking and capital mobility—and explore how Black banking infrastructure and community capital deployment could transform wealth-building at scale.

About the Author

A.J. Ware just released his first fictional work, Heir Of The Shadows: The Awakening, a four-part suspense thriller series. The Collector’s Limited Edition is available now on Amazon (https://a.co/d/06iASaqp). Additionally, you can find his non-fiction books My Fellow Americans and D.O.A.: Enemy of a Victorious Mind at www.aj21stories.com.

A.J. is a talent acquisition professional with more than 30 years of recruiting and consulting experience. His Super Objective is to help others remove the roadblocks standing in the way of maximum success and fulfillment.

The Economics of Black Thriving: When We Prosper, We All Prosper

Spending Power and Economic Growth

Black Americans control approximately $1.4 trillion in purchasing power—the 13th largest economy globally if measured as a separate nation.

When that spending power is concentrated in communities with strong institutions, stable employment, and wealth-building infrastructure, it creates economic activity that benefits everyone. Businesses expand. Jobs are created. Tax bases grow. Communities stabilize.

Conversely, when Black communities are economically constrained—when poverty rates are high, when unemployment is disproportionate, when wealth-building is blocked—that $1.4 trillion in potential spending power is redirected, withheld, or reduced. The entire economy feels it.

The data:

• Every $1 in Black household income generates approximately $0.88 in broader economic activity in the community

• Communities with stronger Black middle class show 15-25% higher overall economic growth rates

• Neighborhoods that invested in Black-owned business development saw property values increase 20-30% over 10 years

• Cities with higher Black workforce participation and professional representation show lower unemployment across all demographics

Real example: When Black professionals moved into previously declining neighborhoods (Harlem, Brooklyn, parts of DC), property values increased, businesses opened, infrastructure improved, schools improved. White residents moved back. Overall community health improved. This wasn’t altruism—it was economic revitalization that benefited everyone.

Entrepreneurship and Innovation

Black-owned businesses represent one of the fastest-growing entrepreneurial segments in America. But they’re chronically underfunded.

Black entrepreneurs receive only 2-3% of venture capital funding despite representing 13% of the population. Black-founded startups receive 1/10th the funding of white-founded startups.

What’s the cost of this underfunding?

McKinsey research suggests that if Black entrepreneurs received funding proportional to their population share, the US economy would see $500 billion to $1 trillion in additional economic activity over the next decade.

Think about that. By excluding Black talent and capital from the innovation ecosystem, we’re leaving $500B-$1T on the table.

The data:

• Black-founded companies show 35% higher ROI than average startups

• Companies with diverse leadership (including Black executives) outperform homogeneous companies by 35-50% on profitability

• Black women entrepreneurs, despite receiving minimal funding, have highest success rate of any demographic

• Every venture capital dollar invested in Black founders returns 2.6x compared to 1.4x for white founders

Real example: Before the massacre, Black Wall Street in Tulsa, Oklahoma was the wealthiest Black community in America. Black-owned stores, banks, theaters, professionals. The community was thriving. Then it was destroyed in 1921.

What’s the counterfactual? How much wealth, innovation, and economic activity was lost? How different would Oklahoma look today if that community had been allowed to flourish instead of destroyed?

The Health Imperative: Your Health is Connected to Mine

Pandemic Realities

When COVID-19 hit, the disparities were stark. Black Americans died at 2-3x the rate of white Americans in early waves.

Why? Multiple factors—lack of access to healthcare, crowded housing, essential worker status, medical racism. But fundamentally: a community with less wealth, less access, less power to protect itself.

Here’s what’s crucial: A virus doesn’t respect zip codes. When one community is devastated, it affects everyone. Variants emerge from under-resourced populations. Healthcare systems get overwhelmed. Death spreads.

Public health experts have repeatedly stated: We can’t have a healthy America without a healthy Black America.

The data:

• Black Americans have 20% higher rates of chronic disease than white Americans

• Life expectancy gap: Black Americans live 5-7 years less on average

• Maternal mortality: Black women 3-4x more likely to die in childbirth (highest mortality rate for any demographic)

• But when resources are invested: Every $1 spent on community health prevents $7 in emergency care costs

Real example: When cities invested in Black neighborhood health infrastructure—clinics, mental health services, preventive care—overall city health metrics improved. Infant mortality dropped across demographics. Life expectancy increased. Healthcare costs decreased. Everyone benefited.

Mental Health and Social Cohesion

Trauma, chronic stress, and lack of hope affect behavior—including crime, addiction, family stability. When Black communities are depleted of resources and hope, those challenges ripple outward.

Conversely, when Black communities have economic stability, educational opportunity, and investment, mental health improves. Substance abuse decreases. Family stability increases. Social cohesion strengthens.

And that affects neighborhood safety for everyone.

Education: When We Rise, Schools Rise

The School Quality Effect

Here’s an uncomfortable truth: America’s school quality is tied to local property taxes. Wealthy neighborhoods fund excellent schools. Impoverished neighborhoods fund struggling schools.

When Black Americans were systematically excluded from wealth-building (redlining, discrimination, restricted access to good jobs), predominantly Black school districts became chronically underfunded. That’s not incidental. It’s structural.

The cost? Lower test scores. Fewer college-ready students. Fewer professionals in the next generation.

But here’s what’s revealing: When Black families gained access to wealth-building and moved to mixed or prosperous neighborhoods, school quality improved for everyone in those schools.

The data:

• Schools with higher Black professional and middle-class participation show 15-20% higher test scores overall

• Integrated schools outperform segregated schools by 20-30% on standardized metrics

• Districts that invested in predominantly Black elementary schools saw literacy gains that lifted entire district averages

• Regions with higher Black college completion rates show higher innovation, patent production, and professional-class growth

Real example: When Boston desegregated schools in the 1970s (forced busing), initially there was resistance and difficulty. But over time, as integration held and diverse student bodies learned together, school quality improved across the board. Boston schools became more competitive. The entire region benefited from the talent pool that wasn’t being left behind.

The Talent Pipeline

Simple math: If Black Americans represent 13% of the population but only 7% of college graduates, you’re losing 6% of potential talent.

Where do those lost talents go? Not into medicine. Not into engineering. Not into leadership. We all suffer.

Conversely, when HBCUs are well-resourced, when Black students have access to excellence, when that 13% of population contributes fully to the talent pipeline—the entire nation benefits.

More doctors. More engineers. More researchers. More leaders.

The data:

• HBCUs produce 25% of Black engineers, 35% of Black doctors, 40% of Black mathematicians—with <3% of institutional resources

• Every Black engineer in the workforce contributes ~$1.2M to economy over career

• Every Black doctor produces health outcomes worth ~$2M+ over career

• Regions with higher Black professional participation show faster innovation and economic growth

Real example: When employers actually recruited from HBCUs—really recruited, with investment and partnership—they found exceptional talent. Companies that built strong HBCU pipelines saw higher retention, higher advancement, and better performance. This wasn’t charity. It was competitive advantage.

Crime, Safety, and Social Stability

The Poverty-Crime Connection

There’s a direct correlation between poverty and crime. Not because of race. Because of poverty.

When communities lack economic opportunity, when young people see no path forward, when desperation is normalized, crime increases. Drug markets emerge. Violence spreads.

The cost to society is enormous: incarceration, enforcement, security, lost productivity.

But when communities have economic stability, when young people see opportunity pathways, when hope is present—crime decreases.

The data:

• Communities with higher Black middle-class presence show 20-30% lower crime rates overall

• Neighborhoods that invested in youth employment and educational opportunity saw 40-50% reductions in crime

• Every dollar in youth employment/education programs prevents $7-10 in criminal justice costs

• Stable, prosperous Black neighborhoods attract other residents, increase property values, improve quality of life for everyone

Real example: When cities invested in summer youth employment programs, tutoring, mentorship in Black neighborhoods, crime dropped—not just in those neighborhoods but in adjacent areas. The entire city became safer. The entire city prospered.

Innovation and Cultural Leadership

American Culture Originates Here

Jazz. Blues. Hip-hop. Rock and roll. Gospel. Soul. These are American cultural exports that the world values.

All originated in or deeply shaped by Black American communities.

Innovation in music, art, dance, language—these are examples of Black cultural leadership that influenced the entire world.

Beyond culture: Black innovators have shaped technology (early computer scientists), medicine (vaccination research), science (hidden figures in NASA), civil rights (legal frameworks that protect everyone).

When Black Americans can fully participate in innovation and culture, America leads globally. When we’re excluded or constrained, America loses cultural and intellectual leadership.

The data:

• Diverse teams show 35-50% higher innovation metrics

• Companies with Black leaders and diverse workforces outperform on patents, new products, market share

• Universities with strong Black student and faculty presence produce more patents and cited research

• Cultural products created by or featuring Black artists generate billions in economic value

Political Participation and Governance

When Black Americans Vote, Democracy Works Better

Black voter turnout is often the determining factor in elections. When Black Americans are engaged and voting, elections are decided by broader coalitions. When Black communities are depressed or suppressed, elections often reflect narrower interests.

A democracy where all voices participate is more legitimate, more stable, more representative.

The data:

• Elections with high Black voter participation show higher overall voter turnout across demographics

• Cities with strong Black political participation have lower corruption rates (more voices watching)

• Regions with higher Black civic engagement show stronger civic institutions and better outcomes across metrics

The Inverse: The Cost of Exclusion

Let’s flip the question: What’s the cost when we don’t invest in Black communities?

• Lost economic activity: $500B-$1T annually (underfunded entrepreneurs)

• Lost tax revenue: $50-100B annually (lower wages, lower property values, lower business revenue)

• Criminal justice costs: $80B+ annually (incarceration, enforcement—heavily concentrated in impoverished Black communities)

• Health costs: $100B+ annually (treating preventable diseases, emergency care instead of preventive)

• Lost innovation and patents: Uncalculated but enormous

• Lost cultural and intellectual leadership: Immeasurable

The math is simple: We spend way more money managing the consequences of exclusion than we would spend preventing it.

The Series Reframe

This is why the Criss-Cross series exists.

Not to make moral arguments about justice (though justice matters).

But to make practical arguments about self-interest.

If you want a stronger economy, you need a stronger Black America.

If you want healthier communities, you need healthy Black communities.

If you want safer neighborhoods, you need economically stable Black neighborhoods.

If you want American innovation to lead globally, you need Black Americans fully participating in innovation.

If you want democracy to work, you need Black Americans voting and civically engaged.

The HBCU endowment gap isn’t a Black problem. It’s an American problem.

Closing it means more doctors, more engineers, more leaders, more innovation, more cultural power, more civic participation.

It means a stronger America.

That’s not charity. That’s enlightened self-interest. That’s recognizing that your child’s future depends on my child having access to excellence.

What This Means for Action

When we ask corporations to invest in HBCU endowments, we’re not asking for charity. We’re asking them to invest in their future workforce.

When we ask foundations to fund Black community development, we’re not asking for compassion. We’re asking for investment in American strength.

When we ask successful Black professionals to support HBCUs and financial literacy in Black communities, we’re not asking for loyalty. We’re asking for enlightened self-interest—your community’s health is your child’s future.

When we ask communities to invest locally in tutoring, college prep, and financial literacy, we’re not asking for sacrifice. We’re asking for investment in your region’s talent pipeline.

This works when everyone understands: A strong Black America is a strong America.

Coming in Part 5: “Banking and Capital Mobility: Building Economic Power from the Inside”

In the next installment, we’ll examine one of the five pillars—banking and capital mobility—and explore how Black banking infrastructure and community capital deployment could transform wealth-building at scale.

About the Author

A.J. Ware just released his first fictional work, Heir Of The Shadows: The Awakening, a four-part suspense thriller series. The Collector’s Limited Edition is available now on Amazon (https://a.co/d/06iASaqp). Additionally, you can find his non-fiction books My Fellow Americans and D.O.A.: Enemy of a Victorious Mind at www.aj21stories.com.

A.J. is a talent acquisition professional with more than 30 years of recruiting and consulting experience. His Super Objective is to help others remove the roadblocks standing in the way of maximum success and fulfillment.

The NAACP recently stated: “Across health, climate, the economy, and democracy, the Black American is being forced to absorb the costs of an administration that prioritizes cruelty and corporate interests. But we can fight back. Voting is your sword and shield.”

On its face, this statement has absolute merit. No doubt about it.

Voting matters. Democratic participation matters. The systems that affect our lives matter.

But before we pick apart the approach or the underlying assumptions, let’s look at some hard facts.

The Reality Check: What “Fighting Back” Actually Looks Like

There are currently 5 Black US Senators out of 114 total. That’s 4.4%.

Four are Democrats. One is Republican.

For the first time, two Black women are serving simultaneously—which is progress worth noting.

But here’s the broader context: Only 11 of the current US Senate is non-white male. The Senate is majority Republican. Women make up 50% of the US Population, but only 26% of the Senate seats. Hispanics and Latinos make up 19% of the population and hold only 6% of the Senate seats. So, while the nation itself is very culturally diverse, the Senate does not reflect the same measure of diversity. It reflects systemic and institutional barriers are still very much so at work blocking access and muting voices.

So when institutions tell Black America that voting is our “sword and shield,” we should understand what we’re actually shielding against: a structural reality where our representation is fractional, our voting power is diluted, and even when we mobilize at our highest capacity, we’re still working from a position of significant disadvantage.

This isn’t to say voting doesn’t matter. It absolutely does.

But it’s to say: If we’re going to come together as a community to bolster causes like HBCU endowments, financial literacy and economic empowerment, safety and security, and the future of our children—we have to get real about what the Black Community actually is and isn’t today.

And here’s the uncomfortable truth that institutions often gloss over: We are not a monolith.

The Myth: The Monolithic Black Community

The myth is simple: “The Black Community” thinks, believes, votes, and acts as one.

There is one Black agenda. One Black perspective. One way to be authentically Black.

That’s the myth.

The Reality: We Are Diverse in Every Way That Matters

The reality is far more complex—and far more honest.

We are Black Republicans and Black Democrats. We are white collar and blue collar. We are people of faith and atheists. We are conservative and progressive. We do not share the same values, ideals, concerns, and goals.

Some of us believe government is the solution. Others believe it’s the problem. Some of us prioritize social justice. Others prioritize economic self-sufficiency. Some of us see racial identity as central to everything. Others see it as one part of a larger identity.

And here’s the thing institutions don’t want to acknowledge: All of these perspectives exist within the Black community. They’re not aberrations. They’re not betrayals. They’re real expressions of real people with real, divergent worldviews.

The Political Spectrum: From Byron Donalds to Jasmine Crockett

Take Congressman Byron Donalds as one extreme.

Donalds has been vocal in his support for the current administration and its agenda. He’s stumped for policies that, by most measures, would result in direct harm to the Black community—reduced access to healthcare, rollback of civil rights protections, economic policies that disproportionately burden working-class Black Americans.

By the traditional “Black agenda” framework, Donalds is a traitor. A sell-out. Someone who has abandoned the community.

And yet: he’s a Black congressman. He’s a Black voice in halls of power. He’s pursuing what he believes is in his community’s interest (even if most of us vehemently disagree).

Now take former Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett on the other extreme.

Crockett has been fierce in her advocacy for Black America. She’s held presidents accountable. She’s called out injustice in real time. She’s been a powerful voice for Black interests in Congress.

And yet: she’s faced criticism for being “too urban,” for her appearance, for her communication style. She’s been treated as less serious, less qualified, less appropriate for “the halls of justice” despite her credentials and her power.

The point isn’t that Byron Donalds and Jasmine Crockett are equivalent. The point is: Black America contains multitudes. We contain people at opposite ends of the political spectrum, with opposite philosophies, with opposite ideas about what’s best for our community.

And institutions claiming to speak for “the Black Community” as if it’s one thing are speaking for a fiction.

But Then There Are Moments When the Monolith Becomes Real

Despite all this diversity, there ARE moments when “the Black community” becomes real.

Not as monolith. But as shared humanity in the face of shared threat.

When a Child Is Lost

When 14-year-old Cyrus Carmack Belton was shot and killed in South Carolina, the early reports tore at the hearts of most of us.

Regardless of circumstances. Regardless of political affiliation. Regardless of what any of us believed about policy or governance.

We knew: A young Black teenager lost his life.

Early reports falsely characterized him as a shoplifter. Some in the community thought: “Well, if he was stealing, he put himself at risk.”

But the truth was different. Cyrus was not a shoplifter. The store owners used that excuse—that false description of something to be feared—as justification for chasing him down and shooting him in the back.

Whether Cyrus would have grown up to be a Byron Donalds or a Jasmine Crockett, a Republican or a Democrat, a conservative or a progressive—we’ll never know. At that moment, it didn’t matter.

He was a Black teenager who fit a description. He was something to be feared. He was something to be pursued and neutralized.

And in that moment, Byron Donalds’ political ideology didn’t protect him. Jasmine Crockett’s advocacy couldn’t save him. The diversity of our political beliefs was irrelevant.

What mattered was our shared vulnerability.

Other Common Bond Moments

The Cyrus moment isn’t isolated.

Health Crises: When COVID ravaged Black communities at disproportionate rates, it didn’t matter if you were Republican or Democrat. The virus saw a Black body and struck harder.

Economic Crashes: When the 2008 financial crisis hit, Black families lost homes and wealth at rates far exceeding white families. Conservative or progressive, rich or poor—the racialized dimension of economic vulnerability didn’t discriminate.

Maternal Mortality: When Black women die in childbirth at 3-4x the rate of white women, that’s not a partisan issue. It’s a human crisis that transcends ideology.

Police Violence: When a young person is killed by police, the tragedy doesn’t check their voter registration first.

Educational Inequity: When Black children attend under-resourced schools while white children in neighboring districts have world-class facilities, that’s not about politics. That’s about a system that devalues Black life.

These moments reveal something crucial: Despite our ideological diversity, we share common vulnerabilities that transcend politics.

Where the Common Bond Becomes Generational

But here’s where it gets even more important.

HBCUs serve all of us—Byron Donalds supporters and Jasmine Crockett supporters alike. They serve Republicans and Democrats, conservatives and progressives, people of faith and atheists.

They serve young people who might grow up to disagree profoundly with each other politically.

But right now, those young people—kids like Cyrus Belton, kids with potential and promise and futures—need institutions that will invest in them. That will resource them. That will prepare them not just to survive, but to lead.

Whether they lead from a Democratic perspective or a Republican one. Whether they lead as activists or as economists. Whether they lead in government or in business or in civil society.

We need leaders—diverse leaders, with diverse worldviews—in the halls of justice ensuring legislation and governing includes voices for Black America.

And those leaders can’t come from under-resourced institutions. They can’t come from schools where leaky roofs and outdated technology signal that their potential isn’t worth investing in.

They need HBCUs equipped with the resources to compete at the highest levels.

The Reason This Series Matters

This is why understanding the myth versus the reality of “the Black Community” is so critical.

If we don’t understand that despite our profound differences, we share a common bond—a common stake in the future—we will never come together enough to secure that future.

We will remain fragmented. We will remain fighting each other over politics while our children inherit institutions that are resource-starved. We will prioritize ideological purity over generational security.

And that’s exactly what the systems designed to contain us want.

But if we can acknowledge our diversity—really acknowledge it, not as a weakness but as a reflection of our humanity—AND recognize that we have shared stakes that transcend ideology, then something becomes possible.

We can disagree about tax policy and still fund HBCUs together.

We can disagree about the role of government and still build economic empowerment programs together.

We can disagree about nearly everything and still say: “Our children deserve institutions that resource their potential.”

That’s not monolithic unity. That’s strategic solidarity around shared futures.

And that’s what the proposals in this series are really about.

Not asking Black Republicans to become Democrats. Not asking progressives to compromise their values. Not asking anyone to erase who they are or what they believe.

Just asking: Can we recognize what we share? Can we organize around the futures of our children and grandchildren and nieces and nephews and their children?

Can we move from “the Black Community as myth” to “Black communities as reality”—plural, diverse, specific—while still finding the common ground that allows us to secure those futures?

The Root System: Building It Locally

But here’s the truth that national blueprints often miss: You can’t build sustainable change without strong local roots.

Part 2.5 outlined a national strategy for closing the HBCU endowment gap. But that strategy only works if communities are engaged locally. If tutoring networks exist. If financial literacy is being taught. If neighbors know each other and organize around shared values.

The real power comes from below, not from above.

For subscribers: Access the full Part 3.5 appendix—”The Root System”—a detailed guide to building community power locally. It includes organizational models for college prep tutoring networks, financial literacy and community economics initiatives, and multi-denominational coalitions. Complete with governance structures, budgets, staffing plans, and projected impact.

Part 3.5 is subscriber-exclusive content designed to answer the most important question: “What can MY community actually do right now?”

That’s the question this series keeps asking.

And the answer—the only answer that works—starts with honesty about who we actually are, followed by organizing where we actually live.

Coming in Part 4: “Banking and Capital Mobility: Building Economic Power from the Inside”

In the next installment, we’ll examine how one of the five pillars—banking and capital—could be mobilized to create generational wealth and economic security for the Black community, regardless of political affiliation or ideology.

About the Author

A.J. Ware just released his first fictional work, Heir Of The Shadows: The Awakening, a four-part suspense thriller series. The Collector’s Limited Edition is available now on Amazon (https://a.co/d/06iASaqp). Additionally, you can find his non-fiction books My Fellow Americans and D.O.A.: Enemy of a Victorious Mind at www.aj21stories.com.

A.J. is a talent acquisition professional with more than 30 years of recruiting and consulting experience. His Super Objective is to help others remove the roadblocks standing in the way of maximum success and fulfillment.

Here’s something worth stopping to appreciate:

The first African American Supreme Court Justice, Thurgood Marshall? He earned his law degree at Howard University. The man who won 29 of 32 cases he argued before the Supreme Court—including Brown v. Board of Education, which ended school segregation—was educated at an HBCU.

The current Vice President of the United States, Kamala Harris? Howard University.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the architect of the civil rights movement? Morehouse College.

The legendary filmmaker Spike Lee? Morehouse College.

The Emmy-winning actor Chadwick Boseman, who brought Black Panther to life? Howard University.

The Nobel and Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Alice Walker? Spelman College.

The media mogul Oprah Winfrey? Tennessee State University.

The NFL Hall of Famer Jerry Rice, one of the greatest athletes in history? Mississippi Valley State University.

The mathematician Katherine Johnson, whose calculations were essential to NASA’s space program? Virginia’s Hampton University.

I could keep going. The list of HBCU graduates who have shaped American society—in law, medicine, civil rights, entertainment, technology, academia, military innovation—is staggering. Every sector you look at, you find brilliant HBCU graduates who changed the world.

These are not failures. These are not second-rate institutions producing second-rate talent.

These are extraordinary institutions producing extraordinary people.

But here’s what’s important to understand: HBCUs have different meaning to different Black families.

For some, the legacy is so rich and the history of family members who have attended is so woven into family identity that attending an HBCU is a foregone conclusion. It’s not a choice—it’s a continuation. A responsibility. A tradition carried forward.

For others—and I’m in this category—HBCUs are well-known and a familiar option for some in the family. But so are institutions like Stanford, UC Berkeley, Yale, and American. They’re all on the table.

I remember being interested in Grambling because of Coach Eddie Robinson. I was interested in Howard because it was in D.C. But I was equally interested in USC and UC Berkeley because they were in the Pac-10 and played on national television. I never saw HBCU teams on television. I saw Reggie Bush at USC. I saw Steve Bartkowski at Cal. I saw national programs with national visibility.

Now, of course, HBCUs are far more important than their sports programs, and their historical significance is much richer than athletics. But it’s important to note this: Making the decision to attend an HBCU over a traditional institution isn’t just about racial proximity or community loyalty. It’s about weighing real opportunities.

When a young Black student is deciding between an HBCU and Stanford, they’re not just choosing between “community” and “prestige.” They’re weighing: research opportunities, faculty recognition, alumni networks, facility access, visibility in their field, career pipeline.

If HBCUs are going to be chosen because they’re genuinely competitive—not because someone feels obligated—then the resource gap becomes existential. It’s not a nice-to-have. It’s the difference between a real choice and a sacrifice.

That’s what this gap actually represents.

So here’s the question that stops me cold:

If HBCUs produce this kind of talent—if they’ve been the incubators of genius that transformed America—why do their endowments remain so disproportionately low compared to their counterparts?

That’s what we’re examining in this part of the series.

The Paradox: Excellence Without Equivalent Resources

The numbers are stunning in their inequality.

Howard University, the wealthiest HBCU, has an endowment of approximately $1.05 billion. That’s remarkable—it crossed the $1 billion threshold, a historic milestone.

But consider: Harvard’s endowment is $56.9 billion. Yale’s is $44.1 billion.

Even Brown University—the “poorest” Ivy League school—has an endowment of $7.2 billion.

The average Ivy League endowment is $24.5 billion.

That means the average Ivy League endowment is nearly 25 times larger than Howard University’s—the wealthiest HBCU in the nation.

If we look at the top tier of HBCUs—the ones that have achieved historic fundraising milestones—the disparity persists:

• Spelman College: ~$530 million (boosted by a historic $100 million gift in 2024)

• Morehouse College: ~$250 million

• Meharry Medical College: ~$180 million

For the top 10 endowed HBCUs, the average sits around $250-300 million.

Compare that to the Power 4 conference schools (SEC, Big Ten, ACC, Big 12), which average $4-6 billion.

The average Power 4 endowment is 16 to 24 times larger than the top HBCU average.

Even mid-tier Power 4 schools—universities that aren’t household names—maintain endowments of $1.5 to $4 billion. Schools like the University of Kentucky ($2.1 billion) and Auburn University ($1.1 billion) have resources rivaling the richest HBCUs.

This is where the question becomes urgent: While it’s understandable that the average HBCU has lower endowments, why should the top 5 HBCUs not be closer to the Power 4 average?

What explains this gap?

Is it expectation—do we expect less from HBCUs?

Is it prioritization—have we, as a community, decided this isn’t important enough to fight for?

Is it information—do potential donors understand what’s at stake?

What Endowments Actually Do: Infrastructure and Opportunity

To understand why this gap matters, you have to understand what endowments actually provide.

An endowment is the institutional difference between possibility and constraint.

Research Facilities: Ivy League schools conduct cutting-edge research in medicine, engineering, physics, neuroscience. That research happens because endowments fund laboratories with $10 million electron microscopes, cutting-edge computational facilities, state-of-the-art medical equipment. HBCUs operate with fractional resources. A research lab at Harvard might have equipment worth $5 million; the equivalent at an HBCU might cost $500,000 because it’s three generations older and less capable.

Faculty Recruitment and Retention: Top researchers don’t come cheap. A world-class neuroscientist might have offers from multiple universities. Ivy League endowments allow them to offer $300,000 salaries, research budgets, and prestige. HBCUs offer what they can afford—often significantly less. The result? Top talent gravitates toward institutions that can pay for it. HBCUs get talented faculty, but they lose the opportunity to recruit the absolute best.

Student Support and Infrastructure: Endowments fund scholarships, housing, technology, career services. At well-endowed institutions, students can access internship support, professional development, mental health services, tutoring. At under-resourced institutions, students compete for limited support services, creating bottlenecks in everything from admissions processing to graduation requirements.

Capital Expenditures: Buildings age. Lab equipment becomes obsolete. Technology needs upgrading. Ivy League schools fund these continuously from endowment returns. HBCUs defer them, patch them, hope they last. Students graduate from buildings with leaky roofs and outdated technology.

Operational Stability: Ivy League endowments typically fund 20-35% of the annual operating budget. For HBCUs, it’s less than 5%. This means HBCUs are acutely vulnerable to enrollment fluctuations, economic downturns, and shifts in federal funding. One bad year can create a budget crisis.

The bottom line: An endowment gap translates directly into an opportunity gap for students.

A student at Harvard has access to facilities, faculty, resources, and support that a student at Morehouse simply cannot access. That’s not a comment on Morehouse’s commitment or excellence—Morehouse graduates go on to change the world. But they do it despite constraints, not because of ideal conditions.

The Story That Illustrates It All

A close friend of mine has a daughter who, coming out of high school, had her heart set on attending an HBCU.

She applied to several schools. As decisions came in, there were multiple acceptances: Georgetown with a 40% scholarship. Princeton. George Washington in St. Louis. All with meaningful financial commitments.

Her family prayed together every morning, asking God for wisdom. But they held out hope for the HBCU. Her heart was there. Simple acceptance would have been enough.

Time passed. The deadline to respond to other schools crept closer. No word from the HBCU.

Her mother, concerned, felt the urge to call the HBCU admissions office.

She cycled through several people. And then came the moment of shock: “It’s a good thing you called. We’ve been waiting to hear from you. We were about to give your daughter’s scholarship away. Your daughter has been awarded the President’s Scholarship.”

A full ride. Four years, fully covered.

The only problem? They never sent the letter.

The family would have missed it entirely. They would have declined the HBCU, accepted Georgetown or Princeton, and never known about the full-ride scholarship waiting for them.

This story is not unusual in HBCU circles.

Talk to any HBCU alumnus or parent, and they will have stories—sometimes several—of administrative failures that had real consequences. Delays in scholarship allocations that left students scrambling. Lost paperwork. Communication breakdowns that nearly derailed opportunities.

Are there administrative failures at elite universities? Absolutely. But when you ask alumni from those schools about their most vivid college memories, administrative failures rarely make the list. What dominates their reflections are academic experiences, mentorship, research opportunities, campus culture.

When you ask HBCU alumni, they speak with gratitude about their education and community—and with frustration about the systems failures they navigated.

The question begged: Is this systemic inadequacy due to resources and processes that are archaic, inefficient, and unreliable? Or is this institutional?

The answer is likely both. But it’s worth asking whether under-resourced institutions—ones operating with skeletal administrative staff and outdated technology—are setting themselves up for these failures.

The Why Question: Wealth, Priorities, and Mobilization

So why haven’t HBCUs closed the endowment gap with their wealthier counterparts?

Part of the answer is historical. HBCUs were systematically excluded from wealth-building. Their alumni pools, smaller due to exclusion, had fewer opportunities to accumulate generational wealth. State funding has been disparate. Foundation giving has prioritized other institutions.

But part of the answer requires asking harder questions about our community’s priorities and decisions.

When you look at Black excellence in America—in medicine, law, technology, entertainment, business—you’re looking at extraordinary wealth. Black doctors earning six figures. Black lawyers at major firms. Black entrepreneurs in tech. Black entertainers and athletes earning millions. Black entrepreneurs building billion-dollar companies.

That wealth exists. That talent exists. That success exists.

Yet relative to their counterparts, Black graduates are less likely to give back to HBCUs at the scale they give to their undergraduate institutions—even when those institutions are Ivy League schools or Power 4 universities.

The question becomes: What would mobilization at scale look like?

What if the NAACP—an institution with convening power—organized a national endowment campaign? What if they coordinated with Black medical associations, bar associations, tech industry leaders, entertainment executives, corporate boards? What if they made it a priority to tell successful Black graduates: “Your HBCU gave you the foundation. Now invest in that foundation for the next generation”?

What if wealthy Black entrepreneurs committed to matching gifts for HBCU endowments? What if foundations tied to Black wealth made HBCU endowment building a strategic priority?

This isn’t hypothetical. Other communities have done this.

But it requires institutions to prioritize it. To organize around it. To make it a defining commitment.

Why HBCUs Matter: Culture, Formation, and Our History

Before we move to action, we have to be clear about something: This isn’t just about money.

HBCUs matter because of culture. Because of what happens on those campuses.

When a young Black student walks onto an HBCU campus, they step into a space where their brilliance is expected. Where their leadership is assumed. Where they’re surrounded by faculty and staff and peers who look like them, who understand their heritage, who see their future without skepticism or surprise.

That matters. That shapes people.

During formative years—18 to 22—when young people are developing their professional identity, figuring out how they’ll show up in the world, HBCUs create a particular kind of space. They’ve been reported to provide exceptional education both in the classroom and through campus life. They graduate students with confidence in their ability. They create networks that support each other. They say: “You belong here. You can do this. We’re walking this path together.”

That can’t be quantified in endowment dollars, but it’s real.

HBCUs are also part of our history. They are institutions we built, institutions that served us when we were locked out of everywhere else, institutions that produced the leaders who fought for our inclusion and our dignity. They are cultural patrimony.

Preservation and strengthening of HBCUs should matter to all of us who claim to care about the future of Black America.

It’s not about choosing HBCUs over other institutions. It’s about ensuring that HBCUs have the resources to be fully competitive. It’s about closing gaps so that students choosing HBCUs are not choosing between equal options—one culturally aligned, one not—but choosing based on their values and preferences, knowing their education will be equally resourced.

The Real Question: How Important Are HBCUs to Us?

The funding gap we’ve examined—from foundations, corporations, alumni, and the state—isn’t really a funding problem.

It’s a priority problem.

But to understand why the gap exists in the first place, we need to look at history. Because this gap wasn’t created by accident. It was created by design.

Historical Context: How HBCUs Were Systematically Underfunded

Early Philanthropy: Restricted Generosity (Early 20th Century)

When wealthy philanthropists like John D. Rockefeller began investing in Black education in the early 20th century, it came with significant strings attached.

The funding was intentional and strategic—but the strategy was containment, not expansion.

Rockefeller and other major donors provided funding specifically for vocational and industrial education—thinking, essentially, that Black people should be trained for trades and service work, not for intellectual leadership, research, or professional advancement.

The money came with explicit restrictions: No funding for academic expansion. No funding for research. No funding for programs that might elevate Black people to positions of equality with white counterparts.

The message was clear: “We’ll fund your training. We won’t fund your advancement.”

Retaliation: When HBCUs Pushed Back

But here’s what’s crucial: When HBCUs began to expand their offerings beyond the restricted vocational focus—when they began to offer rigorous academic programs, professional degrees, and started advocating for equality and inclusion—funding was cut off.

This wasn’t benign neglect. This was punishment.

When HBCUs attempted to expand their academic offerings or promote racial equality, states and institutions frequently retaliated by slashing their budgets.

The Georgia Example:

In 1887, the Georgia State Legislature withdrew critical annual funding from Atlanta University for what was deemed “flouting racial norms.” What was the transgression? The institution had the audacity to:

• Offer academic programs equal to white institutions

• Aspire to provide liberal arts and professional education

• Advocate for the dignity and intellectual capability of Black students

• Refuse to limit their students to vocational training

The message: “Reach too high, and we’ll starve you.”

This pattern repeated across the South and beyond:

• When HBCUs built research centers, state funding decreased

• When HBCUs created graduate programs, appropriations were reduced

• When HBCUs hired accomplished faculty and invested in facilities, legislatures found reasons to cut budgets

• When HBCUs became voices for civil rights and equality, punishment followed

The Cascade Effect: How Initial Underfunding Becomes Permanent Disadvantage

This historical starvation created a compounding disadvantage that persists to today:

1. Smaller Alumni Wealth Pools Because HBCUs were systematically constrained from building research capacity and professional networks, their alumni networks developed differently than Ivy League institutions. Fewer medical schools meant fewer doctors. Fewer law schools meant fewer lawyers. Smaller endowments from earlier eras meant less reinvestment in facilities and scholarships, which meant smaller alumni networks.

2. Fewer Major Donors Philanthropic giving follows visibility and prestige. Because HBCUs were restricted in their development, they never accumulated the same prestige or visibility as their wealthier counterparts. Wealthy donors gave to Harvard and Yale because of centuries of resource accumulation and name recognition. HBCUs, starved of resources, couldn’t build that same trajectory.

3. Foundation and Corporate Neglect Modern foundations and corporations continue patterns established a century ago. They fund institutions they recognize as “prestigious.” HBCUs, despite their excellence, were never given the resources to achieve that recognition. It’s a self-perpetuating cycle: poor funding → less prestige → less funding → continued disadvantage.

4. State Funding Inequities Perhaps most damaging: State funding for HBCUs—particularly public HBCUs—has remained inequitable to this day. States allocate less per student to HBCUs than to comparable white institutions. This pattern, established during Reconstruction and Jim Crow, was never corrected.

A study by the Century Foundation found that public HBCUs receive, on average, $4,000 less per student in state appropriations than comparable non-HBCU institutions. Over 50 years, that adds up to billions in lost resources.

The Lesson: This Is Systemic, Not Accidental

The endowment gap isn’t a mystery. It’s not the result of “HBCUs not fundraising well enough” or “alumni not giving back enough.”

It’s the result of 150+ years of deliberate, systematic, strategic underfunding designed to keep Black institutions from achieving equality.

And here’s what’s important: Understanding this history matters, but it doesn’t excuse inaction.

In fact, it should fuel urgency.

Because the patterns created a century ago are still operating. The wealth gaps are still real. The funding inequities are still happening. But—and this is crucial—they’re no longer inevitable. They’re a choice.

We’re no longer under Jim Crow. We’re no longer facing explicit retaliation for HBCU excellence. We’re not constrained by Rockefeller’s vocational restrictions.

We have agency. We have resources. We have examples of how to mobilize wealth at scale.

What we’re missing is the collective decision that HBCUs are important enough to organize around.

What We Can Do: From Understanding to Action

The question isn’t “Why are HBCUs underfunded?” We now know the answer: 150+ years of deliberate systemic sabotage.

The real question is: “What will we do about it?”

And more specifically: “How do we finally equip HBCUs with the resources they deserve and need to compete at the highest levels?”

Because here’s the truth: HBCUs aren’t asking for charity. They’re not asking for pity. They’re asking for what should have been theirs all along—the resources to be world-class institutions that attract the best students, the best faculty, and the best researchers.

They’re asking for what we have the power to give them right now.

The endowment gap can be closed. It won’t happen by accident. It will happen because we decide it matters and organize around it. It will happen because successful Black professionals choose to invest in the institutions that gave them their foundation. It will happen because corporations recognize that supporting HBCU excellence is supporting their future workforce. It will happen because foundations decide this is a solvable problem worth their resources.

It will happen because we choose to sustain and strengthen this important pillar of our heritage.

And it will happen because we have a blueprint for how.

A Proposal Framework: From “Why?” to “How?”

OBJECTIVE 1: Excellence and Competitiveness

Create a pathway to ensure our highest-performing HBCUs (Howard, Spelman, Morehouse, Hampton, and others) have fully funded endowments at minimum on par with Power 4 schools.

What this accomplishes: These institutions can compete directly for top faculty, world-class researchers, cutting-edge facilities. They become destination choices—the place you go because it’s excellent, not because it’s an alternative. When Howard, Spelman, and Morehouse have endowments rivaling Stanford and Northwestern, everything shifts. Their success creates models and momentum for the tier below.

Funding approach: A coordinated, intensive endowment campaign drawing from alumni giving (mobilized at scale), foundation and corporate partnerships (with real accountability), individual philanthropists, and community funds. Five-year intensive push, then sustained maintenance.

OBJECTIVE 2: Stabilization and Growth for Emerging HBCUs

Create systems of strategic financing for lower-tier HBCUs focused on critical initiatives: facilities, faculty recruitment, research capacity, and operational sustainability.

What this accomplishes: Closes the gap between tier-1 and tier-2 HBCUs. Addresses the leaky roofs and outdated technology. Attracts better faculty. Improves graduation rates. Prevents institutional fragility. Not all HBCUs need the same support, but they all deserve the infrastructure to succeed.

Funding approach: Pooled endowment models (like UNCF is building), community-sourced funding (smaller donations aggregated into real power), strategic foundation grants tied to measurable outcomes, corporate partnerships linked to talent pipelines.

OBJECTIVE 3: Community Connection and Legacy

Connect the Black community to HBCU strength as a shared value—education, opportunity, legacy, future.

What this accomplishes: Repositions HBCU support as “investing in our future,” not charity. Creates intergenerational buy-in. Makes giving normal and expected. Builds a cultural narrative where supporting HBCUs is as natural as supporting your children’s education. Restores the sense of collective responsibility that once marked our community.

Implementation approach: Community awareness campaigns. Employer matching programs. High school partnerships creating pipelines of committed students. Alumni networks mobilized as ambassadors. Corporate partnerships with public commitments to HBCU investment.

OBJECTIVE 4: Economic Voice and Accountability

Give the community real leverage to hold institutions—including NAACP, CBC, and other organizations—accountable.

What this accomplishes: The community becomes a stakeholder, not just a beneficiary. Organizations answer to the people, not the other way around. Transparency about how funds are deployed. Real power to redirect resources if institutions aren’t delivering.

Mechanism approach: Community oversight board with diverse representation. Quarterly reporting on funding and impact. Public scorecards on institutional performance. Community leverage to shift priorities at organizations claiming to represent Black interests.

What This Requires

This proposal assumes something fundamental: that we decide HBCUs matter enough to organize around.

Not as a feel-good effort. Not as optional.

As a defining commitment of a community that remembers what collective action looks like and decides to practice it again.

It requires:

• Wealthy Black professionals choosing to invest in the institutions that gave them their start

• Organizations with platforms prioritizing this as central, not peripheral

• Community members understanding they have agency and power

• Corporations seeing HBCU investment as strategic, not charitable

• Foundations recognizing this as a solvable problem worth their focus

• Families teaching the next generation that community investment is as important as personal success

None of this is impossible. Other communities have done it. The question is whether we will.

The Path Forward: A Detailed Proposal

The framework above represents what collective action could look like. But how do we operationalize this? What does Year 1 look like? How do we structure the governance? What are realistic funding targets? How do we measure success and hold institutions accountable?

These questions deserve depth. They deserve strategy. They deserve a real blueprint.

For subscribers: I’ll be sending out an appendix to this article that is a full strategic proposal—a detailed breakdown of implementation timelines, funding mechanisms, governance structures, accountability metrics, and the specific roles community members can play in closing the HBCU endowment gap.

This proposal isn’t theoretical. It’s a blueprint for how we, as a community could organize, mobilize, and create the change discussed in this article.

The detailed proposal is waiting for those ready to move from conversation to action.

Coming in Part 3: “The Black Community—Myth vs. Reality: Why a Single Institution Cannot Speak for All of Us”

In the next installment, we’ll examine the assumption that the Black community is monolithic—and why that assumption leads us to ask the wrong people to solve the wrong problems.

Coming in Part 3: “The Black Community—Myth vs. Reality: Why a Single Institution Cannot Speak for All of Us”

In the next installment, we’ll examine the assumption that the Black community is monolithic—and why that assumption leads us to ask the wrong people to solve the wrong problems.

About the Author

A.J. Ware just released his first fictional work, Heir Of The Shadows: The Awakening, a four-part suspense thriller series. The Collector’s Limited Edition is available now on Amazon (https://a.co/d/06iASaqp). Additionally, you can find his non-fiction books My Fellow Americans and D.O.A.: Enemy of a Victorious Mind at www.aj21stories.com.

A.J. is a talent acquisition professional with more than 30 years of recruiting and consulting experience. His Super Objective is to help others remove the roadblocks standing in the way of maximum success and fulfillment.