People working in impoverished areas around the world know that giving something to just one or a few individuals in a community creates intense conflict and resentment with those who did not receive anything. It doesn’t matter if those who received worked to earn it or if what was given is of little value. There seems to be something very deep in us that causes … Continue reading You Live Like Royalty!
Here’s a fact of life that many people have a hard time accepting: unless you were being physically manipulated or had a gun put to your head, you have never been forced to do anything. Not homework. Not driving on the right side of the road. Not take a job you hate or anything else. You may have felt like you were being forced to … Continue reading Own Your Choices
You know your happy place? That mountain or beach or spa or whatever that makes you feel that all is right with the world. I can’t seem to find my happy place. Maybe its because I’ve never been some where exciting or maybe my imagination just isn’t that good. What I can do is make “Feel-Good Memories“. When I feel really good – I try … Continue reading Making Feel Good Memories
Criticism is hard to do well. So hard, in fact that most of us shouldn’t attempt it. When you do find yourself inclined to offer criticism – no matter how oblique, use the split second delay time that should exist between your thoughts and your words to do a quick hypocrisy check. Are you guilty of the same error? Or worse? (And sorry to be … Continue reading Hypocrisy Check
I have some argumentative children. Quarrelsome, you could say. Sometimes they will do something mind bogglingly absurd and then try to defend themselves by saying, “you never told me I couldn’t [paint the dog with gravy]/[microwave a stuffed animal]/[tell relatives how much I enjoy setting things on fire and seeing how long it takes for them to call you to express concern]/etc.” To which my … Continue reading “No Crapping in the Middle of the Living room!”
One of the frustrations of writing my poor, little blog is that sometimes I write something that I think could be really important to people and because of my tiny reach into the blogosphere, it passes by mostly unnoticed. A couple of weeks ago I wrote an essay on what I called New Fundamentalism which was one of those posts. See, over the years I … Continue reading Check this out!
As far as the east is from the west, I will remove your sins from you. – God That’s the offer of forgiveness we all want to take. But when it comes to forgiveness between us humans, as far as the east is from the west is a bit much to contemplate. God knows this. In fact, when the disciples were told that they had … Continue reading Stages of Forgiving
Sometimes someone you know is doing something that any idiot – yourself included – can see is heading for disaster. Most likely the person doing this knows that everyone thinks they are making a huge mistake. (If they don’t, if you are any sort of friend you need to be brave enough to gently raise it with them.) Once they know that others do not … Continue reading When Someone You Love is Making a Big Mistake
One of the modern criticisms of Christianity is that God seems different in the Old Testament than in the New. In the Old Testament, God is wrathful, commits genocide, is angry, etc, etc. Then in the New Testament he shows up and says, “love!” I have long held that it was the people who changed, not God. Maybe people were more civilized by the time … Continue reading An Argument In Support of an Angry God
Forgiveness is absolutely essential, but sometimes our hurts are just so big. Here are some steps I have found useful in getting to a point of forgiveness. 1. Be realistic about your pain and what it is you are forgiving. If you are angry, be angry. If you are hurt, be hurt. Don’t pretend it’s not as bad as it is. If you are destroyed, … Continue reading Steps to Forgiveness
The Upside Down World 