HAPPY MONDAY! Welcome to a new year and a totally predictable word-of-the-week… START A New Year is a perfect time to start. Except, it’s really not. A New Year is really a good excuse to avoid starting. There’s no good time to start. We’re never quite ready. We’re always afraid of something. The audience isn’t prepared […]
Continue readingDo You Ever Worry About Worrying?
Somewhere along the line I learned to worry. I got really good at it, and as a young adult the notion of NOT worrying about stuff seemed really odd. In fact, I worried when I wasn’t worried. When I finally figured it out, I realized that I somehow equated not worrying with not caring. In […]
Continue readingA New Year And Seeds Of Hope
HAPPY NEW YEAR! Have you ever considered the tiny size of a seed? These geranium seeds nearly disappear in the palm of a hand. One seed, by itself, seems inconsequential. You purchase them in packets, partly because it’s difficult to imagine that much could come of a single seed. If you dropped one seed, I don’t […]
Continue readingFreedom For A New Year
It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. (Galatians 5:1) There are two kinds of freedom. Freedom from allows life without oppression, injustice, tyranny, abuse, or violence. Freedom from insures my right to live my life as […]
Continue readingIt’s All About Perspective
If the status quo works for you, if the world benefits you, you might not like the idea of a God who is turning the world upside down. “The last shall be first” sounds great for those who are at the back of the line; but if you are at the top of the food […]
Continue readingWhat If We All Step Into The Circle?
Yesterday I talked about a circle of unconditional respect. I love this simple notion, which I owe to my friend Eric Larsen. Here’s how I described it to my students. When you step into the blue circle you agree to acknowledge the basic human dignity of every other person. Since you agree to stay in the circle, you […]
Continue readingHow About A Little Respect?
Should students respect their teachers? Of course they should. Over at Bouncing Back today I explained why everyone, as a child of God, ought to be treated with dignity and respect. So what if it doesn’t happen? What if others fail to treat you respectfully? As a teacher, I quickly surrendered the notion that my position would […]
Continue readingRespect
HAPPY MONDAY! I’ve chosen a misused word as 2014’s final word-of-the-week… RESPECT Toward the end of my career I operated my classroom with a single principle: Everyone (including the teacher!) always deserves to be treated with dignity and respect. Some kids believed respect was earned, but I taught them respect means regard. It means I see […]
Continue readingCrazy Thing Called Love
Love confuses. If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.(Romans 20:20) Love confuses those who only know how to draw lines and fight. They may react, initially, with anger, hate, or resentment, but the bitterness is […]
Continue readingWhat If People Aren’t Their Ideas?
So how do we stop otherizng? Bad news–we likely won’t. Stop, that is. Otherizing is pretty ingrained in how we deal with the world, and I suspect none of us is going to simply give it up. Good news–we can make progress. We can increase awareness. We can work at perceiving, and at least blurring, […]
Continue readingThe Problem Of Them
I’ve noticed lately how much of our conversation is about “them.” If you pay attention, our discourse is immersed in a sea of “otherizing.” Over at Bouncing Back today I defined otherizing as the process of discerning and accentuating differences between people so it’s apparent one group is clearly not like us–they’re the “others.” Homeless folks […]
Continue readingOtherizing
HAPPY MONDAY! The baby in the manger brings us an odd word-of-the-week… OTHERIZING “Stop otherizing.” It’s the Christmas message, the thing the baby’s been trying to tell me. Other-izing: the process of discerning and accentuating differences between people so it’s apparent one group is clearly not like us–they’re the “others.” The whole point of Christmas was […]
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