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Hearing Well and Being Heard Well
Everyone wants to be heard well, but are we as willing to hear others well? In order to understand ourselves and others, different ways to categorize people have emerged over the years such as Myers & Briggs, DISC, and Enneagram. I recently read about another way to categorize people in a book dealing with how we communicate, 5 Voices: How to Communicate Effectively with Everyone You Lead.[1] The book describes 5 different voices with which people communicate—the Pioneer, Creative, Connector, Guardian, and Nurturer. Each voice (think communication style when I use the word voice) has positive inclinations and negative tendencies. In analyzing the book through a biblical worldview, I discovered…
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Equality Act passes. Tough week. Romantic realism.
This past week we hit the post-2020 election wall of reality pretty hard— Amazon banned the thoughtful and science-based When Harry Became Sally, singer Demi Lovato declared that gender-reveal parties were transphobic, and Mr. Potato Head came out as gender fluid. To cap it off, at the confirmation hearing for Biden’s nominee to be #2 at the Department of Health and Human Services, Sen. Rand Paul could not get him/her to admit that children should not be able to make their own decisions to make sex changes with hormone blockers or surgery without parental involvement. The outrage has lit up social media. It reminded me of my own onset of rheumatoid arthritis.…
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Political Pressures Sharpen Your Focus
Often, when I am studying the Old Testament books of history, I marvel at how similar to today are the challenging situations faced by the people and their responses to those challenges. Although the types of challenges may be different, human nature hasn’t changed one bit. And, the choice in every situation back then or today is this: On whom will you rely? Will you rely on God and obey Him regardless of what the culture says? Or, will you rely on your own reasoning and side with the world? One very good example from the Old Testament is found in 2 Chronicles 10-12. The political pressures on the people…
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Why Don’t We See More Women in the Biblical Text?
Recently, someone asked me why we don’t find more women in the Bible. Last time, I pointed to translation concerns that hide the presence of women. Today, I want us to consider that sometimes we miss the women who are actually named and featured. Here’s a sampling from some of the earliest stories: * * * Go back in time with me to the thirteenth century BC in Egypt. The king has issued an order to kill all boys born into bondage, because members of the slave class—your own people, descendants of Israel—have proliferated, and the ruling class fears an uprising. Born under the ban, you lie in a pitch-lined…
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Disney Pixar’s Soul: A Spiritual Review
Disney Pixar’s latest feature film, Soul, follows the unassuming life of Joe Gardner. ( Caution, if you haven’t already seen the movie this blog includes spoilers.) He is a middle school music teacher with dreams of making it big. The character’s angst to accomplish his life’s dream drew me in as I sat and thought of my own unfinished goals. Joe’s desperation to become a successful Jazz performer highlights humanity’s struggle with meaning and purpose. While the movie Soul may not be a biblical guide to life, it echoes biblical principles without even knowing it. Joe Gardner’s search for purpose and fulfillment is reminiscent of the book of Ecclesiastes. After…
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An Audience of one
Whether in person, online, or on social media, we spend a lot of time performing for other people. If we center our lives on pleasing others, living out each day gets harder and harder. It can feel impossible to create a new life script.
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A Call To Prayer
Praying is a lot like breathing. It provides the sustaining rhythms of dependency for life.
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Living with the End in View
I feel weary these days. My previously people-oriented job has become an on-line class. (“Genet, are you there? Can you unmute your mic?”) I have recovered from a bout with COVID, but still battle fatigue. My big goal today is to clean the pickle juice out of the bottom of my refrigerator. Our nation waits for the mass production and distribution of COVID vaccines so that we can return to a new normal, whatever that means. Now a winter storm grips my state and nearly a week has slipped by focused on staying warm and preparing meals, often without electricity or access to groceries – the enjoyment of backyard grilling…
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The Bible: Women Are More Present Than We Might Think
Recently, I heard from a woman who said that since about the age of 12 years, she has attended church weekly, sometimes multiple times a week. Yet in all those years, she heard little teaching that features, highlights, or affirms women. She said, “From a very early point in my journey I would consider whether words like ‘he,’ ‘men’ or ‘disciple’ were intended for everyone or just males. In many instances during my studies, I would replace those words with ‘she’ or ‘women’ in my notes, because it made it feel more personal and applicable to me as a woman. Still, I have pretty much always felt like an outsider or like…
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Don’t Be a Valentine’s Day Scrooge
I’m known to be a bit of a Scrooge when it comes to Valentine’s Day. If it was appropriate to proclaim, “Bah humbug!” to the day, I probably would. Consider Exhibit A: Buying kid’s Valentine’s Day cards for my son to exchange with his preschool classmates had me grousing and grumbling to my husband: “I stood in the grocery store Valentine’s aisle for ten minutes looking for cards that weren’t too girly, too scary (monsters), or too dumb.” “Why do they make parents do this?” “They will just throw these cards away anyway.” “I really don’t like these silly school parties.” On and on I moaned, muttered, mumbled, and whined.…
