Part 4 of the Spotlight series "Gender is Passing"  Have you ever received a gift that you wanted to appreciate but had no idea what you were going to do with it? Once you've broken the ice, see what ...  Read More

Trends and fads and that whole phenomenon where people run after the next thing/activity/celebrity/distraction that promises to satisfy them are the inevitable result of our misunderstanding recreatio...  Read More

Part 2 (of 4) from the series "Recreation is Passing"...  Read More

Most of the sayings about politeness come with the same sentiment: those who are more well-mannered will get ahead. They’ll win. They’ll do well for themselves. While this might sometimes prove to be ...  Read More

While judgmentalism and shame are to be avoided, finding orderly ways to function together can be helpful to everyone. What makes this “order” good, though, isn’t that it is orderly. It’s that it is c...  Read More

When a person’s experience with politeness is associated with a feeling of shame (or the fear of that feeling), something is wrong. Those who were meant to be polite have decided to be nothing but jud...  Read More

You don’t have to look very closely at the current state of affairs to guess that “politics” and “politeness” have nothing to do with each other, but it is true. Though they share a lot of letters, th...  Read More

Fascinatingly, "recognition" can mean two different things in English. First, it can be about comparison. Recognition, when connected to words like legacy, achievement, or accomplishment can be the th...  Read More

If the conversation can move past the idea of "I win when I'm correct," it can start to move toward the resounding reason that God created conversation in the first place: "We win when we connect." Tr...  Read More

The very idea of a competition between "right" and "wrong" only exists now, on earth. This matters for two reasons. When you're exhausted by it, you can find some hope and comfort in knowing that any ...  Read More

It's not unusual to value being right—but being right is not the goal. Knowing what is right is—at best—a means to something much better. Truth-for-the-sake-of-truth ignores the fact that there are pe...  Read More

There are a lot of ways to see people better. Where there is darkness, there is opportunity for light. Let this encourage you when things seem darkest—and should they seem to get even darker, remember...  Read More