(Update: All the posts of this series have been collected into one piece, Seven Reasons Women Stay in Abusive Relationships, and How to Defeat Each One of Them.) If you saw yourself in yesterday’s description of a woman who stays in a bad relationship because she’s resistant to changing her self-image from Healing Nurturer to Selfless Terminator, then it is absolutely vital for you to understand that the least healing and nurturing thing you can do for yourself and the... Read more
In response to a few notes I got in from younger readers of yesterday’s Why Do the Numbers Go Up on Phones But Down on Calculators?, I offer this: Read more
(Update: All the posts of this series have been collected into one piece, Seven Reasons Women Stay in Abusive Relationships, and How to Defeat Each One of Them.) You know how when your driver’s license expires, you put off going to the DMV for so long you end up on “America’s Most Procrastinating”? And why do you so resist getting a new I.D.? Because, pleasant-wise, it ranks right up there with getting your hair caught in an egg beater. And... Read more
(Update: All the posts of this series have been collected into one piece, Seven Reasons Women Stay in Abusive Relationships, and How to Defeat Each One of Them.) Just a quick note to say that tomorrow on this blog I’m going to begin a series of seven posts, each dealing with one of the seven reasons I think women tend to stay in relationships they should leave. Though I may not write them in exactly this order, those seven reasons... Read more
“Jess” (who clearly has too much time on her hands) wrote to ask why on phones the numbers go up, while on calculators they go down. Jess, the reason that’s so is because just after Alexander Graham Cracker invented the phone, he realized that people were going to be, in his words, “just too blang-danggit excited” about using it. “I already wish I hadn’t invented the infernal thing,” he wrote to a friend. “I can’t even get that moron Watson... Read more
Coffee makes me so social. I think. I guess. I don't know. Go away. Read more
A young Christian woman sent me an email in which she wrote: I do not allow myself to feel bad, because I think that feeling bad about something means I am being ungrateful to God for all of my blessings. So I struggle with those feelings. I cry because I cry and think I shouldn’t; I feel sad because I feel sad. It’s horrible. How can I stop feeling bad for feeling bad? Is that pride? The idea that being a... Read more
Here’s another Christian woman who responded to my post, Christian Marrying a Non-Christian? Marriage: FAIL, by writing in about her marriage to a non-Christian. At the end of her letter I ask a couple of questions to which I welcome your response. Dear John, It’s really late and I’m really tired, but I am also so incredibly grateful for your post, John, as well as for the many of the replies. One year after becoming a Christian I... Read more
It’s a privilege and even honor to serve on a jury. But if you ever want to get out of it anyway, I hereby bequeath unto you this 100% guaranteed way to avoid jury service, every time: Wave to the defendant. I accidentally discovered the almost alarming efficiency of this method about two weeks ago, when I found myself in a pool of potential jurors for a trial case. When the time came for the lawyers on both sides to... Read more
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John 1:16: It’s All Groovy Like a Movie
John 1:16 reads: “From the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another.” I appreciate the phrase “one blessing after another” as a catalyst for challenging our usual perception of time and space. It’s so easy to read those (now) common words, and think of God’s blessings in our lives as discrete, sequentially engaged experiences and things. My home is a blessing; my spouse is a blessing; this meal, my health, this beautiful day … they’re... Read more