Fragility

Modern civilization is more fragile than most people think. A wide variety of complex interactions and assumptions and interdependencies that no one fully understands. The foundations are strong, baked over centuries, but everything built on top of them looks more and more like a monstrous, top-heavy Rube Goldberg machine, reaching to the clouds, swaying in the breeze.

This is why, when someone picks up the box, the one with red FRAGILE stickers plastered all over it, and starts to shake it, toss it, and punt it across the yard, you don’t cheer. You don’t egg them on. You don’t make excuses for them. You don’t even offer them a polite golf clap.

The only sensible thing to do is to look on in horror. Condemn when appropriate and plead for them to stop.

And then get down on your knees and pray for the foolishness and evil to end.

Photo by Pop & Zebra on Unsplash.

Prayerful Parenting – Don’t Forget Sunlight

Raising children is all about faith, because ultimately, you cannot control what they do.

No matter what you have taught them, no matter how you have disciplined them, no matter how good an example you have set (and let’s be honest, none of us do any of those three things perfectly), your children can choose to turn from the path on which you have tried to set them.

That’s terrifying. It can be disheartening.

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Just Shut Up…and Say Thanks

Just say thanks. This is one exercise in the Dale Carnegie Training seminar that has stuck with me for nearly two decades. Each person in the group took a turn to just sit there. Everyone else then gave them a compliment. After each one, all you had to do was say “thank you.” That’s it.

It’s harder than it sounds, and that’s why it was a full exercise. People need the practice.

Continue reading Just Shut Up…and Say Thanks