A Deepening Family

  Appointments for Growth I recently learned how significant the term “date,” is. It is a word that can get very lost in our brains as spending time together, but over this past week I have found it more and more similar to the word “appointment.”  The way people consider dating today could use some work. The term now is used to tell people that two people are spending time together. But there should be a difference between spending time around one another and time spent intentionally with a purpose. When two people spend a lot of time in the same space as each other, it is very easy to feel more connected to that person and that is a wonderful thing. I love special times when I can spend time with special people in my life just breathing the same air. In a way, it shows me that they care and that they are there with me even when we are not doing the same thing. It makes me think that they will be there with me even when we aren’t in the same place.  But it builds a...

  Chipping Away I got the chance this week to think about differences and how beautiful they are. I feel like we can be afraid of different things at times. It could be a different place, person, group of friends, a new school, or a new candy even. It is pretty normal for all of us to get nervous or scared about different things and that is something we need to accept about ourselves.  Differences are so important to recognize, and it is hard to recognize the good that those differences can do if we are scared about what bad things could come from our differences. For a long time having equal rights has been very prevalent in society as it should be, but there comes a time when we can start to confuse having equal rights to being the same as each other. I had a great discussion with a group of people about this subject in terms of men and women. I was very surprised to learn about the different studies that show us that men and women have differences at their core and how ...

  What is valid? I was asked a very interesting question this week and it made me think about the difference between what is valid, what is good, how it applies to culture, and how it applies to relationships. Are all cultures equally valid; do they all meet the same purposes with the same effectiveness? I think what was meant to be asked was “Are all cultures perfect?” The answer to this would be an obvious no for me, but the question itself does not address perfection or even general goodness or wellbeing. The question asks about validity and equality in effectiveness, but effectiveness does not determine validity when comparing cultures and validity does not determine effectiveness.  Validity does not determine effectiveness. Validity is defined as “ well-grounded or justifiable : being at once relevant and meaningful.” This means that for a culture to be valid all it has to do is use its current knowledge and accepted facts to be “well-grounded or justifiable.” This mean...

  Rules In my early life I would take things to a very literal sense. Never meant never and always meant always. Never being mean was rooted in my mind. Always being kind was a discussion that occurred very regularly in my early life, especially at the church that I attended. Now I am stuck, trying to catch up to those who took certain rules less seriously than I did.  When I was young I really hated the idea of rules that were unspoken. I would play games with my father and brother and they would play the game the way I knew for the most part until they do something crazy and they say this is a rule and this is how I can apply it to win. It was really lame to be on the receiving end of that and that may be where my hatred for the concept came from. I felt like I was the butt of their joke to win and wipe the floor with me.  Well I grew up and recently it hit me how many rules I live by that haven’t been stated explicitly. That was a funny pill to swallow. It wasn’t hard ...