Way OT - The Merion Debates and A Fasting on Criticalness

[Mike Hendren]

Sunday I taught a class on an excerpt of Catherine Marshall's "A Closer Walk" titled "A Fasting on Criticalness."  She sums up her comments with the following:

1.  A critical spirit focuses us on ourselves and makes us unhappy.  We lose perspective and humor.
2.  A critical spirit blocks positive creative thoughts.
3.  A critical  spirit can prevent good relationships between individuals and often produces retaliatory criticalness.

Hopefully I've not watered them down in attempting to give them more secular appeal. 

Interestingly, she discovered that when she took a day off from being critical, her comments were not missed by others. 

Just trying to be helpful FWIW.

Mike

[George Pazin]

Wise words.

The difficulty, imho, lies in trying to gauge whether someone is being critical, or merely curious. If one trusts another, the benefit is generally given; unfortunately the anonymous nature of the internet leads one to being cynical and non-trusting.

Just mho.

[John Kavanaugh]

A weak soul makes for sore feet.  The problem with the internet is that it is tougher to walk away from people you would not give the time of day in real life.

[TEPaul]

Michael:

Could you be a bit more specific in how you think that first post relates to what you call the "Merion issue"?

[Mike Hendren]

Fair question, Tom.  I regretted posting this after further thought.  It sounds judgemental and that certainly wasn't my intent.  "Debate" was a better choice of words than "issue."  You'll see I've made that change.  I hate to see good men get worked up - me included.

BTW, I'll be in Philly July 13-16 and desperately need to buy you a drink somewhere.

Kindest regards,

Mike

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