i’m not a big fan of commercialised Christmas vibes and in particular Christmas carols – woergh – kinda hate them with a passion... my wife, TBV, is a big fan of Christmas and Christmas-related stuff though (although she says carols aren’t huge for her either!) and i realised the other day that in my adamant ‘we will fight carols on the beaches, we will fight them on the shores, we will never surrender’ and ‘i [...]
Hollywood (and the greater media) pretty much says (intimates) that love is a feeling and that the expression of that feeling is sex, and also pretty much once the feeling goes love has gone and you should walk away (and get a divorce). Which is why we have such a huge divorce rate where one out of three (or is it two now) marriages end in divorce. But there is another, better way... A way [...]
this part added by my wife, TBV: Step away from the emotion of the moment. I really struggle to think clearly, reason well, and see things from Brett’s point of view, when I am caught up in the emotion of the immediate argument. I may be hurting, angry, frustrated, sad, feeling sorry for myself, or incredibly teary. I often cannot think straight at all and this results in me “blanking out” – literally shutting out [...]
I don’t think tbV and i are there yet, in fact i know we’re not. It’s definitely a work in progress and there is definitely progress because we are working on it. We argue a lot better (in terms of nicer, friendlier, love-lier) than we used to when we were going out, but we can do even better. But there are definitely some principles we can share from what we do take care to do. [...]
This one goes out to those of you who have girlfriends or wives (and if you’ve been paying attention and using your brains all along this series you will realise that most of what i say would fit into a ‘how to love your man better’ series or be applied to family and friends and work colleagues to differing extents so i hope no-one has been put off by the titles – i am specifically [...]
and that seems to perhaps be the principle [your thorts are greatly appreciated] - that if you sin in public, you need to be cautioned/rebuked/challenged/held accountable in public - and my reasoning is this... the people observing the non-Christ-following behaviour need to be made aware that that is not Christ-following behaviour otherwise they might think it is okay and go and do the same... so when peter is chilling with the gentiles and then the [...]
it is fascinating to see what gets christians all passionate and excited (in a pitchfork and flaming torches mob kind of way) - i remember the whole furore around the Christmas to X-mas campaign with stickers and articles and sermons declaring 'put the Christ back into X-mas' [it is only mildly funny that those people would campaign so strongly about that and yet for the most part be completely sucked into the capitalistic greed-focus of [...]
an excerpt from this week's thort for the week that i send out with some ways you can really have a great Christmas... The bottom line is you can get creative – i will share a few ideas here but it doesn’t take a brain scientist to work this out – look after the poor, needy, lonely, sick in some way this Christmas and share Christ’s love in action... [1] Present-giving – as our main [...]
what next? leaving the old people outside for the coyotes to finish them off...? sounds far fetched maybe, but i have just been thoroughly revolted by what i have just read [and i know in this day and age we can get mildly upset and tut tutty and each-to-their-own-device but maybe it's time for people to stand up and SHOUT WILDLY AGAINST THIS KIND OF FILTH...] and we need to draw a line... it started [...]
what next? leaving the old people outside for the coyotes to finish them off...? sounds far fetched maybe, but i have just been thoroughly revolted by what i have just read [and i know in this day and age we can get mildly upset and tut tutty and each-to-their-own-device but maybe it's time for people to stand up and SHOUT WILDLY AGAINST THIS KIND OF FILTH...] and we need to draw a line... it started [...]