Cleaning Up Bad Communication Habits | United Church of Pittsford

Cleaning Up Bad Communication Habits | United Church of Pittsford: Of the several negative communication patterns congregations practice, three habits are particularly problematic: triangulation, pass-through communication, and anonymous feedback. While these three may be strategies for getting needs met, they all block rather than help healthy communication.

Relationship triangles usually involve three people who each take one of three roles: victim, persecutor, and rescuer. Once in a triangle, people change places among its three points. The only way to stop the triangulation is for each person to communicate his or her feelings, concerns, or opinions directly to the other. Of course, the best communication strategy is to avoid being recruited into a triangle in the first place. But so often well-intentioned faith leaders and congregants listen to another person’s concerns, feelings, or opinions, then realize they inadvertently let themselves be co-opted into involvement, sometimes even taking sides.




Once in a triangle, escape may take some courage and clarity but is possible. The triangulated person can redirect the other person straight to the appropriate individual or committee—the one actually involved in the personal issues or the one that can address the concern or mend the relationship. A three-way conversation sometimes helps, but only if the third party facilitates without taking sides or having an agenda, without speaking for one of the other parties, and without adding to the emotional drama.

(thought this graph was funny; not that I agree with it)

The Associated Press: Who's the rich guy? Obama, Romney duel over status

The Associated Press: Who's the rich guy? Obama, Romney duel over status: Romney campaign spokeswoman Gail Gitcho said Obama was the "first president in history to openly campaign for re-election on a platform of higher taxes," and the Republican National Committee called the idea of higher taxes on millionaires a "political distraction" that would do little to cure the nation's debt problem.
Obama is pitching the "Buffett rule," named after billionaire investor Warren Buffett, which argues that wealthy taxpayers should not pay taxes at a lower rate than middle-class wage-earners. Obama has proposed that people earning at least $1 million annually — whether in salary or investments — should pay at least 30 percent of their income in taxes. Many wealthy people earn most of their income through investments, which is taxed at 15 percent, allowing them to pay a lower overall rate.

Don't step on the duck! (joke)?

 Don't step on the duck! (joke)?

Three women die together in an accident

and go to heaven.

When they get there, St. Peter says, "We only have one rule here in heaven: don't step on the ducks!"

So they enter heaven, and sure enough, there are ducks all over the place. It is almost impossible not to step on a duck, and although they try their best to avoid them, the first woman accidentally steps on one.

Along comes St. Peter with the ugliest man she ever saw.

St. Peter chains them together and says, "Your punishment for stepping on a duck is to spend eternity chained to this ugly man!"

The next day, the second woman steps accidentally on a duck and along comes St. Peter, who doesn't miss a thing. With him is another extremely ugly man. He chains them together with the same admonishment as for the first woman.

The third woman has observed all this and, not wanting to be chained for all eternity to an ugly man, is very, VERY careful where she steps.

She manages to go months without stepping on any ducks, but one day St. Peter comes up to her with the most handsome man she has ever laid eyes on . very tall, long eyelashes, muscular, and thin.

St. Peter chains them together without saying a word.

The happy woman says, "I wonder what I did to deserve being chained to you for all of eternity?"

The guy says, "I don't know about you, but I stepped on a duck!"

Theseus and the Layrinth

Theseus, a hero of Greek mythology, is best known for slaying a monster called the Minotaur. When Theseus entered the Labyrinth where the Minotaur lived, he took a ball of yarn to unwind and mark his route. Once he found the Minotaur and killed it, Theseus used the string to find his way out of the maze.

A Balanced and a Tragic Vision of Humankind - Dinis Guarda | Dinis Guarda

A Balanced and a Tragic Vision of Humankind - Dinis Guarda | Dinis Guarda: 

There is a fragile line between raw emotional intelligence and emotional competency. One kind of plays with an invisible fire, where the rules are rewritten by forces of education, tradition and vulnerability inside the wires of the brain cells, mirror neuron mind and its neuroscience factors. 

What can one believe

... in the end... 

is that we are in a body with limitation and in a mind with huge capacities but with powerful black holes. 

And... one can...think... 

about working with the flow of the river of the snap social decisions and the personal myths and fictions one constructs through the elements of culture, education and each own physical bodies.

Same thing said a different way...

“believes in the existence of inherent limitations and flaws in the way we think and act and requires an acknowledgement of this fact as a basis for any individual and collective action.”

The Tyger - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

THE TYGER

(from Songs Of Experience)

By William Blake

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright

In the forests of the night,

What immortal hand or eye

Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies

Burnt the fire of thine eyes?

On what wings dare he aspire?

What the hand dare sieze the fire?

And what shoulder, & what art.

Could twist the sinews of thy heart?

And when thy heart began to beat,

What dread hand? & what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain?

In what furnace was thy brain?

What the anvil? what dread grasp

Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears,

And watered heaven with their tears,

Did he smile his work to see?

Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright

In the forests of the night,

What immortal hand or eye

Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

1794

The Tyger - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: Most modern anthologies have kept Blake's choice of the archaic spelling "tyger". It was a common spelling of the word at the time but was already "slightly archaic"[3] when he wrote the poem; he spelled it as "tiger" elsewhere,[1] and many of his poetic effects "depended on subtle differences of punctuation and of spelling."[4] Thus, his choice of "tyger" has usually been interpreted as being for effect, perhaps to render an "exotic or alien quality of the beast",[5] or because it's not really about a "tiger" at all, but a metaphor.[1]
"The Tyger" is the sister poem to "The Lamb" (from "Songs of Innocence"), a reflection of similar ideas from a different perspective, but "The Lamb" focuses more on goodness than evil. "The Tyger" also presents a duality between aesthetic beauty and primal ferocity. The speaker wonders whether the hand that created "The Lamb" also created "The Tyger”.

The Tyger - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

THE TYGER

(from Songs Of Experience)

By William Blake

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright

In the forests of the night,

What immortal hand or eye

Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies

Burnt the fire of thine eyes?

On what wings dare he aspire?

What the hand dare sieze the fire?

And what shoulder, & what art.

Could twist the sinews of thy heart?

And when thy heart began to beat,

What dread hand? & what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain?

In what furnace was thy brain?

What the anvil? what dread grasp

Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears,

And watered heaven with their tears,

Did he smile his work to see?

Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright

In the forests of the night,

What immortal hand or eye

Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

1794

The Tyger - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: Most modern anthologies have kept Blake's choice of the archaic spelling "tyger". It was a common spelling of the word at the time but was already "slightly archaic"[3] when he wrote the poem; he spelled it as "tiger" elsewhere,[1] and many of his poetic effects "depended on subtle differences of punctuation and of spelling."[4] Thus, his choice of "tyger" has usually been interpreted as being for effect, perhaps to render an "exotic or alien quality of the beast",[5] or because it's not really about a "tiger" at all, but a metaphor.[1]
"The Tyger" is the sister poem to "The Lamb" (from "Songs of Innocence"), a reflection of similar ideas from a different perspective, but "The Lamb" focuses more on goodness than evil. "The Tyger" also presents a duality between aesthetic beauty and primal ferocity. The speaker wonders whether the hand that created "The Lamb" also created "The Tyger”.

Pernicious | Define Pernicious at Dictionary.com

per·ni·cious   

 [per-nish-uhs]

adjective

1. causing insidious harm or ruin; ruinous; injurious; hurtful: pernicious teachings; a pernicious lie.

2. deadly; fatal: a pernicious disease.

3. Obsolete . evil; wicked.

 

Pernicious | Define Pernicious at Dictionary.com: But a bias can be real, and pernicious, without being legally actionable.