Rant of the Exiles

I enjoy confrontation but my emotional reactiveness can often get in the way of being helpful. This article  by Evan Marc Katz, a dating coach, is an example of effective communication and its limits. He is passionate, logical, and empathetic in making his point. And yet even the most helpful communication will fail when the hearer doesn't want to understand. Effective Communication What I admire about Katz is his ability to call a woman out on her issues in a way that is sensitive, compassionate, and rational and yet makes his point forcefully and clearly. I wish I could do that. This woman complains to Katz that her boyfriend doesn't think she's as beautiful as Angelina Jolie. It's not a comment he made in passing or because he was dissatisfied with her looks - it's something she brought up with him - likely when they were watching a movie and he made some comment praising Jolie's looks. The woman then asks if her boyfriend's inability t...

I was joking with a friend who recently starting dating about how we should help arranged marriage make a comeback. She felt some anxiety around her dating journey and wondered how she could tell if her relationship was progressing "correctly". Her comment reflected a common anxiety I hear about Christian dating. One might compare it to making travel plans in a third world country. You're trying to decide how to leave the airport while all kinds of people are trying to get your attention - rickshaw drivers, travel agents, bus people, beggars, taxi drivers. And you have questions in your head like: Am I doing this right? Where should I be going? How do I know if I'm getting there? And most significantly, how do I safely disembark from the vehicle if the need arises? It is certainly easier to outsource this decision to interested and more experienced parties. And the travel analogy breaks down because marriage has far greater implications than tourism. Spouse...

Yoga: multi-ethnic but not multi-class Robert Putnam's  Our Kids  was a quick but sobering read. His main contention is the growing divide between social class of families - distinguishable not by race but by education. Children coming from high school educated homes (versus college educated homes) are far more likely to be raised by a single parent, fail to attend or graduate from college, be alienated from social institutions like the church, lack formal/informal mentoring, have lower participation rates in extracurricular activities, and spend significantly less time with their parents. Putnam's narrative form makes the book easier to read than most sociological texts. He tells stories about kids. Each chapter begins with the portrait of two families of the same race but in completely different social classes. He talks about his hometown of Port Clinton, Ohio and how black children received opportunities a generation ago that do not exist today. He writes about two...

I write a lot about marriage because I think it's important. But I often neglect the greater subset of which marriage is contained, that of friendship. I am fortunate to have married my best friend but she cannot be my only friend nor does she even remotely understand significant aspects of who I am (and the same is true of me to her). In Jack Donovan's words, I need a squad that will hold down the perimeter with me. I need a group of brothers who can walk with me and I them as we roll through the bumps of life. I need male friends.  I've never been good at being friends. It's difficult for me to keep in touch with others. I'm a here and now person and when I don't see a buddy regularly, it's easy for me to either forget about him or be unwilling to expend the effort to hang out. Even worse, when I do see people regularly, I tend to get bored of them. Judy was concerned when we first got married that I would get bored of her (after seventeen years...

You know the type. This large slice of yellow humanity gorges itself on all kinds of cuisine and never seems to gain any weight. The demographic is characterized by slender forearms, chicken legs, and a delicate bone structure. You see them at the supermarket and Starbucks. You won't, however, find them at the gym. How to tell for sure? If it's a female, squeeze her upper arm. If it's a male, poke him in the belly. If either of these areas give like silken tofu, you know what you're dealing with - A skinny fat Asian. My first exposure to skinny fat Asians came from an extreme example - a middle-aged Asian American man. On a missions trip, a man, who had absolutely no discernible body fat on any of his limbs, face, or chest, took off his shirt. He looked like a fit male for his age but right there in his midsection angrily protruded a kangaroo pouch. It looked like a four-month baby bump. The bump was normally disguised by baggy clothes and bad posture but the...

One of the most common complaints I hear from people about Christians is why are we so judgmental when the Bible teaches us not to judge? The reality is Christians, and all people for that matter, make judgments all the time. We speculate on the validity of Obama's Christian faith. We give our opinions on whether so-and-so is saved. Asian Americans judge people who use the term "Oriental" to describe Asians. We definitely judge non-Asians who ask us: "Where are you REALLY from?" We judge people who listen to country music, don't recycle, or compulsively Instagram pictures of their food. The idea of Christians making judgments about others highlights an area where teachings of the Bible feel contradictory. In certain passages, God tells us to judge. In other places, He tells us not to.  In almost all of these cases, the scripture passage is being quoted out of context. The Bible does not teach whether we are supposed to judge. That is a given becau...