Permission to be a Bully

Thirty percent of American adults suffer abusive conduct at work. This affects 76.3 million workers. According to ongoing surveys taken by the Workplace Bullying Institute, bullying in the American workplace is up 11% since 2017. The 2017 survey was taken during Donald Trump’s first year in the presidency. At that time leadership experts coined the … Read more

Why is Trump your guy?

It appears that most of the American members of my Church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, have voted for Donald Trump to be President of the United States in 2016 and in 2020, and are prepared to do so again in 2024. I am curious to ask them, “When, exactly, did you … Read more

The Golden Rule

The “Golden Rule” is often considered to be a one sentence summary of what Christianity is all about. Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets. Matthew 7:12 Jesus said this in the context of promising that … Read more

Is the world really growing “more wicked?”

As long as I can remember, I have been hearing in church about how we know we are living in the “last days” because the world is getting “increasingly wicked.” Obviously, we thought, the end times were imminent because there were so many “bad” people in the world doing such “bad” things. And, of course, … Read more

Militant Ignorance

I am an educator. I have retired from the classroom (actually the school library), but I continue to teach as a Sunday School teacher and through this blog. Educators are on the front line in the ongoing war against ignorance. The battle used to be a relatively gentle one. Every new class of children and … Read more

Developing Leadership Skills

In my undergraduate days, majoring in Speech/Theatre Education, I took a class called, “Small Group Discussion.” The instructor divided the class into groups of six or seven people. Each group was instructed to create a task for themselves (which the instructor would not define for us). We would be presenting the results of that task … Read more

Outgrowing selfishness

A newborn baby is extremely selfish. We lovingly forgive them of this character flaw because they are completely vulnerable. We understand that their demands are simply an attempt to bring their world back into balance. They are trying to survive the only way they know how. No one is born with good character; It’s not … Read more

The False Religion of Capitalism

Marxism, at least as implemented in the failed former Soviet Union, was heavily criticized in the United States in 1950s and 60’s as “godless communism.” However, despite the efforts of the Soviet Communist Party to destroy religion by confiscating religious property, harassing, persecuting, even executing believers, and promoting atheism in the schools and in the … Read more