Accuse at Your Own Risk

Accusations are necessary for justice, but false accusations are a miscarriage of it. It is increasingly easy to accuse in our modern American culture. The penalties are small, and the payoff often big. But false accusers must beware. In the fullness of time, they will pay for their lies. Meanwhile, those accused must forgive as they have been forgiven.

By Mark D, Harris

“Buy me another servant” the sultry wife told her wealthy, older husband. Within a few days, she noticed an unfamiliar young man carrying a large sack of topsoil in the garden. He tossed the sack to the ground as if it were filled with feathers. Over the weeks, she noticed that his tasks were always done quickly, imaginatively, and well, leaving time to help other servants with their responsibilities. Everyone liked and respected him, despite his youth.  Her husband noticed too, and within months put him in charge of the other servants. Soon, the young man was the administrator of the whole household.

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Where are you from?

Usually, the question “where are you from?” is not a “microaggression” but an honest effort to meet a new person. For either party to interpret it otherwise is foolish, selfish, and reduces the possibility of a relationship that could bless them both.

By Mark D, Harris

A stocky, white, middle-aged man stood behind the counter at the fencing school as I approached. “I am looking to take lessons. Do I sign up here?”

“Yes,” he said in a thick Russian accent.

I love to get to know people, the studio wasn’t very busy, and I knew nothing about “microaggressions,” so I asked, “Where are you from?”

“Minnesota,” he replied.

“No, where are you from originally?”

“Baltimore,” he answered.

“OK, where is your accent from?” I persisted, eager to learn about his big life adventure.

“Russia,” he said.

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Words Limited

Words are not enough to encompass life. To experience the universe only through words is to miss life itself, and fail to enter the kingdom of Heaven

By Mark D. Harris

I was waiting for a flight at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport last weekend, and doing what I often do at airports…watching people. Thousands walked by, from flight crews with their impressive leather jackets and epaulets, to children with their troll pillows and Disney backpacks. Many adults were stooped, with shoulders rotated in and necks craned forward looking at their cell phones, which they typically held in their left hands. Single women cruised with short steps and a hippy gait, especially those in high heels, and single men sported their shouldery saunter. Mothers pushed strollers and fathers carried car seats and other luggage through crowded passageways.

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Communication Conflicts

Assumptions, Emotions, Perceptions, Conditions, and Facts color our communication with ourselves and others. We must learn to manage them.

By Mark D. Harris

A wise man once said that the hardest thing about communication is the illusion that it has occurred. I have been involved in hundreds of medical, military, and public safety operations, and the after-action reviews of each one cite communication as a problem. Whether in business, relationships, or anywhere else, avalanches of academic papers and mountains of media articles bemoan our inability to effectively talk to each other, and propose ways of fixing it.

Several factors are present in every communication event, including assumptions, emotions, perceptions, conditions, and facts. They change the communication, often without the participants realizing it.

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