TonioTimeDaily

With every relationship, you need to know what you are after. And it’s best to deal with a workplace romance expecting as little as possible. I’m not saying it cannot turn into a big love, but if you expect just to have some fun times and bonding, it might save you from setting yourself up for failure with too high expectations. Set some rules and discuss what you both see — if it’s mutually agreed fun, there shouldn’t be any problems. But you need to handle early on any discrepancies between yourself — it can get complicated because… co-workers.

The good thing about a workplace affair is that you can spend a lot of time together, even when you are not having sex. But the same thing is the bad thing about it: you might spend too much time together and you stop having a life out of the workplace. It can affect how you work together, and the most professional approach you can have is to try and separate work from love (or lust). Don’t lean into favouritism, don’t treat them differently just because you hooked up, or keep hooking up.

Workplace affairs usually don’t last a lifetime and you don’t need any judgement from anyone in the company. To keep your professional stance, try to keep it as low-key as possible. After all, your professional reputation has nothing to do with who you sleep with. Don’t provide ground for allegations or gossip. Don’t let an affair discredit your expertise or your possibility of promotion. If you are in a hierarchical relation then be extra careful with the appearances.

It might come to an end, yes, it happens. Be an adult, don’t ever ghost. Don’t ruin your own personal reputation by leaving them without answers. Be decent enough to tell them about your concerns or remind them about the rules you have agreed to in the first place. Know that even if you do everything, you can still hurt the other, and you will need to deal with it eventually. It’s better sooner than later.

Unless you found the love of your life at the company party in a vodka-haze, you need to factor in the fact that it has an expiration date stamped on it. It might last only one night or a few weeks, or it can stretch through months or years without becoming something more substantial. Communication is key, and you are much better off if you know where you are heading. You can’t save yourself from an occasional heartbreak, but you can try to shield yourself."

"Seven women are recognized by their ministry: Phoebe, Priscilla, Mary, Junia, Tryphaena, Tryphosa, and Persis. One woman, Phoebe, is identified as a deacon. Kevin Madigan and Carolyn Osiek write that Phoebe is “the only deacon of a first-century church whose name we know.” Another woman, Junia, is identified not simply as an apostle but as one who was prominent among the apostles.

Did you know, I asked my students, that more women than men are identified by their ministry in Romans 16? We sat there, looking at the names of those women.

“Why?” a student suddenly interjected, so involved in the lecture she didn’t even raise her hand. “Why have I not noticed this before?”

Probably because the English Bible translation you use obscures women’s activity, I told her, launching into another explanation.

I listened to myself lecturing that day. I listened to myself laying out evidence for how English Bible translations obscure women’s leadership in the early church. I listened to myself as I talked the class through different translations of Romans 16.

Take, for example, The Ryrie Study Bible, published by Moody Press in 1986. My grandfather owned this Bible, and I have his copy on my shelf. Instead of recognizing Phoebe as a deacon, it translates her role as “servant.” Listen to the study note: “The word here translated ‘servant’ is often translated ‘deacon,’ which leads some to believe that Phoebe was a deaconess. However, the word is more likely used here in an unofficial sense of helper.”

“Did you catch that?” I asked my students. No evidence is given for why Phoebe’s role should be translated as “servant” rather than as “deacon.” No evidence is given to explain why the word is more likely used in “an unofficial sense of helper.” We can guess the reason for the translation choice: it is because Phoebe was a woman, and so it is assumed that she could not have been a deacon. If the phrase “a deacon of the church in Cenchreae” had followed a masculine name, I seriously doubt that the meaning of “deacon” ever would have been questioned.

As I taught, I thought about my own church. About how women rarely appeared on stage other than to sing or play an instrument. I thought about how women ran our children’s ministry and men ran our adult ministry. I thought about the time I had been asked to teach an adult Sunday school class, and the pastor had come to look through my material. Since I was just teaching on church history, he let me do it. If I had been discussing the biblical text, though, it would have been a different story.

I remember feeling like such a hypocrite, standing before my college classroom.

Here I was, walking my students through compelling historical evidence that the problem with women in leadership wasn’t Paul; the problem was with how we misunderstood and obscured Paul. Here I was, showing my students how women really did lead and teach in the early church, even as deacons and apostles."

"The most common question people ask me when we talk either in person or virtually, is essentially a variation on a single theme:

“How do I love someone I no longer like?”

They’ve recently realized something about a friend, family member, or partner that they simply cannot reconcile with the person they once knew and loved: a theological belief, political affiliation, or stance on a social issue that is so far beyond what they consider within the bounds of decency.

In many cases, these people have attempted for years to navigate these differences with difficult conversations or with the holding of their tongues. They’ve tiptoed around the moral landmines laid out during tense holiday exchanges. They’ve allowed a thousand small compromises. They’ve given the benefit of the doubt.

After years of honest dialogue, genuine attempts at understanding, and a true desire to bridge massive chasms of belief, they’ve now come to the conclusion that the fractures may be too great to mend. They have learned something about these people that feels like a deal breaker.

I tell them that they may now have to love them from a distance.

Loving another human being doesn’t necessitate you placing yourself in harm’s way, it doesn’t demand you sustaining repeated wounds, and it doesn’t require you to make peace with what you cannot abide. The biggest misconception people have about love is that they owe people they care for, permanent proximity. They don’t. That isn’t love’s expectation, despite the way we are guilted into believing it.

You aren’t required to stay closely tethered to anyone simply because you once were. As you and the other person you love evolve and grow, and as you learn more about who they presently are, your shared past does not bring the expectation of staying now. It is perfectly acceptable to decide, “This person is toxic to me, this relationship is unhealthy to me, and I need distance in order to be emotionally healed and to live my full convictions.” Ultimately, you owe people you care deeply for authenticity and decency, but not permanence.

All this to say, religious beliefs and political positions are sometimes worth separation. If a person close to you has welcomed conspiracy or denied science or embraced hatred or applauded inequity or trafficked in stereotypes to the point that you feel morally incompatible—admitting this and responding to it isn’t unloving. Loving someone means honoring their humanity, and you can do that from a distance. You can do that without physical proximity. You can even do that with disconnection.

The relationships in our lives are not all designed to last for the duration of our lives. Marital and relational separations come when the reality of the differences between us and other human beings are actively injuring one or both of us, and to stay is an act of violence or self-harm."

"For the past six months, I, like many of you, have missed gathering for worship in person – singing, touching, visiting, breaking bread. Yet now more than ever, I can worship with people from all over, take in a variety of preachers – all without worrying if my wheelchair can get in and around the building.

Most weeks though, my mom and I settle in on the couch with a Zoom screen full of familiar faces. As if we are invited into each other’s homes, we admire artwork and backyard decks. We smile as we look at another’s eyes or hear another’s voice extending Christ’s peace. Yet with an inequity of resources, there are faces we miss, people who can’t sign on. We look forward to the day when our whole community can gather together.

COVID-19 has exposed disparities for disabled people, people of color, and poor people. Now that we see these injustices more starkly, do we have the imagination and will to begin to address these long-standing struggles? Can we imagine and shape our spiritual practices so that the lives of those on the margins are at the center of the church? And will we create space for disabled people and other marginalized peoples to lead us to that new reality?

Last fall, I began my Ph.D. studies examining how people with disabilities offer leadership in ministry and challenging how the church recognizes, uses and/or misuses these gifts. As an ordained minister with cerebral palsy, I am exploring whose voices and stories are imagined or expected in church leadership. I did not anticipate learning from a pandemic. But it’s been a master class on how the church can imagine different ways of coming together.

I am grateful that so many churches have found ways to offer remote gatherings that help many Christians stay grounded in their faith while also avoiding spreading the virus. But some members of the congregation cannot gather electronically. There are inequities of wealth, ability, and access that affect our communities of faith.

In a recent editorial in Theology Today, cultural anthropologist Erin Raffety wondered if the church “might become further attuned to the creative and adaptive gifts for leadership that have come and do come uniquely out of disabled lives and experiences.” She points to a deaf leader who taught the community to pass the peace using American Sign Language. Later, as her teaching assistant, this leader helped her class transition to an online platform, using ASL to register comprehension or concern without speaking over one other.

As a Presbyterian pastor,  a research fellow at the Center of Theological Inquiry studying pastoral care and machine intelligence, and a parent of a daughter with multiple disabilities, Raffety thinks the church has a tremendous opportunity to see ministry offered by and with people with disabilities. She has found that the churches that were weak on accessibility pre-Covid-19 remain so during the pandemic, just as those who have formerly applied a disability-lens in their ministry have continued to live out such priorities."

“I get emails all the time from people in relationships who get blindsided by finding someone else attractive,” says Mark Manson, self-help author and personal development consultant. “They feel horrible because of it.”

But it’s irrational to beat yourself up over involuntary thoughts and feelings. Entering a relationship doesn’t switch off your normal biological functioning.

As advice columnist Mariella Forstrup puts it: “being in a long-term relationship doesn’t lobotomize the part of your brain that deals with attraction.”

“When we look at another person, our brain very quickly processes the visual information our eyes see, and we nearly instantaneously make a judgment concerning the other person’s attractiveness,” writes Gary Lewandowski, psychology professor and author of The Science of Relationships. “We can’t really help making these judgments; it’s automatic.”

Hence, even while in a relationship, you still recognize other people’s appealing features and characteristics (just as you did before you got with your partner).

In fact, “anything can make us suddenly notice someone,” says Ammanda Major, a senior consultant on sex therapy at Relate. A draw could be as subtle as a co-worker saying something that makes you laugh.

When it comes to doing right by your partner, what matters is how you act in response to the attraction — not the inevitable attraction itself.

As Manson reminds us:

Just because there’s no off-switch for attraction to other people, that doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with you or your relationship.

Evolutionary scientists have developed some interesting theories about why we might feel drawn to others — even if we’re happily taken ourselves.

Although we can’t change the biological basis of attraction, understanding it can help us respond more consciously to the impulses it creates.

After all, as psychiatrist Dr. Kenneth Rosenberg writes: “You can’t fix what you don’t understand!”

As a parental figure, I let children decide their views on any and all subjects without mind-control. I do not impose subjugation on them. I would be okay with them being non-Christian and not attending houses of worship, being LGBTQIA+, and going to comedy clubs, for examples. I am a healthy authoritative parent and I am a healthy free-range parental figure. 

"Benefits of Authoritative Parenting

Out of all the parenting styles, children who are raised with an authoritative style of parenting have been shown to exhibit the best outcomes.6 Some of the many benefits of this approach for kids include the following:

 "Characteristics of free-range parenting:

Skenanzy is clear that free-range parenting isn’t about neglectful parenting. Instead, it’s about allowing kids the freedom and the opportunity to “be kids.” Here are a few of the main characteristics of free-range parenting:

There are undoubtedly different ideas about how much freedom kids should be allowed to have. While some parents feel that times have changed, and allowing kids to play outdoors unattended is a bad idea, others feel like overparenting is the real danger to a child’s development."

"In other words, it's clear that people love moms. But why? "The classic take is the Freudian one," says Peter Kanaris, a clinical psychologist and sex therapist who has been practicing for 35 years. "The child seeks to connect sexually with the opposite-sex parent—so the male child [seeks to connect] with the mother. What prevents us from seeking the mother is the fear of castration by the father. The [MILF] fantasy could be looked at, in a way, as conquering the castration anxiety—saying, 'I'm really going for the mother figure.

Another theory, Kanaris says, comes from the sex therapist Jack Morin, whose book The Erotic Mind established the concept of an individual's "core erotic themes." This is the idea that "for unknown reasons we develop a primary core sexual theme that will really act as a substantial turn-on throughout much of our lives," Kanaris says. An interest in moms might be a "primordial" core erotic theme for some people."

"She attributed this to three factors.

The result of these differing attitudes is that even as Americans see marked improvements in teen sexual health, our teens are still just nowhere near as sexually healthy as are Dutch youth, whose rates of teen pregnancy are four times lower than ours and whose rates of condom use reach 85% percent."

"Paulita insists she is on a mission to make the traditionally macho industry more 'authentic' for women, explaining: 'I don’t want to live in a world where shooting porn has a negative impact.

'So if that’s the way we’re living, I am going to do porn and I am going to try and change that world.

'What I wish I’d known about porn from the very beginning is how empowering and wonderful it can feel personally."

"When Christians engage in culture wars, theology can quickly transform into bigotry, and the gospel of Christ is often abandoned for a spirit of hatred, bitterness and judgmental accusations.

As the Supreme Court tackles the issue of same-sex marriage, many Christians are being labeled as bigots, but what exactly is Christian bigotry?  Here are some defining characteristics:

Bigots Fear Change:

Christian Bigots hate change and see it as an attack on their beliefs. Since their Bible is inerrant and their God is unchanging, new ideas are dangerous and subversive to their perfect theology. Perfection cannot be improved upon, so any variation or contradiction is perceived as absurd. Bigots hate discovery, creativity is often prohibited, and new ideas are threatening to their way of life.

Historically, this is why many Christians were shamefully ignorant and simply wrong when it came to addressing slavery, fighting for civil rights, addressing the Holocaust, recognizing genocide, and combating AIDS (just to name a few).

Bigots Are Often (But Not Always) Privileged:

Change is hard to accept when things are working in your favor. As the common expression goes: “Why change a good thing?” Any theology, idea or sermon that challenges people to sacrifice or reach beyond their comfort zones isn’t easily accepted.

Bigots defend their position so passionately because the greatest beneficiaries of their worldview are themselves. But when people are persecuted, abandoned, ignored or powerless, their perspective changes and becomes open to different paradigms. These new paradigms are invisible and seem illogical to those that live in comfort and authority.

Bigots Crave Power:

Bigots want control, and they view their faith as a war of attrition. They use battle terminology to describe the gospel and prefer to preach, yell and shout instead of listen, discuss and learn. They use proclamations filled with absolutes and flood Facebook pages with dubious links and articles that promote their agendas. They declare statements instead of asking questions and refuse to engage in meaningful dialogue.

They prefer political might over spiritual strength, legal enforcement over personal choice, conscription over evangelism, punishment over grace, fear over hope, and control over love. In extreme cases, even violence and aggression is viewed as a necessary means of gaining power.

The Future is Scary:

Christian Bigots believe that the Apocalypse is going to happen sooner rather than later—possibly tomorrow. They assume people are becoming more depraved every passing minute. The Gays, Liberals and Abortionists are ruining the world, and every single negative news event is proof that God is judging the world and that The End is near.

Repent! Turn from your sins! Bigots shout the Gospel as a somber warning call from God that foresees a future full of doom and gloom and destruction. The Bible isn’t a message of hope, joy and redemption, but a weapon used to strike fear into anyone who doesn’t wholeheartedly agree with their theologies and belief systems."