Of course, I’m poaching unashamedly from Gretchen Rubin and Liz Craft, as they discussed their words for the year on yesterday’s “Happier podcast. Gretchen’s word is “infrastructure;” Although it’s kind of a boring word in and of itself, perhaps, she’s using it in the sense of “support systems,” as she’s very bad at delegating and she needs to do less work that others can do. Liz’s is “lighter,” and she’s taking that word in both of its meanings: her weight and her attitude. Liz’s word leads Gretchen to quote once again G. K. Chesterton’s aphorism “It is easy to be heavy, hard to be light.” (One of my 2020 reading goals has to do with Chesterton; more on that in a later post.)
As I listened to the two sisters I realized that I had a word right there, ready for use, as I’ve been interested in the concept of respect for a long time. Indeed, the word shows up in the title of this blog, and when I give talks about the proper place of food in our lives I spend some time talking about what I mean by it in that context.
So, several weeks ago I put together one of my four-times-a-season retreat breakfasts for the wonderful, wonderful choir to which I belong. (Be sure to
Sex Matters: How Modern Feminism Lost Touch with Science, Love, and Common Sense
by Mona Charen, 2018, available in several formats. Audio version is read by the author and is highly recommended. Author’s website is at 
I just had a wonderful weekend at Camp Elim, a Christian camp near Colorado Springs, where I was privileged to speak in a couple of workshops. My two topics were “What’s Your Tendency?”, an examination of Gretchen Rubin’s theory about the four ways that people respond to expectations, and “How Food Fads and Myths Can Harm You,” in which I took on some of the current ideas floating around in the eating theories world, with a few side trips into my views on alternative medicine. I may get myself into trouble with that second one! My actual group for that session was small as I was competing with a very popular one on marriage, and they all seemed very receptive to my ideas. I gave everyone who attended the sessions the opportunity to sign up for a resources page, so I decided to just turn that material into a post for all my readers to access. Here ’tis:
I wrote in
A number of years ago I was acting as a group discussion leader in a Bible study group, and we were given a document titled “Are you a servant or a volunteer?” This happened near the end of the year when I was feeling a bit weary in well doing about being a leader. I loved my group and interacting with them, but I felt burdened and somewhat resentful about all of the time I had to spend in leadership meetings in order to spend 45 minutes or so guiding a discussion based on prepared questions that everyone was supposed to have answered in advance.So reading the article cemented my decision not to serve the next year. (I’m sure that was not the intention!) I had realized that my attitude fit the “volunteer” mold much more than the “servant” one.
by Kate Bowler, 2018. Available in Kindle, hardback, and audiobook formats.
Did you know that fear of public speaking is, at least according to some sources, the number one fear in America? I was reminded of this strange fact by 
So far I’ve mentioned two New Year’s Resolutions: my main one, phrased as the question “Why deny myself the pleasure?” about not letting small annoyances spoil my enjoyment, and my desire to read more books in the place of online articles. In pursuit of that second resolution I’ve gotten s little over a quarter of the way through 
by 
My husband and I have been watching a