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The use of humor by leaders, professors, and pastors

In my class sessions this week, there was a lot of laughter. Surely that helps students wanting to attend. But online and offline, I have tried not to use sarcasm. With humor, we can easily confuse and hurt. Self-deprecating humor (about mistakes I've made) is usually safe.

But as a professor or as a pastor or as a leader of a meeting, you are NOT a comedian. The point is not to get laughs. If you start trying for that, you waste people's time and skew the focus.
But sincerely saying how you learned a lesson in the past is useful (and sometimes🤣).

See:

For example, I told stories about how I was a pastor and seminary student but was told I needed to develop relationships with non-Christians so I tried with the barber but it did not really work (and now I'm bald!) and talking to women at the gym who thought I was creepy.

I also told about how when I was a pastor and we had lots of homeless people visit our church for handouts and we worked hard on comprehensive solutions. But also I found the people especially loved cookies and lemonade.

Originally tweeted by Andy Rowell (@AndyRowell) on January 15, 2021.

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Health

On why dieting and exercise and trying to look good and be fit and thin may not have as much to do with excellence as having a paunch, serving others, taking walks, and eating meals with people

On why dieting and exercise and trying to look good and be fit and thin may not have as much to do with excellence as having a paunch, serving others, taking walks, and eating meals with people.

I have been reading about diets and people trying to lose weight. Apparently almost any diet “works” the first two weeks if you haven’t been eating carefully.
BUT then it is slow (and therefore harder to stay with).
AND regular bingeing on deprivation hurts your body long-term.

From a Christian perspective, trying to “look good” is not really something we’re supposed to be focused on. We are specifically told in the New Testament not to worry about nice clothing, fashionable hairstyles, jewelry, or impressive physical exercise.

Often people *say*: “I just want to be healthy” but it seems like they are rather interested in their appearance. They spend a huge amount of time and money on working out, the right clothes, and healthy food; and less time reading, caring for others, and socializing.

I wonder if it is worth spending massive amounts of time on your body when this 2020 study found https://bmj.com/content/368/bmj.l6669 people (at 50) with no healthy habits lived free of diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, & cancer until 74. With good habits, people lived to 81-84 without them.

It is preferable to live from ages 74-84 without those health issues. But it is also misguided to deprive and discipline your self for decades just “for health.”

And, it seems to me, often it is the fitness-obsessed people who have the most health issues in their 20’s-40’s!

Where I am coming from is a heritage of Christians (evangelical Mennonites in the Midwest) who worked hard and enjoyed dessert a lot and were not particularly thin, nor were they fitness buffs. But most lived really long lives and were great people.

I will also say that in my experience, there is no correlation between “fit and thin” leaders, pastors, and professors, and quality thoughtful work (though our culture constantly suggests that the marathon runners are more disciplined and productive).

There *is* in my experience a positive correlation between those who are *active* with quality thoughtful work, if that *activity* is trying-to-help-others. But they often have a belly! Looking good is not that important to them. They care more about sharing meals with others.

So find friends and a spouse who are active doing positive things (church and volunteering)—not on looking good or even “being healthy” (which I worry is code word for the former). And raise your kids to be active in activities (band, team sports, musicals, Scouts, Lego team).

And eat meals with people as often as you can! Try a variety of foods! You’ll be happier.

And do physical activities that need to get done (!) (playing with kids, lawn mowing, cooking, food shopping, laundry, cleaning, snow shoveling, leaf raking, and those at work), and a few physical activities you *enjoy* (taking a walk with someone, playing sports).

Yes, I know that people in our culture initially judge people by their weight but it is WRONG! And once someone and your community gets to know you, they won’t care what you weigh! They will care about your warmth, your love, your unique contributions, you!

Originally tweeted by Andy Rowell (@AndyRowell) on January 18, 2021.

Categories
Leading change Protest

Navalny, courage, protest, and exposing dictators

Update on Navalny in this thread from the NPR correspondent in Moscow.

For us on MLK Day, this is right out of the Martin Luther King Jr. playbook: Have an angry unjust ruler? Then do normal peaceful things and see if he lashes out with brutality—showing the world who he is.

This takes tremendous courage and willingness to sacrifice. You may die. But if *many* people do the right thing and act with courage and without violence, the vicious person will eventually be toppled or at least be remembered as an embarrassment.

The road is long.

Courage is contagious.

What other countries can do: make it less fun and easy to be enriching oneself by enabling and cooperating with brutal injustice. And associate their names formally with Putin for all to see.

Gather symbolically and peacefully to ask that justice be done through the law (if it were being administered rightly). And demonstrate for all to see that the leader does not care about just laws. *Eventually* the majority of the people begin to see it.

When someone is a dictator, reminding them that many think they are a selfish, lying, coward pierces their self-delusion. And it causes the dictator to choose between either appearing weak by giving in, or inspiring more resistance if he cracks down.

Originally tweeted by Andy Rowell (@AndyRowell) on January 18, 2021.