I know I live in my own world, but they know me here.

One week ago Caedon turned five. Yesterday he began his career as a baseball star. His debut game began at 12:30 in the afternoon when the temp had reached 108 degrees. Only one of the kids hurled his lunch, but latest word is that he's OK and hasn't been put on the DL.
Caedon, as you can see by these pics, is a classic T-Ball player. A little trouble focusing while playing the field, and I'm not sure he can see the ball when he swings because of his slightly over-sized hat. But he had a great time and we haven't been as delightfully entertained in a very long time.

I'm pretty tired of hearing about all the germs hiding on every surface I encounter during the day and the deadly threat they pose to me and my loved ones. Come on. We're at real risk of turning into a nation of germophobes, and the only people served by that are those who market wipes, swipes and all manner of disinfectants.
Listen people, not only is it not a threat to the nation's survival when your kid gets sick, it may actually be a good thing for little Johnny. He'll grow up with natural immunities to those little critters that will always be on everything, no matter how many times we reach for the sanitizer.
I wonder if 20 years from now we're going to have 50% of the adults on any given day lying in bed with pneumonia because their bodies never had a chance to fight off anything. We sanitized their worlds and filled them full of antibiotics at the first sign of a sniffle.
I had pneumonia twice as a kid, and one of those episodes got pretty serious. So I'm not anti-medicine. I'm just anti-neurosis.

My normal Sunday morning routine is to rise fairly early - between 4:30 and 5:00 - and start the day slowly and deliberately. Part of that includes going over my sermon again. This morning I looked at my notes and thought about that sitcom line, "Sometimes I think I don't even know who you are anymore."
What in the world was I thinking when I put this together?
I do not recommend a complete restructuring of the morning's sermon four hours before preaching it, but sometimes it just has to be.
Did it work out?
No clue.

Kids who are bullies often grow up to be adults who are bullies. But they move from pushing and hitting to verbal bullying.
I talked with my pastoral students about those verbal bullies and how to deal with them. One of their favorite tactics is the ambush. They come out of nowhere and hit you with one of those questions meant to put you on the defensive - an accusation wrapped in an interrogatory.
"Is it true that the elders decided...?"
"Why did you...?
The really good ones do it right before the service starts when they know you're most vulnerable to saying more than you would otherwise, giving them additional leverage for their next assault.
Sometimes they don't lead with a question, they just lay into you about some real or perceived failing. Their mission is to make sure you know what you've done wrong and the problems that has caused.

But pastors aren't the only ones who have to deal with verbal bullies. Anyone, especially those in a position of authority (like parents of teens) will get hit up by someone looking to get their way on an issue by backing you into a corner.

I'm told that in karate and similar disciplines the approach is to anticipate how an attack might come and practice, practice, practice a response suited to neutralize that attack. Accordingly, I gave my students three responses to the bully who goes off on them. They should practice saying each of these until they become almost automatic, and then choose the one best suited to the particular situation.

1. "I've heard what you said and I'll give it serious thought."
2. "We'll talk about this, but not here and not now."
3. "We're not going to talk about this. Not now, not ever."

Those are each clearly condensed and need fleshing out so as not to seem dismissive. But they will almost always allow me to regain control of the situation from the bully whose goal is intimidation.

FWIW