BreakPoint Blog
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A Great Gift for Christmas OR Thanksgiving Thankfully, members of Emily Post's family have decided to take up where their ancestor left off. Daniel Post Senning and some of his relatives recently released a a new edition of Emily Post's Etiquette: Manners For a New World, complete with chapters on etiquette for upcoming generations. I for one am ecstatic. I hate it when someone carries their cell phone to my dinner table -- it makes me see red. While waiting for an appointment or my car to be fixed, I hate being subjected to one-sided conversations about this innocuous situation or that smarmy person. I'm saddened when I see a group of teens/tweens walking down the road with cell phones glued to their ears. Besides being dangerous (inattention to cars), it signals a lack of respect for the people whom they're with -- just because everyone is doing it doesn't make it right or good. 'Nough said. Now, one of my thanks for this upcoming holiday is for the people who are keeping up the tradition of publishing etiquette books. My other thanks is for you! Blessings to you and your families. |
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I’m always seeing red.
And (shifting blame alert) because you opened the door to my now-predictable inveterate peregrinations by your closing remark about “*other* thanks” – well, what’s an intoxicated duck to do on such occasions? First, he revels in his friends here. Next, he devours their invariably-superb reading recommendations, even while failing to fully apply the implications of good etiquette to the present case. Finally – inexorably - he recalls why and how he enjoices so greatly in these things (enjoy + rejoice = “enjoice”) and it is this, it is always this:
His meditation (at Thanksgiving or Christmas or anytime) on “The Ultimate Reason for Thanks”:
Question: Why did God – the Second Person of the Trinity – go to the cross for us?
Answer: Not because He wanted glory, but because He loved us.
It is true He is greatly glorified in the display of Calvary’s sacrificial love. But it wasn’t glory He was seeking, it was us.
A man may become a hero by running into a burning house to save his family, but you can be sure becoming a hero wasn’t the reason he braved the flames. He did it because he loved those in danger and wanted to save them. Just like God.
“God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son…” “Thanks be to God for His unspeakable gift!” (John 3:16; 2 Cor 9:15)
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Thank you Kim and Gina, and all the rest of you guys (and you know who you are; and if you don’t, well, let me tell you: it’s you. Now do you know who you are? Well that was easy enough. So why do psychologists charge $100 an hour to do what I just did for two cents -- and not your two cents, my two cents? Seems like bad etiquette to me. Blah, blah, blah…)
So first, you should know that I first saw "Emily Postnews" in the mid-1980s, and I think the first version of it dates to the early 1980s.
http://www.templetons.com/brad/emily.html
(Quoting that page, "postnews" was the name of the program in the earlier versions of USENET software that one used to post a message to the net.)
And second, I'm very thankful for you and your colleagues, who have created an environment that brings a bit of sanity to my weekday. Blessings to you and yours.