https://benbaughman.com/categories/treating-others/ Recent content in Treating Others on Ben Baughman Hugo en-US Wed, 06 May 2015 09:26:14 +0000 https://benbaughman.com/the-bondage-of-being-right/ Wed, 06 May 2015 09:26:14 +0000 https://benbaughman.com/the-bondage-of-being-right/ <p>Many years ago my mother-in-law and I were having a conversation that has impacted me to this day. I don’t remember the details, but I have never forgotten her saying, “Ben, there’s as much bondage in having to be right as any other bondage”.</p> <p>I believe it to be one of the great enslavements of our time in history. It holds us in straitjacket control surrounded by others that we become convinced have all the correct answers to life.</p> https://benbaughman.com/living-well-in-the-gray/ Wed, 29 Apr 2015 13:50:50 +0000 https://benbaughman.com/living-well-in-the-gray/ <p>Life is complex and overwhelms us. Answers for living are rarely simple. Black, white, good, bad, right or wrong, seldom describe solutions for living well.</p> <p>Gray is normal in the complexity of living with seven billion people on this planet we all call home.</p> <p>Wisdom, it seems to me, would best be described as living well in the gray.</p> <p>Oh how we need it!</p> <p>What do we want?</p> <p>To live well.</p> https://benbaughman.com/the-baseline/ Wed, 11 Mar 2015 15:33:44 +0000 https://benbaughman.com/the-baseline/ <p>If I’m an atheist, I make it clear that I don’t believe in the existence of God.</p> <p>If I’m an agnostic, I make it clear that I don’t know what I believe about God’s existence.</p> <p>If I’m a follower of any religion, I make it clear what I believe about The God or Gods according to the writings that have been passed down in that religion. Generally, those writings have been elevated to infallible status.</p> https://benbaughman.com/freeing-jesus-from-christianity/ Wed, 04 Mar 2015 15:26:10 +0000 https://benbaughman.com/freeing-jesus-from-christianity/ <p>He needed freeing once before…</p> <p>From another religion…</p> <p>It changed the world.</p> <p>I hope we can help him escape again.</p> <p>The first time he was chained up it was in Jerusalem. There were followers there that wanted to make him the founder of a sect of Judaism.</p> <p>A radical bunch jail broke him and snuck him off to Antioch.</p> <p>A guy named Paul headed that up.</p> <p>He got in big trouble over it.</p> https://benbaughman.com/do-to-others-third-grade-and-a-bad-hair-day/ Fri, 10 May 2013 07:00:55 +0000 https://benbaughman.com/do-to-others-third-grade-and-a-bad-hair-day/ <p>My father always cut my hair. We had a wonderful family friend who was a barber. I think he taught Dad how.</p> <p>I was in third grade. My mother was an artist and I’m not sure why that’s important to this story. One day, for a reason I shall never know, Mom decided to cut my hair with Dad’s clippers. It was probably a work of art, but somewhere a few inches above my ears, she gave up trying to even it out. When Dad came home, the only salvageable resolution was a near shave. Now I realize that this would be in style today, but this always-wanting-to-be-liked third grade boy thought life was over.</p>