Drew Downs

Make a New Normal

communication

  • The phrase is all too common: change for the sake of change. But we don’t actually mean it. We’re trying to say something else without having to say it. People like to say that we shouldn’t change for the sake of change. But it isn’t really true. We often change for the sake of change.…

  • Don’t you feel like we’re misunderstanding each other? Not just about political correctness, but about everything? Like every word we say is fundamentally misconstrued? Maybe it’s political correctness itself: the pathological boogeyman of the late ’80s. Back then, we mocked it with books like Politically Correct Fairy Tales. Now we just have outrage and even violence. But blaming…

  • I DON’T WANT YOUR BINARY WORLD I don’t want your binary world. You can keep it. It’s no gift, really. A curse actually. Long distance arguments turn into brief skirmishes in a decades-spanning war. My every little expression dissected, deconstructed, injected, transformed into a wild assumption making me look like an ass and you and…

  • Everybody thinks it is complicated. On Sunday when I announced that we would cover some of the recent primates’ meeting in our Basic Anglicanism class, one of our parishioners leaned over and said: There’s nothing basic about that. That’s Advanced Anglicanism. I couldn’t agree more! The problem is that it is splashed all over the papers…

  • Happy 2016! I’m trying something new. I’m kind of jazzed about it. I’ll pick 3 words for the year. Like a mantra. A vision. A course of action. A way of changing my life and maybe help me change the world. Do you want to give it a try? [bctt tweet=”What are your 3 words?” nofollow=”yes”]…

  • For supporters of Donald Trump: Is radical candor so important to you that you are willing to support someone whose words are so ugly, divisive, and completely destructive? For everyone else: Can you see how important candor and open communication is that many people will answer this question with “yes”?