perspective on Bias

There's a humorous, apocryphal story about a man standing by a river. On the opposite bank, a woman calls out, "How do I get to the other side of the river?" The man replies, "YOU A...

On a cold January day, a forty-three-year-old man was sworn in as the chief executive of his country. By his side stood his predecessor, a famous general who, fifteen years earlier, had commanded his ...

All looks yellow to the jaundiced eye.

Have you ever noticed that anybody driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a maniac?

One helpful, practical tool to understand our blind spot is what’s called the Johari Window, an image developed as a counseling tool in the 1950s. Subjects were given a list of fifty-six adjectives, a...

Suppose we hear an unknown man spoken of by many men. Suppose we were puzzled to hear that some men said he was too tall and some too short; some objected to his fatness, some lamented his leanness...

Author Drew Hart tells the story of meeting up for sweet tea with a friendly white suburban pastor, who placed his foam cup on the table between them and decided to make a racial analogy. The white pa...

My experience is what I agree to attend to.

The marginalized and downtrodden receive special insights. They are the ones who can see the pain and the injustice that are killing the world. It is to these voices that we must turn

History is always a matter of trying to think into the minds of people who think differently from ourselves.

Edward T. Hall likened the effects of culture to an iceberg. Some aspects of a culture are overt, in clear view above the waterline, so to speak. But most are hidden deep below the surface, forming th...

If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.

One of my favorite sayings is, no matter how difficult it is to hear, “Reality is always your friend.”

Who will tell you the truth? An enemy who hates you bitterly, and a friend who loves you dearly.

My eyes account for less than one percent of the weight of my head,” she observes with sweet resignation; “I’m bony and dense; I see what I expect.”).

We are what we believe we are.

We see the world, not as it is, but as we are-or as we’re conditioned to see it…we must look at the lens through which we see the world, as well as the world we se and that the lens itself shapes how ...

Have you ever noticed that we often see ourselves, specifically our bodies, our facial features differently? In 2013 the soap company Dove decided to explore this phenomenon by hiring an FBI-trained f...

The key for successful personal relationships and ministry is to understand and accept others as having a viewpoint as worthy of consideration as our own.

I remember playing a game as a child in which we would bend one knee and grab our foot behind us and then try to race—limping, stumbling and falling over as we struggled across the grass toward a fini...

We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses.

And the so-called real world will not discourage you from operating on your default settings, because the so-called real world of men and money and power hums merrily along in a pool of fear and anger...

Loving and Merciful God, we come before you today aware of our own selfish pride. We have chosen our way above your way. We have chosen our opinions over the unity of your church. Forgive us where we ...

In the 1990s, political scientists began to study what they called the “CNN Effect.” Breathless, twenty-four-hour media coverage makes it considerably harder for politicians and CEOs to be anything bu...

Truth consists in the mind giving to things the importance they have in reality.

The noted English architect Sir Christopher Wren was supervising the construction of a magnificent cathedral in London. A journalist thought it would be interesting to interview some of the workers, s...

A young boy was heard talking to himself as he wandered through his backyard, sporting a full baseball uniform, jersey and cap included, as well as a ball and bat. "I'm the best hitter in the...

Pragmatism may be defined simply as the approach to reality that defines truth as “that which works.” The pragmatist is concerned about results, and the results determine the truth. The problem with t...

We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorns have roses.

Keep yourself clean and bright, for you are the window through which you must see the world.