Just wanted to alert blog readers that this week is a great time to buy Flunking Sainthood at a substantial discount. I've heard from some readers that you've scheduled the book for your church and book groups (thank you!), so you may be interested in the half-off promotion Paraclete is running this week. With the promotional price, you can get the book at 50% off, for $8.50.
You can also apply the discount to books by Wild Goose Festival speakers like Lauren Winner, Peter Rollins, and Carl McColman, a practitioner of contemplative prayer that I'm going to be quoting from tomorrow here on the blog.
I'd appreciate any help in spreading the word about this sale through Facebook shares, retweets, or owl post.
Also, as a heads up, in conjunction with the book's August theme of gratitude, we'll be hosting a month-long Gratitude Challenge at Paraclete and here on my blog throughout the month of August. Every day, readers will be encouraged to do the following:
1) Write down five things you're grateful for;
2) Express to at least one person, in writing or in a conversation, why you are grateful to have that person in your life; and
3) Review your "gratitude journal" so as to focus on positive developments and answers to prayer.
I hope you'll take the Gratitude Challenge with me! We'll have regular giveaways and focused discussions throughout August to help us through. Watch here for more information about the challenge and our new Facebook page. And bless you for your support of my writing.
Musa | Jul 29, 2012 | 10:34am
You know, I think we sell men short, frankly. I don’t see any resoan why a man would be less willing or capable of making a conscious effort to improve his marriage than a woman. And I don’t think there’s any inherent resoan why a man would be uninterested in doing so or would be resistant to doing so. I admit that I have not been married, but I have been in serious relationships. And they have involved conversations about making them work better. And my partners haven’t been resistant or felt like I was making some kind of passive aggressive attempt to get them to shape up. In my mind, these comments reveal a lot about how we think about relationships as a culture. It’s the woman who is the conscious, thinking partner (where relationship dynamics are concerned), the one who values the relationship and wants to hold on to it so much that she’ll do the hard work to make it good or even just to hold onto it. It’s the man who’s just along for the ride, takes no responsibility for the health of the relationship, can’t be bothered to think about making it better; and if he is bothered, it’s because us pesky nagging women are trying to manipulate him into being something other than he is and can’t just respect that he needs to retreat into his cave and scores points in a relationship differently than we do (John Gray reference; disgusting).Yes, I realize I’m exaggerating the attitudes of these comments, but I do see that underlying dynamic at work here. It’s an endemic and, in my opinion, deeply problematic attitude in our society. And I think it sells men short, paints women as passive aggressive nags, and results in less healthy relationships than more healthy ones. It’s the basic premise of tripe like John Gray’s Mars&Venus; books (bleh). I don’t buy it. I’ve found that honesty and plain speaking goes a long way when it comes to the health of my relationships. I don’t assume my partner is not interested in consciously making our relationship healthy; I assume he wants to be in it as much as I do and is as committed to keeping it healthy. Sure these things flux over time, and sometimes I may be more invested in consciously working on a relationship than my partner or vice versa, but if I didn’t think that my partner was as deeply committed to doing the hard work of keeping our relationship healthy, he wouldn’t be my partner.Okay. That turned into a bit of a rant. Sorry. It’s sort of a pet issue of mine.