mjknight Author, dreamweaver, visionary – plus actor.

Headputt

• April 30th, 2010
• 10:03 am

This Friday morning is brightened by a wonderfully ambiguous passage in the piece I am editing. The author, reflecting on how he deals with confrontation, attempts a golfing analogy which sends him into the rough:

One of the many things that I am not good at is confrontation. I tend to shy away from it. It is a delicate operation. Or, to use a golfing analogy, it is about the skill of knowing which club to use. I often joke that I only have two clubs: a putter and the wood!  As I am reluctant to use the wood, I tend to stick with the putter. I have noticed that those who are skilled at confrontation have a great variety of clubs and know when and how to use the appropriate one.

Welcome to the Elin Nordegren School of Anger Management!

• No Comments
• doubleentendre, editing, humour, quotation

Lew Sterrett’s ambition

• October 27th, 2009
• 8:18 pm

I wanted to be like him. Which is why, three years later, I found myself sitting in his office and trying desperately to fill his shoes.

—Lew Sterrett, Life Lessons from a Horse Whisperer, 2009, p. 89

Ambition, envy and competition are strong emotional drives that can provoke the strangest of behaviours. Fight or flight? Imitate or defecate? Lew or loo?

The life lesson is surely this: better not to leave footwear in the office, just incase.

• 2 Comments
• doubleentendre, humour, quotation

Keith Miller on Christian listening

• July 30th, 2009
• 11:51 am

What you are doing when you are listening as a Christian is putting your hand quietly in the other man’s life and feeling gently along the rim of his soul until you come to a crack, some frustration, some problem or anguish you sense that he may or may not be totally conscious of.

—Keith Miller, The Taste of New Wine, 1970, p. 100

To be sure, this image has aged rather less well than wine.

• 2 Comments
• humour, quotation