Some time ago, I read a life-changing book titled, Never Call Them Jerks. Though I can’t summarize the book in a phrase, for our purposes, it taught me so much about what I say about others reveals what I think about me. This week I saw a phrase that made me think of this psychological phenomenon: Don’t compare your life to others the sun and the moon shine differently, but don’t shine until it is their time.” I am not sure who said it originally. It was on a poster that advertised only the manufacturer but not the author. Perhaps, someday, I will find it. In psychology, this tendency is called the fundamental attribution error. It is the tendency to attribute someone’s behavior to internal
I was driving home after the Trustee meeting and something was different. The sky was not the same. The air was not the same. It had a scent to it. I got in my car and started to drive north and I saw what had altered my world and everyone else’s in the city. Lindsay Hill was on fire. The entire top third of the hill was charred and the fire was spreading to the lower two thirds quickly. Smoke billowed up from it. While it looked like mostly dry grass it was an ominous site and one that had many people pulling over to the side of the road to gawk. I began to pray for people who would be affected by the fire, for people with asthma, allergies, firefighters, Cal fire personnel, police directin
