Category Archives: mentors

Ten Books, Four Words Each: Most Influential

The latest booklovers’ chain-letter going around Facebook seems to be a challenge to list (without too much agonising) your ten most ‘influential’ books. Heavens. To stay in the spirit of the challenge I’ve tried to write this in one sitting, presumably missing a lot of worthy contenders, but hopefully capturing some kind of truth. And […]

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(Hopefully Not) Passing on Rape Culture

[Trigger warning: if you have experienced sexual assault, please just be aware that rape and rape culture are discussed in this post. Many of the links similarly lead to pages that need a trigger warning.] Sad, sickened, shocked, triggered, appalled, horrified, not-actually-that-surprised. Most New Zealanders could tick most of those boxes this week as our […]

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Matters of Life and Death: Facing an Unplanned Pregnancy

My sermon on Sunday and the accompanying blog post were mainly directed at the ‘neighbours’ of an unborn child: those who have the opportunity to support a little family in crisis.  What I also want to say loudly, and separately, is that if you have experienced a crisis pregnancy, for any reason, in any circumstances, […]

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Matters of Life and Death: Are You an Unborn Baby’s Neighbour?

  This is a post about crisis pregnancy that is aimed mainly at those in a position to support an unborn baby and its family. If you are facing an unplanned pregnancy yourself, you may prefer to read this accompanying post dealing directly with such a situation.  Inspired by Germany In the United States it’s […]

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How to write a self-care report, and why you should bother

Do you care about self-care? If you had the marvellous good fortune to host a goose who laid a golden egg for you daily, would you lovingly feed her the best worms in the garden, massage her little wings, make sure her bed was comfy (though not plumped with goose-down…) and generally cherish her? Or […]

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Education and Schooling #11: Unschooling, Schooling and Socialisation

If you had a six-year-old child, and institutional schooling had never existed, how would you go about preparing them for adult life? In the next few posts on unschooling, I want to tease out a few different issues and discuss them separately. Today it’s the different social experiences schooled and unschooled (or homeschooled) kids have. […]

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