![]() ![]() Tell us how you resolved an ethical dilemma and see how members of the Ethics and Religion Talk panel would have handled the same situation. We’d love to hear about the ordinary ethical questions that come up on the course of your day as well as any questions of religion that you’ve wondered about. More recent columns can be found on by searching for the tag “ethics and religion talk.” The first five years of columns, published in the Grand Rapids Press and MLive, are archived at. No other news site, religious or otherwise, publishes a similar column. Each post contains three or four responses to a reader question from a panel of nine diverse clergy from different religious perspectives, all based in the Grand Rapids area. Write to Miss Manners - who sometimes responds with help from daughter Jacobina Martin or son Nicholas Ivor Martin - at and Religion Talk,” answers questions of ethics or religion from a multi-faith perspective. Gentle Reader: You wait patiently until she asks, “What do you think of my eyebrows? Should I not pencil them in like this?” The unspoken end of the second sentence would be “I’ll have better luck with my guests.”ĭear Miss Manners: How do I tactfully inform a co-worker, without offending her, that penciling in her eyebrows is unattractive and not natural? So Miss Manners would have advised you to accept that graciously, saying, “Well, I’m sorry my dinner won’t be suitable for you. ![]() Gentle Reader: In effect, these people rejected your invitation, which was to attend a dinner you planned, not to order from you as if from a restaurant. I would like your opinion, however, as to how I should have reacted when he called to discuss the menu. Needless to say, I am not eager to invite them again. They arrived late for dinner and left before dessert because they had planned to visit a nearby ice-cream emporium on the way home (implying, I suppose, that nothing I might have prepared would equal a commercial dessert). Uncertain what to do, I discussed alternatives with him and revised my menu, although I had already purchased most of the ingredients and had to go shopping again. I thought this was a little odd (unless a guest has issues with particular foods, but I’d already asked about this).īasically, I was told that my planned menu simply wouldn’t do, as they wouldn’t care for anything I had planned to serve. I was surprised, however, when he called a little more than one day before the dinner to inquire about the menu. When I invited a somewhat new friend and his spouse to such a dinner, they accepted readily. The conversation will go on from there.ĭear Miss Manners: Occasionally, I enjoy entertaining friends by inviting them to a dinner party at my home, where I prepare the food. It doesn’t matter what that person’s job is, because people consider it a disgrace to admit it if they are not stressed. You can then turn to someone else and say, “I imagine you feel the same way about your work.” Miss Manners trusts that you will say it with a smile. ![]() Gentle Reader: Whatever is said about your profession, your response should be “ Well, it’s the kind of job that makes you grateful to get away among friends and talk about something else.” How do I avoid being a cocktail-party conversation killer? I have tried answering less than truthfully (“I work in health care”) - which can end in guessing games and draw out the conversation unnecessarily. Or the conversation immediately devolves into a heated debate (between others) on the state of our health-care system, or conspiracy theories about how “The cure is out there” but being kept from them. This often results in unsolicited commentary that is at best embarrassing (“You’re an angel! How do you do it? Isn’t that so sad?”) and at worst a complete downer when people launch into their own, again unsolicited, health history or the tragic history of a friend or family member. When I meet new people outside of work, however, and they ask what I do, I occasionally answer truthfully. I am female, with a generally open, warm manner and can usually handle a wide variety of social situations. Dear Miss Manners: I am about to complete 14 years of medical training and graduate as an oncology physician. ![]()
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