A Facebook friend of mine posted a picture recently of defense moves that a woman could use if attacked by a man. It was sincerely intentioned, but I felt strongly that I should reply. This post is based upon the response I gave him.

I hate to be a spoil sport, but as a former Judo instructor, I do have some insight into self-defense and full contact fighting and I always worry that people think moves like these are practical for untrained people, let alone a untrained smaller woman facing down a larger male adversary.

Most people, not just women, will freeze when attacked. This is unfortunately why most attacks succeed. This is because everyone reverts to training under extreme stress and most people have no training so they do nothing.

Why yes, I might see a little of the truth in this as I finish my own humble book!

Writing a book is an adventure. To begin with, it is a toy and an amusement; then it becomes a mistress, and then it becomes a master, and then a tyrant. The last phase is that just as you are about to be reconciled to your servitude, you kill the monster, and fling him out to the public.

Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (1874-1965)

Back when I was a lad, my mother would tell me that she would not allow me to leave home until I knew how to wash, cook, clean and iron. And she made good on her word. When I left home at the tender age of 19 to head off for Radiography school I was equipped to operate in the real world ... or at least not starve to death and have clean clothes.

At the school (we lived in the upper floors and had lessons on the ground floor) I was one of only two guys and the other guy would take his laundry home every weekend for his mom to do. I washed mine on weekday evenings and cooked for myself and did my washing up afterwards. The female students were very impressed! I look back and am very thankful for my parent's wisdom in this preparation they gave me.

In the kitchen, I could cook rice and pasta and a number of different meats. I knew a couple of sauces to go with them and knew not to overcook vegetables during preparation. One time, I even got fancy and bought fresh fish and figured out how to grill it and even remembered to season it with dill. It was good. And for a party I made cupcakes. They were very well received.

I graduated from Plymouth University in 1990 and rejoiced that I would never have to take another exam ever again. In case you couldn't tell, I don't like exams. I am not well suited for exams. And frankly, I don't think that exams like me either. (In the interest of full disclosure, I have taken a couple of tests, but only for really important things like citizenship of the United States, my driving license and my ministerial license.) In terms of academic qualifications I have abstained from taking any examinations. (Again, in the matter of full disclosure, I did consider a masters degree in computer science, but I realized that I knew all that and did not wish to take exams to prove that I know what I already knew.)

Yet, while I dislike exams, I love learning. I love learning about many wide and varied subjects. (Full disclosure time again: technology, lots of technology!) I read books like a fish goes through water and watch educational videos with delight. I had never really given it much thought and certainly had not considered that there was a discernible pattern in all of this. But then I got to thinking about when I did much of this.

One of my habits is to help with the kitchen cleanup on a Sunday evening. Everything in a pastor's house builds up towards service on Sunday and many tasks and activities get left undone the closer it gets to Sunday. Then Sunday arrives, we have service and after the sacred Sunday afternoon nap, we play catchup and clean and tidy. I have developed a habit, perhaps an addiction by now, of listening to TED talks while washing up. Naturally, this is the source of my title for this post.

Monday is the traditional pastoral day off. And this is a great tradition until you get to thinking about it on a Tuesday morning and realize how much you did on your day off.

I made three pastoral phone calls. Filled out a mileage form for recent church business travel. Uploaded two recorded sermons to our online sermon host and linked to them from the church Facebook page. Wrote an article for our church district's newsletter and chose pictures to go with it. (That should get posted today as well.) Visited a family to take them a meal and coo over their newborn daughter. Vacuumed all of the through-ways in the house to get the winter grit and salt up off of the carpets (and the hair, this is a pentecostal house, so there's always long hair on the carpet as well). Put two loads of laundry through and folded it and put it away. Wrote half a chapter for my upcoming book on Apostolic Baptism.

And to wrap all of that up, we had a family night (we call it awesome night) with the children and watched a nice family movie together on the laptop. Plus I baked two batches of kale chips for our snack.