Dear LFTP: nosy neighbor Myrtle
- How should we handle our nosy neighbor who watches everything we do?
A letter writer asks how to handle a nosy neighbor, nicknamed Myrtle, who knows what wine brand they drink and when they walk the dog. Advice is comic escalation: move, or confuse her with deliberate weirdness — peanut-butter helmets, taping a pizza box to your back, a weekly garden-gnome army in her yard, mirrored windows, digging a fake grave when the police are watching. The Secular answer: stay polite, deflect questions with questions ('Myrtle, why do you ask?'), keep shades drawn, vary the dog-walking route.
More on Community
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Do accountability partners actually work?
- Do accountability partners actually do anything?
Mike raises his accountability-partners question: the standard dude-circle advice to get a buddy to hold you accountable for Bible reading, porn, church attendance, and drinking.
From No. 598 · Emphasis | Accountability, Worship and Praying with Strangers
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Dear LFTP 2: the neighbors' piling newspapers
- Dear LFTP: at what point can we pick up our out-of-town neighbors' piling newspapers and recycle them?
Mike reads the second letter: new neighbors have been out of town for weeks and their newspapers are piling up — at what point may the writer recycle them?
From No. 595 · Trust But Verify
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Local pastors, mutual refinement, and the 'pods' joke
- What word comes after "community"?
The best pastor for you is the person in your life who can look you in the eyeballs; walk into every room expecting the other person might refine you — that only works locally.
From No. 590 · Theodore Franco
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Dear LFTP: Martha, John, and Jerry
- How should a woman in love with her ex's brother tell friends, family, and his parents?
A host reads the first Dear LFTP letter: Martha dated John for two years, then he kept living with her six months after the breakup; John is an emotionally and verbally abusive alcoholic who burned every bridge.
From No. 584 · When Vanek Was Here | Cambodia Testimony, Church Mission, Josiah Queen