Do Pretty Girls Know They are Pretty?

This is The Purpose Filled Life

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I hope in reading this you may gain some new insights and generate some fresh enthusiasm for care and kindness, and being The Light of the World, as Jesus named us. 

I love that word en-thus-iasm.  As you may know the "thus"  in the middle (t-h-u-s) comes from the Greek word Theos.  Theos means "God" in the Greek language.  It is the first part of the word Theology which means God Knowledge,  God-ology.

So en-thus-iasm really means to have God energy, or God inside, that you are a God driven God centered person.  Add enthusiasm to “You are the light of the world”  and we have a mighty important presence.

I was told a few days ago about a women’s Bible Study to which a stranger showed up and took a seat.  The meeting continued on dealing with its agenda and then adjourned.  Rightly behaving Christians would see to it that stranger had thirty people around her welcoming her.  Instead there was one. Okay, that is all it takes, but there should have been 30 concerned women tripping over each other to get to her side.  Instead of one.

My dear friends YOU  must take ownership of this challenge to make the world a better place, to care about strangers, to reach out into uncomfortable places where you’d rather not be.

Many of you have seen the powerful movie The Passion of Christ.  What a comfort shattering experience that is!!  It calls us to suffer too.  It insists that we too give our lives for others.  WE ARE CALLED TO LEAVE THE COMFORT ZONE AND GET HURT IF NECESSARY WHILE TRYING TO BRING HEALING TO OTHERS.

WE MUST DIE FOR OTHERS.  AND WHENEVER WE WALK ACROSS THE ROOM, INTROVERT THAT I may be, and welcome a stranger, as ineptly as I may do it I AM DYING FOR HER. AND IN DYING FOR HER I AM RESUSCITATING HER, RAISING HER A LITTLE, FROM THE DEAD.

I BEG YOU TO TAKE TOTAL OWNERSHIP OF EVERY ROOM YOU SIT IN, OR ENTER.  I BEG YOU TO TAKE LEADERSHIP IN NOTICING WHO IS THERE AND INTENTIONALLY APPROACHING WHOEVER MIGHT POSSIBLY BE ALONE AND ENDEAVOR IN SOME FAULTY, TREMBLING, INARTICULATE WAY IF NECESSARY, TO include them and bring them IN. 

JUST BE THERE!!  We must think of every human being as “the walking wounded”  but our task is not to fix them.   FIXING IS UNDERWAY WHEN WE GREET A STRANGER, OR LIFT THE SPIRITS OF ANYONE.   LEAVE THE  DELIBERATE FIXING TO GOD.  I LIKE THIS PLAY ON WORDS    “Don’t just do something.  Stand there.”

God surrounds us with His Presence while allowing for the God-created natural process to run its course.  AND THAT IS WHERE WE COME IN.  BE THERE!  BE WITH PEOPLE.  Greet them.  Touch them.  Smile at them.  Listen to them.  Walk with them.  Weep with those who weep.

In a Peanuts cartoon Charlie Brown asks Lucy:  “Do pretty girls know they are pretty?”    

                                    “Only if somebody tells them,” says Lucy.

That Peanuts cartoon is a metaphor about life in general.

A compliment to a pretty girl makes them even prettier.  Kind words are like vitamins that nourish  the spirit.  A nourished spirit makes the body healthier and inspires the person to their own good deeds.  So care and kindness is a strategic way to generate an ever-expanding chain of goodwill spreading like a prairie fire across the world, creating much needed global warming.

What does the Lord require of you?  “To act justly. To love mercy, And to walk humbly with your God.”  Mic. 6:8

“Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is to look after orphans and widows (and strangers, geeks, teenagers, sick people, the walking wounded, the aged, the grieving—and everybody else struggling, hurting and handicapped, or diminished. --adapted from James 1:27.

Placebos Can Help

PLACEBO

(Faith Healing)

Pla-ce’-bo (plå-sē’-bő), n. [Latin, “I shall please.”]  Med. A medicine, esp. an inactive one, given merely to satisfy a patient.

                                                            Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary, copyright, 1961

-                      a medication prescribed more for the mental relief of the patient than for its actual effect on his disorder.

Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary, copyright, 1979

The mention of a placebo makes people smile the smile of a shared secret.  It connotes a beneficial little trick pulled on the not-really-sick.  A pill is given tricking the complainer into thinking something truly medicinal has been prescribed.  So believing many have been fooled into feeling better.  At least that’s how we have in the past thought about the placebo.  Recent research indicates there’s much more to it than we’ve supposed.

Apparently when the placebo is taken by some trusting patients, it actually causes the body to heal itself.  When the sick or hurt person with confidence in the medical profession, medicine, scientific effectiveness, pops the placebo pill into his system, the body produces chemicals called endorphins.  One of these is a pain killer more powerful than morphine.  Pain is then reduced or eliminated by the body’s own chemicals, the production of which was stimulated by the placebo taken in faith.

The body heals itself.  The self-healing capacity of our human system is being stressed more and more by medical sophisticates.  The placebo research underscores it in a striking way.  It shows that pulling the right trigger can initiate self-healing.

Throughout all of history healing has occurred in ways that defy modern science’s self-confidence.  While some may come straight from God, many others may come from Him through the mysterious miracles of faith in a practitioner, an herb, a touch, an incantation that triggers the self-healing potential of the human body.

If the trusting patient can be helped by a placebo in the form of a medicine it becomes obvious that faith in the healing power of God, or the hand of a praying person, or a drop of olive oil, could also release, or speed up the healing powers created in the person.

Primitive people have always responded to “unscientific” healing ventures.  Civilized Americans who have trusted science above all could hardly profit from anything but the productions of laboratories.  As we see the scientific evidence of the body’s self-healing capacities even we modern people may find ways in which faith can heal.  We may begin again to ask that the elders lay their hands on us, pray over us, and maybe even put the oil on us, believing with scientific basis that such love, care, attention, may trigger the healing process God has created within us.

Research on Prayer

Research on Prayer for Seeds

A few years ago some people decided to do research on prayer. They believed prayer could affect any living thing- plant, animal or human being. They decided to start with plants; more specifically seeds.

In their first experiment they spread a large number of seeds, immersed in water, on two cookie sheets. One tray they then prayed over intensively, for three days. The other seeds were allowed to germinate without special attention.

The results were astounding. The prayed over seeds germinated far more promptly, and more completely, than the seeds that were left alone.

They decided to push it further. They added a third tray. This one included the seeds and water but they added salt to the water. Adding salt to the water was like making the seeds sick because salty water is harmful to living seeds and plants.

To their surprise the salty seeds, that were prayed for, did germinate and even more rapidly than those in clean water.

The conclusion they drew was that prayer may be especially beneficial to the ill and injured, like the sickened seeds in the salt water. Their neediness may make them the best candidates for prayerful care. An interesting and provocative thought about prayer. It may be most powerful with the weakened.

When Are the Twelve Days of Christmas?

“When are The Twelve Days of Christmas?”

We love to sing that joyful, and slightly humorous, song at Christmas time.  But does anyone know what those twelve days are about?  Is it part of Advent?  Or maybe it is just a random number around which someone has created an enjoyable song.

It is not a random number.  The days are not about Advent.  The twelve days refer to a specific period of time after Christmas.  After Christmas!  They are the days between December 25 and January 6 to be exact.  Here is what they stand for—

Our Christmas is December 25.  The Wisemen arrived on January 6.  We give our gifts to each other on December 25^th but in a major part of Europe, especially Eastern Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Christians present their gifts on January 6.  That is the day the Magi presented their gifts to the baby Jesus, Joseph, and Mary.  In northern Europe gifts are given starting on December 25, and every day, continuing until January 6.  This is the origin of the song-a gift every day.  

January 6 is  known as Epiphany.  Epiphany is a Greek work that means “to reveal”.  In the Christmas-Epiphany season it is the revelation of God’s incredible love to humanity that is revealed.  The Wisemen from the East represent God’s gift of The Christ Child to the Gentiles, to all of us. 

As we sing the joyful “Twelve Days of Christmas” now we know it is about God’s wonderful gift celebrated on Epiphany.

 

The Twelve Days of Christma -explained

“The Twelve Days of Christmas”-explained

From 1558 until 1829, Roman Catholics in England were not permitted to practice their faith openly. Someone during that era wrote this carol as a catechism song for young Catholics.

It has two levels of meaning: the surface meaning plus a hidden meaning known only to members of their church. Each element in the carol has a code word for a religious reality which the children could remember.

-The partridge in a pear tree was Jesus Christ.

-Two turtle doves were the Old and New Testaments.

-Three French hens stood for faith, hope and love.

-The four calling birds were the four gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke & John.

-The five golden rings recalled the Torah or Law, the first five books of the Old Testament.

-The six geese a-laying stood for the six days of creation.

-Seven swans a-swimming represented the sevenfold gifts of the Holy Spirit--Prophesy, Serving, Teaching,  Exhortation, Contribution, Leadership, and Mercy.

-The eight maids a-milking were the eight beatitudes.

-Nine ladies dancing were the nine fruits of the Holy Spirit--Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness,  Faithfulness,

 Gentleness, and Self Control.

-The ten lords a-leaping were the ten commandments.

-The eleven pipers piping stood for the eleven faithful disciples.

-The twelve drummers drumming symbolized the twelve points of belief in the Apostles' Creed.

So there is your history for today.

--

A Kindness Suggestion for Christmas Time

Last night, at about 8:00, I stopped at a home, the residents of which were strangers to me.  I rang the door bell and a man came to the door.  He looked puzzled by my presence, which he should have been.  I greeted him and simply said "I just stopped to tell you how much I appreciate the Christmas lights on your house and bushes.  This is the most beautiful display in the neighbeorhood.  Thank you!"

 He smiled in appreciation and explained a little about how long he has been doing it and how he got started.  But the main thing is that he was patted on the back by a stranger for making the world, at Christmas, a more beautiful place.

Go and do likewise, my friends.  I felt like a million dollars after that stop.  And I think he did too.

 X-MAS

When I was a child I was told that to write X-mas instead of Chistmas was bad. X-mas was, the teachers said, an unbelievers way of having "Christmas" but leaving Christ out.

My children, thirty years later, carry home the same woeful tale.

Guess what! It isn't true! For one thing the X in X-mas isn't really an X. It is the Greek letter chi(ki), transliterated as kh and representing the Greek word Khristos, which is Christ, of course.

So X-mas is really Christmas too. If you don't believe me look up X-mas in the dictionary. Uh, unfortunately, you have to look it up under the letter X.

IXTHUS

Speaking of Greek, do you know what IXTHUS means? It is the Greek word for fish. So what!? Well now for the first time you may understand why a fish is a well-known symbol of Christianity. Here is why: the first letter of the Greek word for fish is the first letter of the Greek word for Jesus, (I) lesus. The second letter X, stands for the word Xristos (Christ). The two letter TH stand for THEOS (GOD). The U stands for the Greek word for Son (Uios). The final letter S stands for the Greek word Savior (soterios).

Put it all together and the letters of the word give this message:

I - Jesus X - Christ TH - god's U - Son S - Savior

So IXTHUS (FISH) = a symbol of Christianity,

Bethlehem and Bedlam

Bedlam (bed’lam) N. 1.  Any place or situation of noisy uproar and confusion.  2.  A lunatic asylum; madhouse.  (Middle English).  Bedlam, Bethlehem, Hospital of St. Mary of Bethlehem, in Southwestern London, which was an asylum at one time.

                                                                                    American Heritage Dictionary

BETHLEHEM AND BEDLAM

Isn’t it ironical that the word which describes a place of noise and confusion – bedlam – is a corruption of the name of that town from which came the source of “peace on earth and good will toward men.”

Many years ago in England there was a hospital called St. Mary of Bethlehem, a hospital for the mentally ill.  In those days the treatment and conditions of such places was horrible.  They were indeed places of hopeless confusion and despairing noise.  And so anything which vaguely reminded anyone of that place was referred to as “Like Bethlehem” and eventually for ease of expression it became “Bedlam.”

But you know such hospitals aren’t Bedlam anymore.  Science has quieted them with its miracles and brought hope to the hopeless.  Finally, Christ has come into these Bedlams.  For it is the spirit of Christianity, not a relentless marching of science, and the spirit of Christ-like concern for suffering people that has propelled man to do something for his despairing brother.

In those places of the world where Christ has not yet penetrated the hearts of men, Bedlam still exists.  In those places in this country where Christ is no longer known, Bedlam is returning.  So, too, it is in the hearts of people everywhere, in your heart and mine, when the Christ of Bethlehem is born within us and “grows in wisdom and stature” Bedlam goes and peace enters.

God in a Cave

(Christmas Meditation)

GOD IN A CAVE

Those who study such things closely insist that the manger of Jesus’ birth was in a café and not in a barn-like structure.  It really doesn’t matter.  But there is something fanciful in the thought of His coming as a cave-dweller.  We are reminded of those cavemen of ancient history of whom we find traces by finding drawings of animals on the walls of their former homes.

And now we have another drawer of animals.  He who traced the shape of animals and man and brought them to life now is found in a cave Himself.  What a paradox!  That the hands that had made the sun and stars were now too small to reach the heads of the cattle.  Upon this paradox all of our faith is built.  It is such an extreme conjunction.  The world creator and a baby boy, Omnipotence and impotence, divinity and infancy.  It is such a remarkable combination that a million repetitions cannot make it sound trite or common.  Perhaps it is one of the few circumstances qualifying for the title “unique”.  (cf., G.K. Chesterton:  Orthodoxy).

The common man has been wrong in many things throughout history and has been scorned by the educated cosmopolitans who deal with lofty thoughts and cold reasonings and logical conclusions and unfathomable abstractions.  But the common man was close to being correct when in his pagan worship he had been promoting the idea that divinity could be seen and could live in the limits of time and space.  For in the cave where the manger was, God was dwelling.  God in a cave.  A revolution, the world turned upside down.  For Heaven was under earth.

The 12 Days of Christmas--explained

“The Twelve Days of Christmas”-explained

From 1558 until 1829, Roman Catholics in England were not permitted to practice their faith openly. Someone during that era wrote this carol as a secret catechism song for young Catholics.It has two levels of meaning: First there is the surface meaning.  Then there is a hidden meaning known only to members of their church. Each element in the carol has a code word for a religious reality which the children could remember.

1.  The partridge in a pear tree was Jesus Christ.

2.  Two turtle doves were the Old and New Testaments.

3.  Three French hens stood for faith, hope and love.

4.  The four calling birds were the four gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke & John.

5.  The five golden rings recalled the Torah or Law, the first five books of the Old Testament.

6.  The six geese a-laying stood for the six days of creation.

7.  Seven swans a-swimming represented the sevenfold gifts of the Holy Spirit--Prophesy, Serving, Teaching,  Exhortation, Contribution, Leadership, and Mercy.

8.  The eight maids a-milking were the eight beatitudes.

9.  Nine ladies dancing were the nine fruits of the Holy Spirit--Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness,  Faithfulness,

 Gentleness, and Self Control.

10.  The ten lords a-leaping were the ten commandments.

11.  The eleven pipers piping stood for the eleven faithful disciples.

12.  The twelve drummers drumming symbolized the twelve points of belief in the Apostles' Creed.

IT’S EASIER TO LIVE BY FAITH IF YOU’VE HAD A GOOD NIGHT’S SLEEP

Sometimes cutting short your sleep to commune with God may, in fact, undermine your ability to live close to God.  A tired person is more vulnerable to temptations than the wide-awake.  The weakened body is more apt to be plagued with devil-pleasing self-doubt than one fed and rested.

Quiet times for prayer, meditation and reflection may aid the Christian walk, but the notion that “more of the same” will continue to produce positive results is faulty.

The spiritual growth we aspire to cannot take place separate from sound care for the whole person.  Holistic ideas about the interconnection of spirit and body are surprisingly common--sensical when we see it this way:

·        It’s easier to feel close to God when the Excedrin has taken my headache away.

·        Faith soars when the air is fresh and I’m biking briskly on a bright spring morning.

·        After a cup of coffee my spiritual condition is always improved.

Spiritual inspiration and enthusiasm can be mediated by physical interventions and activities.  This being true, faith builders will not only implore their adherents to worship in the traditional forms, including Bible study, prayer, meditation and song.  They will also encourage (Excedrin?  Caffeine?) the health-care of the body, spirit and emotions through exercise, vacations and travel, hospitality, friendship, good-deed projects, enjoyment of the arts, folk-dance, the appreciation of beauty in nature and craftsmanship, ecological conscientiousness (harmony with nature-creation), reading, hobbies, gardening, care and kindness.

Confident that “everything affects everything else” the growing Christian will be one designing a well-rounded life-style,  free of concern that some pastimes, while well-enjoyed, may be unspiritual.  Spirit-raising pastimes bring us closer to God-pleasing service.

Have Fun at Christmas

Have Fun at Christmas!!

It is the fashion about this time each year to begin Christmas shopping.  We may load our pockets with cash, and our hearts with guilt.  Some folks have been brought up on warnings and admonitions every time there is a time of fun. Some Christians don’t know how to have fun, unless it is sprinkled and spiced with guilt.  It is as if they must be more serious, thrifty, concerned about others.  As the Christmas season opens, writers and speakers in the Christian community say, in one way or another, like our parents did when we went out for an evening of fun, “Now be careful!”  So now it is  “Have a Merry Christmas, but not too merry, not too joyous, not too much fun.” 

Again we will hear about over-commercializing Christmas, putting Christ back into Christmas, the paganism of the Christmas tree, tinsel as the symbol of superficiality, cash registers as the symbol of what Christmas has become.  Necessary correctives perhaps, but we need more of the opposite. We need encouragement to have fun, let our joy bloom, even be foolishly full of fun, or extravagant.  Isn’t that what the heart of Christmas is, namely, “joy to the world”.

I will never forget an incident from our first year of marriage.  Linda and I were living in Ann Arbor and our lives became intertwined with a family of desperately poor people.  A mother, and four children all of school age.  They lived in abject poverty.  They had broken windows, very little money, a sickly mother, and a house that was hardly livable.  But when Christmas came the children had through odd jobs accumulated a little money and they invited us to come over on Christmas Day to see the gift they had bought for their mother.  They were very excited about it.

  So we went to their house, carrying in our minds some vague expectations of what kind of a gift they had bought for her.  Perhaps a warm coat, a new purse, or maybe an electric frying pan, or a toaster.  Instead we were knocked over with surprise and chagrin.  They had us close our eyes as they went into the next room to get the gift.  Then they brought from behind the curtain the gift.  It was a huge stuffed donkey about five feet tall!  It must have cost them $25 or $35 (1962).  They were thrilled.  We were stunned but acted like we were pleased.  In fact we thought it was a very “stupid” gift.  Of all the things she needed, that was the least.

Still, as we thought about it, there may have been something right in that kind of gift..  Here they were in their poverty hardly anything they could have bought of a practical nature would have changed their status significantly.  So why not buy something totally enjoyable just for the fun and excitement of giving it?

A little of that that has to go into the Christmas season. Instead of hand-wringing and furrowed brows about the fun we’re having when there are poor people dying on the other side of town, maybe a little reckless happiness is called for. Christians must be thoughtful and give to those other kind of concerns, but there is something bottomless about that pit.  There is a time for unrestrained Christmas foolishness, impractical fun.  Forget, the shaking fingers and historical surveys about the paganism of the Christmas tree.  Enjoy Christmas and have fun.  Christ lives! Relax and enjoy Christmas freely and fully, uncluttered by guilt.

Christmas Without Guilt

CHRISTMAS WITHOUT GUILT

It is the fashion about this time each year to begin Christmas shopping.  We may  load our pockets with cash and our hearts with guilt.  Some folks have been brought up on warnings and admonitions every time there is a time of fun. Some Christians don’t know how to have fun, unless it is sprinkled and spiced with guilt.  It is as if they must be more serious, thrifty, concerned about others.  As the Christmas season opens, writers and speakers in the Christian community say in one way or another, like our parents did when we went out for an evening of fun, “Now be careful!”  So now it is  “Have a Merry Christmas, but not too merry, not too joyous, not too much fun.”  The message from within, or from others, is one of restraining joy, inhibiting happiness and curtailing free-spiritedness.  As a result we may never be sure whether fun is okay, legitimate or appropriate.

So again we will hear about over-commercializing Christmas, putting Christ back into Christmas, the paganism of the Christmas tree, tinsel as the symbol of superficiality, cash registers as the symbol of what Christmas has become.  Necessary correctives perhaps, but we need more of the opposite. We need encouragement to have fun, let our joy bloom, even be foolishly full of fun, be extravagant.  Such messages get back to what the heart of Christmas is, namely, joy to the world.

I will never forget an incident from our first year of marriage.  Linda and I were living in Ann Arbor and our lives became intertwined with a family of desperately poor people.  A mother and four children, all of school age.  They lived in abject poverty.  Broken windows in the winter, very little money, a sickly mother, and a house that was hardly livable.  When Christmas came the children had through odd jobs accumulated a little money.  By phone they invited us to come over on Christmas Day to see the gift they had bought for their mother.  They were very excited about it.

  So we went to their house, carrying in our minds some vague expectations of what kind of a gift they had bought for her.  Perhaps a warm coat, a new purse, or maybe an electric frying pan, or a toaster.  Instead we were knocked over with surprise and chagrin.  They had us close our eyes as they went into the next room to get the gift.  Then they brought from behind the curtain the gift.  It was a huge stuffed donkey about five feet tall which must have cost $25 or $35 at that time (1962).  They were thrilled.  We were stunned.  We had all we could do to generate a little excitement with this “stupid” gift.  Of all the things she needed, that was the least.

Still, as we thought about it, there may have been something symbolically right in that kind of giving.  Here they were in their poverty.  Hardly anything they could have bought of a practical nature would have changed their status significantly.  So why not blow it on something totally useless just for the fun and excitement of buying and giving it?

A little of that that has to go into the Christmas season, instead of all the hand-wringing and furrowed brows over whether or not the fun we’re having is appropriate when there are people dying on the other side of town,. whether the money we are spending could better be sent to a place where people are starving or deprived in some other way.  Indeed Christians must be thoughtful and give to those kind of concerns.  But there is something bottomless about that pit.  There is a time for unrestrained Christmas foolishness, impractical fun, the stopping of all the shaking fingers and historical surveys about the paganism of the Christmas tree.  Forget it.  Enjoy it, and have fun.  Christ lives!

The incarnation of Jesus speaks to that human condition of weak, foolish, inconsistent, materialistic people and He comes into our condition and says “Celebrate!”  The Lord God loves our world and is caring for it.  We can relax and enjoy Christmas freely and fully, uncluttered by guilt.