bekahcubed

Categories Faith, Rants

The Solution to Society’s Sin (Smoking)

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“Both my mom and my dad smoke,” she confided, a wisp of shame blowing across her face.

I held my breath and my tongue for a moment, acutely aware of the other children listening in for my response.

I nodded, smiled sympathetically. “It’s very hard to stop smoking once you start. That’s why it’s better not to start in the first place.”

I wasn’t quite sure if I’d responded appropriately, but all around the room kids were picking up their crayons to color once more.

Smoking has become today’s ultimate social sin. Smokers are pariahs, pushed out of our company into the cold outdoors. We will eat and chat around the table–they can do so huddled around the front step.

We say it is for their own good and for their children’s.

Really, it is for our good and our children’s.

We are afraid of lung cancer, annoyed by allergies to cigarette smoke. And we are the majority, so we can make them do whatever we’d like.

For the children’s sake, we say, as we think up more ways to ostracize smokers.

Maybe if we make it illegal to smoke in a car if minors are present…

But we fail to recognize the difficult position we place children in.

They love their parents, but they’re inundated on every side with messages that say that Mom and Dad are bad and have a dirty habit and want to kill themselves and their children.

The children of smokers become wilderness-loving Pearls, forever separated from normalcy by the scarlet “A” their parents wear. Like Pearl’s red-trimmed garments, the smoke that clings to them (third hand smoke, professionals call it) reminds the world–and themselves–of their dubious parentage.

Some escape into lawlessness, as Pearl did. Others set their faces and walk amongst the rest of us, their faces and voices dark with the shame they feel.

It’s a true tragedy, and one where the child always loses–destined not only to bear the physical effects of second (and third) hand smoke, but the emotional effects of the world’s censure.

How can we protect children from these evils, the physical and the emotional?

Do we ban smoking and develop anti-addiction programs? Do we encourage children to establish healthy role models? Do we boost their self-esteem through sports or community involvement?

I propose a radical solution.

Let’s love them, and their parents, with the radical love of Christ. Let’s join them in their shame, recognizing that we all are fallen–and then lift them out of their shame by introducing them to the gracious God who loves sinners and makes them saints.

Let’s counter the social-sin of smoking with the gospel.

Categories Thankful Thursday

Thankful Thursday: Seasons

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There’s little more beautiful than Indian summer, the time between the seasons when the days are warm and the nights get cool. I’m so glad to live in a place where I can enjoy the literal seasons–and so glad that God gives me seasons in my life as well.

“To everything there is a season,
A time for every purpose under heaven:
~Ecclesiastes 3:1

Thankful Thursday banner

This week I’m thankful for…

…grass growing slowly so it doesn’t show that I barely mow

…flaming sunsets in my rearview mirror as I drive home from Grand Island

…leaves turning color and dropping on the ground, signaling the turn of the year

…menu seasons that will come to an end (Thank You, Lord, that I don’t have to do this extra 20 hour a week menu work for more than 8 weeks out of the year.)

…anticipating the seasons to come. Thinking about Christmas and 2012 (my care plans are now dated with target dates in 2012–so my mind is going there too). Coming up with ideas for my 27th birthday (so maybe I’m jumping the gun on that one, but I’ve got a TERRIFIC party idea.)

…a God who is unchanging amidst every season’s change

Summer and winter and
Springtime and Harvest
Sun, moon, and stars
in their courses above
Join with all nature in
manifold witness
to Thy great faithfulness,
mercy and love

Categories Book Notes, Health

Book Review: “Over-diagnosed” by Dr. H Gilbert Welch and others

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A couple years ago, I wrote about my personal weight loss crisis. I’d lost weight and everyone was noticing it and congratulating me. Problem was, I was arguably at a healthier weight pre-loss than I was after losing (since lowest mortality is at a BMI of around 24).

I described how health promotion watchdogs kept lowering the BMI limit for “overweight”, capturing more and more people under the “overweight” term with little evidence that those people were actually at increased risk.

As a result, all sorts of people who were once considered to be at a healthy weight, were now labeled as overweight. And they were told that overweight puts them at risk for diabetes, heart disease, cancer, etc. Problem is, the newly diagnosed individuals (with BMIs between the new “overweight” limit and the old one) aren’t necessarily at higher risk. They’re just now being lumped with those who are at higher risk.

These people are the “overdiagnosed”. They receive a diagnosis for a “disease” that has not harmed them and perhaps never will.

Over-diagnosedDoctors H Gilbert Welch, Lisa M. Schwartz, and Steven Woloshin address this problem in their book Over-diagnosed: Making People Sick in the Pursuit of Health.

The authors discuss multiple areas of medicine where the pursuit of early detection of disease has led to people being diagnosed with potential problems that haven’t yet caused them real problems (and maybe never will). Then, once a “disease” has been diagnosed, treatment begins.

If the treatment were only beneficial and had no side effects, this might be fine. Everyone would be undergoing treatment for all of their potential problems and their potential problems would never develop into real problems.

But that isn’t the case. Instead, each of these treatments has a variety of side effects-some quite dangerous. If someone actually has a problem (that is causing them a problem), the positives in increased life expectancy or absence of disease symptoms outweigh the negative side effects. But for the overdiagnosed, the people who are diagnosed with a potential problem that is destined to never become an actual problem, the side effects are the only effects–since they will not be helped by the treatment (for a disease they don’t actually have, or don’t actually have a problem with.)

Packed with good scientific explanations, this book makes a strong case for opting out of unnecessary tests–and for asking more questions prior to beginning treatment.

This is not an anti-medicine book. The authors are all Western medical doctors who believe in evidence-based care. But they question whether the ballooning spate of over-diagnosis is really evidenced-based care or whether it’s fear-based care.

This isn’t the easiest book to read (it can get fairly technical at times), but I think it provides some very important perspective that is rarely offered in today’s medical and health-promotion arenas.

I have read a couple of articles which referenced overdiagnosis recently. The first, regarding mammograms and mastectomies stated the following:

“While scientists did not investigate why mastectomy rates climbed in screened groups, study author Pal Suhrke said the main reason is likely “cancer overdiagnosis,” or the detection and subsequent treatment of tumors that might grow very slowly and not pose much of a risk.”

The second, detailing the results of a physician survey, stated that almost half of all doctors in the US feel that their own patients are overtreated.

Rating: 4 Stars
Category:Consumer Health
Synopsis: The authors describe over-diagnosis and the dangers associated with routinely testing healthy individuals.
Recommendation: The health-savvy consumer will definitely want to read this.

Categories The Week in Words

WiW: Engagement Advice

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I have a friend who is in human resources and one of her jobs is to conduct engagement surveys. Her roommate teases that this involves going about to all of her employees and asking them:

“Are you engaged? Are you engaged? Are you planning on becoming engaged?”

I am not engaged (to be married, that is), nor am I planning (er…expecting) to become engaged anytime in the near future.

But I’m all for storing up little bits of engagement advice–and it just so happens that I’ve read some this week.

From Lane Maitland in Grace Livingston Hill’s Maris:

“Yes, that’s what I’m saying,” broke in Merrick. “….That’s why I say marriage is a mess and I hope I never fall in love.”

“Say, you know marriage wasn’t meant to be a mess, and God planned the first marriage to be helpful to both the man and the woman. It wasn’t till the man and woman tried to be independent of God that sin came into the world, and happiness was spoiled. It’s somebody’s fault when marriages go wrong.”

“Oh, is it! And whose fault would it be?”

“Well, people ought to be careful who they pick to fall in love with in the first place. You don’t have to fall in love with everybody you admire. You have to watch yourself. You have to choose the right one. You have to get the one God planned for you.”

“Oh, yeah? And how would you know who that was?…”

“Well, in the first place, if I found I was getting really interested in a girl I’d find out whether she was a real sincere Christian or not…That would be my first step in deciding….In a true marriage both parties would have to qualify, wouldn’t they? It’s only as two people are dominated by the same Spirit, and are surrendered to the same Lord, that they can live together in harmony, isn’t it?”

Such good advice for anyone considering marriage. I think that last bit is so important.

I see so many people who are content to say that the person they are interested in professes Christ. But the Christian man or woman who is looking to marry someone should be concerned that whoever they marry be dominated by and surrendered to the same Lord.

I think that if this condition is met, matters of preferences and temperaments and hobbies become much less important. One could marry someone who is otherwise “incompatible” (by the world’s standards) so long as both are completely surrendered to the same Lord–the Lord Jesus Christ.

It just so happens that my pastor is blogging on the topic of preparation for marriage–and I think he’s got some really great insights. You can find his posts at justinerickson.org. Please pass them along to someone who could use them.

The Week in WordsDon’t forget to take a look at Barbara H’s meme “The Week in Words”, where bloggers collect quotes they’ve read throughout the week.

Categories Homemaking

Snapshot: Sewing

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It’s been a while since I last sat down at the sewing machine–and I was definitely due.

It just so happens that I saw a tutorial for a very cute credit card holder when I was browsing through Pinterest–and thought it would be a wonderful easy project.

Credit Card Holder

Of course, being myself, I couldn’t just make the holder as described. I decided this would be an ideal time to try out my idea of using fused plastic bags as interfacing.

Turns out, it is possible to use fused plastic bags as interfacing, but it requires some modifications. You have to sew the facing in, a slightly more difficult task then ironing it on (not a biggie.) And, you have to do any ironing after sewing on an EXTREMELY low setting so as not to melt the plastic further.

Credit Card Holder

I’m not unequivocally excited about the fused plastic bag interfacing idea, but I’m pleased enough with the results that I’m ready to try it again with more non-clothing sewing (wouldn’t want unbreathable plastic interfacing in your clothes, ICK!)

Categories Memes

My Post-Apocalyptic Character

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So, a Facebook acquaintance of mine posted this thing about “getting into character”. Not sure if it’s for a story or a video game or something entirely other–but I thought the questions were funny, so I’m going to pretend they’re a meme and answer them. (Please be aware that the answers to these questions are not necessarily true–which doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re false.)

What were you doing before the world ended? What was your job?

I was a librarian who spent most of my time in the basement book re-binding area “fixing” (aka reading) books.

Who did you eat for breakfast this morning, and why?

Albatross. “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” and Whodunit, the nerdy person’s mystery game.

What’s in your post-apocalyptic wardrobe? Which possessions do you always keep close?

Reading glasses, support hose, and Shakespeare’s complete works.

How do you feel about eating people? Is it evil? Where, if anywhere, do you draw the line?

Always wrong. But I don’t ask questions when I’m offered albatross (I Cor. 10:25)

How did you survive “the end” when so many others did not?

The aforementioned book rebinding area? Terrific fallout shelter. And books provide both hope and knowledge for surviving nuclear holocaust.

What are your hopes for the future? Do you think humanity will recover?

Future for this place? Maybe, maybe not. My hope is in another world.

What do you miss most about civilized life and the way things were?

A decent teapot. Boiling water in a pan makes a greatly inferior cuppa.

What things are better now?

No middle school “visitors” to the library.

Did you lose anyone special?

“Cat”, my pet fish.

Categories Faith

A Note about Gothard

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Just a quick note about Gothard.

Yesterday’s post may have left you wondering what I really do think about Gothard, whether I consider him a false teacher, and so on and so forth.

The answer is, I don’t know.

I attended Gothard’s seminars as an early teen who had serious issues with law and grace. In many ways, I was living as one of the foolish Galatians, bewitched to think that having been saved by grace, I now needed to be made right by good works.

While I did not hear the message of grace in Gothard’s teaching, that is not to say that it was not there. At that point in my life, I was eager for rules to follow to make myself perfect–I probably would have ignored the message of grace if Gothard had presented it.

Even if I did hear it then, my memory is faulty and it has been years since I attended a Gothard seminar.

I have often mused to myself or to others that I’d like to go back to a seminar again, to hear it with new ears and be able to actually evaluate it. Unfortunately, the others who I’ve asked to go with me were more scarred than I by their first experiences with Gothard (that is, of having to sit in a seminar for long hours with little sensory input.)

I have not been back to a Gothard seminar since the summer where God changed my life by changing my view of justification. I have never been to a Gothard seminar since my heart became tuned to the rhythms of grace.

Which means I can really offer no commentary at all on Gothard’s teaching. I don’t know. In a very real sense, I’ve never heard Gothard–at least, never through glasses unsmudged by desperate longing for perfection through works.

So…Anybody wanna meet me at a Gothard seminar? I’m still looking for someone to go with me. I’m willing to travel anywhere. :-)

Categories Faith, Rants

A Comment Ministry

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Years ago, I wrote a brief post about Bill Gothard and what I remembered about the two Basic Life Seminars and one Advanced Life Seminar I attended. I wrote that I remember Gothard presenting lots of rules and “princibles”, but that I don’t remember Gothard presenting the gospel.

Two months ago, I received an e-mail from an individual I have never before heard of in my life. This individual referenced my post on Gothard and sent me a link to a website that helps the “spiritually abused” recover.

More recently, a bloggie-friend posted a list of books she was either reading or going to start reading–and mentioned a book by C.J. Mahaney.

Someone, who I have never seen commenting on this friend’s posts before, wrote the following in the comments: “It has been shown that [C.J. Mahaney] doesn’t practice what he teaches.”

So what I want to know is, what do these folks think they are accomplishing in making such comments?

The man who read my post about Gothard undoubtedly stumbled across my blog somehow or another and found himself moved with compassion at the spiritual abuse I clearly described myself to have suffered. Desperate to do something to help, he searched relentlessly for a resource that might be able to meet me where I was at.

And surely the man who commented on my blog-friend’s post saw something in her writing that demonstrated that she was likely to be led astray by Mahaney. I am convinced that he was attempting to save his sister from false doctrine.

Right?

I kinda doubt it.

A more likely scenario is that someone with a beef against Gothard googled “Gothard” and maybe “law” and ended up on my site. Having found an accounting of my personal experiences with Gothard, he read liberally between the lines to determine that I had been “spiritually abused.” Having seen what he was looking for (although not necessarily what was actually there), he did what he had been intending to do all along. “Help” some poor “victim” of Gothard’s false teaching.

A more likely scenario is that someone with a beef against Mahaney either deliberately searched out or accidentally stumbled over a post in which Mahaney’s book was described–and felt it necessary to “share” his “knowledge” about Mahaney.

These men might even consider this e-mail/blog-comment trolling to be a ministry–correcting falsehoods within the church.

Yet this approach strikes me as singularly unsatisfying.

Perhaps some individuals have suffered spiritual abuse at Gothard’s hands. I am not one of them. Anyone who knows me and has actually talked to me about Gothard knows that I bear no lasting damage as a result of Gothard’s teaching (in fact, whatever I may think of certain of his teachings and whatever I may remember or not remember about how the gospel was or was not presented, Gothard’s teaching on “unchangeables” was quite beneficial to me when I first heard it as an early teen.)

But my e-mailer did not know me. He failed in ministering to me because he did not know me well enough to diagnose my problems or to provide an appropriate solution. Instead, he ended up being an annoyance.

Likewise, what the commenter said about Mahaney may be true. Perhaps Mahaney does not practice what he preaches. But my blogger-friend who mentioned Mahaney’s book is not promoting Mahaney’s lifestyle, nor is she uncritically accepting Mahaney’s teaching. On the other hand, what the commenter said about Mahaney may be false. Perhaps Mahaney does practice what he preaches. How does my blogger-friend know that she can trust the (I presume unknown to her) commenter?

Judging from this commenter’s lack of previous comments on my friend’s posts, the commenter likely knows little about my blogger-friend–and my blogger-friend likely knows little of him. As a result, his comment is little more than idle words. I doubt they will keep my friend from reading the book she had already purposed to read–and I doubt they will change her way of reading the book. The comment ends up being just words on a page, well-meant, perhaps, but meaningless.

Because ministry and correction flow from relationship, not from a cursory reading of words on a page.

Does this mean that ministry or correction cannot occur through a blog or an e-mail? No.

I have been ministered to greatly through comments on my blog. I have received needed correction to my thoughts and attitudes as a result of comments or e-mails from my readers.

But those comments that ended up being ministry (either as encouragement or as correction) had a few features not found in the aforementioned comments about Gothard and Mahaney:

1. The comments that ministered were comments based on a careful reading of what was actually said

The commenters bothered to read what I said, to try to ascertain my intent in what I had said, and to get background when necessary (by reading other posts or asking questions.)

2. The comments that ministered were comments from people who proved their care.

The commenters proved that they cared more about me than about being right or about proving another person or idea wrong. They took initiative to build a relationship with me, to also comment on the trivialities that I posted–instead of just bursting out of nowhere to correct me.

3. The comments that ministered were comments that took their authority from the Word of God.

The commenters backed up their encouragement or their correction with Scripture (or, at the least, with principles from Scripture.) They told me where they felt that I had erred in my thinking in relation to what the Word of God says–or they affirmed my actions or thoughts in relation to what the Word of God says.

So tell me, have you ever been ministered to by a comment on your blog? What were some of the characteristics I’ve missed? Have you experienced any not-so-ministering comments (like the one someone sent me about Gothard)? I’d love to hear your stories.

Categories Book Notes

The Argument from Design: Notes from “What’s So Great About Christianity?”

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The following are chapter synopses and short quotes from the fourth section of Dinesh D’Souza’s What’s So Great About Christianity? This fourth section is entitled: “The Argument from Design”

Chapter 11:
D’Souza argues that the best of modern astronomy (including the Big Bang Theory) is powerful evidence for the God of the Bible, and powerful evidence against atheism.
(This is a topic I am extremely interested in–and I appreciated D’Souza’s comments.)

“In a stunning confirmation of the book of Genesis, modern scientists have discovered that the universe was created in a primordial explosion of energy and light. Not only did the universe have a beginning in space and time, but the origin of the universe was also a beginning for space and time. Space and time did not exist prior to the universe. If you accept that everything that has had a beginning has a cause, then the material universe had a nonmaterial or spiritual cause. This spiritual cause brought the universe into existence using none of the laws of physics. The creation of the universe was, in the quite literal meaning of the term, a miracle. Its creator is known to be a spiritual, eternal being of creativity and power beyond all conceivable limits. Mind, not matter, came at the beginning. With the help of science and logic, all this can be rationally demonstrated.”

Chapter 12:
D’Souza argues from modern science that man has a special place in the universe–a position that is entirely consistent with Christian belief.

“It’s hard to avoid the question: if man is so central to God’s purposes in nature, why do we live in such a marginal speck of real estate in such a big, indifferent universe?…It turns out that the vast size and great age of our universe are not coincidental. They are the indispensable conditions for the existence of life on earth….The entire universe with all its laws appears to be a conspiracy to produce, well, us. Physicists call this incredible finding the anthropic principle….The Copernican narrative has been reversed and man has been restored to his ancient pedestal as the favored son, and perhaps even the raison d’etre, of creation.”

Chapter 13:
D’Souza argues that Christianity and evolution are not incompatible, and that atheists who claim that evolution does away with the need for a God go beyond the limits of the science. (For the record, I find D’Souza’s initial argument weak and his second compelling. D’Souza is convinced that macroevolution is scientifically supported; I am not. Furthermore, D’Souza fails to address the theological argument for special creation of man and the necessity for a true first Adam. On the other hand, I believe D’Souza is right that, even if Christians were to concede on the point of macroevolution, atheism has yet to give a compelling answer for the origin of life, consciousness, and human rationality and morality.)

“It should be clear from all this that the problem is not with evolution. The problem is with Darwinism. Evolution is a scientific theory, Darwinism is a metaphysical stance and a political ideology. In fact, Darwinism is the atheist spin imposed on the theory of evolution.”

Chapter 14:
D’Souza argues that while science is procedurally atheistic, it does not in any way preclude the existence of God–and that today’s militant atheists are incorrect in thinking that science is the only means by which the world can be understood.

“The adversaries of religion…frequently conflate procedural atheism with philosophical atheism. They pretend that because God cannot be discovered through science, God cannot be discovered at all….[A particular atheist that D’Souza quotes] assumes without evidence that scientific knowledge is the only kind of knowledge, and that it gives us true and full access to reality. Are these assumptions valid? …If you were to ask a scientist, ‘why is this water boiling?’ he or she would answer in terms of molecules and temperatures. But there is a second explanation: the water is boiling because I want to have a cup of tea. this second explanation is a perfectly valid description of reality, yet it is ignored or avoided by the scientific account…Science is incapable of answering questions about the nature or purpose of reality.”