John Knox: My Hero!

If you have been paying attention to the url for this blog, you will have noticed that part of the address is "knoxknoxwhosthere." This was the result of some playful punning on the name of a man who I have come to admire greatly: John Knox, Scottish Reformer.

Knox was the man primarily responsible for arresting Scotland's decline and decay into the brutish ignorance and oppression that papal tyranny had produced, and for beginning the climb up to the religious and civil freedoms that not only impacted his nation, but which has spread to many countries around the world. This is an admirable accomplishment, but it is not the primary reason why I have come to love him.

I love John Knox because he was an example of some one who took an uncompromising stand for truth, no matter what the cost, no matter who was offended, and no matter what dangers it forced him into. He faced down raging nobles and a queen who dared to promote the false religion of the papacy. He faced personal danger from those who wished to assassinate him. His language was strong and forthright and he often preached and rebuked sin pointedly from his pulpit, not regarding the stations of those that he knew would be offended. Thomas M'Crie says of Knox:

A stranger to complimentary or smooth language, little concerned about the manner in which his reproofs were received, provided they were merited, too much impressed with the evil of the offence, to think of the rank or character of the offender, he often uttered his admonitions with 'an acrimony and vehemence more apt to irritate than to reclaim.' But he protested at a time when persons are least in danger of deception, and in a manner which should banish suspicions of the purity of his motives, that, in his sharpest rebukes, he was influenced by hatred of the vices, not the persons of the vicious, and that his aiim was always to discharge his own duty, and if possible, to reclaim the guilty.

We may think that Knox's uncompromising stand and vehement charges against the sins of the leaders of the day would also translate into his being a person who was cold and stern in his religion. Knox did have a reputation for being austere, but not unfeeling. He rigidly adhered to God's justice, and yet, there are more instances on record of his interceding for the pardon of crminals than perhaps any other man of his time.

We may often trace the true character of a man by the reactions of his own family and domestics to him. Knox was held in great love and esteem, not only by his wife and children, but by his servants -- a very telling thing indeed. Bannatyne, one of his personal servants, said this of his master upon Knox's death:

"In this manner," says he,"departed this man of God: the light of Scotland, the comfort of the church within the same, the mirror of godliness, and pattern and example to all true ministers, in purity of life, soundness in doctrine, and boldness in reproving of wickedness; one that cared not the favor of men, how great soever they were. What dexterity in teaching, boldness in reproving, and hatred of wickedness was in him, my ignorant dulness is not able to declare, which if I should prize to set out, it were as one who would light a candle to let men see the sun; seeing all his virtues are better known and notified to the world a thousand fold than I am able to express."

Between Knox and his fellow ministers we never read of any discord. He was hated and dreaded by the profane and licentious, but the religious and sober held him in great veneration and affection. In private life he was revered by his friends, and though subject to melancholy and depression because of continued illness, he enjoyed the pleasures of company when he was feeling well, and was not above taking pleasure in jokes and humor, notwithstanding the grave tone of his general character.

This extremely brief description of Knox's character has a point behind it. Knox exemplified the Christian fortitude that all Christians must have if they are to live the Christian life devoid of denying the Lord. All too often, we can betray our principles in the face of fear of either family, friends, co-workers and acquaintances. Popularity, the desire to please, a need for love and acceptance, and just fear are powerful motivators that can cause us to be silent when we should speak, or keep us quiet when we should be active. We pull our punches or compromise in order to minimize the pain we think we would feel if we did take a bold stand. Yet the Lord promises us that we are BLESSED if we do suffer for the sake of righteousness, and it is by keeping an eye on the eternal God and the Promiser of this promise that we may overcome these things.

I close with Knox's dying testimony:

"The day now approaches and is before the door, for which I have frequently and vehemently thirsted, when I shall be released from my great labours and innumerable sorrows, and shall be with Christ. And now, God is my witness, whom I have served in spirit, in the gospel of his Son, that I have taught nothing but the true and solid doctrine of the gospel of the Son of God, and have had it for my only object to instruct the ignorant, to confirm the faithful, to comfort the weak, the fearful, and the distressed, by the promises of grace, and to fight against the pround and rebellious, by the divine threatenings. I know that many have frequently and loudly complained, and do yet complain, of my too great severity; but God knows that my mind was always void of hatred to the persons of those against whom I thundered the severest judgements. I cannot deny but that I felt the greatest abhorrence at the sins in which they indulged, but I still kept this one thing in view, that if possible I might gain them to the Lord. What influenced me to utter whatever the Lord put into my mouth so boldly, with out respect of persons, was a reverential fear of my God, who called, and of his grace appointed me to be a steward of divine mysteries, and a belief that he will demand an account of my discharge of the trust committed unto me, when I shall stand before his tribunal. I profess, therefore, before God, and before his holy angels, that I never made merchandise of the sacred word of God, never studied to please men, never indulged my private passions or those of others, but faithfully distributed the talent intrusted to me, for the edification of the church over which I watched. Whatever obloquy wicked men may cast on me respecting this point, I rejoice in the testimony of a good conscience. In the mean time, my dearest brethren, do you persevere in the eternal truth of the gospel; wait diligently on the flock over which the Lord has set you, and which he redeemed with the blood of his only begotten Son. And thou, my brother Lawson, fight the good fight, and do the work of the Lord joyfully and resolutely. The Lord from on high bless you and the the whole church of Edinburgh, against whom, as long as they persevere in the word of truth which they have heard of me, the gates of hell shall not prevail."

After Knox died, and as he was being laid to rest in his grave, the newly elected regent, Morton, said of him, "There lies he, who never feared the face of man." May the same be said of us some day. Amen.

Why Nerds Are Unpopular

Far be it from me to suggest that I am some sort of genius or exceptionally bright person, but the article linked in the title to this post really resonated with me. (It is well worth reading.) I was not a popular child, particularly in my elementary and middle-school years. It was a common occurance to have classmates come up to me and say, "You know, last year I didn't like you and thought you were weird, but now I think you are okay. "

In high school I hung out with a small group of the "goody goody" crowd and, for the most part, stayed out of trouble. I just wasn't interested in drinking myself into a stupor, experimenting with drugs, or being a vandal. The best times I had in highschool came from spending every spare moment with Hans Hedley, my art teacher, who was a true Renaissance man with knowledge on nearly every subject under the sun. Before classes, lunch hours, after school, you could find me hanging out with Hans. I credit him with being the one who taught me how to think and be curious about how things work and I owe him a debt that can never be repaid. I think I learned more in three years of classes with him than I did in all my other classes combined.

I think it is easy for parents to forget the kind of damage that herds of children can inflict on each other. One of the knee-jerk reactions one often hears from those who don't homeschool is, "What about socialization?" as though the only proper way to socialize children is in age-segragated peer groups. The socialization that takes place in the school setting is some of the most unnatural and evil and cruel that there is, outside the prison system. And yet, this is supposedly the "real world" that people need to be socialized to.

Poppycock! Proper real world socialization means learning to interact gracefully and well with people of all generations outside of one's peer group. Real world socialization is what my kids experience in their day to day life. The result has been children who have no difficulty in talking to or playing with siblings or other children smaller than themselves, and likewise, who have no difficulty in interacting with adults. Depravity still raises its ugly head, but at least it isn't reinforced as a cultural norm.

Changes

If you look at my sidebar, there are a few additions and some subtractions from my list of linked blogs. Chris has been demoted from being a doctor. I finally figured out what the problem was. If your blog no longer appears there, please take no offense. I still read you, but don't know how to change the size of the box to accomodate more. Since space is limited, I wanted to list blogs that are more reflective of my own worldview than not.

Antithesis

Every once in a while I get some kitschy Christian poety in my email. The following was sent to me by a friend (who ought to know better :oP).

To A Beautiful Person
If God had a refrigerator, your picture would be on it.
If He had a wallet, your photo would be in it
He sends you flowers every spring.
He sends you a sunrise every morning.
Whwevever you wnt to talk, He listens.
He can liver anywhere in the universe, but He chose your heart.
Face it friend, He is crazy about you!

God didn't promise days without pain, laughter without sorrow, sun without rain,
but He did promise strength for the day, comfort for the tears, and light for the way.

Forward to every beautiful person that you know.

Here is my version:

The Reality: To a Sinful Person


If God had your picture
He would likely burn it along with you if you don't repent
He doesn't need a wallet since he owns everything...
so don't bother to see if your picture is there
And did you remember to thank and praise him for the sunrise this morning, you ungrateful wretch?
Your unrepentance makes your prayers vain and He doesn't hear them
The heavens are as brass against you.
Face it friend,
Unless God does a work of grace in your heart
You are LOST
God promises an eternity of pain, sorrow and every imaginable torment ahead of you.
Repent now before it is too late.

Please forward to every sinner you know.

This and That

~It is amazing how large a chunk of time is used up in a day when you have to go out to chiropracter's appointments. After several weeks of appointments, the girls' backs have made significant improvement so the frequency of visits is slowing down some.

~Today it is half snowing/half raining and it is gross. My mudroom will soon be living up to its name.

~ Give kids the basic tools of learning and then let them loose to learn. I never used to be an unschooler, but I am leaning more and more that way. When kids are learning for a purpose, rather than just because they are told they need to know "xyz" in grade "x", their learning is accelerated and more lasting. My eldest son is reading Calvin's Institutes,but has also educated himself thoroughly in the last several weeks on the intricacies of buying a used car. I am forcing him to learn algebra and I don't know why. Well, actually, I do. "Everyone" says that you need it. Nuts to "everyone." I haven't used algebra since I took it in highschool, and I bet you haven't either unless you are an engineer. You know what I really want? A good highschool level consumer math course that teaches kids practical math stuff like how to calculate mortgage rates and figure out ways to keep money out of the clutches of Revenue Canada. If they need to know more beyond that because of career requirements, they are smart enough to pick it up on their own. They have the basics. Let them learn the other stuff when it is relevant and therefore meaningful.

~In an effort to help conserve the money my sweetie works so hard for, I cleaned out my freezer before making my grocery list. I found:

+ a total of 6 packages of frozen ground beef, each package weighing about 3 or 4 lbs.
+ three whole turkeys and 9 packages of turkey necks, wings, and drumsticks for making soup with
+ two packages of beef soup bones
+ blueberries I had thought were lost [Yeah! now I can have a protein shake!]
+ numerous packages of frozen, chopped peppers that I cut up for tossing in pots of chili
+ several packages of phyllo pastry that have seen better days. I can't even remember why I bought them.
+ bags of green beans that were covered in freezer burn.
+ a bag of cauliflower that is at least five years old.
+ two wild salmon with an expression of perpetual surprise frozen on their faces, no doubt put there by finding themselves so far from the ocean.
+ ummm. A placenta. hmmm. I think I'll plant a new tree this spring when the ground thaws. :oP Anyone for stew?

I also scooped up several dustpans full of frozen peas and assorted berries that had escaped their respective bags and made their way to the bottom of the freezer. Lots of stuff was covered in sticky brown frozen syrup from frozen over ripe bananas that the kids had neglected to seal tightly in their bags.

You will all be happy to know that my freezer is now clean and tidy and organized once more. And the placenta is safely stowed in a special place so I won't mistakenly cook it up as liver. I feel so accomplished!

My other Passion: Glyconutrients

The following article helps explain why.

The Healing of A Healer
One of world's leading physicians says that glyconutrients help save his life and should become a part of the nation's standard of medical care.

By Joseph Green-Bishop
Copyright 2004

Dr. Benjamin Solomon Carson Sr., the world famous director of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore has risen to the very top of the medical profession. Three years ago, Time Magazine and CNN named him one of the top twenty doctors in America. In 1987 he was the lead surgeon in the twenty-two hour operation that separated the heads of the Binder Siamese twins from Germany. It was the first such operation in which both twins survived.

But in the summer of 2003 Dr. Carson was diagnosed with prostate cancer and despite three decades of saving the lives of others, he came face to face with the staggering possibility of his own death. "It was a shock," said Dr. Carson, a professor of neurosurgery, oncology, plastic surgery and pediatrics at Johns Hopkins. "I had been living a healthy lifestyle and getting regular check-ups. But I had high grade cancer in a very aggressive form."

And yet, at fifty-three years of age, Dr. Carson was not ready to leave his wife, Candy, and their three sons behind. And with the same strength and determination that his mother, Sonya Carson, imparted to him and his brother while she raised them alone in inner city neighborhoods in Detroit and Boston, he sought an answer that would continue his life.

"I had a friend who was diagnosed with cancer who was given three months to live," said Dr. Carson in his Johns Hopkins office."He changed his diet and pursued proper nutrition. He was still around and doing well. As a result I started to look at nutritional supplements."

The father of one of Dr. Carson's patients told him about a ten-year-old company based in Coppell, Texas which had secured world-wide patent rights to a food supplement known as a glyconutrient. The parent suggested to Dr. Carson that he contact them.

After contacting the company, Dr. Carson was surprised by the amount of science they provided. "I was impressed that they did not make any wild medical claims," he said. The majority of their science pointed to how glyconutrients supported the body's normal functions of regeneration and repair.

Dr. Carson then contacted Dr. Reg McDaniel, an authority in glyconutrients and medical director of Manna-Relief Inc., an Arlington, Texas based charity that makes glyconutrients available to medically fragile children around the world. Dr. McDaniel, who had studied the health benefits of glyconutrients for two decades, shared his experiences with Dr. Carson.

"The science made sense to me," Dr. Carson said. "God gave us (in plants) what we need to remain healthy," he said. "In today's world our food chain is depleted of nutrients and our environment has helped destroy what God gave us."

Through dietary supplementation, one of the most significant doctors in the history of medicine decided to support his immune system with glyconutrients. And almost immediately he saw an abatement in his condition.

"I had been experiencing some urinary tract problems. The problems went away within four weeks after I started taking the glyconutrients," he said. "I began to think that I did not need to have surgery or any other type of treatment. I seriously considered not having any type of procedure. I thought I could beat the cancer by supporting my body through glyconutritional supplementation."

Dr. Carson said his decision to have a medical procedure resulted from his concern for those people who might neglect traditional medical procedures because they had learned of his personal experience with supplements.

"It had gotten out that I had prostate cancer," said the high-profile doctor. "I knew that other people with my condition might not have been as religious about taking the supplements as I had been."

Dr. Carson was told that his recovery after the surgery would be arduous and that he would not be able to return to work for six weeks. "Because of my experience with glyconutrients I was able to return to work in three weeks," he said.

He continues to take the supplements and suggests that others who are concerned with optimal health take them. "I do not see glyconutrients as unnatural," he said. "I see them as complementary to traditional medicine. Dietary supplements should become an integral part of heath care in this country."

A voracious reader of medical and scientific literature, Dr. Carson said that he concurred with an article in the February 2003 issue of Technology Review, a publication associated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, that named glycomics as "one of ten emerging technologies that will change the world."

"There is a growing trend by consumers to want to blend traditional and complementary medicines," stated Dr. Carson.

He said that it was significant that the National Institutes of Health had granted millions of dollars to researchers to investigate alternative and complementary medicines. "The day is coming when the science will be behind them."

In 1998, The United States Congress appropriated $50 million to support the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, which was established by the National Institutes of Health to investigate alternatives and complementary medical practices and their impact on health care in America.

Researchers at the Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center have reportedly identified a plant substance that they say has effectively destroyed cancer cells in test tube experiments. Recognizing that the vast majority of prescription drugs originally came from plants, they have said that it is not inconceivable that a cure for cancer can be found in nature.

Nearly thirty years ago, Dr. Roger J. Williams, a professor at the University of Texas in Austin and the first biochemist to become president of the American Chemical Society, authored a book entitled Nutrition Against Disease. "The human body heals itself and nutrition provides the resources to accomplish the task," Dr. Williams wrote."A proper diet could prevent catastrophic illnesses such as cancer, alcoholism, heart disease, birth defects, stroke and mental illness."

Dr. Williams postulated that there was a direct result between diet and obesity, that a proper diet would prolong life. He also wrote about the relationship between arthritis and nutrition.

In the April 1995 issue of the Harvard Health Letter, which was devoted to "cancer-fighting foods," Dr. Tim Byers, an epidemiologist, said "there's an explosion of compelling and consistent data associating diets rich in fruits and vegetables with a lower cancer risk."

"Analysis of data from twenty-three epidemiologic studies found that a diet rich in vegetables and grains slashed colon cancer risk by 40 percent," the authors wrote. "All in all, at least 200 epidemiologic studies from around the world have found a link between a plant-rich diet and a lower risk for many types of tumors."

Dr. Carson stated that a growing number of consumers were demanding the use of supplements in conjunction with traditional medical treatments, despite strong opposition. "Medicine has become a significant business," he said, "and there are a lot of people who invest a lot of money into drug development who are not going to look at these things (glyconutrients) in a friendly manner."

Dr. Carson is among a growing legion of high profile medical professionals in this country and around the world who have embraced glyconutritionals. Many of them have had personal experiences with the nutrients or have seen what they have described as "miraculous" changes in their patients who have used them.

There were nights when Dr. Alex Omelchuk, a noted Canadian physician and scientist, wished that he were dead. The victim of a massive aneurysm in 1987, the pains in his head were so intense that there were times when he thought that his head was about to explode. Nightly, for nearly twelve years, he had to take hydrocodene to sleep comfortably.

"Only ten percent of the people survive the stroke that I experienced," said Dr. Omelchuk, the former chief of staff at the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Edmonton, Canada. "I was one of the lucky ones."

After recovering from a ten-hour surgery, Dr. Omelchuk was not able to walk or talk. He was unable to teach or practice medicine and his brain capacity was reduced by 30 percent. "I was told by my physicians that I should accept my condition and that I would have to be on pain medication for the rest of my life."

Saddled with a quality of life as dismal as a bad cold on an endless winter night, Dr. Omelchuk often sat in his living room chair thinking of those days when he presided over meetings as president of the Alberta chapter of the College of Family Physicians of Canada. "My constant companions were my wife, Orissa, and my pain," said Dr. Omelchuk. "I tried massage, acupuncture, every type of pain pill that I could get a doctor to give me and, in the end, nothing seemed to work. I was hopeless. I was alive but my quality of life was poor," said Dr. Omelchuk, who was listed in the International Who's Who of Medicine the same year that he had the aneurysm.

Dr. Omelchuk was introduced to glyconutrients during a conversation with a colleague who noticed that he was always fatigued and suggested that they might help him. "I was skeptical," he said. "None of the best physicians in the country were able to help me. I had been told to accept my fate. Yet, we were desperate so I read everything that I could find about glyconutrients. My wife suggested that we try them."

Dr. Omelchuk said that four months after he began taking glyconutrients the crippling pain disappeared. "For the first time in twelve years I was able to sleep without waking up in the middle of the night," he said. "My thinking was clear and I did not have to take any medication."

His recovery did not make sense to him. It contravened what his doctors had told him, his own medical training, and everything that he had learned and experienced in the more than quarter of a century that he had been a physician.

"I read a paper that was written by scientists at the University of Calgary in 1998 that showed brain cell regeneration in laboratory rats. I began to look at other studies. There is research that suggests that stem cells that migrate to the brain undergo a transformation that result in functional brain cells. The brain has a capacity to set up new pathways of communication," he said.

Dr. Omelchuk believes that there is a direct relationship between the regeneration of his brain cells and the glyconutritionals that he used. "Medical researchers told me after my stroke that I had lost thirty percent of my brain capacity," he said. "I had myself tested after I had been talking the supplements and was told that all of my mental faculties were normal. My verbal capacity is in the 97th percentile. I have my life back! Glyconutritionals are responsible for my recovery and for the quality of life that I am able to share with my wife today."

Neither his medical training nor his medical teaching or practice was complemented with education in nutrition, Dr. Omelchuk said. "Some members of the medical community are admitting on a daily basis that our food chain is depleted and that the only way that we are going to get the essential nutrients that our bodies need is through supplementation," he said.

"Glyconutritionals could be one of the greatest nutritional discoveries of the 20th century," he said. "Unfortunately, physicians and many others in the field of health care know very little or nothing about them, even though there is abundant peer-reviewed scientific validation as to their efficacy in supporting the body's normal functions of recovery from chronic diseased conditions."

Hearing about the support of glyconutrients from such noted physicians as Dr. Carson and Dr. Omelchuk has elated Dr. McDaniel, a former of chief of staff at the Dallas Forth Worth Medical Center. "Over the years I have been astounded with the improvements in the health conditions of people, especially children, who have taken glyconutrients," said Dr. Reg McDaniel, who also serves as the medical director of the Fisher Institute for Medical Research in Grand Prairie, Texas. "I have seen quality of life improvements in people with diabetes, HIV-AIDS, heart disease, asthma, autism, allergies, Downs Syndrome and a number of other conditions. Many of these people saw little or no improvement through the use of their prescription drugs."

McDaniel said that during the last twenty years there have been amazing discoveries in glyconutritional research. "One study showed that people who added glyconutrients to their diets developed stems cells from their own bone marrow that resulted in the migration of the cells into damaged organs. Medical scientists concluded that these new cells replaced damaged or diseased ones."

McDaniel, a founder of the newly organized WMS international research foundation, said that he and other scientists will expand the testing of glyconutrients globally in an effort to add to the science behind the technology of glyconutritionals. "We intend to record and document responses to glyconutrients that will assist visionary members of the scientific and medical communities in their efforts to make this crucial technology available to all people," said Dr. McDaniel.

Voted physician of the year by his peers in 1990, Dr. McDaniel understands the skepticism of the medical community to complementary approaches to medicines.
"Most of us never received any nutritional training in medical school and that is compounded by the fact that many nutritional products have little or no science to support their claims. But glyconutrient research is quickly raising the bar of credibility."

As a recognized scientific authority on the potential of glyconutrients, Dr. McDaniel was invited to testify at the Congressional Hearing on Bio-Terrorism on Capitol Hill in 2001. "There is overwhelming evidence that suggests that the human body may be capable, through its normal physiology, of healing itself from almost any malady," Dr. McDaniel said. "I have been in medicine for more than 40 years and I have never been as optimistic as I am today that we will meet the needs of tens of millions of people who lead desperate lives due to chronic illnesses."

Crazy Busy

It has been a full week in several senses since I last blogged. My days are now filled with appointments with doctors, dentists, chiropracters and insurance adjusters. But I do not complain! All the activity is the result of having a family that is alive, rather than having to endure unnatural quiet because they have gone.

I have plenty of things I could blog about, but alas, the time to blog them is hard to find.

I will try and do better. Next week.

Extraordinary Mercies

In recent days our family has been the recipient of extraordinary mercies. As many of you know, we came very close to losing four of our six daughters and our grand-daughter in a horrific motor vehicle accident. Poor visibility from sleet and snow caused my daughter, Trista, to misjudge the distance and speed of an oncoming B train (18 wheeled transport truck with a trailer) and she pulled out in front of him on the highway. The truck hit them a total of three times, crushing the back end of the vehicle the first time, spinning them around where he hit the passenger side dead on, and then spinning them to strike the back side which launched them in the air to a flip to land 300 feet out in a field at the side of the road. They missed hitting a telephone pole by inches in the process.

When things like this happen, the typical reaction is to ask "why?" The universal opinion of those who viewed the wreck is that no one could have survived. I thought that myself when I saw the vehicle on my way into the hospital. Many people have lost members of their family in similar or lesser accidents. But we lost not a one. The extent of their injuries is minor: Keiannah, our two year old granddaughter, has a broken tibia and fibula on her right leg that is now adorned with a "pretty" purple cast. Hannah got a bump over one eye and a sore neck, Bethany has a sore neck, Trista got a minor concussion, and Tamara was knocked out and aspirated blood, but is now home and recuperating. We have much to be thankful for.

I cannot resist asking the question "why?" myself. Why were we the recipients of so much mercy when others aren't? Why is God so good to me and mine? I am at a lost to explain this.

Things that I am thankful for:

1. The entire accident was witnessed by an ambulance team who were returning to base. They were right there right away as soon as the car landed. Am I to believe that this wasn't by Divine appointment? I was able to overhear the conversation between one of the members of the Advanced Life Support (ALS) team, unaware by him as to who I was, with the pediatrician who was caring for Tamara. He came in to ask for feedback as to how it could have been handled better. I was impressed by the fact that he would take the time to do this to improve his skills for the future. I was also thankful to be able to shake his hand and thank him for his work.

2. The competence and compassion of the entire hospital staff who treated us with extreme kindness and consideration.

3. The outpouring of love and practical aid demonstrated to us by the Body of Christ, neighbors, friends, and acquaintances. My children informed me that the phone rang off the hook at home with people wanting to know how the girls were and if there was anything they could do to help. Special thanks go to those ladies who provided meals for my family at this time while I was in the hospital staying with Tamara.

4. Say what you like about socialized medicine and free market economies. If this accident had happened in the US, it would have wiped us out financially. Instead, it cost us relatively little.

5. That I don't have to pass the spot of the accident and think that "This is where my children died." Instead, I get to see the spot where the Lord's mercy was greatly extended to them. I think I shall build a monument like the children of Israel did at the side of the Jordan as a reminder of God's goodness. Through out the whole time, the Lord enabled me to keep my composure and allowed me to be a help to the children, rather than be one who needed help.

When times are easy and things are going well, it is easy to remember that "all things work together for good, for those who are the called. (Romans 8:28). It can be harder to say it when things go wrong or look dark. Yet it is in the darkness that we really are brought to ask ourselves if this is really true. Do we really believe that even this circumstance is for our good? By God's great grace and mercy, I can say "yes". His mercies are new every morning, the lines have fallen to us in pleasant places, and in this He works for our good and His greater glory. All praise and thanks belong to Him!

I would ask continued prayer for our family at this time, as the Lord brings us to your mind. Please pray for Tamara as she continues to recover. She had a serious concussion and though she is now at home, she still has the remainder of the crud in her lungs, from aspirating blood, to get cleared up. She still has headaches and fatigues very easily. It is somewhat disconcerting to see her so quiet when she is usually such a twitchy, active little thing.

Please remember Trista as well. She was the driver of the car and the thought that she was responsible for almost killing her daughter, her sisters, and herself has been weighing heavily upon her. May this be one of the means of grace that the Lord uses to draw her even closer to Himself. I have been encouraged to see how this has been working grace in her and pray that this work may continue.

Lastly, I would ask that this incident would be profitably used to remind us all of the brevity of life and the necessity of serving the Lord as we are enabled. Life is as the flower of the grass which springs up one day and is withered the next. None of us knows how long a time we have here upon earth. May the Lord enable us to stand firm and faithfully for the things that are of eternal significance while there is yet time.

Gerbils Again

I think we must have gotten some modern Industrial Strength Gerbils. When I was a young lass, my parents bought me a set of gerbils and one of the first Habitrail gerbil cages that were produced. They were cool cages that you could add all kinds of attachements on to so the gerbils could run through them and keep entertained. This cage kept all the gerbils, through successive generations, nicely contained.

Now, I don't know if the strength of the plastic on cages is now inferior, or if we have a new breed of genetically modified gerbils with the strength of ten inserted in their genes, but the girls' gerbils ate through their cage in not one, but FIVE different places.

I was out with all the children the other day and my husband found Suki puss crouched down outside the girls' bedroom door. He opened the door to find bands of marauding gerbils busily eating through electrical cords and other paraphanalia. He quickly scooped up a disappointed cat and incarcerated her in the bathroom and then quickly turned to meet the onslaught of gerbils, who, he swears, came at him in waves.

It took a while, but with great skill and dexerity he managed to corral them all in a box. The girls came home and transferred them to a large, tall plastic bucket for the night because they had already made serious inroads on the box. Because the gerbils chewed through the small fan that they use for "white noise" while sleeping, Bethany moved the gerbils into the bathroom (which had been vacated by the cat by this time) so they wouldn't be disturbed by all the chewing and scratching, and in the process managed to become thoroughly bit. The resulting shriek sent me rocketing skyward like a startled pheasant and I erupted from my bedroom to see who was being murdered and why. A quick glance told all, and with infinite kindness and mercy, I told Bethany to stop bleeding on my carpet and threatened to skin all the gerbils with a blunt knife before feeding them to the cat.

The gerbils were settled for the night with a large board across the top to keep them contained. In the morning, we went about our duties and the gerbils were left in the bucket. Unfortunately for them, the bucket was soon sitting in a pool of glorious morning sunshine. While sunshine on our shoulders generally makes us humans happy, it had the unhappy effect of turning the bucket with the board on it into a sort of mini-gerbil sauna. My oldest son happened to go by the bucket and decided to check on the gerbils, since they were unnaturally silent, and found them all laying on their sides, wet with sweat. The insides of the bucket were coated in condensation and the aroma of wood chips rose to meet his nostrils. However, the health benefits of sauna seemed to do them good once they got a bit of fresh air and they were up and at it very shortly afterwards, trying to eat and scratch their way out of the bucket with renewed vigor.

My husband is far more understanding and patient than I am when it comes to gerbils turning my house into a giant litter box. However he has to live with me. Next evening he comes home with a spacious GLASS aquarium for the gerbils. Sadly, the children wouldn't let me fill it with water before putting the gerbils in; but you can't have everything.

The gerbils are now installed in their new digs and are busily engaged in trying to find a purchase on the glass for gnawing or else in digging their way through. Me? I make faces at them through it.

Historical Perspectives

I love reading history, especially through biographies. When I read about the personalities involved in a particular era of history, I find it much easier to remember what actually happened than if I tried to recall a list of dates and events. Right now I am reading a biography of James I of England and VI of Scotland, called James I: The Fool as King by Otto Scott He does a very nice job in setting the stage for the conflict between Church and State that resulted in the need for the Solemn League and Covenant and the writing of the Westminster Confession of Faith which directly attacked and undermined James' doctrine of Divine Right of Kings.

Otto Scott does something in this book which is refreshing to me -- he destroys the mystique around Mary, Queen of Scots, and Elizabeth I of England. Instead of being figures of romance, Mary is presented as a foolish, conniving adulterous and murderous woman who was responsible for the death of her first husband. Elizabeth is portrayed as a vain, vaccillating pragmatist whose glory came, not from her wisdom, but depended more on the happy Providences of God which she was quick to claim the honor for.

After the Second Reformation in Scotland, the land fell back into unfaithfulness to her Covenants and so the judgement of God fell upon that land in the form of Jacobite rebellions and the clearing of the Highlands among other things. The hand of the Lord has been heavy on Scotland since that time, but like James Renwick, I believe that the Covenants will again be the means of blessing Scotland again.

I not only like to read history, but I also enjoy watching it. In the last few weeks there has been a very interesting history of the Medici family on PBS. The Medici's were from Florence, Italy, and some of them became famous as corrupt Popes. It was the Medici popes who were in power when Luther nailed his 95 theses to the door in Wittenburg and it was the Medici's who were the sponsors of artists like Michelangelo. Another infamous family member was Catherine de Medici, who was mother to kings of France, and one of the architects of the slaughter of French Reformed Christians during the St. Bartholomew's day massacre.

" For 20 years, Catherine[aka "Madame Serpent" -- CG] is the pawn of powerful men. Daughter of a playboy who dies of syphilis, she is orphaned at birth and raised by illegitimate cousins and papal uncles. She is threatened during the siege of Florence, and finally handed to her new husband, the future King of France.

Humiliated by her husband's older mistress, Diane, and despised as an Italian “shopkeeper’s daughter“, Catherine spends a decade trying to conceive. In desperation, she ends up having to ask her husband's mistress for help - and finally gives birth to 10 children, including four sons.

When her husband is killed in a hunting accident, Catherine takes control and rules France by proxy through her sickly, deranged and deviant sons. But she can't control the religious tensions sweeping the country, and starts the blackest event of French history - the St Bartholomew’s Day Massacre of 1572.

Obsessed with the prophecies of Nostradamus, whom she pursues around France, Catherine is told that no heir of her sons will rule France. The idea terrifies her.

A true godfather, Catherine rules her court through the whispers of her “flying squadron“ - ladies who use their bodies to get information. She’s certainly not afraid to get her hands dirty. "


For amusement, I took the Medici quiz they offered to see which of the Medici's I most resembled. I am...

LORENZO THE MAGNIFICENT -


It must be tough to be you: good at sports, ladies desire you, guys want to be you, - you're smart as a whip with the Midas touch. You live a charmed life. Everyone around you benefits from your largesse, friends and family alike share in your good fortune. You never back away from a just fight and stand up for what's right every time. We want to hate you but can't, you're Lorenzo the Magnificent.

Heh heh...

If I had no family responsibilities and could devote myself solely to being a professional student, one of the subjects I would immerse myself in would be history.

Counter Culture

I guess I tend to blog in blocks. Some days I have nothing to say, and other days I can't seem to shut up. Anyhoo....

Today's outpouring is directed towards the counter-culture idea of encouraging young people, or at least allowing young people, to marry and raise a family. A few weeks ago after church I raised the idea of allowing young teens to marry with some of the ladies and I am not sure how it was received. Probably not enthusiastically, especially when we silently considered some of the foolishness and antics some of the young people we know have been getting up to. How could we expect these young people, who are stuck in the "it's all about me" stage of life to be responsible wives and husbands, never mind being parents?

Right now these young people are stuck in the no-man's-land of adolescence where they are frowned upon if they act in a childish manner, but aren't yet considered capable of being adults and doing adult things. Somehow our culture has raised the bar of adulthood and left a gap that leaves teens at the mercy of their hormones and the worst elements of our culture with a lot of time on their hands and often the money for absorbing and experiencing it. Education has been stretched out to cover the years between childhood and adulthood, but the covering is pretty thin if you ask me. It used to be that people could enter college and university in their early teens instead of waiting until they were in their late teens or early 20's.

In an earlier post I mentioned the instability that many young people go through as they make the transition from believing things that mom and dad believed, to the point where they begin to either reject or take ownership of these same beliefs. Is much of this instability caused by this long gap of almost meaningless existence? I don't know. I do know this: if you are busy working to make ends meet, or raising babies and keeping house, you don't have a lot of time for angst unless you are exceptionally self-centered.

I know one girl who could have benefitted from an early marriage. Two girls, actually. They are my oldest daughters. And actually one of them married within days of turning 18. She told me not that long ago that this was one of the best things she could have done, and I believe her. When Trista was only 15, she was fully capable of running and managing a household. She was one of my right hands, especially when I was recovering from childbirth. I had trained my daughters from an early age to cook, make bread from scratch (including grinding the flour), clean house, and they had lots of experience with babies and small children. This made them pretty capable beings at an early age. If their father and I had been in a different frame of mind and if the prevailing culture didn't consider it irresponsible and oppressive to marry off young teens, they could have been settled in their own homes, minding their own husbands and children. A lot of problems would have been eliminated or avoided.

Are a lot of teens ready for this important step? Not if we continue raising them with the expectation that they have to live through the frustration of adolescence. I suspect that if our expectations were that people should marry younger, we would do a lot more intensive training and teaching than we do now, and they would actually be ready. How we are going to get to that point is a puzzle to me. Not only does the general culture need to change, but so does much of Christian culture. Perhaps we shouldn't be "tsk tsking" when we hear of some young thing of 16 or 17 being engaged and getting ready to marry. It is as though we think that "it is better to marry than to burn" only applies after the worst of the hormonal storm and drive is over. Instead, maybe we ought to be congratulating young people and doing what we can to assist and support them in this desire to take on the mantle of responsibility and find a lawful outlet for all that drive and energy.

As usual, some of my ideas for blogging are sparked by the reading Carmon's blog, or articles that she recommended. Thanks, Carmon.

Big Screen Jesus

I guess I am not the only one with serious reservations.

Signs of Divine Displeasure

We Christians sometimes joke that if some questionable activity of ours was truly sinful, then God would strike us with lightening from heaven. But what in the world do we say to someone who actually was struck by lightening while doing a sinful deed, and yet continued doing that deed?


You know I got struck by lightning.

You got struck by lightning?
Oh, yeah. We were shooting the Sermon on the Mount. About four seconds before it happened it was quiet, and then it was like someone slapped my ears. I had seven or eight seconds of, like, a pink, fuzzy color, and people started screaming. They said I had fire on the left side of my head and light around my body. All I can tell you is that I looked like I went to Don King's hairstylist.

Did it occur to you that if you're playing Christ and you get struck by lightning, maybe
[Laughs, then, as if speaking to God:] "Didn't like that take, huh?"

The Curse of God

If I was in any doubt that homosexuality is having more and more of an influence on our culture, then a recent trip to my local Costco was able to lay that to rest. One of the books for sale is called Queer Eye for the Straight Guy and it is a fashion guide put together by a group of homosexual men to help bring sartorial elegance to the neanderthal looks of heterosexual men. I had a look through the book, and I don't think I will be buying it for my man. I prefer his jeans and plaid shirts to the decadent elegance of queers. It looks like they are trying to get men to dress more like queers and less like men.

[And what is it about queer men anyhow? Somehow or other, you can usually spot one in a photo or on the street, but I can't decide what, exactly, it is that tells me they are queer. There is just a sensation of something being not quite right at the subconcious level, but I can't quite put my finger on what it is. The only thing I can think of it being is a certain something in the eyes or the way they hold their mouths that is different than the way that other men do.]

Then this morning when I opened up my newspaper, I found an article in there on men in skirts who are trying to redefine masculinity.

"Earlier this month, 100 men took to the streets of New York to lobby their right to wear skirts The protesters came from across the country to denounce the "tyranny of trousers" that has enslaved men's fashion since the French Revolution.

"We're not transvestites, homosexuals or cross-dressers," retired schoolteacher David Johnson told the media. "We don't want you to call us Jean or Sally. We are men -- men who want the right to wear a skirt."

Uh huh. :-|

I wonder if they will shave their legs too.

I think Steve Schlissel got it right when he said that homosexuals would not bring the curse of God on our society. They are the curse of God.

Pharmaceutical Fraud

It's no secret that I am as big a skeptic when it comes to pharmaceutical solutions to many health care conditions as many people are when they regard alternative health care. Lest anyone misunderstand me, I am not saying there is not a place for allopathic medicine. If you need your appendix out or have suffered trauma, then get thee to a hospital to get it dealt with, not your local herbalist.

Glaxo-Smith Kline, one of the multi-national pharmaceutical companies, recently admitted that most drugs only work in about 30-50% of the people they are administered to. Part of the reason for this is because most drugs are only tested on men. This leaves out 50% of the human race when you do this. What they find when they do test some of these drugs on women is that the potency of the drug and its effects may change depending on where a woman is at in her menstrual cycle. What could be an effective dose at one part of the cycle may be far too much or too little in another part of the cycle. And then there are all the side effects they cause because drugs exist, not to treat the root cause of disease (which is not caused by a drug deficency -- you don't get cancer because your mom failed to sprinkle chemotherapy drugs on your Cornflakes when you were a child) but to suppress symptoms of disease.

Let's look at the typical way that people with type II diabetes are treated in the medical establishment. People who develop adult-onset diabetes are what is known as insulin resistant. This means they have more than adequate levels of insulin in their systems. In fact, they have too much, so the body, in order to protect itself from all the insulin, starts to shut off the receptors on the cells so that the cells won't be flooded with too much insulin and blood sugar. One of the first areas protected this way is the brain. Now the brain's main fuel is glucose, and if the brain becomes insulin resistant, then the glucose has a harder time making it into the brain to feed it, which helps to explain the brain fog many of these people suffer from.

Now if glucose metabolism is impaired, and the reason it is impaired is because there is too much insulin being produced, then common sense should tell us that we should find ways of reducing the amount of insulin made and restoring insulin sensitivity to the body. This can be done through restricting the things that cause blood sugar, and therefore insulin levels to rise in the body: namely high glycemic carbohydrates. But what does allopathic medicine do? They give you a drug like Glyburide or Metformin.

Glyburide and Metformin work by making your pancreas squeeze out more insulin. Now remember, type II diabetes is caused by too much insulin in the first place. So their solution is to make more insulin. This causes the blood sugar levels to drop because in effect you are taking a battering ram to the cells in the form of even more insulin and forcing the insulin and blood sugar into cells that were already stuffed full of them. Over time this process forces the body's cells to become even less sensitive to insulin and it exhausts the pancreas' ability to make the amounts of insulin required to move blood sugar out of the blood stream and into the cells.

When the diabetic reaches this stage, he is now ready for the next size of battering ram: injected insulin. By this point, not only are his cells stuffed full of sugar and resistant to insulin, now he is coping with rising triglyceride and bad cholesterol levels. The reason for this is because when the blood sugar gets trapped in the blood stream, the body must find a way to dispose of it. It's answer is to take all this excess sugar to the liver and convert it to blood fat. Now, you not only have a stressed pancreas, your liver is working double time too and you have all the conditions in place for giving yourself heart disease.

Doctors look at the blood sugar index on a person who is injecting insulin and is happy because the blood sugar under control, but in reality he is shooting at the wrong target and worsening the health of the person who follows his advice. (Just ask me how I know! -- Someone very close to me is doing this-- with the typical outcome.)

To deal properly with this condition, our goal should be to lower the output of insulin and restore the body's sensitivity to the insulin it naturally makes. The key to this is to change the diet by cutting out anything with sugar or anything the body converts easily to sugar, control the weight, and EXERCISE REGULARLY. This will lead to the elimination, rather than the escalation of drugs. But most people find it easier to just punch a needle in their leg than to actually exercise. [sigh]

But I digress.

The real point of this soap box diatribe was sparked by a recent article in The Province newspaper.

Pharmaceutical companies are deceiving patients and doctors by keeping negative results from drug trials "locked in the filing cabinet," Canada's leading medical journal warns.

The Canadian Medical Association Journal says Health Canada is complicit in this "file-drawer phenomenon" by too often keeping quiet about evidence that questions drug safety and effectiveness....

"...It takes $1 billion on average to bring a new drug to market, a huge investment that "puts pressure on companies to suppress results that might slow or extinguish sales," the CMAJ says. But by burying data, drug companies "deceive physicians, their patients and, perhaps, shareholders."


So next time you are faced with the decision to take a drug or find an alternative, maybe it would be a good idea to consult a health "nut" about safer and more effective alterntatives.

Birth of a Hummingbird

Many thanks to Willena for this interesting website. It was interesting (and sad) to learn that hummingbirds have the same Cain and Abel syndrome that eagles display.

The Perfect Mother-in-Law

One of my favorite books in the Bible is the book of Ruth. I just find the story there to be so incredibly beautiful. What is especially beautiful is the way a particular mother-in-law in this book displays the true virtues and example that all of us mothers who hope to be an inlaw some day should take to heart.

When my sons and daughters marry, will their spouses cry if I have to leave them behind? Will I display the lovingkindness and winsomeness that Naomi displayed?

For family worship, we are reading through the book of Ruth using Matthew Henry's commentary. Here are a few of his insights that struck chords in my heart:

-- Though there be a reason for our being in bad places, yet, when the reason ceases, we must by no means continue in them. Forced absence from God's ordinances and forced presence with wicked people, are great afflictions; but when the force ceases, and such a situation is continued of choice, then it becomes a great sin.

-- When death comes into a family it ought to be improved for the reforming of what is amiss in the family: when relations are taken away from us we are put upon enquiry whether, in some instance or other, we are not out of the way of our duty, that we may return to it.

--Thus God takes away from us the comforts we stay ourselves too much upon and solace ourselves too much in, here in the land of our sojourning, that we may think more of our home in the other world, and by faith and hope may hasten towards it. Earth is embittered to us, that heaven may be endeared.

--...that Naomi, as became an Israelite, had been very kind an obliging to them and had won their love, in which she is an example to all mothers-in-law, and that Orpah and Ruth had a just sense of her kindness, for they were willing to return it thus far. It was a sign they had dwelt together in unity, though those were dead by whom the relation between them came. Though they retained an affection for the gods of Moab and Naomi was still faithful to the God of Israel, yet that was no hindrance to either side from love and kindness, and all the good offices that the relation required. Mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law are too often at variance and therefore it is more commendable if they live in love; let all who sustain this relation aim at the praise of doing so.

-- Orpah's kiss showed she had an affection for Naomi and was loth to part from her; yet she did not love her well enough to leave her country for her sake. Thus many have a value and affection for Christ, and yet come short of salvation by him, because they cannot find in their hearts to forsake other things for him. They love him and yet leave him, because they do not love him enough, but love other things better.

-- We must take the Lord for our God. "This God is my God for ever and ever; I have avouched him for mine." When we take God for our God we must take his people for our people in all conditions; though they be a poor despised people, yet, if they be his, they must be ours. Having cast in our lot with them, we must fare as they fare. We must submit to the same yoke and draw in it faithfully, take up the same cross and carry it cheerfully, go where God will have us go, though it should be into banishment, and lodge where he will have us to lodge, though it be in a prison, die where he will have us die, and lay our bones in the graves of the upright, who enter into peace and rest in their beds, though they be but the graves of the common people. We must resolve to contine and persevere, and herein our adherence to Christ must be closer than that of Ruth to Naomi. She resolved that nothing but death should separate them; but we must resolve that death itself shall not separate us from our duty to Christ, and then we may be sure that death itself shall not separate us from our happiness in Christ. We must bind our souls with a bond never to break these pious resolutions, and swear unto the Lord that we will cleave to him. Fast bind, fast find. He that means honestly does not startle at assurances.

And lastly...

-- Those that are unresolved , and go in religious ways without a stedfast mind, tempt the tempter, and stand like a door half open, which invites a thief; but resolution shuts and bolts the door, resists the devil, and forces him to flee.

Train Up a Child?

This morning I was reading my Matthew Henry commentary on the genology of Christ found in Matthew chapter one. He had this to say of the mixture of saints and sinners found in this pedigree:

"God's Grace is his own, and he gives or withholds it as he pleases."

I wish writers of parenting manuals would give greater heed to this fact. God does desire a holy seed and one of the primary means of doing this is to give children to godly parents. But one would think from the way that some Christian parenting manuals read that the children who do grow up to serve the Lord got that way because the parents followed a particular program and that it is the program and not God's grace on it (or even in spite of it) that did the trick.

House Despot

I was dismayed yesterday to read a post from a young lady who shall remain nameless. Her post was a long outpouring of teenage angst of not being understood, not being appreciated, and wishing herself dead. Mixed in with this was the determination that she would NOT be merely a housewife or mother. She wanted to be herself! She wanted to be a feminist in order to be able to fulfill her dreams and desires rather than submit herself to raising a bunch of snotty nosed children and cleaning up after some man.

This view, of course, is not a strange one. There is this pervasive idea out there that if one is a keeper at home that this necessarily means that one is unfulfilled and life is an endless round of drudgery like that described above. Running a home with 11 people in it certainly keeps one busy and there is never a lack of things to do. And yes, it can be drudgery at times. Oh but what some of these young ladies can't see and won't see until they are able to experience it is that this calling is really one of the best in the world. Lots of flexibility and creativity is called for in this job, plus there is freedom to exercise it in a way that you won't get if you are working for someone else. Being a house despot is the best job in the world for women, if only they could see it.

Something else about what the young lady said also reminded me that we mothers who are managing our homes, some of which contain a large number of people, need to remember that while our children should be contributing to doing the chores and helping with the babies, we need to be careful not to unload a lot of our responsibilities onto their shoulders as they get older leaving us to spend untold hours surfing the net, chatting with friends, or talking on the phone. They should be learning from an active example of industry and they should be trained with lots of input from us, pulling alongside them as the more experienced yokefellow.

Having said that, I know a lot of young people, for whom the more they are given, the less thankful and self-centered they become. They complain bitterly and act mightily put upon if they are asked to help with something. Some of their attitudes are almost that we should be paying them for the privilege of raising them. I wish I could say that I am seeing this in only public-schooled pagan children, but the truth is that I have seen this attitude even amongst catechized Reformed and homeschooled children.

There is a natural instability that appears to happen in the early teen years with some children. This is the time when they start to become more self-conscious about what they think and believe. And this is when the questions begin. Do they believe Christianity because it is true, or merely because this is what they were always taught? Boundaries are tested, sometimes with lasting and disastrous results. But many have only minor stumbles, and by the grace of God are able to stand up and continue on in the faith of their fathers.

We should be in much prayer for our young people during these years. We also need to be constantly encouraging them to remember the benefits that God has conferred upon them, totally as the result of His grace and not by their merit.

But I digress....

The real reason I wanted to write this post was so that those of you who do not reac Carmon's blog and who haven't seen this article will go there and read it now.

No Tar or Feathers

Yesterday was a homeschooler skating party at our local Roller Dome. I am happy to say that I survived the ordeal of seeing other homeschoolers that I annoyed and offended with my posts on Mel Gibson's movie, The Passion of Christ

It probably helps that I usually only show up to one or two meetings a year, which means that most of the other homeschoolers don't know me by sight. And to be truthful, these ladies are very gracious people who, though annoyed with me for ruffling their ecclesiastical feathers, wouldn't think of plucking any out to stick into tar attached to my skin.

I enjoy the love of others and popularity as much as anyone. I hate making others mad at me or seriously annoyed. And I am, by nature a coward. Any of the times that I have been able to maintain a stiff defense of what I believe the truth to be is because God has enabled me to stand, rather than allowing me to melt into a puddle of non-resistance. Being quiet is easy, but is it faithful? One of the violations of the ninth commandment is being silent when speaking the truth is called for.

Since this movie and its implications are still on my mind, I thought I would expand a bit further on what I am thinking.

The current motivating philosophy of much of the evangelistic methods of mainstream Christianity seems to be pragmatism. Christianity is just another competing interest for modern man, and if we are going to get in there and rescue anyone, we had better be using the best methods that have been proven to work by market research. So you have the Willow Creek and Saddleback churches which design their programs to be "seeker sensitive." Entertainment reigns and offense is eliminated as much as possible. The preaching of the Gospel is condensed to 15 or 20 minutes of sound bites that won't overwhelm the listener and lots of humour, jokes, and anectdotes are thrown in, in order to keep everyone's attention. Some churches use movies to keep their audience with them. And some use the movies as the basis of the sermon. I recently read about one so-called preacher who used the trials of Frodo and Sam on their way to Mordor as the basis of three of his sermons.

I don't doubt for a moment that God uses people and things in spite of the lack of purity in them or the corrupt sin nature that exists in all of us. God used the false prophet Balaam, a man hired by Israel's enemies, to call down blessings upon the Israelites despite his intentions to curse them. Though God blessed Israel through this means, we should not presume to think that it is ok for us to ask other false prophets to do the same with the same happy results. We are to govern our lives by God's precepts, not his providences.

Gibson's movie attempts to picture One, who cannot be pictured/ portrayed or impersonated by an actor. Jesus was God and man, two distinct natures in one person; the truth incarnate. Since we are unable to represent him, we are not even to attempt to represent him. Is it a true depiction of one who is truth himself? How do you know?

How have we been commanded to spread the historical event and the signifigance of Christ crucified? Aurally. Orally. Preaching. Reading Scripture. Not visually. Since Christ cannot truly be depicted by man's art of any variety, the same necessarily become a lie and or an idol - a representation of God who cannot be represented. Consider the many so-called pictures of "Jesus" that you have seen over the years. Some portray him as a middle-eastern Jew, some as a blond-haired, blue-eyed Anglo-Saxon, others as a pansy. The danger we are most liable to falling into is making Christ after our own image. All images that we make, whether on celluloid film or in Sunday School papers or flannelgraphs, detract from the glory of our risen Lord and are nothing but lies. Christ gave us two visual representations of Himself for remembering Him by: baptism and the elements of the Lord's Supper. Let us be content with these.

I do not deny that there may be some who are drawn to the Gospel through this movie. Though God may and often does, sovereignly move upon men's hearts in ways that we don't understand, He has told us how we are to spread the Gospel: through the preaching and hearing of God's Word. What is of greater concern to me is that many more people will be lured into committing the sin of idolatry, which I contend is precisely what a movie or play that tries to portray Christ does. The first commandment tells us which God to worship. The second, tells us how to worship that God. When we insist on introducing things into worship that God has not ordained, or when we insist on actually violating what He specifically commanded us not to do, then in effect we are telling God that His ways are not good enough and that a lot of what man devises (Acts 17:29) needs to be added in order for the Gospel to be effective.

Over and over in Scripture, God defines idolatry to be not only the worship of false gods, but also includes the false worship of the true God. When God demands a blood sacrifice, it doesn't do to offer him fruits and vegetables, no matter how sincere the attempt, as Cain found to his dismay. When God forbids us to make any representation of Him, we should heed his words instead of looking to our own sincerity of motives. We should not look to our methods of spreading the Gospel and do a head count as though sheer numbers determine its viability or success. Instead we should be looking at our ways and means and asking ourselves if they are obedient to what God has commanded.

When Saul took the cattle that God had designated for destruction upon the pretext of saving it to sacrifice to Him, his reply through the prophet Samuel was,

"Has the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed than the fat of rams. For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubborness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the LORD, He also has rejected you from being king."

Somber words. Sincerity in disobedience does not please the Lord.

Giving people the Gospel should not be a constant search for a more and more clever ways that grab the attention in order to "close the deal." And we should not interpret an emotional response or apparently good intentions as evidence of true repentance and faith in Christ.

"Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord' shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, "Lord Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?' And then I will declare to them, "I NEVER knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!" Matt. 7:21-23

Prophesying, casting out demons, and doing wonders for Christ's sake are not good enough, according to Christ, if you are not doing the will of the Father.

Is this movie one that is sure to move people to tears and great emotional response? By all accounts this is so. And that is precisely where its danger lies. I greatly fear that there will be many who will be deceived into believing that the fact that many are moved emotionally is the same thing as seeing them saved. Again, let us look at what Scripture says:

"A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seed fell by the wayside; and the birds came and devoured them. Some fell on stony places, where they did not have much earth; and they immediately sprang up because they had no depth of earth. But when the sun was up they were scorched, and because they had no root they withered away. And some fell among thorns, and the thorns sprang up and choked them. But others fell on good ground and yielded a crop; some a hundred fold, some sixty, and some thirty. He who has ears to hear, let him hear....

"Therefore hear the parable of the sower: When anyone hears the word of the kingdom, and does not understand it, then the wicked one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart. This is he who received seed by the wayside. But he who received the seed on stony places, this is he who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; yet he has no root in himself, but endures only for a while. For when tribulation or persecution arises because of the word, immediately he stumbles. Now he who received seed among thorns is he who hears the word and the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and he becomes unfruitful. But he who received sseed on good ground is he who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and porduces: some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty." ( Matt. 13: 3-9; 18-23)

Now in the above portion of Scripture we have four instances of seed being sown, but only one of those plots of ground produced *lasting* fruit. One type didn't even have a chance to sprout, two others sprouted and gave the appearance of conversion, but in the end, they were false professions. These sort of verses should trouble us into looking at our own hearts and asking, "Lord am I one of the deceived who will think I did great things in your Name only to find I was wrong? Am I one of those who has a stony ground or thorns in my heart?" I fear that there are many who warm church pews these days, thinking that they are safe because they had an emotional response to a movie or sermon or because they said, "the sinner's prayer" or answered an altar call.

We are told in Romans 6:1,2 " What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live longer therein?"

Dare we say that the means God instituted are not efficacious or good enough?

Deep Trials Equal Deep Comfort

I have been reading through Morning and Evening, a daily devotional by that wonderful Prince of Preachers, Charles Spurgeon. He has a way of really getting in there between the joints and marrow with his insights on Scripture. The morning devotional for yesterday is certainly true, as I have found in my own experience:

"For as the sufferings of Christ abound to us, so also our comfort abounds through Christ" -- 2 Corinthians 1:5

"Here is a blessed proportion. The Ruler of Providence bears a pair of scales. In this side He puts His people's trials, and in that He puts their consolations. When the scale of trial is nearly empty, you will always find the scale of consolation in nearly the same condition; and when the scale of trials is full, you will find the scale of consolation just as heavy. When the black clouds gather most, the light is the more brightly revealed to us. When the night lowers and the tempest is coming on, the Heavenly Captain is always closest to His crew. It is a blessed thing, that when we are most cast down, then it is that we are most lifted up by the consolations of the Spirit.

"One reason is, because trials make more room for consolation. Great hearts can only be made by great troubles. The spade of trouble digs the resevoir of comfort deeper, and makes more room for consolation. God comes into our heart; He finds it full; He begins to break our comforts and to make it empty; then there is more room for grace. The humbler a man lies, the more comfort he will always have, because he will be more fitted to receive it.

"Another reason why we are often most happy in our troubles, is this: then we have the closest dealings with God. When the barn is full, man can live without God: when the purse is bursting with gold, we try to do without so much prayer. But once take our gourds away, and we want our God; once cleanse the idols out of the house, then we are compelled to honor Jehovah. "Out of the depths have I cried unto you, Oh Lord." There is no cry so good as that which comes from the bottom of the mountains; no prayer half so hearty as that which comes up from the depths of the soul, through deep trials and afflictions. Hence they bring us to God and we are happier; for nearness to God is happiness. Come, troubled believer, fret not over your heavy troubles, for they are the heralds of weighty mercies."

The closeness to God one feels almost makes you long for affliction. Almost.

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Which Ringwraith are You?
By Lisa

Raining on Parades

Some days it seems like all I do is rain on other people's parades. The latest round of rain is due to all the fuss and bother about the new Mel Gibson movie, The Passion.

The second commandment, amongst other things, forbids "the making any representation of God, of all or of any of the three persons, either inwardly in our mind, or outwardly in any kind of image or likeness of any creature whatsoever;"

Deuteronomy 4:15-19. Take ye therefore good heed unto yourselves; for ye saw no manner of similitude on the day that the LORD spake unto you in Horeb out of the midst of the fire: Lest ye corrupt yourselves, and make you a graven image, the similitude of any figure, the likeness of male or female, The likeness of any beast that is on the earth, the likeness of any winged fowl that flieth in the air, The likeness of any thing that creepeth on the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the waters beneath the earth: And lest thou lift up thine eyes unto heaven, and when thou seest the sun, and the moon, and the stars, even all the host of heaven, shouldest be driven to worship them, and serve them, which the LORD thy God hath divided unto all nations under the whole heaven.

Acts 17:29. Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device.

Romans 1:21-23, 25. Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things.... Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.

The above was sent in response to the raptures of the local homeschool association wrt this movie. So far there have been no responses to what I have said. But I bet you anything I will be persona non grata at the next homeschool event.

Tyrannical Patriarchy and Independent Feminism

With regard to the subject above, it occured to me that both of the above tend to reinforce and feed off of each other. The Fall had extreme effects on the institution of marriage and the relationships involved. Woman was told that her desire would be to her husband, which some have interpreted as meaning that she would try to usurp his position whenever possible. The other side of the coin is that Man, who was designed to rule creation and the home, in his corrupted state often does so very poorly. The extremes go from total abdication of rule to a stifling, controlling tyranny.

The natural tendency of mankind is to push back when pushed. Some men believe that ruling the home means micro-managing every aspect instead of trusting the judgement of their wives. Some women rebel and push back, others submit and sink under the weight of oppression.

Girls who are raised in these sort of homes tend to become feminists in their thinking. One abuse leads to another. Boys raised by feminists tend to become sensitive new age guy pansies or rebel by being stronger than the woman in every way possible.

The remedy for both independent feminism and tyrannical patriarchy can be found in the exposition of the Fifth commandment duties from the Westminster Larger Catechism.

Question 123: Which is the fifth commandment?

Answer: The fifth commandment is, Honor thy father and thy mother; that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God gives thee.

Question 124: Who are meant by father and mother in the fifth commandment?

Answer: By father and mother, in the fifth commandment, are meant, not only natural parents, but all superiors in age and gifts; and especially such as, by God's ordinance, are over us in place of authority, whether in family, church, or commonwealth.

Question 125: Why are superiors styled father and mother?

Answer: Superiors are styled father and mother, both to teach them in all duties toward their inferiors, like natural parents, to express love and tenderness to them, according to their several relations; and to work inferiors to a greater willingness and cheerfulness in performing their duties to their superiors, as to their parents.

Question 126: What is the general scope of the fifth commandment?

Answer: The general scope of the fifth commandment is, the performance of those duties which we mutually owe in our several relations, as inferiors, superiors, or equals.

Question 127: What is the honor that inferiors owe to their superiors.?

Answer: The honor which inferiors owe to their superiors is, all due reverence in heart, word, and behavior; prayer and thanksgiving for them; imitation of their virtues and graces; willing obedience to their lawful commands and counsels; due submission to their corrections; fidelity to, defense and maintenance of their persons and authority, according to their several ranks, and the nature of their places; bearing with their infirmities, and covering them in love, that so they may be an honor to them and to their government.

Question 128: What are the sins of inferiors against their superiors?

Answer: The sins of inferiors against their superiors are, all neglect of the duties required toward them; envying at, contempt of, and rebellion against, their persons and places, in their lawful counsels, commands, and corrections; cursing, mocking, and all such refractory and scandalous carriage, as proves a shame and dishonor to them and their government.

Question 129: What is required of superiors towards their inferiors?

Answer: It is required of superiors, according to that power they receive from God, and that relation wherein they stand, to love, pray for, and bless their inferiors; to instruct, counsel, and admonish them; countenancing, commending, and rewarding such as do well; and discountenancing, reproving, and chastising such as do ill; protecting, and providing for them all things necessary for soul and body: and by grave, wise, holy, and exemplary carriage, to procure glory to God, honor to themselves, and so to preserve that authority which God has put upon them.

Question 130: What are the sins of superiors?

Answer: The sins of superiors are, besides the neglect of the duties required of them, an inordinate seeking of themselves, their own glory, ease, profit, or pleasure; commanding things unlawful, or not in the power of inferiors to perform; counseling, encouraging, or favoring them in that which is evil; dissuading, discouraging, or discountenancing them in that which is good; correcting them unduly; careless exposing, or leaving them to wrong, temptation, and danger; provoking them to wrath; or any way dishonoring themselves, or lessening their authority, by an unjust, indiscreet, rigorous, or remiss behavior.

Question 131: What are the duties of equals?

Answer: The duties of equals are, to regard the dignity and worth of each other, in giving honor to go one before another; and to rejoice in each other's gifts and advancement, as their own.

Question 132: What are the sins of equals?

Answer: The sins of equals are, besides the neglect of the duties required, the undervaluing of the worth, envying the gifts, grieving at the advancement of prosperity one of another; and usurping preeminence one over another.

Question 133: What is the reason annexed to the fifth commandment, the more to enforce it?

Answer: The reason annexed to the fifth commandment, in these words, That thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God gives thee, is an express promise of long life and prosperity, as far as it shall serve for God's glory and their own good, to all such as keep this commandment.


Now if only our Christian homes would demonstrate more of the above graces and harmonies and less of the sinfilled nature!

Places I have Been



create your own visited states map
or write about it on the open travel guide

Homeschool Guru?

I generally only attend maybe one homeschool mother's support group a year. I just have too many other things to do most of the time, so this particular meeting gets cut. When I do show up, I am usually in the uncomfortable position of being the mother with the most children, including adult children, and also the homeschooler with the most experience.

Because of the above, the automatic assumption on the parts of many is that I am some kind of expert in child rearing/discipline and education. At one time, I would have agreed -- when I was much younger and had fewer kids and had just started homeschooling. The hubris and arrogance of young adults is a sight to behold. And the less kids and experience you have, the worse it seems to be.

I just want everyone to know now, I no longer have hard and fast rules about child raising beyond trying to get as much Scripture into their heads as fast as possible and that Dr. Dobson's advice on teens applies to homeschooling as well: Do what works and just get them through it.

Power of Placebo

As I have probably mentioned elsewhere in this blog, the placebo effect is a mysterious, but wonderful phenomena where the body heals itself, based on the expectations of the person being healed (combined with the sovereign power of God of course) rather than through the usual means of a drug or some other healing agent. I have often wondered by doctors don't deliberately try to invoke the power of placebo more often. It is cheap and non-toxic, after all.

The following short article is from the February 2004 issue of Alive magazine, page 18.

"Giant hoax or medical miracle, scientists are one step closer to understanding a long-debated mystery, the power of placebo, which can apparently turn sugar pills into powerful drugs.

"Finnish and Swedish researchers have revealed more about how this mind-body interaction works. A placebo, they reported in the February 2002 issue of Science magazine, activates the same pain control impulses in the same region of the brain as painkillers.

"This noteworthy phenomenon got big coverage after the New England Journal of Medicine reported that arthritis patients who only thought they'd undergone knee surgery experienced benefits similar to real surgery patients.

"Another recent meta-analysis of 96 studies found the effects of anti-depressants such as Prozac and Zoloft can be largely duplicated by placebo (75 per cent).

"While skeptics continue to ponder placebo's successes, many researchers would agree that a patient's beliefs -- particularly the will to live -- play a powerful role in healing."

Images of Christ

This morning I was reading in the epistle to the Hebrews and one of the things that leapt out of the page at me was that Christ is the "express image" or "exact representation" (as the NIV puts it) of the Father. This put me in mind of other verses in John's Gospel where Christ tells us that if we have seen Him, we have also seen the Father.

This is quite amazing, really. To see Christ is to see the Father, because they are One. If this is so (and it is) then those who make pictures of "Jesus" for Sunday School materials, paintings, book illustrations, etc., should take heed because of their gross violation of the second commandment.

"Take careful heed to yourselves, for you saw no form when the LORD spoke to you out of the midst of the fire, lest you act corruptly and make for yourselves a carved image in the form of any figure: the likeness of male or female, the likeness of any animal that is on the earth or the likeness of any winged bird that flies in the air, the likeness of anything that creeps on the ground or the likeness of any fish that is in the water beneath the earth." Deuteronomy 4:15-18 [NKJV]


Christ didn't leave us without a visible representation for remembering Him by. It is found in the Loaf and the Cup of the Communion Table. With this let us be content.

Cheaper by the Dozen
This past weekend I took in the movie, Cheaper by the Dozen, with my good friend, Milly Vanilly. It was an enjoyable, not terribly deep, movie of life with a large family. Milly comes from a large family and I have a large family, so we had an advantage that most movie goers don't have -- we have lived this chaos.

I learned a long time ago that if you expect a movie version of a book to be faithful to the book, you are in for a big disappointment. Since I didn't have that expectation, I wasn't disappointed.

Several things struck me about this movie. Despite the fact that it was mostly a positive portrayal of life in a large family and the love and loyalty that family members experience for one another, the message that our society views children as largely an encumberance and annoyance to be endured in limited numbers came through loud and clear. Even the couple who had all the children sort of apologized for the fact that they had so many because they lost their head one night after a few too many beer, and a set of twins snuck by before the vasectomy took effect.

In this movie version Dad takes a demanding job in a prestigious coaching position with a college. Mom writes a book and has to promote it on a book tour leaving Dad to manage the house alone. Things were chaotic enough as it was, but with Dad in charge, it rapidly got worse. The main conflict of the story was the question, "Can they do it?" Could a mother of many have a career outside the home and still have a family to come home to? Was a father of many able to hold down a demanding job that required more than typical hours of his time and still be available to his children when needed? In the end, the answer was no. This is pretty realistic. In the end, they chose the less tangible rewards of family life over the approval of the world. (Sorry if I have spoiled the ending for anyone who is intending to see it.)

You really do need a different mind-set and values if you raise a lot of kids. My kids have taught me not to love things any more. This is because things constantly break or get broken. I don't think I have a single intact knick knack in this house. I used to be quite sentimental about my knick knacks and special dishes that may have been gifts to me. Well, I have learned to keep the sentiment that prompted the gift close to my heart even as I sweep up the remains of the gift. I endure clutter a bit better than I used to. I doubt I shall ever completely overcome the neatnick monster that lurks inside of me. It is merely waiting to leap out in all its glory once the last child leaves home. And even then, it will probably be only a modified and fore-shortened leap as I expect I shall have grandchildren all too willing to beat it back in.

In a roundabout way, this sort of reminds me of that puzzling verse in I Timothy 2:15:

"Nevertheless she [a woman] will be saved in childbearing if they continue in faith, love, and holiness, with self-control."

Some scholars say that this should read, "THE childbearing" meaning it refers to Christ's incarnation. Others say that this means that women are saved in their duties as mothers. I think there is a sense in which both are correct.

Women are saved through the only Son who was born who was and is capable of saving them. But there is a real sense in which the trials, tribulations, and sheer mundane tasks of motherhood have a real way of working out our salvation with fear and trembling in the lives of mothers.

Babies, toddlers, children, and teens have a way of demanding attention and needing care that requires a great deal of self-sacrifice on the parts of mothers if they are to be met at all in a competent way. Women give up their bodies and endure many discomforts during the gestating period. Then there is the pain of labor and delivery, afterpains, breastfeeding discomforts, sleepless nights, teething, dirty diapers, potty training, temper tantrums and childhood illnesses to get through, followed by the awkward hormonal teen years when a challenge to authority is likely to happen. Just when you get them to a stage where they are actually competent enough to be of material help to you, they either decide they don't want to cooperate, or they flee the nest.

Some of the worst pain one endures as a mother has nothing to do with physical trials or lack of sleep. It comes from holding your breath as you watch a child you have loved, taught and prayed for teeter on the edge of moral ruin in the face of your warnings and tears.

Sounds pretty grim, doesn't it? No wonder most of the world doesn't think children are worth the pain.

These petty annoyances (and they are petty in the grand scheme of things) are the means that God uses to strip away the self-centered, naval gazing tendencies in the lives of women. If we react badly to these common occurances, it is only evidence that there is a lot of sanctification that still needs to take place in our lives. We have layer after layer of ego and sinful pride that needs to be ripped off us as painfully as Eustace shed his dragon skin in C.S. Lewis' Narnia chronicle, and very often our children are the means that are used for doing this.

Being a mother is an exercise in humility. It is knowing that despite all the best that medicine has to offer, a child won't survive or get well unless the Great Physician intervenes. It is knowing that each time your children deliver papers on their paper routes could be their last time if they are hit by a careless driver. It is knowing that unless the means of grace are made effectual in their lives, our efforts were in vain. In short, we are completely helpless despite our best attempts and we are driven constantly to the throne of Grace to find mercy in times of need.

Saved in childbearing? You betcha.

Homely Arts

If you do a scan of the centuries, one of the things that sticks out is the fact that the vast majority of the major pieces of art work, admired by the world, are done by men. Sure there are a few outstanding novels or paintings here and there by women, but most of the world's best music, sculpture, books, paintings, etc., were executed by men.

Hmmmm.

It would be foolish to conclude from this that women are not very creative. One only has to visit a local crafts' fair or think back to some of the things our own mothers did in the home to know that women are not at all without creativity and talent. My own mother did beautiful tole painted tin ware and there is one wooden chest that she painted that I have long coveted (hint, hint, Mom) because of the beautiful picture that decorates it. Mom was and is also a wonderful cook. I learned to like food far too well because of her talents in that direction.

My maternal grandmother made beautiful quilts that are cherished by all her offspring and grandchildren. She also knitted and crocheted up a storm of wearable art work.

A lot of the artwork women engage in belongs to the realm of the transient. It tends to be not only beautiful, but also practical and meant for using. Thus, it gets used up and passes out of existence. Most of it graces our walls, beds, sofas, and backs, but few of them make it into art museums. And so our art forms are more temporal in nature than that produced by men.

Or is it?

Though women may not make a splash in the arts' world of time and men, there is one piece of work that many of them are called to that is eternal in nature. God has given to women the awesome and holy task of being the vessels for His "knitting."

I probably won't be remembered after I am gone for my quilting, crocheting, or calligraphy. But by God's grace, when He makes up His jewels, I hope to have contributed a few to the number through my childbearing.

Little children, little children
Who love the Redeemer
Are the jewels, precious jewels
His loved and His Own

Like the stars of the morning
His bright crown adorning
They shall shine in their beauty
Bright gems for His crown.