How Do I Love Thee?

I finished the biography of that remarkable woman, Dorothy Leigh Sayers, last night. It is entitled, A Careless Rage for Life, by David Coomes. After I had read her novel, Gaudy Night, I just knew that eventually I would have to know more about the author who wrote not only an entertaining mystery, but also had such penetrating insight to life.

Dorothy was no "Prairie Muffin" and I suspect that Lady Lydia would be horrified at her mannerisms and way of living, not to mention Dorothy's self-confessed vulgarity and earthy approach to life. She lived with a man outside of marriage, bore an illegitimate son by another, and went on to endure an unhappy marriage to a man who refused to allow her to raise her son. Nevertheless, she remains a woman I admire and who exhibited what C.S. Lewis, one of her colleagues and correspondants, called, "...courage and honesty, for the richly feminine qualities which showed through a part and manner superficially masculine and even gleefully ogreish..." Dorothy exemplified the fact that a woman can be feminine in a truly feminine way without the use of crinolines, Victorian tea roses, and lace. And she exhibited a robust faith in God that grew through the trials of life and manifested in scholarly and intellectual pursuits.

The reason I chose the particular title for this post is because it asks the question "HOW" do I love Thee -- with the "thee" referring to God. Not everyone who loves God does so in a manner that is expressed as a "religious emotion." Some Christians are called "cold" in their religion, and indeed, coldness of heart can exist, and it is something we are warned against. At the same time, we must not believe that excess of emotion is the litmus test of sincerity of love and devotion to God. In the parts of the letter that Dorothy wrote to someone on this matter, I think she does a wonderful job in illustrating just how it is one can love God in a manner that is true, honest, and yet unlike how another experiences it. We are not cookie cutter figures made from clay, but individuals with our own expression, calling, and role to fill in life and each of those callings will have peculiar temptations attached to them in terms of the ways in which we can breach our own integrity in fulfilling them. But I'll let Dorothy speak now:

"...I am not by temperament an evangelist. If I were, my thirst for saving souls would overcome all secondary considerations, and my obvious and burning sincereity would at any rate prevent me from appearing smug, whatever else it exposed me to. Charity would cover many mistakes I made. But I have not the passionate love for my fellow-men; I find it very difficult to love them at all, though for the most part I like them and get on with them, and can live with them in kindness if not in charity. This is a defect in me, but it is no use pretending that it does not exist. Evangelism is something to which I do not feel myself called.

"I am quite without the thing known as 'inner light' or 'spiritual experience.' I have never undergone conversion. Neither God, nor (for that matter) angel, devil, ghost or anything else speaks to me out of the depths of my psyche. I cannot go to people and say: 'I know the movements of the spirit from within...'

"It follows naturally, perhaps, from this that I am quite incapable of 'religious emotion'. This has its good as well as its bad side. I am not seriously liable to mistake an aesthetic pleasure in ritual or architecture for moral virtue, or to suppose that shedding a few tears over the pathos of the Crucifixion is the same thing as crucifying the old man in myself. Nor can I readily dismiss religion as a 'sublimation of sex' or anything of the kind, because I know perfectly well that it is nothing of the sort. But the lack of religious emotion in me makes me impatient of it in other people, and makes me appear cold and unsympathetic and impersonal. This is true. I am.

"I have a moral sense. I am not sure that this derives from religious belief... I do not enjoy it. If I ever do a disagreeable duty, it is in the spirit of the young man in the parable who said 'I go not', but afterwards (probably in a detestable temper went grumbling off and did the job. On consideration, I think that the existence andnature of the Christian God is the only rational sanction for the moral sense. But moral sense by itself is not religion -- or at any rate, not Christianity.

"Of all the presuppositions of Christianity , the only one I really have and can swear to from personal inward conviction is sin. About that I have no doubt whatever and never have had. Neither does any doctrine of determinism or psychological maladjustment convince me in the very least that when I do wrong it is not I who do it and that I could not, by some other means or other, do better. The other day I did find myself accounting for not having written a necessary letter to a sick person, thanking her for some feeble poems, on the ground that I had a 'thing' about not telling charitable lies in connection with poetry. In a sense it was true -- I have a 'thing' about that. But the 'inward monitor' said firmly that my behaviour arose from a mixture of sloth and cruelty. It also reminded me, horribly, that on at least two other occasions when I had done exactly the same thing, the sick person had died before my letter went. So (you will be glad to hear) I wrote the letter, which did not take five minutes. But the point is that when anything speaks out of my interior it speaks in the outmoded terms of scholastic theology and faculty psychology, and I do not really know how to establish communication with people who have modern insides.

"But since I cannot come at God through intuition, or through my emotions, or through my 'inner light'... there is only intellect left. And that is a very different matter. You said that I, and the rest of us, gave people the impression of caring only for a dogmatic pattern. That is quite true. I remember once saying to Charles Williams: 'I do not know whether I believe in Christ or whether I am only in love with the pattern.' And Charles said, with his usual prompt understanding, that he had exactly the same doubts about himself. But this you must try to accept: when we say 'in love with the pattern', we mean in love. (Though Charles was different, he did love people, and he was capable of romantic love and I think of a personal love for God in a way that I am not...) The thing is, however, that where the intellect is dominant it becomes the channel of all the other feelings. The 'passionate intellect' is really passionate. It is the only point at which ecstasy can enter. I do not know whether we can be saved through the intellect, but I do know that I can be saved by nothing else. I know that , if there is judgement, I shall have to be able t to say: 'This alone, Lord, in Thee and me, have I never betrayed, and may it suffice to know and love and choose Thee after this manner, for I have no other love, or knowledge, or choice in me'...

"Now if you have borne this far with this egotistical preamble, I will try and come to the point.

"The above is my equipment, as it were.

"By training, I am, more or less, a scholar; by vocation I am a writer of stories and plays. Now, for a persona of that training and equipment there is only one unforgivable sin -- I mean, literally unforgiveable, in that it will end by rotting away one's sense of right and wrong, and that is the falsification of one's 'proper truth'. You may murder your mother and commit adultery five nights a week and still keep a living conscience. But if once you begin to distort facts, or to write things for any purpose other than that of telling such truth as you know, or to affect emotions you do not possess -- then you will begin and slip and slide intio illlusion and into a living Hell, because you will be destroying the only instrument by which you make contact with reality. But it is very difficult-- I cannot tell you how difficult it is, or how insidiously all the good in the world as well as all the evil, conspires to push you into betrayal.

"Look what happens... I wrote detective novels harmlessly and profitably for about twenty years...Then, one day, I was asked to write a play for Canterbury about William of Sens... I liked the story, which could be handled as to deal with the 'proper truth' of the artist -- a thing on which I was then particularly keen. It had to be Christian, of course; and I could see -- indeed I knew well enough -- the besetting sin of the artist: to put himself above the work, which is his special temptation to 'make himself as God'. So I wrote the thing and enjoyed doing it. I never, so help me God , wanted to get entangled in religious apologetic, or to bear witness for Christ, or to proclaim my faith to the world, or anything of that kind. It was an honest piece of work about something I really knew. It was All Right. And still nobody bothered.

"When the show came to London, I couldn't escape the normal Press interviews... And as a result of one of them, I wrote the article 'The Greatest Drama ever Staged'... Well, that was all right too. It merely said that, whether you believed in Christ or not, it was ridiculous to call the story of the Incarnation and Redemption dull. I didn't say more: I could scarcely say less...

"That did it. Apparently the spectacle of a middle-aged female detective-novelist admitting publicly that the judicial murder of God might compete in interest with the corpse in the Coal-Hole was the sensation for which the Christian world was waiting...

"Anyway, from that time... I suppose hardly a week has gone past without at least two demands... that I should write or say something on a religious question... And life become nothing but a desperate struggle to hold on to the rags of one's integrity...

"If you say that you have no knowledge of the subject, they say they quite realise how busy you are and may they ask you again later. If you say that you are a 'creative' writer, and that the writing of treatises and direct doctrinal admonitions saps your energy and ruins your sensitivity, they say that your play did so much good that everybody wants to hear you make a speech... They flatter and press and wheedle and invoke former acquaintance or mutual friends or the needs of the Church and the welfare of society, till to go on saying 'No' is impossible. One writes an article or appears on a platform or answers a letter -- and so one becomes involved, and if one is not desperately careful one finds one's self saying or writing things that are out of one's range or false to one's 'proper truth' -- or else putting together a series of hasty and second -hand commonplaces -- or, unconsciously or even deliberately, exploiting one's own personality. 'What Christ means to me' -- 'How my faith helps my work' -- 'The Life of Prayer' -- 'The Grace of God in Daily life ' -- it is obvious that my type must not write that kind of thing...

"And then there is the terrifying ease by which you may substitute yourself for God, encouraging people to follow you and not Christ. 'They will believe it if you tell them' -- but they must not -- they must believe it only if it is true. 'You can set them a Christian example' -- Yes, by living, not by talking -- and what do they or you know of me? 'They will listen to you when they would not listen to the priests' -- too true: but that is the priest's safeguard and theirs. 'What you say is so different from what the Church says' -- no, no, no! What I say is what the Church says -- only the language is different. Throw my accursed book out of the window: I have nothing to give you but the Creeds. 'But do you believe all these petrifying dogmas?' -- Listen: it does not matter to you whether I believe or how I believe, because my way of belief is probably not yours. But if you will only leave me in peace till some truth so takes hold of me that I can honestly show it to you through the right use of my own medium, then I will make a picture for you that will be the image of that truth: and that will be not the Creeds, but the substance of what is in the Creeds. But unless it is a living truth to me, I cannot make it truth to you: I should be damned, and you would see through it anyhow, bad work cannot be hid...

"I have written a great deal, and perhaps said nothing. But I should like somebody to understand the position of the 'intellectual' Christian when ... he gets caught up in the machine of apologetics. It is useless to blame him for being intellectual -- all his passion, all his sympathies, all his emotions, all his truth, all reality are mediated to him through the intellect, and if you force him out of his contact with reality, he can only deviate into falsehood -- and damning falsheood to his 'proper truth'. He is liable, like other men, to succumb to his own propaganda... but he has the advantage of knowing the danger he stands in. All the same, he is walking a tight-rope the moment you require him to bear a witness that is not absolutely spontaneous, and when he falls, he falls like Lucifer, because he has lost not only Beatrice but Virgil...

"Have I any more to add? Yes, just this. You complain that the books we write are all right for Christians, but not for the heathen, -- all right for highbrows, but no good for lowbrows. Again, that is largely true. But it is precisely the educated near-Christians or woolly Christians we write for. They are our people and the sheep of our pasture. We are not priests, dedicated to the service of all sorts and conditions of men, nor evangelists, called to labour in the foreign mission-field. Our religious writings have necessarily to be addressed to the same set of people who read our other books. That is all we are trained for. I think it very likely that the time has come when we ought to be superseded. I am not quite sure that we ought to be chastized by our even-Christians for not doing that which we are neither called nor fitted for...

"I think it comes to this: that, however urgently a thing may be needed, it can only be rightly demanded of those who can rightly give it. for the others are bound to falsify and so commit the greatest treason: to do the right thing for the wrong reason. And, by the time you have done it, you know it is no longer the right thing."

Dorothy Sayers on Christ's Attitude Towards Women

I originally quoted what follows on Alice's Evangelical Update blog, but I think it bears repeating:

"He [Christ -- CG] alone... among great religious teachers, had no whimsies about women... He never held them up either as a menace, or a snare, or an inspiration; never delimited their sphere of action, or told them to stick to the kitchen... or to take their ideas from their husbands and stop talking about what they did not understand. he treated them quite ordinarily as individual persons -- and seemed to look on them neither as 'Women, God help us!' nor 'The Ladies, God bless 'em!' but just as specimens of humanity, who happened to be female. I find this fact fortifying, and consider it as tending to clear the mind of cant."

Your Birthdate: January 10

Your birth on the 10th day of the month adds a tone of independence and extra energy to your life. The number 1 energy suggest more executive ability and leadership qualities than you path may have indicated. A birthday on the 10th of any month gives greater will power and self-confidence, and very often a rather original approach. This 1 energy may diminish your ability and desire to handle details, preferring instead to paint with a broad brush. You are sensitive, but your feeling stay somewhat repressed. You have a compelling manner that can be dominating in many situations.

What'>http://www.blogthings.com/whatdoesyourbirthdatemeanquiz/">What Does Your Birth Date Mean?

BOO! HISS!

One of the vices our family enjoys is Breyers All Natural Ice Cream. It is one of the few indulgences we get that doesn't make us feel too decadent because it didn't have polysorbate 80 or any of the other unpronounceable ingredients you typically find in a tub of ice cream. Well all that has changed recently and they did it in a particularly sneaky way.

A week or so ago I was in the supermarket picking up what I thought was a container of the All Natural Chocolate ice cream. I brought it home, and my dh, who has discerning taste, knew instantly that something was amiss. He picked up the container and saw, that not only was it now "double churned" in order to make it a creamier texture, but it no longer said "All Natural" but instead reads "Naturally Flavored". When he turned it over to look at the ingredients, he was astounded to see a bunch of chemicals that formerly was not there. In other words, they used the same sort of packaging as the original All Natural Line, still charged top dollar for it, but had the same sort of chemical crap as the cheaper line of Classic Breyers. I call that sneaky and deceitful!

I dutifully looked up Breyers Ice Cream on the internet and left them a comment on the supposed improvements.

Dear Sir or Madam,

Our family has been buying Breyer's All Natural ice creams for a number of years. Lately we have seen Breyer's "Naturally Flavored" double churned ice cream in similar packaging showing up in the freezer case, containing polysorbate 80 among other things and a diminished stock of the original. Is this line going to replace the All Natural line or are we going to be able to continue to buy the All Natural line? We would be very disappointed to see an end to the All Natural Line and will NOT be buying the naturally flavored line because of some of the ingredients listed in it.

Sincerely yours,

To which I received the following reply from Kathy Schwaller:

You are correct that our new Breyers Naturally Flavoured Ice Cream does taste different. A new process called double churning imparts a much creamier texture than what you experienced with our Breyers All Natural Ice Cream. We decided to adopt this new technology after conducting consumer research last year that showed the majority of Canadians prefer a creamier textured ice cream. In order to use the double churning process,however, we must use ingredients that cannot be labelled natural. In addition, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency has increasingly been following a stricter definition of the word "natural," such that even our municipal water is not considered natural as it must be treated for our safety. Water is an integral part of the process used to manufacture ice cream, hence our inability to use the words "all natural."

Please be assured that we are continuing to use the highest quality ingredients and natural flavours in our Breyers Naturally Flavoured Ice Creams. We also think you will be pleased to know that the double churning process we are now using keeps our ice cream creamier and much less sensitive to the changes in temperature that can occur between the time the ice cream leaves our plant and is placed in your freezer. I will forward your comments to our Marketing Department. Thank you.

Well so far, everyone in our family has given the new ice cream the thumbs down and we have let them know. If you would like to protest the loss of the old line of ice cream, please join the revolution and let Unilever know. Ms. Schwaller informs me in a subsequent email that this is how changes are made.

Dorothy Sayers on the Advantages of Middle Age

"The golden age for all who live by their brains is the period from forty to sixty. They have learnt their technique and are ready to create freely in their chosen medium, and with wider knowledge they have gained wider interests... They have become more entertaining and easier to get on with, because they no longer take themselves with such agitated seriousness. The delight of middle-age is a paradox: that as one becomes more important to others one becomes less important to oneself... Only in middle age is it gloriously revealed to one that what one says and does makes little difference in the long run to anybody, and that therefore one may as well say and do what one likes."

Yesterday, in Which I Had a Nap

You might wonder why annoucing I had a nap is blog-worthy. It is because it happens so seldom. There just isn't time or enough cessation of noise around here for it to work. And one thing a pregnant lady really likes is her afternoon nap.

Yesterday Trista, my second daughter and mother to my beautiful grandchildren, came and picked up "Uncle Garnie" and "Aunt Elodie" to come and play with their niece and nephew for the day. Two gone, six to go.

My dh took the older boys with him to the dump. Four gone, four to go.

The neighbor kids called and asked for some of my kids to come and play: seven gone; one to go.

One was quiet enough and I was able to get a rest. But I didn't like it. When I awoke, it was to find everything in exactly the same place I had left it. Many might think this a cause for rejoicing, especially the way things go missing around here or get moved to mysterious places when my back is turned. However, it struck me that rather than being a cause for rejoicing, it was really a taste of what it would be like to be childless, or at least without some of the little critters who inhabit this house.

And I wanted my Elodie.

I think I figured out what that dream about driving over her means. You see, when you have a baby and are home with said baby every day, nursing it, tending to it, and seeing to all its needs and wants, a special bond develops between you and that nursling that is very close and intimate. As that baby grows up, they grow away from you as they begin to become more independant. But what really serves to sever that bond in a dramatic way is the appearance of yet another baby. You gain a new partner in intimacy, but you do lose that same closeness with the elder child, who, at least in this family, is still a baby. For myself, at least, the joy of a new baby is mixed with regret over the next milestone that the foregoing child has reached -- that of older sibling.

I know there are mothers out there who place all their dependance for emotional happiness on their children, and never allow the children to individuate. I think my older children will attest to the fact that I don't have this problem. Nevertheless, I think I am going to really miss that special close bond that you get with babies when my last baby grows up and away. I'm already missing Elodie.

Dorothy Sayers on Christ

"Christ himself was no household pet, for pale curates and pious old ladies, but God made flesh, a shattering personality... a dangerous firebrand... hero and victim...."

"True, He was tender to the unfortunate, patient with honest inquirers and humble before Heaven, but He insulted respectable clergymen by calling them hypocrites... He went to parties in disreputable company... He drove a coach-and-horses through a number of sacrosanct and hoary regulations; he cured disease by any means that came handy, with a shocking casualness in the matter of other people's pigs and property; He showed no proper deference for wealth or traps, he displayed a paradoxical humour that affronted disagreeably searching questions that could not be answered by rule of thumb..."

"I believe it to be a grave mistake to present Christianity as something charming and popular with no offense in it... we cannot blink the fact that gentle Jesus meek and milk was so stiff in His opinions and so inflammatory in His language that He was thrown out of church, stoned, hunted from place to place, and finally gibbeted as a firebrand and a public danger. Whatever His peace was, it was not the peace of an amiable indifference."

"He was executed by a corrupt church, a timid politician and a fickle proletariat... His executioners made vulgar jokes about Him... flogged Him with the cat, and hanged Him on the common gibbet... If you show people that, they are shocked. So they should be... If the mere representation of it has an air of irreverence, what is to be said about the deed? It is curious that people who are filled with horrified indignation whenever a cat kills a sparrow can hear the story of the killing of God... and not experience any shock at all."

Snake Oil, Quackery, or a New Breakthrough in Medicine?

In a recent blog comment I left on someone's blog, I made mention of the Fisher Institute and some stuff on stem cell research. The owner of the blog said that the Fisher Institute was engaged in quackery because of its focus on carbohydrate technology. Someone should tell the World Health Organization, Massachuesetts Institute of Technology, or even the scientist in the linked article below about that.

Scientists race to outsmart clever bugs

A few quotes from the article:

"Around the world, six centres are approaching the problem using glycomics, the study of the biology and chemistry of carbohydrates or sugars in the body.

"It is not about particular foods, food groups or diets, but rather about what role these substances play in the body and how carbohydrate-based therapeutics can be designed to interfere in the biological process of disease.

"In 2003, glycomics was singled out by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's MIT Technology Review as "one of 10 emerging technologies that will have a significant influence in the near future".

"Of the six international centres where the possibilities are being explored, one is the Institute for Glycomics at Griffith's Gold Coast campus, of which Professor von Itzstein is the founder, executive director and a federation fellow.

"At 47, Professor von Itzstein has already established his credentials as one of the smartest scientists in Premier Peter Beattie's "Smart State". In 1996, while working at Monash University, he made the cover of TIME magazine and won the Australia Prize for his role in the discovery of the anti-influenza drug Relenza.

"With a number of his colleagues, he had achieved what many had thought too difficult. He had designed and synthesised a carbohydrate-based compound that acted as a plug to intervene effectively in the infection process associated with influenza.

"As well as being the first designer anti-viral drug discovered in Australia and approved for worldwide use, it was the first designer carbohydrate-based anti-flu drug to be brought to market anywhere across the globe.

"In 2000, Griffith University, Professor von Itzstein's alma mater, recruited him to establish a centre dedicated to the design of carbohydrate-based therapeutics, known as glycopharmaceuticals...

"...Glycopharmaceuticals hold the key to beating virulent new strains of viral and bacterial-induced diseases such as cholera, flu and tuberculosis, which have recently re-emerged as a series health threat.

"...What we are trying to do in one of our approaches is interrupt bacterial and viral infections and prevent them from progressing by manipulating carbohydrates that mimic the naturally-occurring carbohydrate glue and so block the bacteria or virus's interaction to our healthy cells," Professor von Itzstein said.

"The same principles, he and his colleagues recognise, are a promising new avenue in solving the mysteries of some cancers such as colorectal and breast and immune dysfunction such as multiple sclerosis.

"In a decade's time, should the science of glycomics live up to its promise, its impact is likely to equal or better the transformation wrought by penicillin less than a century ago."

End Quotes

This Gal has Guts

I say that because although I am occasionally involved in controversial topics, it isn't something I go looking for these days. Could be the baby hormones kicking in, or maybe I am just mellowing out in middle age.

Alice, of "Not Crunchy" fame has an interesting blog that I have been participating in sporadically. It is called Evangelical Update and is designed to help non-Christians, and in particular, liberals, get a better grasp on who and what Evangelicals (mostly of the Reformed stripe) are all about.

Rev-Ed has posted his interview with Alice here. It will give you a good feel for where she is coming from in all this.

He's Home!

My Dearly Beloved is now home from his out-of-town work assignment that he's been on since February. This means I can collapse in bed at 9 pm when I am tired instead of having to wait for teens to wind down so I can lock everything up for the night. Now hubby can resume that responsibility for me.

Yeah!

Conflicts of Interest

The following article explains why I don't ever donate to things like the Canadian Diabetic Association, the Canadian Cancer Society or the Heart Foundation in anyone's memory or otherwise.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
All Fall Down
By Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman

If you are wondering why Americans are losing the wars on cancer, heart
disease and diabetes, you might look at the funding sources of the major
public health groups.

Big corporations dump big money into these groups. And pretty soon, the groups start taking the line of the big corporations.

Case in point: the American Diabetes Association (ADA).

Earlier this month, the ADA cut a deal with candy and soda pop maker Cadbury Schweppes. Here's the deal -- Cadbury Schweppes kicks in a couple million dollars to the ADA. In return, the company gets to use the ADA label on its diet drinks --plus the positive publicity generated by the deal. Cadbury makes Dr. Pepper and such nutritious treats as Cadbury's Cream Egg. You would have to have your head buried deeply in the sand to deny that sugar-filled soda is fueling childhood obesity -- which in turn in is fueling type 2 diabetes.

Just this week, the Journal of Pediatrics published a study placing a good part of the blame for childhood diabetes on soda pop and sugared drinks.The study found that an average can of soda contains 165 calories andthat the typical teen consumes approximately two 12-ounce cans of softdrinks per day -- that's 20 teaspoons of sugar. Anyone who knows teenagers knows that this is true -- they drink a tonof soda.

The Cadbury/ADA deal came under immediate fire from Gary Ruskin at thePortland, Oregon-based Commercial Alert. Ruskin wants the ADA to return what he considers to be a "corrupt contribution" back to Cadbury Schweppes."Maybe the American Diabetes Association should rename itself theAmerican Junk Food Association," Ruskin said. "What will it do for an encore? Start selling candy bars for M&M/Mars?"

"If Cadbury Schweppes really wanted to reduce the incidence of obesity and diabetes, it would stop advertising its high-sugar products, and remove them from our nation's schools. This is just another attempt by a major junk food corporation to obfuscate its responsibility in the epidemic of obesity and diabetes in the United States."

We called Richard Kahn, the ADA's chief medical and scientific officer to ask about this. It was a long conversation, and Kahn warned us a number of times not to take his comments "out of context" or he would never speak with us again. (The entire transcript of the interview is posted at www.corporatecrimereporter.com. You be the judge.) But on the whole, Kahn sounded like an industry apologist, rather than a public health official. Kahn says the type 2 diabetes problem in the United States is being driven by obesity. And weight is simply a function of the calories in and calories out. It doesn't matter whether the calories are sugar, or protein orcarbohydrates. We asked Kahn whether he thought it was appropriate to do as some states have done and impose a tax on soda. Kahn said he didn't think it was fair to single out soda. Why not tax donuts? Or candy? Or just tax overweight people?

Kahn said that there was no evidence that sugar or sugared sodas were driving the obesity problem. (The interview was conducted just before the Journal of Pediatrics released its findings, but according to the Center for Science in the Public Interest, several previous studies have linked drinking sodas to weight gain. Duh.) We asked Kahn whether he thought it was appropriate to restrict access to junk food. He said that restricting access to junk food wouldn't work. We asked him why then the ADA was supporting legislation introduced by Senator Edward Kennedy (D-Massachusetts) that would restrict access to junk food via vending machines to school children. "Because there is little to be lost and potentially some to be gained by limiting the foods sold in vending machines," Kahn said. And what is to be lost by taxing soda? He defended taking money from Cadbury -- he had to be reminded that it was a candy company -- saying that Cadbury was only allowed to use theADA label on its diet drinks. And that the money would be used for educational programs to encourage people to exercise more.

And it's not just Cadbury Schweppes. The ADA takes big money from a wide range of drug and food companies.The food companies include Cadbury, Kraft Foods, J.M. Smucker Company, General Mills, Inc., and H.J. Heinz Company. Of course, the ADA is not alone. A doctor friend of ours, Dr. Matt Hahn, who runs a community health center in Hancock, Maryland, recently received a carton of 100 samplesof Kellogg's Smart Start cereal. The carton was accompanied by a letter from Michael McBurney, who was identified as senior director of nutrition and regulatory affairs. But since his name and signature were placed directly over the name"American Heart Association" -- Dr. Hahn thought that McBurney was with the Heart Association. McBurney is actually with Kellogg's. The thing that surprised Dr. Hahn was that Kellogg's or the HeartAssociation expected him to give out the cereal, which contains transfats, to his patients. Dr. Hahn told us he wouldn't, since his patients can get cereals without trans fats. The American Heart Association says that it agrees with Dr. Hahn that people should limit their intake of trans fats. But it said that it certified Kellogg's Smart Start because it meets theAHA guidelines, including containing less than three grams of fat perserving."When it comes to Kellogg's Smart Start cereal, the nutritional label states that it contains zero grams of trans fat, which means that it contains less than 0.5 grams of trans fat," said AHA's Carrie Thacker.

Wow -- zero is the same as less than .5. (Thacker says that Kellogg's gives no money to the AHA, although we later learned from the Center for Science in the Public Interest thatthe AHA charges companies $7,500 per certified product, and $4,500 per year thereafter -- plus certain other fees. And like the ADA, the AHA gets big money donations from a long list of drug and food companies.)

And then of course is the American Cancer Society. Don't get us started, except to say that we agree with Dr. Samuel Epstein when he points out that the Cancer Society has for years misguidedly taken millions from big corporations.The problem is that contributors have an interest in diverting attention away from environmental causes of cancer and focusing attention on pharmaceutical and other treatments.

As Dr. Epstein puts it:"There's a fixation on damage control -- screening, diagnosis and treatment -- with indifference to prevention -- which is compounded bylongstanding conflicts of interest with a wide range of industries, coupled with a systematic discrediting of evidence of avoidable causes of cancer."

Same for diabetes. Same for heart disease. All fall down.

Russell Mokhiber is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Corporate CrimeReporter, <http://www.corporatecrimereporter.com>. Robert Weissman iseditor of the Washington, D.C.-based Multinational Monitor,<http://www.multinationalmonitor.org>. Mokhiber and Weissman areco-authors of On the Rampage: Corporate Predators and the Destruction ofDemocracy (Monroe, Maine: Common Courage Press).

(c) Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman
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First Weird Baby Dream

Ok, so it has finally happened. I had a weird baby dream last night. I dreamt I was getting ready to give birth and it was in a strange place, sort of outdoors. I had a midwife with me, who I didn't know, but that didn't seem to faze me a bit. I got down on the mattress, which was laid out on the ground, and started to deliver the baby on my hands and knees. Behind me, I heard the midwife gasp and then say something about "meconium." Now I know that if a baby aspirates meconium, this is not good. So without seeing what is going on, I can hear her suctioning out the baby, etc. Eventually, she hands the baby to me. He was completely cleaned up, dressed and HUGE -- like 15 lbs. big. Not only that, the baby's nose was a normal shape, but it was dark brown and of the bumpy sort of texture that a dog's nose has. Very weird. I remember gazing in astoundment at this nose and wondering if the meconium was what made it turn brown and if it was possible to operate and fix it somehow.

Now according to this article, our dreams serve the purpose of helping our subconscious mind sort out what we really feel/think about what is going on in our lives and we should examine our dreams for the messages we are trying to give ourselves.

Ok folks. What do you think my dream is trying to tell me? And what was the one about me backing up over Elodie about?

A Poet's Inspiration

Today I was handed a poem after church. I think this is the first known instance in which I have been the inspiration of a poet...

Of my mom
There's much to say
Of the telling,
It would take all day
She's been through it all
Thick and thin,
She's been there to correct
Me whenever I sin
Of a bike or car
She never has bought me
But the love and self-sacrifice
Has always been free
Our point of view
Isn't always the same
(But she's always right
cause she gave me my name)
My 11 siblings
She's cheerfully raised:
And even after th is
She still isn't fazed.

All this and more
Are things you've done
And that's why I tell all
That your my mom.

xoxo Nathanael
Happy Belated Mother's Day

Don't forward this at your own peril! You have been warned....

OFF LABEL USES OF DRUGS CAN BE DANGEROUS TO YOUR HEALTH!

One of the stones frequently cast at me is how there is a large body of studies done on drugs using the "Christian" scientific method of studies, compared with studies done on herbs and alternative therapies thus somehow proving that modern medicine is a more Christian and reasonable way to look after your health.

One of the things that the casters of these stones typically fail to note is that there are a lot of drugs that doctors are allowed to use in an off-label way. Off label means that the drug is being used in a way that was never studied or tested for safety or efficacy. In fact, an estimated 70% of procedures used in modern medical practice have not been tested for safety or efficacy! Given the fact that properly prescribed drugs are the third leading cause of death in US hosptials (not counting out of hospital deaths and deaths caused by human error in prescribing or dosing), compared to people who are harmed by non-invasive alternative therapies and herbs (statistics are negligible if they exist), we should be a lot more cautious about what we are doing to ourselves when we blindly put our lives and trust in the hands of the medical profession.

Please do not interpret the above to mean that there is never a place for drugs or allopathic medicine. I use the system myself when it is warranted, but I am a judicial consumer of said services.

Ok, here is the warning I wanted you all to see since this is a common drug that has been used on laboring women for many years and for a great number, in a disastrous way:

Misoprostol (marketed as Cytotec) Information

FDA ALERT – Risks of Use in Labor and Delivery

This Patient Information Sheet is for pregnant women who may receive misoprostol to soften their cervix or induce contractions to begin labor. Misoprostol is sometimes used to decrease blood loss after delivery of a baby. These uses are not approved by the FDA. No company has sent the FDA scientific proof that misoprostol is safe and effective for these uses.
There can be serious side effects, including a torn uterus (womb), when misoprostol is used for labor and delivery. A torn uterus may result in severe bleeding, having the uterus removed (hysterectomy), and death of the mother or baby. These side effects are more likely in women who have had previous uterine surgery, a previous Cesarean delivery (C-section), or several previous births.

This information reflects FDA’s preliminary analysis of data concerning this drug. FDA is considering, but has not reached a final conclusion about, this information. FDA intends to update this sheet when additional information or analyses become available.

The Importance of Mothering ~ Part Two

(See post for 4/21/2005 for Part One)

I could blog about my end of pregnancy physical discomforts, but it hardly makes for uplifting or interesting reading. Instead, I want to focus on more of what I have been learning about the importance of attachment and attunement in raising well adjusted and happy children, as I find this something that personally encourages me to continue in the Mommy track.

When babies are first born, the only part of their brain that is fully functional is the brain stem, which is responsible for things like breathing, heartrate, and other necessary functions for life to exist. If the first nine months in the womb are for the gestation of a baby's body, the second nine months following birth constitute a continuance of gestation, neurologically speaking. Human babies experience a tremendous amount of brain growth in this time, and a large part of that growth is dependant upon the amount and type of stimulation that babies receive from their mothers or primary caregivers at this time.

The areas of the cortex responsible for attention, long-range planning, impulse control, attention, and self-regulation develop in response to the emotional interaction with the person we'll call the mothering figure. The formation of the baby's brain circuits is influenced by the emotional state of the mother. If mother is stressed by internal and external pressures, her ability to be attached and attuned to her infant are impaired.

Since babies can't decipher the meanings of words, most of the communication that takes place between an infant and his/her mother is on the emotional level. The mother's conscious and unconscious emotional state is conveyed by her tone of voice, her body language, and her eyes.

When babies are first born, one of the first things that stimulates the branching of millions of brain cells within minutes of birth, is the scent of the mother's body. Studies have shown that a six day old infant can already distinguish the scent of his mother from that of other women. Over weeks, the infant shifts to visual imputs via the mother's face. A baby between 2-7 weeks old will orient to its mother's face in preference to a stranger, or even its own father. By 7 weeks, the focus becomes the mother's eyes in preference to her mouth movements, thereby fixating on the visible portion of the mother's central nervous system. In essence, the baby is able to read what is going on in the right brain of the mother, which is responsible for our unconscious emotional reactions during intense eye to eye mutual gaze interactions. Our eyes are truly a window to the soul in that embryologically and anatomically, the eye is an extension of the brain in plain sight. Kind of gives a whole new meaning to what the Bible says about the eye being the light of the soul, doesn't it?

One of the means of communication that takes place at the eye level has to do with the size of the pupil. An enlarged pupil indicates interest and pleasure. Studies have demonstrated that women's eyes dilate in response to a picture of a baby. But even more interestingly, viewing enlarge dilated pupils elicits larger pupils in the eyes of the observer so you have a positive feedback loop of emotion that occurs between the gazer and gazee. Babies will smile more when their mothers' eyes are dilated rather than constricted.

We have all probably experienced the intense emotional rush that can come when you suddenly lock your gaze with another person. The feeling can be one of intense pleasure or intensely uncomfortable. The effect of the gaze can alter the electrical brain pattern as registered by an EEG and cause physiological changes to occur in the body. Infants are highly susceptible to such influences, with a direct impact on the maturation of the brain.

Infants are also quite good at sorting out genuine emotion from a forced effort.

It is known that depression will cause a decrease in electrical activity in the left hemisphere of the brain. A study conducted at the University of Washington in Seattle compared the infants of mothers who suffered from postpartum depression with those of mothers in a happy state of mind. During playful interactions with their mothers, the infants of the happy moms showed a greater left than right brain activation. The infants of depressed mothers failed to show a difference in frontal brain activation meanting that the left side brain activity did not occur, despite the mothers' best efforts. These frontal areas of the brain are responsible for the self-regulation of emotion. The infants of depressed mothers also exhibited decreased activity levels, gaze aversion, more irritability, and less positive emotion.

Why would this be? Because the element of attunement is missing in most of the interactions between the mother and her child. Attunement is a subtle process whereby an infant initiates an interaction or withdraws from it according to its own rhythms, while the mother regulates her behavior to mesh with the baby's. She lets the baby call the tune, as the weaker vessel and skillfully interweaves her own responses with his to create an intimate dialogue which, in effect, shuts out the world and locks mom and baby in a special emotional realm that no one else has access to for that moment.

In attunement interaction, the mother follows the baby's cues and allows baby to not only initiate interaction, but also allows the baby to break the interaction off when it reaches a certain stage of intensity of uncomfortably high arousal. Mothers who are not attuned to their infants or sensitive to their lead may try to stimulate the baby to draw him or her back into interaction. Then the baby's nervous system is not allowed to "cool down" which hampers the relationship.

At the other extreme of the attunement dysfunction is the mother who is too stressed to give the necessary attunement interaction because she is emotionally isolated from others, or else has learned a philosophy of child rearing such as the Ezzo parenting techniques which actually place children in an adversarial position from which the parent must defend themselves lest they be "manipulated" by the child. Another contributing factor that impairs attachment and attunement is the notion that too much interaction based on baby's cues will cause a child to be "spoiled." So babies are allowed to cry it out in their cribs by themselves all in the name of not spoiling them.

When you listen to popular music, watch tv shows, movies or videos, or even read popular fiction, take note of how much of it is devoted to the joys or sorrows that flow from our satisfaction or disappointment with our attachment relationships. This exercise will give you an idea of how big a driving force attachment is for humans.

Thus, the role of a mother in nurturing and becoming attached and attuned to her infants is a vitally important one not only in the neurological development of her child, but also because some of their future happiness and contentment in life rests upon this foundation.

More to come...

Bad Dreams and Other Things

This has been an unusual pregnancy in more than one way. One of the things that has been unusual is the almost complete lack of baby dreams I have had. Usually I have all kinds of dreams about giving birth in odd situations to odd things. That hasn't happened this time. Maybe it is because down deep I don't have any issues about this baby, when it is going to happen, where or under which circumstances. I know in the past these have all been things I have fretted over, but not this time.

I hate it when I have bad dreams. I had one early this morning when I woke up and the flavor of it is still affecting me nine hours later. This dream was inspired by an entry that Carmon had on her blog several months ago about a homeschool mother who accidentally backed the family van over her two year old and killed it. I just about had hysterics when I read that one and I know it was in the back of my mind when I was dreaming early this morning. In my dream, I was in the old blue 15 passenger van we used to own and I backing it up down a snowy driveway. In my mirror I could see my daughter Hannah with my youngest daughter, Elodie who were running alongside the driveway. At a certain point I felt the van go over something with a bump and heard Hannah's shriek of horror. I remember telling myself to wake up so I wouldn't have to see Elodie's lifeless body under the van. And I did. Elodie was snuggled up safely beside me in bed, having snuck in earlier. It was a relief to see her there, but that dream still haunts me.

On a happier note, my office is finally back together. I no longer have rather battered looking white walls and disorganized and stuffed bookcases. Instead I have a deep warm golden color on my walls that provides a sharp but pleasing contrast to the navy blue curtains at the windows. It took me two days to put back all the books, and I sorted out a number of them to go to the attic in rubbermaid tubs so that they are no longer stacked three deep in my bookshelves. I was also able to get rid of the extra computer and computer desk and all the unsightly wires and rearrange the office furniture in a more pleasing way. I now have a functional and attractive work and study space. One of these days I'll take a picture and post it.

R&R

So here I am in Quesnel. I left in a leisurely manner this morning after Trista arrived with her kids in tow. I spent an hour holding my grandson, baby Rogan, and folded laundry and packed and left an hour later than I planned. But I didn't sweat it. After all, my intention is to relax, not stress about getting out on my self-imposed deadline.

I drove to Quesnel, and it was a job to stay alert while I was driving. The first thing I did after I arrived and unloaded was to lay down with a book and read for a few minutes and then I had a 2 hour nap. Woo Hoo! If you only knew. Naps have been few, far between, and sparse in the amount of time alloted. Lots of kids and wooden floors make for a lot of noise and difficulty in relaxing for a nap on any day. It was nice to be able to just let myself go and not have to worry about being awakened or wonder what the kids are getting into while I am unconscious.

I drove out later, met a business associate for a few minutes and then had a leisurely lunch/supper before picking up a few things at the local grocery store. Then it was back to the motel to run a hot bath, give myself a pedicure and buff my cellulite with body scrub. I am nearly finished one book and tomorrow will start on another and chill out some more. I definintely need to do this more often! Thanks to my hard-working hubby for making this happen!

Only 38 days to due date!

God's Country

Ginny had a good picture on her blog the other day of a bumper sticker that does a good job of expressing my sentiments: " I LOVE MY COUNTRY -- It's our thieving, lying, cheating, defrauding, corrupt Liberal government I can't stand!"

The other day I was returning home from an appointment that was a half hour west out of town. Prince George city proper is in a "bowl". It is located at the junction of the Nechako and Fraser Rivers, and no matter which direction you come from, you have to descend into the bowl if you are going to pass through the city. As I was driving from the west towards the city, just before I was to descend into the bowl, I had the most fantastic sight spread before my eyes. The day was beautifully sunshiney and clear and in the far distance, I could see not only the gentle rise of the Cariboo Mountains, but beyond that the sun-kissed snowy peaks of the Robson Valley and possibly even the Rocky Mountains. It was utterly amazing!

The trees are leafing out, the grass is turning green and the balsam willow is scenting the air with a delicious fragrance that someone ought to turn into a perfume. The wind was a bit cool today, but the sunshine combined with the emerging greenery caused my heart to feel glad that it was spring and I live in such a beautiful country.

My husband is working in Victoria on Vancouver Island for the time being, and he jokingly told some of his co-workers who live there that when they die they are destined for hell since they are already getting to spend their time in Paradise now. We had contemplated having me go down to see him and have a few days of R&R without the kids, but a 12 hour drive both ways is a bit beyond my stamina now that I am in the last 6 weeks of pregnancy. Something about being pregnant combined with driving a vehicle always makes me want to go to sleep, which is decidedly not safe. Instead I am going to take a few days next week and go south about an hour to the little town of Quesnel and hole up in a motel by myself so I can rest, read, veg out and pamper myself with sleeping in, long baths, a pedicure and walks along the river, and just doing what I want while my daughter and son-in-law ride herd on the kids at home.

When I return home, it will hopefully be to a newly painted office that will again make my heart happy and glad that I didn't have to do it myself. And school will be done soon. And baby will be here soon. Then comes a trip to Edmonton to see friends I haven't seen in a long time. Am I happy? You betcha.

Anti-Frump Clothing

Thanks to Sora for this link. There are a number of cool skirts and dresses here, as well as scarves that I wouldn't mind wearing.

More Thoughts on Homeschool Accountability

What follows are more comments and thoughts I had in response to some who questioned my intial premise in what I had written in the previous post.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We are, to some extent, creatures of our environment. The American model of rugged individualism and independency has helped to form the mindset of much of American Christian homeschooling. I am disturbed by trends in the Christian homeschool community that elevates the family over all other forms of gov’t, including church gov’t to the point that we see homechurches who are independent of any Church mushrooming on the landscape. This is denominationalism to the extreme.

We are not merely individual families engaged in an individual pursuit, and sometimes I think we homeschoolers lose sight of the fact that we are part of the larger society which requires a lot more cooperative and collective organization to function than we are willing to admit. Case in point: I live in northern British Columbia. The public highways are maintained in part by my tax dollars and serve as an important part of the infrastructure. Without these roads, transport trucks, which carry much of the produce and goods that service this area, would not be able to reach our community. The raw resources of natural gas, petroleum products, and timber that service all parts of the Canadian and US economy would not reach you fine folks to the south. This is a service that benefits all people in society, not just church goers.

Here is my practical question: exactly who is supposed to govern the construction and maintenance of these roads? Family gov’t? Church gov’t? Civil gov’t? These roads are there for the common benefit of all people, whether they are church members or not. So which level of gov’t is best suited for over-seeing this function? Surely not the family or church! And yet this falls outside the narrow role of only bearing the sword, forcing restitution, and protecting private property that some have proscribed as the Biblical role for civil gov’t.

The underlying assumption of many Christian homeschoolers is that it is the responsibility solely of the Church to administer discipline and oversight in Christian homeschool families. Somebody supply me the chapter and verse for that, ok? As well as pertinent passages that we could deduce the proper discipline to be used against recalcitrant parents. The main disciplinary tool that the Church has is to bar people form the Lord’s Table. If that doesn’t work, what then?

The benefits of children who are raised well and who are productive members of society does not accrue merely to the Church, but to society in general. Again I ask, what of the families who are not members of *any* church? Who is to give them oversight or should we be happy with a vacuum in this area? Do we really believe that these families would submit to church elders in this matter?

Everyone is up in arms over the idea of civil gov’t stepping in and seeing to it that children are provided an education and I want to ask you, if they don’t do it, who will?

It is no secret to those who know me that I am *for* an established Church — namely a covenanted reformed presbyterian one and that we should have a religious test for public office for civil gov’t officials. I believe that there is to be One Lord, ONE Faith, one baptism, and that denominationalism is a blot on the face of Christ’s Bride. I don’t think this will happen in my lifetime but it is something I have given my life over to working towards. If it were the case that we actually had a united Church body in our respective nations and if this was reflected in the direction that civil gov’ts took, I think we would be a lot less upset (unless you are a non Presbyterian Christian ) about the notion of civil gov’t supplying some direction and a minimal level of oversight to the educational efforts of families. In the meantime, I think maybe we need to think a little harder and a little more broadly about some of our own thoughts in this area and not be so quick to assume that the workable Christian position on spheres of authority and application have been nailed down for all time and circumstances. A lot of the time the Levites rendered judgements in the OT economy of Israel. Were they acting solely as church elders or did they also function as civil authorities? I don’t know that the lines are drawn as hard and bright for the Levites as we would like to think they were and maybe we need to quit drawing our lines so hard and bright as well.

Are Homeschoolers Accountable to ANYONE?

The following remarks are my response to other comments on a blogpost done by Carmon, but from which I was not able to post my comments because of the spam filter. So I am posting my remarks here, with a bit of editing for clarity's sake.


One thing that I, as a presbyterian, am conscious of is the fact that I am not only saved as an individual, but also saved into a community and therefore answerable to that community. I see a lot of Presbyterians, self included, who act as practical independent Baptists though who are not accountable to anyone outside their family/church.

Molly, one of the commenters, has hit on what I believe are salient points regarding the hostility that many Christian homeschoolers have regarding outside authorities butting in and asking if we are doing a good job in our education of our children. Most of the hostility is directed towards gov't officials who would dare to ask if we are actually doing anything with our kids or just keeping them home to provide domestic cleaning services. We *could* substitute the words "elders" or "sessions" or "local church leaders" for civil government and declare that God gave the authority to educate children to no one but parents and therefore the elders, sessions, local church leaders have no right to see if we are doing our job in educating our children properly. Catechizing them, yes. Teaching them their times tables, no. This does not belong to the sphere of the church. The church has nothing to say about times tables.

True, this world is not our home. But if a man doesn't work, he shouldn't eat. If a man fails to provide for his own, he is worse than an unbeliever. So does society have a vested interest in whether or not our children are educated, not only as godly people, but also as productive citizens? If we want a society whose citizens are not dependant on state welfare and handouts, do we collectively have an interest in seeing that people are equipped to provide for themselves and their families? Have we done our job as parents if our children can recite the catechisms and Bible verses forwards and backwards and can show people the way of salvation, but can't function as future homemakers and providers because we neglected this part of their education? This of course, is being extreme, but the point I am trying to make is -- do we have to answer to ANYONE? Does anyone have the right or authority to make sure we are doing our job?

Just as it is possible to be a professing five point Calvinist and yet act as a practical atheist in terms of applying the faith to our lives on a daily basis, I think it is possible for us to mouth the words of spheres of authority and accountability and yet be practical anarchists and antinomians because we haven't thought through all the ramifications of what we are saying. (And btw, this is NOT directed at Carmon or anyone else -- these are just my general thoughts that I have been having on this subject for the last year or so.)

You know, the longer I am a Christian, the longer I see just how realistic and practical the Lord is in how He provided for His people. God not only recognized and encouraged the standard of mature Christianity and economic prosperity through independant thrift and hard work, he also recognized that not everyone had it in them to be an economic risk-taker and so a man could become a slave for life. His ear was bored through with an awl and he had to work for a master he had voluntarily chosen. His economic and social needs were looked after by another. Was this sinful, or was this mercy and provision for those who don't have what it takes to be a master?

The highest ideal economically is every man under his own fig tree and vine, but those who didn't make the grade or weren't blessed with the gifts and abilities for it were not to be looked down on and discriminated against in the assemblies. (James 2:1-9) Likewise, the highest ideal educationally is that every family be able to provide a high standard of education for their children. But if the gifting and means are not there, is there a place for ANYONE to provide help for those who want better for their children but who are not able to provide this for them themselves? I often get the feeling that we look down our educationally sophisticated noses at those who aren't the educational equivalent of the pioneers of New England who were able to carve a nation out of raw wilderness.

Here is a question I would like someone to answer: if a "homeschool" family is not providing any education at all to their children, WHO is supposed to call them on it? Church elders? What if they aren't church members? Or are we to shake our heads sorrowfully and just let those particular kids go and claim it wasn't our sphere of authority and then go on our way like the Levite or the Priest in the Samaritan's parable?

The Importance of Mothers

If you are expecting one of those sentimental essays on "Mother, thou, Wiper of my tired brow" you are likely to be disappointed. But then again, maybe not.

I am not one who goes in for the sentimental as a means of motivating and inspiring myself in the task of mothering. I realize that some women like that sort of thing, and no doubt, it is likely due to some sad character defect in me or a form of mental under-development that I don't. Rather, I tend to get my motivational kicks to keep on with the task from the more scientific end of the spectrum.

Lately I have been getting my affirmations in the form of two books, both written by the same author, Dr. Gabor Mate, M.D. Dr. Mate is an east-end of Vancouver physician, psychotherapist, and author who used to write medical columns for The Vancouver Sun and The Globe and Mail. His book, Scattered Minds: A New Look at the Origins and Healing of Attention Deficit Disorder, is one I determined to read after reading another of his books, When the Body Says No: Understanding the Stress-Disease Connection.

Those of you who have been reading this blog lately know that I have developed a recent interest in the topic of ADD, especially as I learned that this is something that I have and which some of my children have some traits. A few of my clients also struggle with it. If you do any reading in this field for any length of time, you soon learn that ADD/ADHD may be multi-factoral in how it develops. IOW, poor nutritional habits, food allergies, systemic candida over-growth, and environmental toxins all appear to play a part in its development. If you have followed the development of modern industry and modern agricultural methods, you can almost chart a corresponding rise in the number of people and children afflicted with ADD with a drop in the quality of the food we eat and the amount of toxins that have been developed and released into the environment since WWII.

There does, however, seem to be another component at work with the development of ADD, and that is the way that society has developed and motherhood and mothering has been devalued and under-practiced. Mothers have been told that they have an important role to play in the lives of their children, but that this important role can be done while supplying baby with a bottle, pursuing a career, and spending "quality time" with baby at the end of a work day after baby has spent most of the waking hours with a nanny or in a daycare. The result has been that the generation of children whose mothers swallowed the feminist egalitarian bait is also the generation of children in whom we see more and more dysfunction in terms of development of ADD and other learning disabilities.

Let me, or rather Dr. Mate, explain. What follows is a summation of what he has to say on this topic as it relates to mothering.

Attention deficit disorder results from the miswiring of brain circuits, in susceptible infants, during the critical period of growth that takes place in the first nine months following birth. An infant's individual experiences in the early years determine which brain structures will develop and how well, and which nerve cetners will be connected with which other nerve centers and establish the controlling centers of the brain.

A sort of neural "survival of the fittest" contest takes place in infancy with circuits, networks, and systems of networks form or die off, based on environmental factors. Nerve pathways that are not maintained wither and die or will develop dysfunctionally when they lack the full conditions that are necessary for their maintenance. Stores of neurochemicals that are under-utilized diminish as well and the brain's capacity to make them declines. By the elimination of unused cells and synapses, and by the formation of new ones favored by the environment, specialized circuits gradually develop that conduct the varied and multiple activities of the human brain. The genetic potential for brain development can find its full expression only if circumstances are favorable. Infants who are understimulated in certain areas grow into adults who remain under-developed in those particular areas of function. Attention Deficit Disorder is an example of how neural circuitry and biochemistry of the brain may be held back from developing optimally when appropriate input from the environment is interfered with.

Three conditions are necessary for healthy growth. The first is good nutrition, the second a physically secure environment with an unbroken relationship with the mother, and the third is a secure, safe, and not overly stressed emotional atmosphere.

A large proportion of the North American pregnant and newly delivered women eat the Standard American Diet (otherwise known as SAD) of processed, refined, and prepared convenience foods and therefore are providing less than optimal nutrition for their infants, even if they breastfeed. The proliferation of bottle feeding with formulas that often cause allergies including eczema and asthma as well as other forms of detached parenting (soothers, swings, play pens, etc.) as well as infant and toddler daycares mean that mom has more and more opportunities to spend time away from baby. The third prime requirement of a non-stressed and emotionally secure atmosphere is the one most likely to be disrupted in Western socieities.

Human infants are neurologically and biologically underdeveloped in many ways. The first nine months of extrauterine growth could be considered, according to anthropologist Ashley Montagu, as a second part of gestation. The security of the womb needs to be replaced by the security of the parenting environment. To allow for the needed maturation of the neurological and brain development, a process that generally takes place in utero in other species, the close physical attachment that was present before birth needs to be replaced not only with continued physical presence, but emotional presence as well. Physically and psychologically, the baby needs to be held as securely after birth as he or she was before birth.

The best near substitute for umbilical connection that can occur following birth is that of breastfeeding. Apart from the nutritional and immunological benefits of breast milk is the fact that breastfeeding serves as a transition from unbroken physical contact to complete separation from the mother's body. Babies need to be held close to the mother's warmth while they are nourished by suckling. Breastfeeding also enhances the mother's attachment and bonding with her infant. The fact that 90% of women who begin breastfeeding are no longer doing so within the first three months of their infant's life could well be a contributing factor to the emotional insecurities that are becoming so prevalent in industrialized countries.

In view of the above, it should be apparent that the nurturing role of mothers is an important one that needs to be guarded and nurtured if we want to raise emotionally secure and properly developed children.

More will follow on this topic.

Why the US is Not Universally Loved the World Over

Something that often has many Americans scratching their heads is the animosity they meet up with whenever they travel outside their own shores. What many of these tourists don't realize is that their government has done a lot to create that animosity, along with special interest groups and industries who are all too willing to use other nations for their own profit and who love to skew the rules of trade or ignore them at will.

I haven't read the following book, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins, but the interview with the author and this book review have intrigued me enough that I am going to get it from my local library.

For a small taste of what you can expect in this book, here is just one quote from his interview:


Well, really, over the past 30 to 40 years, we economic hit men have created the largest global empire in the history of the world. And we do this, typically -- well, there are many ways to do it, but a typical one is that we identify a third-world country that has resources, which we covet. And often these days that's oil, or might be the canal in the case of Panama. In any case, we go to that third-world country and we arrange a huge loan from the international lending community; usually the World Bank leads that process. So, let's say we give this third-world country a loan of $1 billion. One of the conditions of that loan is that the majority of it, roughly 90%, comes back to the United States to one of our big corporations, the ones we've all heard of recently, the Bechtels, the Halliburtons. And those corporations build in this third-world country large power plants, highways, ports, or industrial parks -- big infrastructure projects that basically serve the very rich in those countries. The poor people in those countries and the middle class suffer; they don't benefit from these loans, they don't benefit from the projects. In fact, often their social services have to be severely curtailed in the process of paying off the debt. Now what also happens is that this third-world country then is saddled with a huge debt that it can't possibly repay. For example, today, Ecuador. Ecuador's foreign debt, as a result of the economic hit man, is equal to roughly 50% of its national budget. It cannot possibly repay this debt, as is the case with so many third-world countries. So, now we go back to those countries and say, look, you borrowed all this money from us, and you owe us this money, you can't repay your debts, so give our oil companies your oil at very cheap costs. And in the case of many of these countries, Ecuador is a good example here, that means destroying their rain forests and destroying their indigenous cultures. That's what we're doing today around the world, and we've been doing it -- it began shortly after the end of World War II. It has been building up over time until today where it's really reached mammoth proportions where we control most of the resources of the world.

Today's Observation

"Children are a great incentive and impetus for parents to learn about themselves, about each other, and about life itself. Unfortunately, much of the learning may occur at their expense."

Scattered Minds, pg. 28 by Gabor Mate, M.D.

A Gibbering Ape

Topic: Chrestomathy
"Christian parents (and particularly mothers) must recognize that the temptations to lust comes down to us from our father Adam, from our members which are on the earth (Col. 3:5). They do not originate with the world or with Hollywood. The world can and does enflame these lusts, but the world does not create them. Thus, a young boy who has been kept at home, far away from the corrupting influences of the world, will still discover, after thirteen years, right on schedule, perhaps to his dismay and perhaps to his delight, strong sexual corruptions within him. This will happen whether or not he is regenerate. These corruptions will act, as one Puritan put it, like a gibbering ape within his loins" (Future Men, p. 137).
Posted by Douglas Wilson - 4/15/2005 2:30:44 PM

I think the above post, which I copied and linked to from Douglas Wilson's blog is a reminder that Christian parents, and particularly Christian homeschool parents, need to pay heed to. It is easy to think that if you control access to the television, videos, internet, books, and outside influences through carefully screened friends and acquaintances that your children will be able to escape from sexual immorality and corruption. But the world outside is not nearly so dangerous to their souls as the world inside their own hearts. All the perversions that the world has ever known existed before the technological age made it so accessible so easily to so many. By all means, guard the entry-ways to your home, but don't neglect to clean out the closets of the heart of your children. THAT is where the real problem lies.

Wide Open Horizons

Have you ever been in a situation where you were surrounded by foothills, mountains and other things that impeded your view of the horizon, only to find yourself suddenly breaking through the hills into a wide open vista? I feel like that has happened for me the other night.

My dearly beloved and I went out for a rare night on town together. In the course of our conversation, I wistfully said that if I had had another life I would have liked to have become a naturopathic doctor. My d.b. replied that I could still do that if I wanted. Hmmmm.

We have a university in our town, one moreoever that has a medical school attached to it. Because I don't have to go anywhere and pay dorm/living expense costs, I could easily take a course at a time and pick away at things. Not only that, some reputable distance education courses are available for a BS program in Holistic Nutrition and Doctor of Naturopathy through Clayton College of Natural Health. I don't know that I would make it all the way to actually becoming a full fledged naturopathic physician, but I can certainly get more of the training and education that I crave, and do it from home at my own pace without shortchanging my d.b., the kids or my household duties. I'm trying not to get too excited about the prospect, and I don't intend to move on it in a precipitous way, but it is definitely one I intend to take some time to think about!

I Have Just Become Super Efficient....

...at websurfing.

My brilliant other half has just finished hooking me into our wireless high speed connection after years of using dial-up and tying up the phone lines for hours. Now I can spend less time loading pages of my favorite blogs that I read on a daily basis and waste time spent on the net at four times my usual speed thus making me more available for housecleaning and other projects.

Or... Maybe I could just add more blogs to read instead. :o

Which would you choose?

As Good as Chocolate

Did you know that a genuine smile has the ability to stimulate your body with the positive force of 2000 chocolate bars? These results were determined by the British Dental Health Foundation after they measured brain and heart activity in volunteers after they were given money and chocolate. Not only that, smiles produce the "halo" effect whereby you not only benefit from it yourself, but those who are in close proximity to you and are the recipient of your smiles. It causes you to remember other happy events more vividly, makes you more optimistic, more positive, and more motivated.

Those who cultivate the attitude that produces genuine smiles are more likely to live longer as well. "The research is very clear," says Christopher Peterson, Ph.D, a University of Michigan professor who's been studying optimism's link to health for over two decades, "This is not some social science generalization. There is a link between optimistic attitudes and good health. It has been measured in a variety of ways. Overall, we have found that optimistic people are healthier. Their biological makeup is different. They have a more robust immune system."

But those of us who actually read our Bibles already knew this, right? "A joyful heart is like good medicine" according to Solomon the kingly sage.

Something I intend to blog about in the coming weeks is the connection between the psychological/emotional aspects of our lives and how it impacts our physical well-being. There is a whole new branch of discipline out there that studies these connections called Psychoneuroendocrinology that, in part, deals with the links between chronic stress, mental health, and immune and endocrine imbalances in the body. When it comes to illness, it can truly be a case of mind over matter.

Most Christians have, unknowingly, adopted the Cartesian model of human health which dissects the human experience into a bunch of different parts and examines each in isolation from the other. If, for example, you get a diagnosis of heart disease, you are likely to be put on a bunch of pharmacological agents and told to change your diet and exercise more, as though this is a purely mechanical problem. However, humans are integrated beings and what you do on the physical impacts the mental/emotional and even the spiritual life and vice versa.

In some respects it all comes down to the question of the chicken and the egg -- which came first? Do mental/emotional conditions and thoughts start the process of ill health, or are they the result of ill health? I tend to lean towards the former (though it can flow in both directions) and I hope to show you why in coming blog posts.

Wise Words from a Midwife I Know

"The biggest reality that we all need to face when be become adults is that we are not in charge here. If I had been running my life to suit me, lots of stuff would have been really different. On the whole, I'm glad that I didn't get my way, but that is from a perspective of having lived half a century. "

Not Such a Failure After All

My "Littles" report cards arrived via email today. They received A's and B's in all the important subjects and are doing extremely well. The teacher commented favorably on the "rich" learning environment in our home and I am mentally and emotionally relieved.

Ok, you radical, do-it-yourself homeschoolers are probably sniffing to yourselves and wondering why I need the validation of an outside teacher telling me that I am doing a good job with my kids. Well, my confidence in my ability to mother and teach received a severe blow about five years ago and I don't know if it will ever recover. No doubt this is one of those things that call for some intense navel-gazing to determine the roots and find a way to circumvent, but right now I don't have the time. It *is* on my agenda, but at the moment, just doing all the necessary day to day things and keeping my head above water is all I have the time and energy for.

At any rate, despite my other areas of lack, at least I can be confident that the kids aren't being short-changed as far as their education goes.

Thoughts on Baby

Some may think that this is not an appropriate post for the Lord's Day, but wait til you get to the end before making that judgement.

I have been contemplating my thankfulness in this pregnancy for how things are this time around, despite advancing age, varicose veins, and round ligament pains.

My pregnancy with Elodie was a trial on many levels. She came at a time in my life when I had wrongly imagined that I was likely through with babies and was looking forward to entering a new stage. She also came at a time of great stress due to various goings on in the family. She was the straw that broke this camel because the physical stress of pregnancy on top of all the emotional/mental stress finally broke my robust and supposedly invincible health. Instead of breezing through pregnancy in a relatively easy manner that I had with the others, I was reduced to being sick in bed for almost a month with an intensely itchy candida-induced rash that covered me from my neck to my knees. I say my bed, but the truth is I spent half that time in the bath soaking in witch hazel, olive oil, and anything else that might help make my life less miserable. There were many sleepless nights, many associated food allergies, and many tears for the rest of that pregnancy.

Tears -- I cried my way through that entire pregnancy. Mostly they were tears of fear. I had just had all my naivety about life ripped away from me and all the things I had been building in the prescribed manner (strict guidelines, homeschool from the get-go, pretty approved books on how to raise charming Southern Belle Christian daughters ala Elsie Dinsmore style) only to see what I thought was all my work being undone. In short, I thought my heart had broken when my dreams got broken. And here was another hostage to fortune coming my way, to smile and coo her way into my heart, only to turn on me in her teen years and make a mockery of all I valued. I couldn't bear the thought.

I was also horribly guilty over the fact that I had such reluctance over having this baby. After all, it wasn't the poor baby's fault that she was here. So I cried and fretted over not wanting this baby, and then cried and fretted because I knew it was wrong not to want her and felt guilty that I was damaging her psyche in utero by my thoughts and emotions.

That reluctance to give birth translated into several weeks of going post-dates and walking around dilated to 7 cm the whole time. Near the end of the second week when they were threatening hospital induction, I took castor oil and went to bed, to wake up in labor and have an unassisted homebirth after only 12 minutes of labor. I don't think I will ever forget the sensation of feeling her head being born into my hands while simultaneously feeling her descend inside, nor the instantaneous feeling of love that, thankfully, flooded through me as soon as I had clasped her warm wet body to mine. The love affair with Elodie still continues almost three years later despite, or maybe even because of, some of the rascally things she does.

In the intervening time, a lot has happened to me internally. The last few years have been ones of great change, mostly of the internal sort where God has used his hammer to reshape a lot of my ideas about Him and about life. Having a baby at 41 didn't end my aspirations to do something with myself. I was able to become a certified biokinesionics practitioner, and I am still taking courses to improve my level of learning and understanding of health and the human body -- even some university courses. My kids are all still being homeschooled, the business I have with my husband is flourishing, and in some ways, I have become a victim of my own success as I am now booking clients two weeks in advance now solely on the strength of referrals, and no advertising.

This pregnancy has been a breeze by and large. I got through the first 12 weeks without realy knowing I was pregnant due to a lack of symptoms (other than missing "Aunt Flo" which could have been the onset of menopause, especially as it followed on the heels of two negative pregnancy tests). My rash made an initial appearance and still threatens to break out from time to time if I am not careful about my diet, or allow my immune system to get down but by and large, I am not suffering much at all with it. I am able to go for a walk most days, which in itself is quite an accomplishment, given the state of my round ligaments. In short, I feel pretty good.

My tummy is getting round and there is lots of activity going on in there. But rather than provoking fearful anxiety of the future, I find myself curiously happy with the thought of a new little person coming into my life. It is a pleasant change to feel no sense of worry, to not care what others think, and to have a sense of anticipation that is unclouded by negative thoughts.
In short, the lines have fallen unto me in pleasant places.

I am content.

My Favorite Son-in-Law

Okay, okay, so he's my only son-in-law. For the moment. But the other as yet unknown future son-in-laws are going to have to work hard to top Adam.

Yesterday I walked out of the house with most of the kids and left behind a mess. When I got home, my downstairs hallway had been transformed into a wonderful light sage-green, Martha Stewarty effect. It looks so classy, and I have Adam to thank for it.

I usually get an urge to repaint and redecorate the house whenever I am expecting and this time is no different. HOWEVER, this time I am being smart about it. I looked at my walls which had been smooshed a darker shade of green, and was feeling rather fed up with them. I had done them a few years ago, but all you amateur decorators take note: Smooshed walls and children do not mix! Smooshing does a wonderful job in hiding handprints and dirty marks if you choose the right color, but if the walls get dinged and chipped by children careening off them as they make their way down the hall, you have no way of repairing the damage short of repainting the whole wall. The benefits of having just plain paint is that if they do get chipped, you can do spot repairs.

Getting back to the smart part, instead of taking on the task of painting the walls myself, or giving it to some adolescent boys who are sure to put paint all over the carpets and hardwood floor, I asked Adam if he would mind doing it for me instead. Next thing you know, he is over here earlier in the week, wall repair mud and spatula in hand and gets busy fixing all the holes and taping what needed taping. Thursday is my town day, so I loaded up the van with all but two children and left Adam and my daughter, Trista at the house along with Elodie and Ben who were there to amuse Keiannah and help Adam. My downstairs walls are beautiful! A work of art, by a young man who spent some time learning to do this professionally with one of his uncles. And I can't believe how painless it all was! Next week he is coming back to finish the upstairs hallway. [Cheryl does happy dance!] My office where I have my clinic is also on the schedule somewhere.

In return, I get to ship my teen adolescents over to Adam on the weekends so that they can assist him with some renovating projects he has going on over there. (Why do I feel like I am getting the better end of the deal? heheh)

Anyhow, I have come to appreciate this remarkable young man who married my daughter and is the father of my two grandchildren, not only for his helpfulness, but also for the spiritual maturity and just plain old niceness that I see in him. He's a gem.

Whole Brain Thinking, or How to Make a Mind Map

It has been a busy week with homeschooling, clients, painting, errands and such, so I haven't had much time for blogging. I hope to make up for it though with this entry.

I have had several inquiries about mind mapping and was delighted to come across the book, How to Think Like Leonardo Da Vinci recently. It was written by Michael Gelb, and in it he describes the rules of mind mapping. Mr. Gelb also has a two audio tape series called "Mind Mapping: How to Liberate Your Natural Genius." What follows is a distillation of what he says in his book.

Much of our traditional educational methods tend to be left-brain dominant. That is, they tend to focus on the logical, analytical thinking processes and less on the imaginative, big-picture right side of the brain. However, the best way to learn about a particular subject is to attempt to use both sides of the brain. You get both the big picture and the details, the analysis, but also the creative side of how to use the facts.

Leonardo Da Vinci demonstrated this in how he accomplished his many activities. For instance, he emphasized that the ability of the artist to express the beauty of the human form should be based on the science of anatomy. If you don't understand bone structure and muscular relationships (analytic detail), your picture of a person's form was apt to be wooden and graceless. Thus he married the analytical, logical, structured part of the brain to the creative expression of what he learned through his drawings and paintings.

Da Vinci was one of the first "brainstormers" One of the things he urged his students to do was to stare at stones, smoke, embers, clouds and mud, and clutivate their ability to see in these mundane forms the "likeness of divine landscapes... and an infinity of things." In short, he was one of the first people to discover the power of creative thinking as an intellectual discipline.

So what is mind mapping? It is a method for cultivating whole brain thinking for generating and organizing ideas which was originated by Tony Buzan and inspired by Da Vinci's approach to note-taking. It can be used for personal goal setting, daily planning, and interpersonal problem solving. One of the greatest benefits of it is that it trains you to be a more balanced thinker like Da Vinci. The best thinkers are those who can balance analysis and intuition, seriousness and play, planning and improvisation, art and science.

Most people when they want to generate and organize ideas will try and do so using a traditional outline, complete with Roman numerals. The problem with it is that it tends to stifle creativity because you feel constrained to be neat, and thinking through things is often very un-neat and doesn't lend itself well to being organized in this fashion. Outlines shine in their usefulness after you have generated the ideas that need to be presented.

Outlining and other linear-forms of note-taking systems exclude the right brain's ability to see color, dimension, synthesis, rhythm, and image. In short, it wastes half your brain. Mind mapping, on the other hand, frees you from the tyranny of premature organization which tends to stifle creativity and the generation of ideas. It balances generation and organization while encouraging the full range of mental expression.

Our brain is a vast network of interconnecting neurons which branch off in innumerable directions. Global telecommunications networks do the same, as do the roads and streets that connect main arteries with side roads. The structure of communication in nature is not linear, it is a series of networks, connections, and systems. A mind map is a natural expression of this natural pattern of the brain. When we think of a story we have read or a movie we have seen, we tend to think of it in a wholistic fashion through key words, images, and impressions that float through our mind with the thoughts associated one to another. Mind mapping is merely an extension of this natural process on paper.

So how is it done?

To mind map you need a topic, a large sheet of paper, and a few colored pens or markers.

1. Put a picture or symbol of your topic in the center of your page. This opens up 360 degrees of association. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so use the power of pictures and symbols to express and enhance your ability to think creatively about your subject.
2. Write down key words. These help you recall and create associations you can expand upon.
3. Connect the words with lines radiating from your central image.
4. Print your key words -- it is easier to read than writing
5. Print one key word per line. This helps you to focus on the most appropriate key word which removes clutter and enhances the precision of your thinking.
6. Print your key words on the lines and make them the same size as the line to encourage economy of space and maximize clarity of association.
7. Use colors, dimensions, and codes for greater association and emphasis. You can highlight priorities and illustrate relationships between different branches of your mind map by color coding, highlighting in yellow, using secondary colors for secondary points, etc. Pictures and images in vivid colors should be used where possible because they stimulate your creative association and enhance your memory.

Mind mapping can be taught to our kids as a study tool as well. Some kids are more logical and disciplined in how they do their work while other kids are day dreamers, and artistic but seemingly unfocused. Mind mapping can allow your dreamer to maximize his potential while playing to his strengths and it can liberate your left brain dominant child and allow them to experience greater creativity in their work.

At this point, I had a picture of a mind map that I was going to upload to show you an example, but I have temporarily misplaced the cord I need to download images off my camera and onto my computer and I don't know how to work my scanner yet.

Here's a description of what I did: I pretended that I wanted to give a talk about the Reformation. In the middle of the page I drew a picture of an open Bible and put "The Reformation" over it. On lines radiating out from it, I had the following:

• A picture of a pope's mitre and crook to represent the Papacy. I drew a big red "X" through it and I then branched off that and wrote that the temporal power of the papacy was broken.
• Another line had "People" on it and then I listed some key Reformers, including Calvin, who had another arm radiating off of him with "Institutes" followed by another arm with "5pts. of Calvinism vs. 5 pts. of Arminianism on it
• Another major branch had "politics" and from here I drew a picture of Swiss Alps with Calvin's Geneva under it. Another branch had a blue banner with "Crown Rights of Christ" on it vs. Divine Rights of Kings which showed an imperial crown tipped and falling. Underneath the Blue Banner was written "Covenanters and under neath the Crown was written James I , Charles I & II. Another branch had "Civil Liberties enlarged".
• A major line had "Creeds and Confessions" written on it, and from that I listed some of the major catechisms, creeds, and confessions.
• The last line had "martyrs" written on it and I drew a little figure of a person being burnt at the stake. From this I had lines radiating off to represent the Scottish Covenanters, the French Huegenots, (sp?) and the English martyrs.

You can see how it would be easy to do more word associations for each branch or even to add other key words to what I have written there. Once you have generated enough material through key association, look at your result and you should see some relationships that will help you organize and integrate your ideas into themes. Connect these related parts with arrows, codes, and colors. You can pare off anything that is extraneous and then sequence your ideas with numbers or by redrawing your mindmap in a clockwise order.

How do you know when you are done? Theoretically you can keep going forever making associations since everything is connected to everything else. However, you can consider it finished when the information you have generated meets your objectives for the task at hand.

If you have the interest, time, and money, you can buy courses online on how to mind map by Tony Buzan, the original creator of the concept here. You can see examples of mind maps online here and here.

If you ask me, this is one great way to stimulate some creativity in your homeschool kids.

The Gloves are Off

This has been a momentous week and it isn't over yet. Terri Shiavo has been publicly executed in what one person has called the longest public execution ordered by the State ever. Will this finally awaken some Christians to what our society has become? Though I write this in Canada, I am under no illusion that this sort of state sanctioned killing can't happen here. It probably has already happened, though not in the public's eye.

Step by step our society has moved towards a more utilitarian, Darwinistic view of life where only the fit survive, and away from the humane and Christian society that cared for the weak and defenceless. Starting with the idea that there is such a thing as an unwanted life, we have aborted and birth controlled our children out of existence because we think they will prove to be too great an imposition and burden on our lifestyles. It was only a matter of time before we moved on to others who were unable to defend themselves.

It is only a matter of time before we see the sanctioned killing of babies in hospitals who have been deemed by the authorities and medical staff to be too ill or disabled to deserve life. This is already happening in the Netherlands, and is often done against the will and authority of the parents!

The generation who pushed so hard for these things should beware. You are now part of an aging population of people with few young people willing to support your declining years of retirement and dementia. Don't be surprised if these young people have absorbed the lessons you taught and instead of being the strong and dominant, you one day find yourself at the mercy of those who now view you as a useless eater and inconvenient burden.

The demographics have shifted and soon we will have one of the largest aged populations in the world. The pressure on socialistic systems like Medicare, Medicaid, Old Age Pensions, etc., will grow as the pool of money from young people grows less. Just wait. The right to die will become the duty to die and nursing homes will be depopulated of those who are unable to care for themselves as the gov't trains its sites on those with no defenders. And don't look for help from the evanjellyfish community either. They'll be wringing their hands and weeping but also sadly conceding the cruel necessity of such an approach.

"But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come: for men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying its power. And from such people turn away!" (II Timothy 3:1-5)

Terri Shiavo was only the beginning.