Did I Mention That There is Nothing New Under the Sun?

Our youth now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for
authority; they show disrespect for their elders and love chatter in place of
exercise; they no longer rise when elders enter the room; they contradict their
parents, chatter before company; gobble up their food and tyrannize their
teachers.

--Socrates, Fifth Century, B.C.

I Passed!

As I had predicted, I didn't have a problem with my stress test today. They hooked me up to all kinds of wires, stuck me on a treadmill and worked me up to a run. My heart worked at 98% of its capacity and the whole time my blood pressure and everything else was fine. No chest pains, shortness of breath, etc. Now I only have to wait 6 months for my echocardiogram. Ah the joys of socialized medicine and wait lists! Good thing I don't have a serious problem.

Oh, and I have lost 11 lbs.

Yeah for me.

Thanks to the Lord for his mercy, and thank you for all who prayed for me!

Two Words

"Found Faithful"

(the answer to what I want as an epitaph)

National Election Day in Canada

*Yawns*

Choose Your Epitaph

ep·i·taph: An inscription on a tombstone in memory of the one buried there.

Ideally, this would be a brief summary that epitomizes your life. What do you want to appear there?

I am not being morbid. Rather I have been thinking about life goals, and in some respects an epitaph tells people if you made it to the goal, or chose the right goal to aim for.

I'll tell you what I would like to be on my grave marker in a few days.

Uncharitable Christianity

My post concerning fasting netted a comment from Chrysalis concerning the uncharitable nature of the brand of Christianity that I most closely identify with.

It has to be confessed that generally speaking, RP's don't have a very good reputation when it comes to charity. Too often what we think is faithful testifying of the truth comes across as clanging cymbals and beating gongs to the recipients.

Human pride is a subtle and dangerous thing, especially when we are confessing the sins of others. The sins we humans commit against one another, especially second table commandment sins, tend to be very obvious to us. If you steal something of mine, or try to lure my husband into an illicit relationship, my offense with you is pretty clear to me. However, if you commit idolatry in your heart, it may not be as obvious to me or you. First table breaches against God are somehow easier to commit in ignorance and blindness because God, in his lovingkindness and tender mercy doesn't strike us immediately we commit them.

And so, where we are able to see these sins in ourselves and others, they need to be repented of and confessed. But, and this is a big but, we had better be sure that we are heaping dust on our heads as we do so and that genuine grief is assailing our hearts over our offenses against the Lord and each other.

Yes, Chrysalis, too often I have been prideful and uncharitable against my brothers and sisters in the Church who are of different beliefs and practices, but truly still God's children. Hence the need to fast and humble myself before God and plead for His mercy and grace and more light to confess my own sins. I also need to learn to exhibit more charity. I have been guilty of thinking myself in the same class as a Martin Luther and thought that this gave me license trample upon bruised reeds and pour water on smoking flaxes. God forgive me. And may those who were the recipients of my misguided zeal forgive me as well.

At the same time, I sincerely pray that I am not seduced by a desire for your approval or the approval of others so that I commit a greater sin and not say what I perceive to be the truth. I am under no illusion that RP's have cornered the market on truth as I write this. All of us will have our theological kinks worked out of us when we finally meet the Master.

God help us.

Submitted with fear and trembling.

A Hymn

O God of earth and altar
Bow down and hear our cry,
Our earthly rulers falter,
Our people drift and die;
The walls of gold entomb us
The swords of scorn divide,
Take not thy thunder from us,
But take away our pride.

From all that terror teaches,
From lies of tongue and pen,
From all the easy speeches
That comfort cruel men,
From sale and profanation
Of honor and the sword,
From sleep and from damnation,
Deliver us, good Lord.

Tie in a living tether
The prince, [elder], and thrall,
Bind all our lives together,
Smite us and save us all;
In ire and exultation
Aflame with faith and free,
Lift up a living nation,
A single sword to thee.

by G.K. Chesterton with slight editing by yours truly

Days of Fasting and Days of Thanksgiving

In preparation for the fast that our societies will be involved in, I am reading material this week to prepare my heart and mind. In reading over this particular set of minutes, I was struck by how nothing is new under the sun...

MINUTES
OF THE
REFORMED PRESBYTERY.
2732 BROWN STREET, PHILADELPHIA,

June 1st, 1887, 10 o'clock, A.M.Presbytery met according to adjournment, and was opened with prayer by the Moderator. Members present: Messrs. J. F. Fulton and D. Steele, ministers; with Messrs. G. Alexander, D.A. Renfrew, and R. Alexander, ruling elders.[1]

Days of Fasting and Thanksgiving had been observed by all our people.

The Commissioner's report was satisfactory, and the Commission continued. The report of Messrs. G. Alexander and H.M. Hartzell on Miss Jane Young's donation was accepted and approved.

The Committee on the Signs of Times reported, accepted, and having been considered by paragraphs, adopted. It is as follows:

CAUSES OF FASTING.
In taking a view of the different departments of society, we may say with the Psalmist, "All the foundations of the earth are out of course." The complaint of the prophet is still true, "There is no truth, nor mercy, nor knowledge of God in the land."

The evils which we have hitherto lamented have not been removed, but are greatly aggravated by their continuance and increase. We note the following in the Family, the Church, and the State:

1. Even professed Christians utterly disregard the law of God in entering into the marriage relation. Indeed there is scarcely anything that so arouses the enmity of the carnal heart to the Divine law as a faithful endeavor to expound its teaching in this matter. Like the "sons of God" before the flood, they take them wives of all which they choose. Neither their own eternal welfare, nor that of their offspring, nor the authority of their Redeemer avails to counteract their wilfulness in this matter, fraught with so much good or evil to themselves and the Church of Christ. Even the dictates of common sense are disregarded in marrying those of whose character and disposition they know nothing. The consequences of such folly are seen in desertions and divorces, embittering not only the lives of the parties themselves, but marring the peace of those connected with them.

As marriage is entered into by too many without any regard to prudence or duty, as far as the parties themselves are concerned, so there is less attention paid to the great end for which marriage was instituted, the training of children in the knowledge and practice of their duty to God. It is to be feared that the duty of gaining the knowledge necessary to instruct their offspring is seldom, if ever, thought of by those entering into that solemn relation. As a necessary result, their children grow up in ignorance of their duties as members of the Family, of the Church, and of the State.

No doctrine is more clearly taught in the Bible than that the man is the head of the woman. All the nations of the earth, with one consent, show the work of the law written on their hearts, by embodying this Scriptural principle in their laws, though fearfully corrupted by their lusts and tyranny.

The tendency of modern teaching and legislation is to render the family a headless monster, and to unfit it for the great ends of its institution. We believe this teaching to be one of the fruitful sources of alienation of affection between husband and wife, family contentions, and insubordination; thus making the Scriptural training of children impossible. This and all similar sentiments spring from the conception that it is disgraceful to be in subjection to anyone, and that our true dignity and happiness consist in being entirely free from control—a thought coming from the father of lies.

That authority which others have over us is a ray of the Divine majesty, and in obeying them we obey God himself. A great part of our duty to him consists in the performance of the several duties we owe to others in our different places and relations. He has said, "Them that honor me, I will honor; and they that despise me shall be lightly esteemed."

The want of preparation by parents to bring up their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord is naturally followed by its neglect, unconsciously making one sin the justification of another. The evils of this omission of duty are many and flagrant. A generation has grown up that know not the God of their fathers, and that are ignorant of the wonders He has performed in delivering them from Pagan, Papal, and Prelatic tyranny, and of the great Scriptural doctrines those worthies sealed with their blood. "That the soul be without knowledge, it is not good."
Parents are the natural instructors of their children, and it is an irreparable loss to a child when his parents neglect this duty. No instructions take such deep root in his heart as those of his father and mother. Especially is this true of a mother's teaching. Her strong love for her offspring, and their reciprocal affection, are peculiarly calculated to make a deeper impression. How often has the collection of a mother's love and a mother's teaching and prayers brought tears to the eyes of the most hardened criminal!

History shows that many of those who were pre-eminent for good or evil, owed their pre-eminence to their mothers. What a vast amount of good came to Israel through the prayers of pious Hannah! When the mother of Augustine lamented to Ambrose the evil course her son was pursuing, he replied that "he never saw the son of so many prayers given up." Augustine still instructs the Church by his writings, which are quoted with respect by that prince of divines, John Owen.

It is to be lamented that so many mothers, instead of being "keepers at home," and "guiding their houses," neglect these duties to engage in questionable "Moral Reforms" of different kinds, thus leaving their families without that constant inspection which they need. If they would faithfully perform their duties, their children would rise up and call them blessed, and would be prepared to take their places either as private members or office-bearers in the Church.

Parental discipline is greatly neglected, and the use of the rod, the divinely appointed means of driving folly out of the heart of the child, is decried. As soon as the child is able he is permitted "to run the streets," to associate with the vicious, and to learn their language and ways, and thus in his tender years he is schooled in vice. As he advances in years, he more and more disregards parental authority, until finally he sets it at defiance. Being thus early left to his own lusts, it is not strange that he soon begins to frequent the saloon and other dens of iniquity, and is ruined in soul and body. Thus, whilst many are making a great outcry against the saloon, the same persons by the way they train their children are continually furnishing it with victims.

2. The want of Scriptural training in the family has produced its disastrous effects on the Church, in her doctrine, worship, government, and discipline. The members of the Church, having been brought up in ignorance of these things, are easily "carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in weight to deceive." The sentiment that a man must know himself to be regenerated before he can become a member of the Church, is clear evidence that the teaching of our fathers is forgotten. They warned us against "shifting the terms of communion from agreement in doctrine and practice to the supposed goodness of persons." The Lord Jesus Christ never made that a term of communion in the visible Church of which her officers are incompetent to judge. He claims it as His own prerogative to search the heart. "All the Churches shall know that I am He which searcheth the reins and hearts."

Funeral sermons are a great snare to the ministry, and in many ways hurtful to those who hear them. When a so-called minister of the Gospel encourages surviving relatives to hope that the dead who died a drunkard has gone to heaven, what but infidelity can result from such teaching? The Holy Spirit says, "No drunkard shall enter the kingdom of heaven;" yet one professing to be a minister of the Gospel encourages his hearers to hope that this is not true. How wretched the condition of the people who entrust themselves to such guides!

Although all do not run to the same excess, yet by their fulsome eulogies of the dead, ascribing qualities to them they never possessed, and by their asserting that those who during their life gave little evidence of the power of godliness are gone to heaven, they "sow pillows under all armholes," and encourage men to live under the form of godliness without its power.

These so-called funeral sermons are a relict of heathenism, which taught that the dead could not rest in their graves until certain religious ceremonies were performed in their behalf. It is manifest that funeral services are sought for by surviving friends under the thought that they are, in some way, necessary to the eternal happiness of the deceased. It should be enough for all lovers of truth to know that these ceremonies about the dead symbolize with popery, which is heathenism baptized with the Christian name.

The invention and introduction of the Sunday or Sabbath-school has greatly corrupted the Church. Of this evil many sober Christians of different denominations have become thoroughly convinced. A member of the regular Baptist order has said, "The Sunday-school is the theatre in disguise." A minister of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church has expressed the wish, "That all Sunday-school literature and libraries were committed to the flames." And we have no doubt that when Paul's doctrine returns to the Church, those books of curious arts, which cost more that fifty thousand pieces of silver, will be deemed suitable fuel for a greater conflagration than the bonfire at Ephesus.

We consider all existing voluntary associations, proposing remedies for acknowledged social disorders; such as temperance, national reform, etc., usually recommended by the word Christian, as being of the same tendency as the Sunday-school.

3. As is the character of the Family and of the Church, such will be that of the State.
The general demand by all parties for "Civil Service Reform," loudly proclaims the popular sense of awful demoralization in the State. The official representatives in the several departments of the National and State governments, exhibit the moral character of their constituency.
In the common newspaper may be read every morning accounts of breach of trust, bribery, embezzlement, robbery; and sometimes robbers are so bold as to attack trains in motion, and make a prey of both life and property.

Frequent conflicts arise between employees and employers, betray want of mutual confidence. The foregoing we consider as precursors of Socialism and Anarchy.

We view earthquakes, cyclones, fire and flood, destroying life and property, in city and country, in forest and prairie, as indications of the Divine displeasure against our social sins. We believe that the only effectual remedy for our individual, social, and moral maladies is provided in the moral law and covenant of grace. These clearly expounded and faithfully applied by a Gospel ministry, seconded by a Scriptural magistracy, with the blessing of God, will exalt the Mediator to be the head of the nations, and bring all ranks to dutiful subjection to his authority.
CAUSES OF THANKSGIVING.

We have cause of thankfulness to God that while moral disorders lamentably prevail among our guilty race, all the children of Zion are invited to be joyful in their King, "who rules in the midst of His enemies, making the wrath of man to praise Him and restraining the remnant of His wrath."

We thank God for having made known to us that federal compact between the Father and the Son, with the concurrence of the Holy Ghost, whereby sinners of mankind may be delivered front the legal, penal, and moral consequences of our fall in Adam.

We bless our Heavenly Father for selecting and appointing His only begotten Son to be our Redeemer, our Goel, or near kinsman, that "we might be made the righteousness of God in Him," and might become members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones—"Complete in Him who is the head of all principality and power."

We praise our God for founding Zion, organizing a visible church on earth, incorporated under a covenant charter, furnished with all officers and ordinances requisite as means for the salvation of His people; and that we, though "a wasted remnant," are still in the possession and enjoyment of these inestimable privileges.

We desire to be thankful, moreover, that God still raises some witnesses to lift up their voices against the inventions of men, who through "good intent" deface His ordinances and desecrate His sanctuary.

National peace and material prosperity, furnishing abundant supplies for the sustenance of man and beast, call for grateful acknowledgment to our merciful Father and covenant God.
And, finally, we can never be sufficiently thankful to God for permitting and honoring us as a Presbytery, unitedly and publicly, with our hands lifted toward heaven, to pledge anew adherence to our Covenants, National and Solemn League at North Union, Butler Co., Pa., 1881; together with our equal adherence to the first faithful renovation of said Covenants "at Auchensaugh, near Douglas, Scotland, 1712:" knowing that "it is a snare to the man who devoureth that which is holy, and after vows to make inquiry."

The last Thursday of November next was appointed as a day of Thanksgiving, and the last Thursday of February, 1888, as a day of Fasting, by all under our care.

I Wish I Had Known This A Month Ago

The Proper Way to Cough and Sneeze

Halfway to 90

Many thanks to family and friends who sent me birthday cards, emails, and phone calls celebrating my natal day yesterday.

One of the greatest challenges of getting older, I think, is learning to do so gracefully. I have this horror of doing something or acting in a way that would make people look at me and say, "Mutton dressed like lamb."

A few months ago I went through the postpartum "bonk" of having my hair fall out by the handful. Much of what is growing in around the edges is coming back in silver. To color, or not to color: that is the question. For now, I have settled on not coloring. Part of this is laziness and a wish not to poison myself with chemicals absorbed through my scalp, and part of this is the desire to get comfortable with getting older.

At the same time I am learning to make peace with grey hair and new lines on my face, I am also trying not to fall into complacency and just letting myself go. Did I mention the shiny new elliptical machine in my basement? Now that my coughing is practically nonexistant and I can take a breath without hacking and turning blue, I think I'll be able to get on it and start walking off the extra poundage that I have acquired throught the years. This recent bout of illness has been helpful in that it helped me to get off the sugar, yeast and wheat -- all things that make me "fluffy."

I'm not sure how 45 is supposed to feel. In some ways I feel like I have been this age forever, and in other ways I still feel like a naive 18 year old who still has a lot to learn. I have accumulated a lot of regrets over the years -- duties left undone, things done that should have been left undone, and I woke with the desire to pray and ask God for forgiveness for all my failings and grace to help me through my remaining days. This Psalm came to mind:

Psalm 32

Blessed is he whose
transgression is forgiven,
Whose sin is covered.
Blessed is the man to whom
the LORD does not impute iniquity
And in whose spirit there is no deceit.

When I kept silent, my bones
grew old
Through my groaning all the
day long.
For day and night Your hand
was heavy upon me:
My vitality was turned into
the drought of summer [Selah.]
I acknowledge my sin to You
And my iniquity I have
not hidden.
I said, "I will confess my
transgressions to the LORD."
And You forgave the iniquity of
my sin. [Selah]

For this cause everyone who is
godly shall pray to You
In a time when You may be
found;
Surely in a flood of great
waters
They shall not come near him.
You are my hiding place;
You shall preserve me from
trouble;
You shall surround me with
songs of deliverance.

I will instruct you and teach
you in the way you should go;
I will guide you with My eye.
Do not be like the horse
or like the mule,
Which have no understanding,
Which must be harnessed with
bit and bridle.
Else they will not come near you.

Many sorrows shall be to the
wicked;
But he who trusts in the LORD,
mercy shall surround him.
Be glad in the LORD and rejoice,
you righteous;
And shout for joy,
all you upright in heart!


Here's to another year, Lord willing. May I not be a horse or an ass in it.

I'm a Proud Big Jar Mayonnaise Mama!

You can (and should) be a Big Jar Mayonnaise Mama or Papa too!

Laughing at Shakespeare

I have been idling my time of recovery away in studying Shakespeare. I stocked up on a few movies from the library and got a few books about Shakespeare, and am all set to read my way through the plays. The fact that my boys are going to need assistance in their English study of Shakespeare for school has been my excuse for shameless indulgence.

Shakespeare alternately amazes and repels me. Some of the subject matter is sublime, much of it ridiculous, and in other places indecent and brings a blush to my matronly cheeks. (There are some obscure and anachronistic terms that I will NOT be interpreting into modern patois for the boys!) The plot lines are improbable and at the same time reveal a startling insight into human nature. And is he ever hard to pin down. It is amusing to hear Shakespearean scholars pontificate about what Shakespeare meant by this or that only to have the next scholar come along and contradict the first. In the end, I don't think you can make Shakespeare a spokesman for any school of thought or the Elizabethan age in the same way Bob Dylan refused to be the spokesman for his generation. I have heard some people claim that he was a great Christian. And then I read some of the bawdy language and have no doubt that this was one of the things that led to the Puritans shutting down the theatres. Was he nihilistic? Realistic? Hopelessly romantic? Depressed? Hard to say. We don't have any of his writings on his own personal thoughts about things and I would greatly hesitate at making his plays or sonnets speak for his actual state of mind or personal opinion on anything. How nice it would be to find a detailed diary that would actually tell us that. Imagine if computers and blogs were around at the time he lived!

All the while I have been reading through some of the plays, especially the tragedies, I have had this Monty Pythonesque desire to do a parody of some of them. Apparently I am not the only one who has had this desire. Some of my most enjoyable moments have come from reading what others have said and done to Shakespeare. Witness:

~ When Big Pharma was an infant in the '70's, one of the enterprising pharmaceutical companies sought to combine the profundity of Shakespeare with a marketing strategy for tranquilizers. They psycho-analyzed the personality disorders of the likes of Lady MacBeth, Hamlet, and Ophelia. Apparently Ophelia's madness and subsequent suicide was more the result of a lack of tranqulizers and psychotherapy than the fact that her lover had violently rejected her and stabbed her father to death.

Of course, if Lady MacBeth had been tranquilized, she might not have dwelt on her guilt over urging her husband to murder Duncan. And then Shakespeare wouldn't have needed to write the play.

~ Shakespeare is beloved, not only by the nations of English speakers, but his plays have been translated into many languages and played in remote places like African huts. The Japanese are no slackers when it comes to admiration for the Bard. Some of Shakespeare's plays translated back into English from Japanese read as follows:

Strange Affair of the Flesh and the Bosom
(The Merchant of Venice)

Lust and Dreams of the Transitory World
(Romeo and Juliet)

Swords of Freedom
(Julius Caesar)

The Oar Well Accustomed to the Water
(All's Well That Ends Well)

and my favorite...

A Sad Case of Early Retirement
(King Lear)

Of course, not everyone was or is an admirer of Shakespeare. Mark Twain is one notable example. He said on one occasion:

"I feel that our fetish [with Shakespeare] is safe for three centuries yet. The bust too -- there in the Stratford Church. The precious bust, the calm bust, the serene bust, the emotionless bust, with the dandy mustache and the putty face, unseamed of care -- the face which looked passionlessly down upon the awed pilgrims for a hundred and fifty years, and will still look down upon the awed pilgrims three hundred more, with the deep, deep, deep, subtle, subtle, subtle expression of a bladder."

The urge to parody Shakespeare's tragedies is not new. Some of the nineteenth century music halls did a lot of business making fun of Hamlet:

Hamlet the Ravin' Prince of Denmark!! or the Baltic Swell!! And the Diving Belle!! A Burlesque Extravaganza in Three Acts

Hamlet a la Mode

Hamlet the Hysterical: A Delirium in Five Spasms

Apparently this was too much for humorist P.G. Wodehouse who wrote

I went into a music-hall but soon came out of it
On seeing some comedians in a painful "Hamlet" skit
And a gentleman who gave some imitations, all alone
Of other people's Hamlets, plus a Hamlet of his own.
It's "Hamlet" this and "Hamlet" that,
And Hamlet day by day.
Shakespeare and Bacon must regret they ever wrote the play.

Then there is the "skinhead" version of Hamlet which reduces a play that was originally about 4 hours long down to four pages. Here, in skinhead vernacular (with appropriate bleeping inserted by me), is Claudius's response to a play-within-a-play:

1 Player: Full thirty times hath Phoebus' cart
Claudius: I'll be ****** if I watch any more of this crap!

And in the final act when Fortinbras enters to find Hamlet, his mother, Claudius and Laertes dead:

Fortinbras: What the ******* is going on here?
Horatio: A ****** mess, that's for sure.
Fortinbras: No kidding. I see Hamlet's *******.
Horatio: Yer.
Fortinbras: ******* shame. ******* good bloke.
Horatio: Too ******* right.
Fortinbras: ******* this for a lark then. Let's piss off.
(Exeunt with alarums.)

Even Prince Charles has taken a stab at reproducing Hamlet's famous "to be or not to be" speech into the common vernacular of our day.

"Well, frankly, the problem as I see it
At this moment in time is whether I
Should just lie down under all this hassle
And let them walk all over me,
Or, whether I should just say, "OK,
I get the message," and do myself in.
I mean, let's face it, I'm in a no-win
Situation, and quite honestly,
I'm so stuffed up to here with the whole
Stupid mess that, I can tell you, I've just
Got a good mind to take the quick way out.
That's the bottom line. The only problem is:
What happens if I find out that when I 've bumped
Myself off, there's some kind of a, you know,
All that mystical stuff about when you die,
You might find you're still -- know what I mean?"

Anyhow, I'm having fun with all this Shakespeare stuff and enjoying most of the videos that I have been able to track down.

By the way, all the quotes from above have come from the book The Friendly Shakespeare: A Thoroughly Painless Guide to the Best of the Bard by Norrie Epstein.

Now tell me: Which is your favorite play or movie version of a Shakespeare play?

Nearly There

We are almost at the end of the holiday madness and we managed to survive it despite the death rattle cough. What started out as a viral infection took on a secondary bacterial infection in moi. For a week or so I have been coughing up dark green gunk from my left bronchial tree and tightening my abs in the process. I am nearly done with the cough though and I am VERY PROUD to say that I did it without antibiotics! Gotta love them herbs and glyconutrients. At times when I was up in the wee small hours of the night feeling like the top of my head was going to part company with the rest of my frame with each cough, I briefly contemplated breaking down and getting some antibiotics. However, the knowledge of the aftermath that abx cause held me firm to my path and I merely had another hot bath so I could snuff up some warm moist air. I also eschewed the dubious comforts of Tylenol and its generic cousins in favor of letting my body's own defense mechanism of fever free reign to kill the pathogens wreaking havoc in my lungs. I woke in the middle of the night when my fever broke to find I had drenched my nighty. After that happened, it was like a switch going on in terms of feeling better.

I hadn't planned on taking time off around the ho ho season with the schooling, but this most recent bout of illness put the kybosh on that. I will continue to take it easy for another few days as I slowly regain lost ground in housecleaning and by Monday I should be back in fighting trim again.

I'm not posting any details, but if he is brought to mind, please say a prayer on behalf of my son, Nathanael.

Something is Different, but I Don't Know What or Why

The past few weeks have been instructive ones. For one thing, I have had confirmed in a personal way how big a toll emotional angst can take on one, mostly by losing a lot of it. Spinning one's wheels is a fruitless activity that consumes a lot of emotional, mental, and physical energy. Remove the spinning wheels, and all of a sudden you have energy you didnt' know you had for other things.

I know I am not alone in this ~ so much of my drive to do things is driven by what "they" will think or say. Who "they" are I haven't yet determined. It is like I have this judge and jury in my head composed of a number of friends, family, church members, and other significant others who are waiting to pounce on my every mistake. I realize how ridiculous this is as I write it, because while there has been the odd person here and there who has been critical, it is mostly been from people I don't know well and care even less about.

Some things have changed in my head without me having to work at it. This was an unasked for grace. I have been able to see what my priorities clearly are and this has enabled me to determine what is important and worth spending time on and what is not important and which can afford to wait.

First priority: My relationship with God. More prayer and meditation on God's Word has been happening. Funny thing about my "episode". When everyone else was freaking out about the possibility of imminent death, it hasn't troubled me. I don't claim responsibility for this. God has worked in me to such an extent that while death remains an enemy, it isn't one I fear.

Second priority: My family. My kids are growing and will be gone sooner than I think. I'll never be able to have as much impact on them as I am now while they are still under my roof. All of a sudden homeschooling isn't the chore it was before. Instead it is a way to keep contact with my kids. Looks like I won't be using the Christian school next year. My husband needs taking care of. He's the only one I have and likely to be the only one I will ever have.

Third priority: Everyone and everything else. As important as it is to do good works (as the result, not the cause of salvation), everyone else has to take a backseat to the first two items. Not that I didn't already know this.

Here's what is funny: I have stressed less over messes in the house. The messes are disappearing and I am able to keep up with most of everything.

I am not stressing over the homeschooling, and now all of a sudden it is getting done in a timely and satisfactory manner.

Business is good. I am seeing a steady stream of clients but if they don't show up, well that means more time for other things.

I am content. I still have my ambitions, but I don't have this desperate need to beat the clock as far as getting them done. Naturopathic school will still be waiting for me when the times comes that I can devote my energies to it. In the meantime, I have plenty of good solid work and studies to keep me occupied.

I want to end this post on a note of apology. I have been aware for some time that a number of young women and mothers have looked at me like I was some sort of example to follow -- maybe not in terms of levels of sanctification, but perhaps in levels of sheer activity. For that I am sorry. I would hate for anyone to think that one must always be going, going, going in order to accomplish things of any worth or that the standard of godly womanhood was measured by how much laundry you get done in a day. As important as it can be to do, it is just as important just to be.

Calvin Must Be Spinning

In the country that was formerly one of the cradles of Reformation, thanks to the likes of John Calvin, we now learn that one of the Swiss hospitals in Lausanne will be allowing an organization, which is in favor of assisted suicide, to help terminally ill patients to end their own lives.

The hospital will not accept people whose only goal in entering "is to prepare to
end his life," said Alberto Crespo, who is responsible for law and ethics at the
hospital. "The purpose of a hospitalization remains therapeutic treatment."

Riiiiiiiight....

The Question No Expert is Asking....

Something is rotten in Denmark.

Parents of children with autism who believe that the condition was caused by vaccines have been routinely written off by the experts. It doesn't matter that these parents saw normal behaviour and development before vaccines and a startling regression after. That is pure coincidence.

So where are the studies that compare vaccinated children with autism with rates of autism in children who are not vaccinated? In other words, where are the controls?

Nowhere according to the "experts".

"There have never been any large, prospective, long-term studies comparing the long-term health of highly vaccinated individuals versus those who have never been vaccinated at all," Barbara Loe Fisher of the National Vaccine Information Center wrote in Mothering Magazine last year.

Therefore, the background rates for ADHD, learning disabilities, autism, seizure disorders, asthma, diabetes, intestinal bowel disorders, rheumatoid arthritis, and other brain and immune-system dysfunction in a genetically diverse unvaccinated population remains unknown."

-- "Why hasn't the most obvious research been done -- that is, assess the incidence of autism in unvaccinated children?" wrote Illinois autism activist Dr. David Ayoub this fall.

-- Kennedy, in a white paper called "Tobacco Science and the Thimerosal Scandal," quotes University of Kentucky chemistry professor Boyd Haley as saying, "If the CDC were really interested in uncovering the truth, it would commission epidemiological studies of cohorts who escaped vaccination, most obviously the children of Jehovah's Witnesses, Christian Scientists or the Amish."

Instead, Kennedy said, the CDC has "worked furiously to quash such studies" and prevent access to its own vaccine safety database -- a charge the CDC denies. Kennedy said he asked an official at the Institute of Medicine -- which last year rejected a vaccines-autism link -- why it didn't encourage those studies rather than recommend research money be redirected.

"That's a great idea, no one has ever suggested it before," Kennedy quoted the official as saying. Kennedy commented: "That statement is incredible. ... The idea of finding an uncontaminated U.S. cohort is Science 101. ... In fact, Dr. Boyd Haley has repeatedly urged IOM and CDC to conduct such a study, including at two public and tape-recorded meetings."

All these people are saying the same thing: Given the stakes, where's the study? This winter the government wants all pregnant women and 6-to-23-month-olds to get flu shots, most of which contain thimerosal.

In Case You Have Missed It...

...I have big problems with Big Pharma and the ethics being used to drive their industry. In their search for increased profit taking, they have turned to third world countries not only for a cheaper workforce but also because the regulations governing testing of drugs is more lax. This allows them to get away with things like the following:

Sun Pharmaceuticals convinced doctors to prescribe Letrozole, a breast cancer drug, to more than 400 women as a fertility treatment in a covert clinical trial -- and used the results to promote the drug for the unapproved use. This reminds me of a story that I heard on CBC radio's science show, Quirks and Quarks a few years ago where the WHO went into a South American country and under the guise of providing vaccines against disease, actually vaccinated women against pregnancy without their consent.

and ...

"Doctors are easier to recruit for trials because they don't have to go through the same ethics procedures as their Western colleagues," Ecks said. "And patients ask fewer questions about what is going on."

Also, critics say study volunteers may be taking risks without the potential for reward. Since many pharmaceutical companies are developing the drugs for markets in industrialized nations, it is unlikely that India's poor will have access to most of the new medicine.

You needn't reserve all your moral outrage for India's poor. Big Pharma is willing to stick it to the poor in North America as well. SFBC International has a 675 bed facility in Miami that has been recruiting undocumented Latinos who are desperate for money, and is paying them to take untested drugs in studies overseen by an unlicensed medical director whose degree comes from an offshore medical school in the Caribbean.

I don't know if any of my readers invest money in Big Pharma as part of their stock portfolio, but if you do, maybe it is time to seek a more ethical way of making money, no?

I Came, I Saw, I Worked Out

I got up early this morning -- like around 5:30 am. This was with some help from Jamesie who was snuffling around for first breakfast (second breakfast is at 9). Usually I would go back to sleep for another hour or two, but my curiosity over lights emanating from the downstairs overcame me, so James and I went downstairs to see what was up. What was up were two girls getting ready to go on their paper route. Something in the air told me that they had eaten or were going to eat. I happened to wander over by the stove which had a dish cloth draped over the top bit where the controls are, and discovered it was warm. I opened it up, and inside were browning popovers. Two girls stood there sheepishly grinning. I predict either naps or an early bedtime for those two tonight.

Sam was roused and joined the girls in their hot popover treat and I shoved them out the door by 6. I then donned a t shirt that wasn't as baggy as it should have been, yoga pants, and runners and proceeded to do 20 minutes of aerobics, 20 of upper body weight training, and 20 minutes of contorting myself into a semblance of Pilates moves.

I can't wait for the elliptical trainer to come. At least I can read a book while I run on it.

I Love My Work

Yesterday and today I got to work with two clients who live in Vancouver. Whenever they come to PG to visit family, they get me to work on them. One of them has been in a bad way for some time and the doctors and naturopaths down in Lotusland haven't been able to give her much in the way of help. What has helped her is seeing me, according to her and her husband. So....
He's planning on sending her up by plane every six weeks or so to have me work on her. Which I think is a real compliment.

In other news, James exploded today. No, he has not joined the Muslim extremists dedicated to blowing themselves and others up. Instead he did what many breastfed babies do -- he saved a bowel movement for several weeks and then finally exploded in a yellow lava-like flow of poop all the way up his back and out his legs. It is hard to believe a baby could hold so much poop. The tricky part was trying to get his onesie undershirt off of him without smearing it all through his hair. I think I used up half of my homemade baby wipes cleaning him up because I didn't have time to just put him in the bath and be done with it.

It has been a full week since I went to town. I almost went in tonight, but Marc elected to go for me, giving Ben the chance to drive. Hannah is out babysitting, as is Trahern. Only the little kids and I are at home and some of them are laying around in various stages of decreptitude. It looks like it will be a quiet Lord's Day at home tomorrow. Not all the kids are down with the "death rattle" cough, but James is feeling out of sorts from that and teething. Despite the fact that he can't do more than squeak in a pathetic manner, he is still smiling and surprisingly unfussy. Bless him!

The Thimoserol (Mercury) and Autism Link

I recently read an article from the Boston Globe written by a pediatrician concerning what he thought was a bogus connection between autism and the thimoserol found in many vaccines. His concern was over the numbers of parents who are now refusing to administer vaccines to their children and in doing so were opting for other methods of protecting their children over "herd immunity". In reply to his article, a neuorpharmacologist from Northeastern University who is doing research into the molecular causes of autism replied that there is indeed hard scientific evidence demonstrating a link between autism and thimoserol exposure through vaccination. He summed up his findings with the following:


1. Thiol (sulfur) metabolism is widely recognized as the primary target of mercury (i.e. Thimerosal) neurotoxicity.

2. Autistic children exhibit profound abnormalities in thiol metabolites

3. Concentrations of thimerosal produced by vaccination inhibit methylation activity of the enzyme methionine synthase.

4. Autistic children exhibit impaired methylation activity (Dr. James study).

5. Thiol metabolism plays a key role in inflammation and oxidative stress (e.g. maintaining glutathione levels).

6. Autistic children exhibit neuroinflammation and oxidative stress (Vargas et al. Ann Neurol. 2005 Jan;57(1):67-81)

7. Mercury and other heavy metals cause neuroinflammation (e.g. activation of microglia).

8. Thimerosal causes significantly greater accumulation of inorganic mercury in the brain than does methylmercury. (Burbacher et al. Environ Health Perspect. 2005 Aug;113(8):1015-21)

Ergo, there is indeed substantial scientific evidence of a link between Thimerosal and autism.

Furthermore, and more importantly:
Treatment of autistic children with regimens that:

1. Remove heavy metals (e.g. chelation)

2. Augment levels of glutathione (e.g. GSH or N-acetylcysteine)

3. Support methylation activity (e.g. methyl B12 (not just B12), folinic acid)

4. Reduce neuroinflammation (PPAR-acting agents )

....bring about clinical improvement in a large proportion of children with autism.

What the articles against freedom from vaccination boil down to for the most part is a desire for draconian action on the part of the state to force parents to vaccinate their children irrespective of the desires of the parents to protect individual children from the possible harmful effects they may suffer. Scare tactics alongside fervent declarations concerning the safety of vaccines are commonly employed in order to get compliance. Those who question the connection between vaccines and various disorders are put off with the notion that what they are experiencing couldn't possibly be caused by vaccines and that their observations are not scientific. Autism is caused by something else: it can't possibly be the vaccines!

What is lacking from the pro-vaccine side is the lack of questions: Why are so many children getting sick?

The argument the vaccinators put forward is that the increases in autism are the artifacts of increased awareness and better diagnosis. In short, we had autism before, but it wasn't being diagnosed. However, this is a testable hypothesis and the hypothesis has proven false. Autism spectrum disorders have been rising. Mercury is a potent neurotoxin and the idea that it can be administered safely to infants at what can be 15 times the EPA limits of toxicity in vaccines is, well, just plain stupid. Autism is an environmentally caused condition. However the integration of science and commerce dictates that we ignore the single most probable cause of a preventable condition and furthermore that we attempt to coerce everyone into compliance with it. So some children end up unable to function in society. That is the price we are supposed to pay for herd immunity.

It is clear who the winners are with this sort of program.

Oh, and btw, I think it is highly interesting that Big Pharma has persuaded Congress to protect them from further lawsuits caused by vaccine damage. If vaccines were so safe, would the bottom line need such safeguards?