Today’s topic has real potential to rile up the spiritual hall monitors. I expect I will hear from many of them. Recently I talked to a pastor about depression and anti-depressants. He was resisting trying medication for his struggles because he felt he wouldn’t be having these problems if he were a “better” Christian. Some folks had told him that he should trust God with his sadness. I agree. But there is sometimes more to the issue and we, as fellow sojourners in Christ, do a disservice if we merely give depressed friends the “buck-up and do better” pep talk. The old give hundred and ten percent for Jesus challenge can make a sad and lonely person feel even lower and more worthless. I have some experience with this topic. I am medicated and unrepentant. For years I went through emotional ups and downs that my wife described as my “funks”. She walked on relational eggshells when I was going through these moods. Finally I
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Over the past two years I have lost about thirty pounds. When asked how I used to joke that I had a radical new diet book idea called “The Burn More Calories Than You Consume Diet”. Now I realize that I was on the cutting edge of dietary research! I could have penned that book and finally achieved my dreams of writing a bestseller. Admittedly I would have had to add a bit of filler since the entire book could have been summarized with the phrase “eat less, exercise more”. Now a group of sober people with doctorates and lab coats have carefully evaluated all of popular diets and published their findings. “The hidden secret is it doesn’t matter if you focus on low-fat or low-carb,” said Dr. Elizabeth Nabel, director of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, which funded the research. Limiting the calories you consume and burning off more calories with exercise is key, she said. The study, which appears in Thursday’s New England
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Facebook is all the rage these days. I am sure that some of these young whippersnappers resent the invasion of the Baby Boomers to the social network scene. Deal with it. I am enjoying catching up with old and new friends. One of the things I love about Facebook are the status updates. Some people ponder really deep and thorny issues like this one from my friend Robin. Why PopTarts, why do you only come in non-resealable pkgs of 2? Shouldn’t I have the choice to eat just 1 Tart w/out sacrificing the freshness of others? That is just one example of the inequities of life that need to be addressed and only a few men like Robin have the courage to ask those tough questions. Shouldn’t a country that can put a MAN ON THE MOON be able to package PopTarts in freshness saving single packages? Why isn’t there outrage over this injustice? Some use the status updates for mundane reports about
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(Today is a beat down travel day. Please accept this iPod Devotional rerun compliments of the house.) Welcome to the experiment known as the iPod devotional series. Here is how it works. On the old iPod is a “shuffle songs” feature. You hit the button and the iPod randomly picks a song.  I am writing a blog about whatever song the device selects on that day from the 1,000 plus songs on my iPod. My music list will further confirm my status as a Christian who makes others feel superior. My music goes from Al Green to the Youngbloods. Beatles to U2. Old hymns to modern praise music. Toby Keith to Frank Sinatra. Oldies to the soundtrack from Monty Python’s Spamalot. This could be interesting. I mentioned in the introductory paragraph that you might find some Toby Keith on my iPod. The shuffle confirmed that today as a tune from the Oklahoma country singer was the first one called up. Earlier I had expressed some concerns about
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I noticed a link today on MSN that touted the Top 10 Most Useless Body Parts. They had me at “useless” so I had to check it out. I could have guessed some of the parts they perceived as useless. Parts like tonsils, adenoids and appendixes. Many argue that those parts are, in fact, useful. But clearly we can live without any or all of them. Some parts on the list were surprising and a bit odd. For example, I was not aware of my plica semilunaris. You may not know it, but you have a third eyelid. Pull open the two more noticeable eyelids and take a look — it’s located right in the corner by the tear duct. That explains why I want to take a nap every afternoon. It is tough to hold all three eyelids open after lunch. Also on the list are sinuses. My wife would agree that sinuses are useless except to produce patience and longsuffering. Doctors don’t
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It is ironic that today’s song is about how quickly time passes away. I am paying for my traffic sin by taking a six hour online defensive driving course. I am four hours into six hours that I will never get back. Time is an odd commodity. This course seems to be taking two weeks while my life has passed by in a blink. Today’s spin of the shuffle wheel pulled up a little tune from Willie Nelson. The song is titled “Funny How Time Slips Away” and it is one of his signature songs. I realize that Willie is, for some, an acquired taste. I do not endorse Willie’s recreational choices or his tax paying discipline. Although his IRS habits would qualify him for a Cabinet post now. But I digress. I do like his ability to make lyrics real. In this song he laments the loss of a love. Well hello there my it’s been a long long timeHow am I doin’ oh
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I have been doing this church thing for a lot of years. I have sung hundreds of songs over the four decades or so that I have been a follower of Jesus. Some songs have great meaning to me. Some lyrics moved me to deep worship of God. Some times I really meant what I was singing. Other times I was singing through the motions while thinking about lunch and when the kick off was going to happen. Gotta think that Satan loves the ADD brain. One song that has always made me uncomfortable came up on the iPod today. The song was put to music by the legendary George Beverly Shea in 1932. The words were a poem written by Mrs.Rhea Miller in 1922. Shea recalled the moment. At the age of twenty-three, I was living at home with my parents, continuing to work at Mutual Life Insurance and studying voice. Going to the piano one Sunday morning, I found
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