Category: Opinion pieces

Bitter Pills and Ping Pong Balls

When medicine and science become political ping pong balls the difference between causation and correlation goes into the toilet. It is an effective strategy if you disdain science and medicine but do not have the mental energy or initiative to dig into multiple studies and results.

An example. Recently a reader sent a link to a single study indicating a correlation between Tylenol and ADHD in response to my request for references to studies proving Tylenol causes Autism. They construed that a single study about Tylenol and ADHD definitively proved their political point about Tylenol causing Autism. No point in taking that discussion any further as it would have been an exercise in futility.

Autism is now a political lightning rod IF YOUR LOVED ONES ARE NOT TOUCHED BY IT. But if you are a parent of an autistic child then Autism is a way of life you did not choose but you have to contend with every single day. And there is pain. Sometimes joy and fulfillment but always pain. Pain that the rest of the world cannot comprehend and refuses to try and understand. There are no pills for that pain.

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Mind Then Heart or Heart Then Mind?

People have accepted Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior because of the many debates Charlie Kirk engaged in.  The breadth and depth of his Bible knowledge was amazing and his ability to put forth rational and logical arguments based on his knowledge persuaded many minds.

My struggle is that in reading the Bible, I have not found a situation in scripture where Jesus initiated a debate to present his message of redemption and salvation. I find many situations where Jesus engaged in debate only as a response to the criticisms and attacks he faced from religious leaders because of the message he was presenting.

Jesus’s message resonated with and touched hearts as well as minds.  As a teenager, I felt out of place at church because all my friends had already walked the aisle, made a profession of faith, and been baptized—most of them as children.  But I was, and still am, a scientist. I put my trust in the ideas and concepts that can be empirically observed, measured and verified. But the afterlife, the Trinity and Heaven cannot be observed, measured or verified.

There is a chasm between belief and faith. But no matter how long, how deep or how wide the chasm is The Cross can bridge it.

Definition of belief: An acceptance that something is true or exists, based on evidence, reasoning, or conviction. 

Definition of faith: Strong trust or confidence in someone or something unseen, without requiring proof.

If the afterlife, the Trinity and Heaven could be absolutely proven then faith would have no eternal value.  I was reluctant to believe because nothing could be proven to my mind regarding the spiritual realm. And my mind overruled my heart because that is how a scientist behaved in my thinking.

But after completing a Bible study in Sunday School where we did a side-by-side reading and comparison of scripture with The Hobbit my heart was affected in a way that opened my heart to faith.   I realized that my heart had faith even though my mind had not yet embraced belief.

Since then I have gained trust in Jesus and confidence in scripture. The growth of belief from faith is a work of the heart and is an inner transformation.  And that transformation is not linear or predictable.  It has ups and downs and ebbs and flows.  I take comfort in knowing this is part of the Christian journey.

There is a story in Mark about a father who brings his son to Jesus for healing. Jesus declared that if the father can believe it is possible for the son to be healed then he will be healed.  The father makes a statement that resonates with me.

Mark 9:23-25

New King James Version

23 Jesus said to him, “If[a] you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes.”

24 Immediately the father of the child cried out and said with tears, “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!”

Fifty years after being saved there are still episodes in my life that challenge my belief.  It is my trust in Jesus and confidence in scripture that sustains me in those difficult times. And it sustains me now as I lament the senseless death of Charlie Kirk.  He is a child of God, brother in Christ and made in the image of the God he loved and served.  He is now in the loving arms of his Heavenly Father.  And yet my heart aches for his family and my mind hungers to understand why?

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Why Won’t We Act To Save Our Children?

A conversation about vetting access to rifles specifically designed to kill and maim humans is in the best interest of our precious children.  Is it not preposterous to rail against the killing of unborn children and implement laws limiting or denying access to abortions and then default to “thoughts and prayers” in response to the slaughter of our children while at school? Thoughts cannot stop the bullets that rip through the bodies of our children when they are attacked.  Prayers cannot keep a man-made killing machine out of the hands of perpetrators intent on massacring our children.

Why can’t we talk about ACTIONS that might prevent another eighteen-year-old from buying himself a rifle designed to hunt and kill humans for his birthday and then using them to massacre our children?

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What Are You Thinking?

I am a life long observer of human behavior.  It fascinates me.  Watching how my fellow earthlings act and listening to how they speak can take me from the heights of joyous celebration to the depths of despair or the other way around. Sometimes in a matter of 15 seconds. We are too often volatile creatures.

From watching humans for five decades I have come to the conclusion that we all move along the T-W-A continuum.  Not the Trans World Airlines continuum but the Thoughts – Words – Actions continuum.  Specifically we form our thoughts or allow them to form us, then we express those thoughts through the words we choose and finally we manifest both thoughts and words in the actions we take. As Ralph Waldo Emerson stated so succinctly “What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say.”

Let’s go back to the first segment of the continuum.  Either we form our thoughts or we allow them to form us.  I argue that successful humans take responsibility for forming their own constructive thoughts rather than allowing their destructive thoughts to rule them.   While this may apply to those that accumulate wealth, power and influence I am referring to being successful in relationships with our fellow human beings. I am referring to the folks that get along with almost anybody, who almost always have encouraging words for others and put the needs of others ahead of their own.  I hope you know some one like that.  We desperately need more of these folks among us.

I also argue that the most destructive and offensive members of the human race became that way because their negative thoughts govern their lives.  Maybe they have been deeply hurt and never recovered which generated negative thoughts that spiraled out of control.  Hurting people hurt people is a common adage.  Maybe they have suffered injustice that left painful emotional scars that never healed and the pain drives them to crave revenge.  Is there really anyway to know how they arrived at the point of harming others?

But as we experience more tragedies like the massacre in Orlando we are going to feel the wrath of these disgruntled human beings more deeply than ever. At Columbine, Sandy Hook, the Boston Marathon,  the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church and now at the Pulse in Orlando precious lives were extinguished by human beings so consumed by hate that we cannot begin to understand. We are mostly powerless to detect or deter these horrific events.

That does not mean there is nothing we can do. We can begin by cultivating thoughts that all lives are precious.  They all matter.  No exclusions, no excuses. We can continue by speaking kind, respectful words to other human beings and about other human beings. Reject the rhetoric of the political leaders, the candidates running for election or the many self proclaimed pundits in the media or on social media. Most importantly,  let our actions speak loudly of love, grace, benevolence and tolerance. Anything less is a dismal alternative.

 

 

Posted on by johnnyboy61 0