August 17, 2021

If not now… when?

One day, I will eat that cookie!

You gaze at it, sitting on the counter in front of you. Chewy, moist, hot… full of chocolate chunks dripping sweetness… If only you could simply reach out your hand to take it…

But it’s only a dream…

You are not eating that cookie because you’ve shut yourself away from this dream. Decided it’s not for you. Locked your heart against your desires because practicality says it’s bad for you.

And yet, you still want it; and promise yourself that, some day, you’ll be able to eat it again.

I ask you, when will be the right day? When will you be thin enough, confident enough, assertive enough to say, “Yes. Today is the day! I will eat that cookie, feel good while doing it, and not gain weight!”

Do you have a plan to get to that day? A plan to lose weight, reduce sugar cravings, and rewire your mindset?

Ok, do you know we’re not talking about a cookie?

I had you going there though, didn’t I?

I’m going to let you in: that cookie represents your creative desires. Uh huh. You’ve told yourself for years that someday you will start your creative career.

‘Someday’ never comes. It’s like ‘somebody.’ My dad’s catch phrase to us kids whenever we asked, “Can somebody help me with this?” was always, “‘Somebody’ isn’t here.”

His point was: “You’re never going to get the help you need unless you address someone specific.”

So I’m going to tell you now: ‘Someday’ is never coming. You need a specific plan if you want to live the life you crave.

Do you have that plan? Do you have that resolution? Do you know how to lose the ‘weight’ that is keeping you from living your dream life? If other people can do it, so can you. You just need to start taking the first steps.

August 17, 2021

If Not You… Who?

“Before you were born, I dedicated you.”

Do you know what the basis is behind all conspiracy theories?

• Is it that someone controls all our tech?

• That someone controls all our minds?

• That someone has put chips inside all the bananas, so now we have chips inside us, that are telling someone, somewhere, the blood pressure levels of every person on earth so that they can put this information to dastardly purposes! *gasp here for dramatic effect*

No.

…Well, sort of.

The basis behind every conspiracy theory is the idea that somebody, somewhere, knows all the secrets about life.

This person is a danger to us because none of us have a clue about life. The idea that somebody out there actually knows the secret to life, and isn’t telling us… Well, that sounds like a pretty powerful, pretty evil person.

I’m not an evil mastermind, and I don’t have all the secrets to life… but I do have one. And it’s kind of THE one. In fact, it’s very existence destroys any basis for wild, overblown conspiracy theories…

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your mind, and all your strength;” and “‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” (Mark 12:30-31)

I used to play the comparison game constantly, and I didn’t even realize it was happening. I thought others could do anything I tried to do better than me. I thought if I didn’t evangelize, someone else would. I thought if I didn’t defend Christ, someone else would. I decided it was enough to just feel love for God - I had abandoned Him in my mind, and thus, I did so with my actions. I had failed to love Him with my whole strength. The love in my heart wasn’t true love.

If you truly love God in your heart, you love Him in every thought. And if you truly love Him in every thought, You love Him with your every action.

The Lord has dedicated you to a unique, unrepeatable life. No matter if you don’t have life figured out. No matter if you’re not as good at something as the next person. No matter if you don’t want to do it.

NOBODY has it figured out. NOBODY wants to do the hard stuff. NOBODY is as good as God, and yet, He chose you to do His work. Your imperfect attempts please Him more than if He did it Himself.

So if He’s called you, are you going to listen?

On the Relationship between Medicine, Science, and Faith - Part 1

[Originally written as a letter to a friend]

My dear friend,

I want to encourage you, even as you rejoice in the progress you have made so far, not to give up on full healing.

Before, you probably thought this current level of healing you have reached was impossible. But you HAVE achieved it! There is always more healing possible for us, even if we are not actively seeking it, or if it will not come until the New Heaven and the New Earth.

My Philosophy

Before I address any more of your specific concerns on medicine, brain re-wiring, and modern science, I would like to begin by laying out my own philosophy and approach when it comes to medicine, science, faith, and mindset, for it is radically different from the typical approach, and I want to avoid any confusion that could arise from talking at cross-purposes.

It’s longer than I had intended, so I ask that after you read it, you give yourself 48 hours or so to sit with it, and maybe skim through it again before responding. And if you could respond in a way that clarifies and asks questions, that would be helpful as well. I want to get to the point where we are debating, but I want to make sure we are on the same page in understanding each other, before we go there. I hope that makes sense?

What I lay out here are beliefs I have come to after asking myself for years these same questions that you are now grappling with.

• “Who can I trust?”

• “How can I know that what I am experiencing is true, or trustworthy?”

• “How can I know who to believe?”

Please do not take anything I say here personally. It was important for my own sake to write this out, because I need to understand my own mind, and the conclusions I have been coming to lately, in science, medicine, religion, and belief.

Fruit first, science last

Personally, I believe in judging a thing more on the merits of its fruit, then the credentials of the person behind it, or the scientific basis of its use.

Not that credentials don’t matter - they do, but only up to a point. Experience and results mean more.

Not that science doesn’t matter - it does, but again, only to a point. Science is a human institution, which ought to be guided by an open-minded curiosity and willingness to be confronted by inconvenient truths. Also, waiting to know that something is true scientifically before trying it, is a dangerous practice. It gives science more power than it ought to have, and puts doubt on the validity of personal experience and common sense.

I think it is a fallacy in our modern age to equate knowing why a thing is useful, to knowing that it is useful.

Can we ever fully know?

We are fallen human beings, who are born into this world with limited understanding, so that we can cultivate that understanding and grow. We are not animals with instincts that rule our actions. We have developed science as a tool for learning and discovering, and this has been very helpful in intellectual pursuit. However, it is fundamentally a fallible system, as it depends on fallible human beings.

The Four Humors, neuro-science

You have mentioned before that the four humors and the studies of neuroscience have been disproven, and therefore you find the use of mindset and Hildegard’s medicine suspect. But I’m afraid I must challenge that belief.

Hildegard did not base her science, medicine, and philosophy on the PROOF of the four humors. She based it on the evidence - and the evidence she observed has not changed. For example, we can say that it is now PROVEN that the sun does not revolve around the earth, but that does not follow that the evidence of our everyday life has changed: the sun still rises and sets around the earth, and knowing that this is not strictly the case does not change how we, as human beings, relate to the sun on a day to day basis.

In the same way, to say the four humors has been disproven, and therefore all of Hildegard’s medicine is suspect, seems hasty.

Doctors are not a new invention, but modern history likes to paint them in the light of the only ‘real’ doctors that have ever existed. But the truth of the matter is that, while we have many new inventions that give us insight into the microscopic world of the human body, we have lost the ‘whole’ approach to the human person.

St. Luke was a doctor, as well as Hildegard of Bingen. They both would have used what most today consider ‘outmoded’ methods of medicine, and yet, I firmly believe, that they both were able to affect real healing in their patients. Their science was off, but their approach to the human person, rooted as it must have been in the truth of God’s creation, led them to discover methods and means to heal.

Can anything ever ever truly be disproven?

It is very easy to prove that a leaf exists - you only need one instance of seeing it to accept its reality. But to prove the existence of something unseen is much for difficult, unless you rely on the evidence of it’s affects upon the world. You would have quite a time proving that an alien existed, because you cannot see their effects upon the earth, but to prove the wind is much easier: simply step outside on a gusty day.

Can the mind wire itself? Can DNA heal itself? Can positive thinking evoke MORE than a simple chemical response - can it actually be biological?

The problem with these questions is that modern science has put on blinders.

We KNOW the human person is capable of great healing. I have experienced it, as have many other people.

Science, however - an institution created by fallen humankind - states that, unless we have observed something 1 million times, and can affirm that each result was not too different from other results, it is the truth. And since we have not yet observed the interior of the human person healing itself 1 Million times through a positive mindset, we cannot call it real science.

The scientific method is helpful, but it is not the final word.

Science can only dissect, but the evidence of a life well and joyfully lived speaks, in my opinion, far more eloquently than any microscope.

The whole person

And truly, treating the whole person is what ought to be the goal of science, and any other branch of knowledge. Why does medicine, physics, chemistry, biology, etc, exist, unless to know as much about one area of life as possible, and then to admit that it has exhausted itself, and can only contain so much of the whole picture of life.

Mind, body, soul... they are so integral, that we can only separate them in a superficial way. We can say, “I eat to be healthy, pray to be holy, and read to be smart.” But if we only read, our minds suffer. And if we only eat, our souls are lost.

G. K. Chesterton once said, “Never deny, rarely affirm, always distinguish.”

My goal here is not to affirm or deny any truths, but rather to show that I am open, ragardless of the generally accepted conclusions of modern science, to other truths, and to demonstrate why this is so. It can appear, at first glance, that I am denying the legitimacy of science, but I want to defend my case, and show that this is far from the truth. Rather, I do not want to put science as the first test of truth.

Science is what we decide it is, and it is prone to human error

Science is prone to human error, being a practice based solely on human research, and results interpreted by human beings. I treat with fascination, but careful detachment, any results discovered by atheists. I believe we can learn from what they do and study, but that we should never treat their results as the final word on which to close our minds.

Our modern society is very confused on many topics: metaphysics, faith, religion, the dignity of the human person, marriage, family, government... and numerous other matters. To close our minds and ears to where medicine and science are involved is dangerous. It opens us to believing things that should NOT be believed. Therefore, concerning generally accepted facts, I want to give a word of caution. We have a society that believes masturbation, homo-sexuality, and abortion are scientifically good and healthy. And they are seeking ways, through science, to justify these beliefs.

In addition, our society proclaims itself open-minded and debate-oriented, but more often than not, if a theory comes forward that challenges the common narrative, the person, in addition to the idea, is attacked.

If they must not only disprove the theory, but also discredit the theorist, it means that the theory put forward, correct or not, endangers thier generally-accepted scientific law. It shuts the door on the ability of opposing opinions to act as counter-balances to new ideas.

Expelled - This video shows how those who have legitimate theories (intelligent design of the universe) are, in massive numbers, attacked and expelled from scientific circles.

Continued in Part 2…