Wake Up Call

Granted, the doctor was in a pretty foul mood. He'd had a bad day. It was late, and he was tired. His words were well meant - just a little harsher than usual.

The recipient of his stinging rebuke was a 52 year old patient who, thanks to the quick actions of the Emergency Room Staff and the skill of this Cardiologist, had just survived his first heart attack. He was literally handed a second chance at life. I don't remember the exact words, but the conversation went something like this:

Doctor: "This was your wake up call. Like it or not, your life style has just changed! You no longer smoke cigarettes. You no longer drink 6 beers every time you go golfing. You have to start eating right and getting some regular exercise.

(It was at this point in the conversation that the patient mumbled something about maybe trying to cut down a little - the volume of the conversation then went up considerably)

Doctor: "ARE YOU LISTENING TO ME? DO YOU NOT UNDERSTAND WHAT JUST HAPPENED? IF YOU KEEP DOING WHAT YOU ARE DOING YOU ARE GOING TO DIE - MAYBE NOT TODAY - BUT SOON!

It was obviously not what the patient wanted to hear. He would rather have been told that he would have to live without his left arm than to be told he had to break his habits and change his lifestyle. So, I'm pretty sure that we at Maury Regional Hospital will be seeing this patient again real soon.

What is it in our brains that makes us our own worst enemies? Why is it, that even when we know better, our bad habits become so powerful and wield such debilitating control over our lives?

Remember the old late night infomercial guy - Tony Robbins.? I have been reading some of his stuff lately.

Beliefs have the power to create and the power to destroy. Human beings have the awesome ability to take any experience of their lives and create a meaning that disempowers them or one that can literally save their lives.

The Joy of Gingerbread

Last night we celebrated Andrea's Birthday. We turned the party into a Gingerbread House Building Party for the kids. You can see by the pictures which kid had the most fun....

Head Start On New Years Resolutions

I'm trying to avoid the rush this year. The way I see it - if I make my New Years Resolutions now - I can test them out ahead of time and see which ones (if any) will have a snowballs chance...

I found an old copy of the goals that I had set for myself back in 1996. I realized that if I just photocopied that list and changed the date to 2008 I would be good to go. My Goals really haven't changed much over the years.

My Yearly Goals have always included 3 categories: Spiritual, Physical, and Financial. I also include a "Wish List" for projects that I would like to get done or things I would like to do that year.

In the Spiritual category one item that I always include is trying to read the entire Bible through in a year. I checked my records and I have only achieved this goal 5 times in the past 11 years. (This year I dropped out in July). That is less than a 50% score. In most schools that is considered failure with a capital "F". While I wish I could boast about a much higher success rate - I must admit that if I had I not included this Goal on my list I would have never bothered to read it even 5 times. So, I'm going to keep this one on the the list again this year.

I think I have my Physical and my Financial categories mixed up. My waist line keeps growing while my bank account keeps shrinking. There has to be a way to turn this around. Any suggestions???????

Family Portrait

This is actually the first picture we have ever taken that includes all of our children together in one spot.

Here are the four reasons that we feel so blessed.

The Whole Gang

A Quick Update

Its a busy time around the Anderson house. We have somewhere we have to be every night this week. With all of the Christmas stuff going on it doesn't leave much time for Christmas shopping. So, like always, I'm sure me and ma will be out Christmas eve again fighting for the last of whatever is left on the shelves. Oh well, if stress is what makes Christmas time so special, this one ought to be a doosy.

Andrea and I are both singing in the choir this year for our church Christmas play. Lynetta is the star of the drama this year! I never thought she would agree to that, but believe it or not, she is actually pretty good. The program is on Sunday December 16Th - 2 shows - one at 4:00pm and one at 6:00pm. We would love to have lots of you come and see it.

For my Michigan friends: I did something Saturday that you may find a little strange. I mowed the lawn and put up Christmas lights on the same day. There are a lot of people here in Tennessee who wait and take their Christmas lights down is July - right after they mow over the extension cord - but mowing the lawn and putting them up on the same day is strange - even for us Tennesseans.

The whole Famn Damily went Friday night to get our portraits taken for Christmas. The poor girl taking the pictures about fainted when she saw us all walk in together. They turned out pretty good. I will post some as soon as I can. We are planning on making some of them into Christmas cards - but, at this rate, it will probably be February before we get them mailed.

Hop-A-Long-Holiday

Thanksgiving started off with a bang - a really loud bang!
Late Wednesday evening Kari and the kids had stopped over to drop off some food and supplies for our Thanksgiving dinner. About midnight, as they were leaving, I heard a loud bang and a terrifying scream. I ran to the back door to see Kari lying in the mud at the bottom of the stairs. Her leg was twisted in an awkward manor beneath her. At first glance, in the dark, it appeared to be a serious fracture.

There were at least 4 factors that lead to the accident:
1. Kari had four year old Emily Klair in her arms. (Emily Klair was not hurt)
2. Kari was wearing old cheap flip-flops
3. It was pouring down rain.
4. The stairs have the reputaion of being too slick.
The combination of these factors led to a 3 hour trip to the Emergency room.

After all the screaming, crying and panic (mostly from us, not Kari) it turned out that there were no bones broken. Just a long laundry list of torn ligaments, sprained joints, and lots of cool bruises. She will be limping long into the new year. She spent Thankgiving day on our couch.

All in All it was a great Holiday. Any excuss to be with our family and friends is always great. As a matter of fact, If I could gauge our family holiday gatherings simply by how much weight I gained, then I would have to say that the Anderson Thanksgiving was a grand success!!

An Interesting Theory

I ran across an interesting blog article the other day. It was written by a guy from Texas named Richard Beck. He refers to himself as a professor and experimental psychologist. You can read the entire article Here

The article uses a bunch of big words like thanatocentric and ante-mortum salvific self-verification (I think words like this are lovingly referred to as psycho-babble) But once you get past the big words, his theory is really rather interesting. I usually don't pay much attention to this type of stuff. Mostly because I have such trouble understanding it. (it makes my poor little head hurt) But this one caught my attention because it addressed a question that has really been on my mind lately: Why do some good Christian people become so unreasonable, defensive, harsh and down right un-Christ like anytime their particular religious views or practices are questioned or challenged? Why do reasonable people become so unreasonable when religion is involved?

Richard says that this behavior is a defense mechanism. It stems from having a thanatocentric (death centered) faith.

"If my faith is thanatocentric then faith becomes fundamentally about where I stand at the moment of death. Am I with the saved or with the lost? How can I tell? Well, you can tell by drawing ecclesial lines in the sand and then check--self-verify--where you stand. And you keep checking, almost daily, because death can come at any moment. Faith becomes a kind of obsessive-compulsive salvation check: Am I in? Yes, I'm in. Am I in? Yes, I'm in. Am I in? Yes, I'm in. Doctrine becomes about existential self-soothing.

In my tradition, being saved was defined by being a member of the Churches of Christ. And one of the defining features of that church was non-instrumental music. For better or worse, that issue became a means of ante-mortum salvific self-verification. But what happens, as is currently being done in progressive Churches of Christ, if that line in the sand starts getting rubbed out? Blurred? Well, you start robbing people of a mechanism for existential self-soothing. You've taken away an existential security blanket. If you start rubbing out all those lines of demarcation how can you tell who is or who is not going to hell? More vitally, how can I tell if I'm going to hell? That's the real issue. Where do I currently stand? Saved or Lost?

Death is a terrifying prospect. This is exacerbated if one also believes there is a hell of never-ending torment. Thus, faith, belief and doctrine begin to cluster around defining the Saved versus the Lost. If the church is our lifeboat then we become very invested in making a clear demarcation between church and non-church. I need very clear lines in the sand so that I can self-verify, over and over, that I'm on the right "side."

So, according to Richard, this harsh unreasonable behavior does not stem from malice, hatred, anger, or feelings of superiority. These behaviors simply come from fear - terrifying self limiting fear.

If Richards assumptions are correct, and in at least some cases I suspect that they are, then how should I respond to someone who has just chewed me a new back side for dissagreeing with their particular religious views?
If I truly believe that my faith is "Grace Centered" (I don't know a fancy psycho word for that) and not thanatocentric or "Death Centered" then how should I respond?

Eph. 4:2
With all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love;
Eph. 4:32
And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you.

This of course is much easier said than done.