Weekly Meanderings, 26 January 2019

Last updated on: January 26, 2019 at 7:09 am by Scot McKnight

Weekly Meanderings, 26 January 2019 2019-01-26T07:09:08-06:00 Scot McKnight

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Over Martin Luther King Day Kris and I usually spend a week or more in Florida with her sister, Pat, and it was a wonderful time — I had good study time to work on my translation of the “Second” Testament and we had two long walks each day in good weather. We are now looking out into snow and cold, so the warmth and green were nice while they lasted.

Clever dad:

There are some parenting issues that, no matter how old the kids are, just seem to come up again and again. Sleep. Trying to keep school germs at bay. And, always, food. No matter their age, finding meals that are both healthy and appetizing is one of the biggest puzzles of parenthood.

Reddit user BabyHooey understands this first-hand. Recently, he posted that his four kids, all between the ages of 10 and 16, were making dinner impossible. “There are literally no meals left that I can make without someone complaining,” he writes. “Spaghetti? I make my sauce with Italian sausage and one kid has decided she hates fennel. One kid has Celiac, which rules out wheat (obviously not her fault) so that makes it harder. One kid hates cheese, which rules out a lot of things. One kid hates chicken. We were safe for a while with tacos until one kid decided she was never eating tacos again.”

So, he did what was seemingly the last thing left to do: He retired from cooking. He purchased groceries at the store, stocked the shelves at home, and told everyone they’re on their own for dinner. How did the experiment go?

For about two weeks, everyone lived off of sandwiches and cereal. At about that point, I started cooking for myself and my wife only, things that we like to eat and cook. Eventually, one kid said, “That smells really good, can I have some?” I said that I only made enough for the two of us, but if they’d like some of tomorrow’s dinner, let me know and I can make extra. I was expecting, “What’s tomorrow’s dinner?” But instead I got, “Yes, please, anything’s better than more sandwiches.” All of them eventually followed suit. I’m back to cooking for six, but I’m making whatever I want to make.

SAD, seasonal affective disorder, and eye color:

For some people, colder temperatures and shorter days bring to mind beautiful winter wonderlands and cozy nights by the fire. For others, however, winter can be downright depressing. Now, scientists say they may have a clue as to why some people suffer from seasonal affective disorder (SAD) while others don’t: According to one recent study, eye color may play a significant role.

The new research, published last year in the Open Access Journal of Behavioural Science & Psychology, found that people with light or blue eyes tended to score lower on a questionnaire designed to screen for seasonal variability in mood, weight, appetite, sleep, and social activity. The study involved 175 undergraduate and graduate students from South Wales and Cyprus, with an average age of 24.

“The reason that eye colour may make some people more susceptible to depression or mood changes might be because of the amount of light an individual’s eyes can process,” wrote Lance Workman, PhD, the study’s lead author and a visiting professor of psychology at the University of South Wales, this week on the website The Conversation.

Eyes with less pigment—blue or gray, for example—are more sensitive to light, he explains, which means they don’t need to absorb as much for their retinal cells to receive and process images. That also means, however, that people with lighter eyes release less melatonin during the fall and winter.

Melatonin is a hormone produced by the body that helps us transition to sleep. But some experts believe that too much melatonin—or an imbalance of melatonin and serotonin, another mood-regulating hormone—may make people feel lethargic or depressed.

More on James Macdonald and Harvest, this time from his friend Mancow — and Wartburg Watch sums it up and here are the last few points:

7. “He told me that simply by suing his detractors he would win because people would be afraid to talk about him for fear of a lawsuit.”

This is the statement that really got to me. MacDonald was not suing the bloggers because he mistakenly believed that he was standing up for the truth. He did it to intimidate people. If what Mancow is saying is true, then MacDonald MUST pay the legal fees for Roys and The Elephant Debt and hang his head in shame. This man does not belong anywhere near a pulpit, not now, not ever. He needs to go and hide out in some retirement community in Florida. Surely he’s got the money for living well.

8. “When he seemed shocked about this thing called “discovery” in a court case, the writing was on the wall. He would reveal nothing! The case was dropped immediately.”

This is one thing I don’t understand. I told the folks at TED that JM’s goose would be cooked when it came to discovery. I knew that this guy who keeps his finances under lock and key would be opposed to releasing it during discovery. That is exactly what happened. However, I can’t believe that a man like James MacDonald didn’t know about discovery. I’m hardly the brightest bulb at Ace Hardware but even I know about it.

So was he just stupid or…did he think that TED and Roys would fold at the mere mention of the word *lawsuit?* Thankfully, TED and Roys are made of sterner stuff and I admire all of them. (Well done!) I suspect that he thought they would go crying home to mama.

9. “Why is Harvest $42 million in debt, as the church has stated on its website?”

Well, isn’t that what started the Elephant’s Debt? Going back through the elders’ ridiculous statements, I found all sorts of *nothing to see here, move along* when it came to the debt. Here is one of their statements from October 2012. So, how many of the elders still think they will be debt free in one year? I’d say the odds are low.

Bob on Books is right about the Gillette ad:

A number of those who read this blog are believing Christians, and some of you may disagree with me. The question I have is, do you think Jesus is a model of true masculinity? I think of the incident where Jesus’s followers are “chest bumping” over who is the greatest among them–typical toxic masculinity. Jesus replies:

“…whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Mark 10:43b-45)

Do we consider Jesus weak because he defines greatness in terms of servanthood, and his own mission as one of serving? Jesus says this as he is walking to the city where he will be betrayed, arrested and killed. Do we not consider perhaps the ultimate show of courage to be when someone gives their life for another? Is this not great strength? Is not every other act of service willingly given to one’s partner, one’s children, one’s colleagues, one’s community, likewise an act of strength?

I think it is something like this that Gillette means when it speaks of “The Best Men Can Be.” The cynics just consider it an advertising stunt. If so, it is probably a failed one. I’d rather call it an instance of corporate responsibility as a purveyor of men’s products. I’ve been shaving with Gillette razors since I started sprouting facial hair. I have Gillette razors in my medicine cabinet. I have no plans to stop using them.

It’s the Font, not the brain!

REMEMBER ALL THOSE classics you devoured in comp-lit class? Neither do we. Research shows that we retain an embarrassingly small sliver of what we read. In an effort to help college students boost that percentage, a team made up of a designer, a psychologist, and a behavioral economist at Australia’s RMIT University recently introduced a new typeface, Sans Forgetica, that uses clever tricks to lodge information in your brain. The font-makers drew on the psychological theory of “desirable difficulty”—that is, we learn better when we actively overcome an obstruction. (It’s why flash cards create stronger neural connections in the brain and are a better method for recalling facts than passively studying notes.) Sans Forgetica is purposefully hard to decipher, forcing the reader to focus. One study found that students recalled 57 percent of what they read in Sans Forgetica, compared with 50 percent of the material in Arial, a significant difference. No word yet on the retention rate of Comic Sans.

Flu myths:

The 2017-2018 flu season was among the worst in history. According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), it was one of the longest seasons in recent years, sending tens of thousands of people to the hospital and breaking a record with 185 pediatric deaths.

It’s too early to tell how this flu season is shaping up in comparison, but one thing is clear: There’s a lot of misunderstanding and misinformation about what the flu is, how it’s spread, and the efficacy of flu shots. Which is why we turned to medical experts to set the record straight by dispelling some common myths.

But above all else, know this: There’s no silver bullet to protect you from the flu completely, but there are a few steps you can take to protect your health. “Proper hand hygiene is the most important means of preventing the spread of infection. Hand washing is like a ‘do-it-yourself’ vaccine that stops the spread of germs,” says Mary Anne Jackson, MD, director of the Division of Infectious Diseases at Children’s Mercy in Kansas City, MO. And of course, she recommends that everyone in your family get the flu shot.

Here are the most common flu myths debunked by top doctors.

Why run away alone when you can run away with friends?

A Kansas man was puzzled when his dog—a dog he thought was lost forever—apparently came back to him with another dog and a goat after going missing.

Kyle Krier from Concordia, Kansas, said he and his wife, Laura, said he let the family dog out of the home to go to the bathroom but the animal never came back home.

“My wife told me there was another white dog in our yard and Bo took off and would not come back,” he wrote online, according to the Daily Mail.

He added: “We looked all over the place for him and could not find him. We decided to go home and wait for him to come back but he never did. I went out in the morning to look for him and found no sign of him anywhere.”

Krier said his dog was seen about six miles away from their home in Concordia.

“My wife got a call that someone had just about hit a black lab, a white lab and a goat on the road. My wife called me and told me the news and I knew right away that was our dog. I left work right away. I saw the crew out in a cut bean field on the east side of the highway,” he stated.

Uncategorized

Previous Post

January 25, 2019

Two Questions

Next Post

January 27, 2019 Give Us Grace, O Lord

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Acts of the Apostles Adam Advent Anabaptism Angels Anglican Apologetics Atonement Baptism BCP Prayers Bible Biblical Studies Birds Blogging Bloglossary Bonhoeffer Books Calvinism Christianity Church Church History Coffee Colossians Commentary Recs Conversion Creation Creeds Culture Death Ecclesiastes Economics Education Embracing Grace Emergent Emerging Movement Eschatology Essays Ethics Eucharist Evangelicalism Family Fasting Fathers Fellowship of Differents Footsteps Tour Fun and Whimsical Gospel Grace Happiness Heaven Hell Holy Spirit Irenaeus James Jesus Jesus Creed Job Justification Kingdom of God Law Lectures Lent Liberalism Love and Marriage Mabanteneni Manhood Mary Miracles Missio Alliance MissioLife Missional Missional Jesus Movies and Film New Perspective Northern Seminary OneLife Origins Project Orthodox Parables Pastor's Spouse Pastoring and Leading Pastoring and Preaching Patristics Paul Paul-John Tour Pharisees Pietism Political Theology Prayer and Formation Preaching Problems for Faith Psalm 119 Psalms Public Issues Purgatory Religions Resurrection Revelation Romans Rule of JCreed Science and Faith Sermon on the Mount Sports Ten Commandments Theology Third Way Top Ten Lists Translations Uncategorized Universalism University Ministry Way Out Weekly Meanderings Wisdom Women and Ministry Work Worship Writing & Blogging Youth Ministry

Select a Month July 2021 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 0000

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Which book has the only prayer recorded from Jesus outside of the Gospels?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Revelation Hebrews Acts 1 Corinthians