Freud

Freud’s legacy

The matrix

anarchy

polling

NewDeal vs business

These are all thoughts I had while watching this video.  I couldn’t get the last two parts to work and it’s been awhile since I watched the first two but I’m finally getting around to posting this.

. . . Brainwashing as it were, can be done by both sides (government/business and individual naturalists or whatever)  so . . . never believe anything . . . . . no, just don’t be like I am most of the time and assume that the opposite of something wrong must be 100% right.

Dear Lord, please make it stop!

Three-Girls-Died–Others-Hospitalized–After-HPV-Vaccine

Sex God

While we’re on the subject of sex, I also finished the book Sex God by Rob Bell. Since I don’t have the benefit of putting the word Sex in a different color as the word God like he does on the book, the title implies something which it is not (in other words this is not a post about my husband ). It is about sexuality and spirituality and how they are very much related.
I don’t agree with Rob on everything in life but this book was really well written and has a lot of good things to say. His chapter on angels or animal is absolutely excellent and I have thought a lot about the influence of the church’s angelicness (not a word I guess but neither is angelhood; what word am I looking for?) on our society and how it likely has caused a lot of the animalness.

Our Sunday school class (yes I’m going to Sunday school for the first time in years–actually, it’s the first time I have ever belonged to a class–and it’s people I enjoy so it’s not scary) is reading the book and I could type a lot about the things we discussed but you really should just read the book, whether you’re a Christian or not. Then come back here and you can tell me what you liked. (Don’t bother with what you didn’t like; there’s always something and it’s not worth arguing over in this setting.)

Samson and the Pirate Monks

I just finished reading Samson and the Pirate Monks by Nate Larkin.

I was amazed and heartily recommend it. I didn’t plan on reading it since my husband had told me the beginning (the author engaged in some very serious sexual sin while married and in ministry) and I didn’t feel like reading another one of those stories.  But I picked it up one day and started reading and since I already knew the sordid events of the beginning, was able to make it through to what helped Nate and to the society he started. Part of me was still rebelling. I wanted his wife to divorce him instead of forgive him. I wanted to castigate these men for the sins they most definitely commit against other human beings–some are family and some are people they will never meet. But as I plowed my way through the book I could not help but realize he has hit the nail on the head of what men need and what will transform lives and what God no doubt had intended all along but somehow Christians have missed in the Bible. We skipped right to the “be holy” part without the “carry each other’s burdens and confess your sins, etc.” part (or when we try we screw it up).

Anyway, I hope the above doesn’t keep anyone from reading it.  If you’re a man, you really need to read it whether you struggle with a sexual sin or not.  (Which brings me to the fact that women need something like this too–different but something that would accomplish the same goals.  I wonder who will come up with that.)

Spam

If you have a lot of spam, this might be a solution.  I don’t have an account there but Matthew does.

Russell Means part 3

Last post about Means.

Means’ parents went to boarding school.  (pg. 18) “Like most reservation Indians of his generation, Pops was taken from his family at age eight and sent to a boarding school hundreds of miles away.  The first Indian boarding school had been established in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, in 1879.  After that, for more than ninety years, tens of thousands of reservation children were snatched from their families and sent hundreds or even thousands of miles away to be raised in those schools.  Because our culture is built around the extended family, boarding schools were an important part of the scheme to destroy our society by eliminating its basic social unit–a plan of cultural genocide that has succeeded brilliantly.  . . . to make sure siblings didn’t bond, the officials usually sent the children from one family to different schools, if [they] were sent to the same school . . they were forbidden even to speak to one another.  . . .  . . Whether run by missionaries seeking to expunge all traces of Indian religion or by BIA bureaucrats with cultural genocide in mind, the boarding schools were much the same.  Harsh, military-style discipline was used to break the children’s spirits.  . . . ” (pg 19) “The boarding schools were havens for pedophiles.  Generations of Indian children–boys and girls–endured sadistic sexual and psychological violation from perverts, many of them priests or nuns.  I know this is so because my parents and my mother’s sisters told me what happened to them.  I have also spoken to hundreds of adults who described similar abuse they suffered as children in boarding schools.  . . . . . Boarding school discipline was harsh . . . each demerit bought a stinging stroke with a broad leather strap . . . I can document punishment far worse than beatings.  As recently as the 1970s, boys younger than ten years were handcuffed to basement pipes and left hanging.  . . .” (pg. 20) “thousands of Indian-boarding-school children simply vanished . . . To this day, neither the BIA nor any of the churches has ever accounted for those legions of missing children.  . . . incest and child abuse, once unthinkable among my people, are rampant.  . . “

“Campaign for Real Beauty”

Not sure whether to have you watch this first or this.

I don’t pass on pass-it-on-or-you’re-not-a-Christian emails but I’d like to ask readers to pass on the above videos to the women and girls in their lives.

Go Dove.  (The links above are to the Canadian site.)

Sexual Wholeness

We were cleaning out our tv stand and I found the bulletin that went with a video tape I got of the Sexual Wholeness Series at Asbury Theological Seminary put on by The National Coaliton for the Protection of Children & Families while we were in Wilmore. I thought I would share some of the information from it.

Sexual purity is the number one issue that Christian men face in their walk with Christ.

Many community leaders and pastors are struggling with pornography use and sexual immorality.

On a survey 20% of pastors said they look at sex-oriented materials at least once a month.

Some pastors find it difficult to preach and teach on this issue because they are personally involved and struggling with pornography or are fearful because many of their people are struggling with sexual sin. They are not sure how to bring both God’s grace and accountability at the same time.

The Corrie ten Boom and Martin Luther quotes in the post below were printed in this bulletin.

The internet has increased availability, acceptability, anonymity and addiction of pornography.

In 1970 and 1986 the Presidential commissions on pornography agreed that 12-17 year old males were among the largest users of the material.

40.2% of site visitors are female.

Focus group research indicates the average age of exposure is 11 for males and 12.5 for females.

Realize that children can get around blocking software.

Everything that has ever been available in adult bookstores is now available for free, as teasers, without any minimum age. This includes: homosexual acts, bestiality, group sex, sado-masochism, bondage, and child pornography. There is very sophisticated technology that can keep you from escaping pornographic sites (called mouse-trapping) as well as traps to get you there.

“. . if any real difference is going to be made in the hearts, minds and behavior of our youth and church members . . . we will have to approach this with great ENERGY, ENDURANCE AND DETERMINATION. . . . Our society is so saturated with the message of immorality . . . . that our competing message will have to be substantial, persistent, persuasive and compelling.” Dr. Stan Weed

What makes someone vulnerable? They learned it, they are isolated, they have hurts from the past, they have access to the internet.

To help: share hope, hold person accountable, help them understand that they are responsible for their behaviors and choices, don’t preach at them, do invite them to change, don’t stop checking on them, encourage counseling and support groups, don’t keep silent on the issue.

Check out the links at the right as well as this one for more information.

Quotes

I found these quotes and think they’re insightful therefore wanted to pass them on.

————–

“If I straighten the pictures on the walls of your home, I am committing no sin, am I?  But suppose that your house were afire, and I still went calmly about straightening pictures, what would you say?  Would you think me merely stupid or very wicked? . . . The world today is on fire.  What are you doing to extinguish the fire?”  Corrie ten Boom in Amazing Love, 101

“If you preach the gospel in all aspects with the exception of the issues which deal specifically with your time–you are not preaching the gospel at all.”  Martin Luther

Pornography

Men like naked ladies.  That’s a good thing.  What’s sad is when they look at naked ladies that aren’t their wives.  Why?  Well, for one thing, women loose badly in this situation for a variety of reasons.  For another thing, men often end up getting something from the encounter that they’re not getting in the rest of their lives and so they go back for more.  Then they need something a little more edgy to excite them and when that wears off, something edgier.  And it can lead to worse pictures and to acting out in destructive ways.

Some little known facts:  men who struggle with pornography often struggled with it from a young age and getting married doesn’t help the struggle.  Women or girls in pornography were often abused.  They also frequently think they can’t do anything else for a living.

Check out the links under sexual health to the right and pick-up Craig Gross’ book, The Dirty Little Secret for more.