Medicine & a warning from history

In my public speaking days, I often had the chance to refer to an amazing article by Dr. Leo Alexander, that appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1949.

Entitled, "Medical Science under Dictatorship, the article examined the numerous social reasons for the corruption of the medical community before and during the second world war.

It is a fascinating read, even today, especially when there are elements still pushing for euthanasia.

I know one must be careful in using ANY comparisons with medicine during that time.

However, there are principles and decisions that impact medicine, and either place or remove the view of "life", by that I mean the specialness of "sanctity" of human life.

What is always important, is to make sure we examine history and then learn from it.

This is just such the case.

Dr. Alexander has much to teach us, even though so many years separate us from the evil of that day....and people don't realize that it had nothing to do with the NAZIS. 

For example: 

    Even before the Nazis took open charge in Germany, a propaganda barrage was directed against the traditional compassionate nineteenth-century attitudes toward the chronically ill, and for the adoption of a utilitarian, Hegelian point of view. Sterilization and euthanasia of persons with chronic mental illnesses was discussed at a meeting of Bavarian psychiatrists in 1931.1 By 1936 extermination of the physically or socially unfit was so openly accepted that its practice was mentioned incidentally in an article published in an official German medical journal.

    Lay opinion was not neglected in this campaign. Adults were propagandized by motion pictures, one of which, entitled "I Accuse," deals entirely with euthanasia. This film depicts the life history of a woman suffering from multiple sclerosis; in it her husband, a doctor, finally kills her to the accompaniment of soft piano music rendered by a sympathetic colleague in an adjoining room. Acceptance of this ideology was implanted even in the children. A widely used high-school mathematics text, "Mathematics in the Service of National Political Education," includes problems stated in distorted terms of the cost of caring for and rehabilitating the chronically sick and crippled. One of the problems asked, for instance, how many new housing units could be built and how many marriage-allowance loans could be given to newly wedded couples for the amount of money it cost the state to care for "the crippled, the criminal and the insane."

 Alexander then goes on about sterlizations, experimentations, etc. and how it was all related and "justified" for the good of society.

He then sets his sites on Western thought and attitudes...and includes a warning...answering the question everyone asks...how could it have happened?

He writes:

Whatever proportions these crimes finally assumed, it became evident to all who investigated them that they had started from small beginnings. The beginnings at first were merely a subtle shift in emphasis in the basic attitude of the physicians. It started with the acceptance of the attitude, basic in the euthanasia movement, that there is such a thing as life not worthy to be lived. This attitude in its early stages concerned itself merely with the severely and chronically sick. Gradually the sphere of those to be included in this category was enlarged to encompass the socially unproductive, the ideologically unwanted, the racially unwanted and finally all non-Germans. But it is important to realize that the infinitely small wedged-in lever from which this entire trend of mind received its impetus was the attitude toward the nonrehabilitable sick. 

And one of the most powerful of quotes:

It is the first seemingly innocent step away from principle that frequently decides a career of crime. Corrosion begins in microscopic proportions.

The entire article has been put online and is available here. It makes for fascinating reading...and serves as a warning that we ignore the lessons of history at our own peril...and our discarding of the age-old Judeo-Christian views on life come at a price.

Why we Remember...

In the fall of 1995, I was able to travel to the site of the notorious concentration camp, Bergen-Belsen.

It also is the place that Nazi victim, Anne Frank died and is buried at.

To stand there is a moving experience, to say the least.  How can you process what you see....when you gaze upon a mound of dirt, and see the words "5000" buried here...over and over again?

I came across this description of Belsen, when I sat in the museum located just a few feet from the mass burials, and it chilled me with its description.  Written by an Allied physician, trying to put into words his thoughts of what he saw just after the camp was liberated...as they started the process of burning down some of the disease infested buildings...

It seemed to us the devil smiled, then, and seemed to say, 'I am stronger, more personal and more fearful than you thought possible in your little sheltered lives and bourgeois homes.  You thought Apollyon was a myth, a faery tale of misty, ancient days when men had superstitious minds and didn't know about modern science, progress and motor-cars.  Well, I hope I've shown you otherwise.  Now go home and deny me if you can, forget Belsen, hate for a time, take a little bloody revenge and then go back and gradually feel it wasn't true.  You'll soon believe that even what you saw was propaganda, when you're not believed at home.  Then when again the world is lulled with its own petty round, I'll give you another taste of what I can do when men give me their souls.'

                                                      -Robert Collis "Straight On" (1947)

So, on Remembrance Day, I am thankful for the brave men and women who fought against this evil...and won for me and for my children and grandchildren, freedom and liberty.

May we never be "lulled" again.

A new blessing....

Little Everly Elizabeth Margaret Lowe was born on Thursday. October 30, 2014.

Mom is doing well...even after an emergency C-section.  Her arrival a month early....but still Mom & Dad are both happy happy happy!

Our 4th grand baby!!

She is a sweetie to be sure!!

So what did I learn? More of you....

I made my castle tall

I built up every wall

This is my kingdom and it needs to fall

I want you and no one else

Empty me of myself

Until the only thing that's left is

More of You

Less of me

Make me who I'm meant to be

You're all I want all I need

You're everything

Take it all I surrender

Be my king

God I choose

More of You and Less of me

I need more of you

More of you

This life I hold so close

Oh, God I let it go

I refuse to gain the world and lose my soul

So take it all I abandon everything I am

You can have it

The only thing I need is

More of You

Less of me

Make me who I'm meant to be

You're all I want all I need

You're everything

Take it all I surrender

Be my king

God I choose

More of You and Less of me

I need more of you

More of you

All to You

I surrender

All to You my blessed savior

I surrender all

All to You

I surrender

All to You my blessed savior

I surrender all

More of You

Less of me

Make me who I'm meant to be

You're all I want all I need

You're everything

Take it all I surrender

Be my king

God I choose

More of You and Less of me

I need more of you

More of you

All to You

I surrender

All to You my blessed savior

More of you

I need more of you

-Colton Dixon

Can't say it any better...

A reservist. A volunteer. Standing guard, unarmed, at solemn ground dedicated to those who fight and die for our freedom. Killed by cowards.
— Mike Storeshaw (@mstoreshaw) October 22, 2014

On personal Retreat...some Dostoyevsky

“I believe like a child that suffering will be healed and made up for, that all the humiliating absurdity of human contradictions will vanish like a pitiful mirage, like the despicable fabrication of the impotent and infinitely small Euclidean mind of man, that in the world's finale, at the moment of eternal harmony, something so precious will come to pass that it will suffice for all hearts, for the comforting of all resentments, for the atonement of all the crimes of humanity, for all the blood that they've shed; that it will make it not only possible to forgive but to justify all that has happened.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

Frequency

Over the weekend I watched this movie, Frequency,  with my two youngest sons.

We had seen it before, a few years back....but I had the blu-ray version so I thought it would be a good family night feature.

Featuring two of my favorite actors, Jim Caviezel (Person of Interest) and Dennis Quad, it lays out the story of a son who saves his Dad.

Literally.

I won't reveal the plot here, but it's a great movie to watch with your kids...with a great message.

Finally some "Quiet"

I came across this book by Susan Cain last year.

The book, "Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking" is amazing.

Wow.

Through the last couple years, I've been treated to some great leadership material.

From the Myers-Briggs test to Strengths Finder, there is more and more data and information that help you dissect what "you" are.

In one of our leadership sessions, a friend of mine protested that he thought the Strength Finder test was unhelpful...because it "labeled" you.

I disagreed.

Why?  I guess because I was always curious about how I was wired.  I thought I was in a minority in a lot of ways.

Susan Cain took it even further.  She identified why I think the way I do, why I have to process, and even, why I might cross the road to avoid a conversation with an acquaintance.

Now, truth be told, being an introvert does not mean you have a "Get out of Jail card" for being nasty, or downright mean to people.

To me it means there is a reason for the way I am wired...it can be a strength rather than a weakness...and that choice of what it is, is entirely up to me.

I find strength in that.

I was also great to see some recognition of the contribution that introverts make to society... and how society is structured to favor extroverts...from Church to Workplace.

So...does it "label" you?  Perhaps.  But such a label can be freeing if you let it.  It's a recognition that you aren't so "different"...there are others out there that think and process life just like you.

And rather than "one size fits all",  there is also a realization that both extrovert and introvert traits can be interchangeable.

And that's ok too.

I find this all incredibly freeing.

Forgiving the Sins of our Fathers

"Families are definitely the training ground for forgiveness. At some point you forgive the people in your family for being stuck together in all this weirdness, and when you can do that, you can learn to forgive anyone... Not forgiving someone is like drinking rat poison and expecting the rats to die.” -- Anne Lamott

This article that appeared in Christianity Today, got me thinking.

When I was 19, I made a conscious decision to do two things.

Those two things, among other things, changed my life.

What were they?

1. I forgave my former school classmates for any wrongs or hurts they were involved in, directed to me.

2. I forgave my parents for any mistakes they had made involving me.

Now before you think that there are deep and dark secrets here...I need to tell you that...no, there are not.

School stuff?  I was just as annoying as the rest of my classmates....and probably more so.  I have had to make my own apologies through the years for that.

And parents?  Well, they were just two kids who got married, had a family...and were largely products of their own upbringing.

I still remember this quote by Mark Twain, on the blackboard when I entered my Grade 9 classroom for the first time...it stuck with me through all these years...

“When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.”

Believe me, I thought my parents were ignorant.

But even before 21, at 19...a light went on.

I forgave them...for things I thought were real and substantial  errors in my upbringing.

And then I saw through different eyes. My parents were smarter, kinder, wiser and more loving than I had ever realized.

It changed my life.  I had a new found respect for Mom & Dad.  Enough that a change in our relationship took place...from parent to child, to friend to friend.

It's funny.  I am not the only one who experienced that.

Scores of writers have documented the need for kids to forgive their parents. From Oprah to this great article by Craig Harper.

And why forgive? "Nursing resentments toward a parent does more than keep that parent in the doghouse. We get stuck there, too, forever the child, the victim, the have-not in the realm of love. Strange as it may seem, a grudge is a kind of clinging, a way of not separating, and when we hold a grudge against a parent, we are clinging not just to the parent, but more specifically to the bad part of the parent. It's as if we don't want to live our lives until we have this resolved and feel the security of their unconditional love. We do so for good reasons psychologically. But the result is just the opposite: We stay locked into the badness and we don't grow up." -Oprah.com

Now...do not get me wrong. In situations where there is serious wrongdoing on the part of a parent, it becomes more difficult...but it also becomes more imperative.

I forgave for what I perceived were hurts and wrongdoings. Some were probably legitimate, some where just my perceptions as a whiny, easily slighted teen-ager.

And school?  Well...we were all whiny easily slighted teen-agers.  And we were ruthless with each other. But it was time to move on.

But what it did?  It took a huge weight off my shoulders.  It allowed me to move on with my life...minus the baggage of hurt and bitterness.

As Lewis B. Smede, the late Professor of theology and ethics said: “To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you.” 

So now I tell my own kids what I did.  In all our imperfections as a Dad, parent and husband, fellow student - forgiveness is a much needed aspect of our relationship.

It will set you free.

Just like it did for me.

Dads and their kids....

I always loved this clip...because I can relate to it on so many fronts.

To my friend Steve...Goodbye until we meet again...

For some strange reason Steve thought I might have "fun" with this photo...hehehe

Through the years we have had the honour and privilege of walking on this journey of life with friends.

One such family had slightly more kids that we, 12 to be exact.

The last few years has meant we would get together weekly, for our "NCIS" night.  The kids would play, and we would watch some great TV together....have some goodies and a few laughs.

We looked forward to it every week.

The father of this clan, Steve, has been a good friend.  Possessing Mr. Fix-it talent that I could only dream of, he has been a blessing to our family...from installing our kitchen cupboards, to going with me a a 90 minute drive to check out a car that my daughter wanted to buy.

When he was first diagnosed with cancer, we were all stunned.  A Dad of 12 kids?  Cancer?  This is some type of joke.

But it was reality.  It hurt.

And it reminds each and every one of us of our own mortality.

In the midst of all of this journey....Steve died the way he lived.  Stoic.  Dignified.  With Faith that this is NOT the end.

I told him that he was teaching all of us.  His response to me was he "was learning himself".

Steve was focused:

"But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus" -Philipians 3:13-14

So, once again we cling to these words:   

"Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal." -2 Corinthians 4: 16-18

On Wednesday, September 24.....he passed from this life into the next.

And so what  do we hope and trust for?  Why do I know that I shall see my good friend Steve again?  It is found in Revelation 21:4 (The Message)

"I heard a voice thunder from the Throne: “Look! Look! God has moved into the neighborhood, making his home with men and women! They’re his people, he’s their God. He’ll wipe every tear from their eyes. Death is gone for good—tears gone, crying gone, pain gone—all the first order of things gone.” The Enthroned continued, “Look! I’m making everything new. Write it all down—each word dependable and accurate.”

Goodbye my friend.  Until we meet again....on that glorious day when God moves into the neighborhood.

Frederick Buechner on "Funerals"

Came across this and found it meaningful....

In Aramaic talitha cumi means "Little girl, get up." It's the language Jesus and his friends probably used when they spoke to each other, so these may well be his actual words, among the very few that have come down to us verbatim. He spoke them at a child's funeral, the twelve-year-old daughter of a man named Jairus (Mark 5:35 - 43).

The occasion took place at the man's house. There was plenty of the kind of sorrow you expect when anybody that young dies. And that's one of the great uses of funerals surely, to be cited when people protest that they're barbaric holdovers from the past, that you should celebrate the life rather than mourn the death, and so on. Celebrate the life by all means, but face up to the death of that life. Weep all the tears you have in you to weep, because whatever may happen next, if anything does, this has happened. Something precious and irreplaceable has come to an end and something in you has come to an end with it. Funerals put a period after the sentence's last word. They close a door. They let you get on with your life.

The child was dead, but Jesus, when he got there, said she was only asleep. He said the same thing when his friend Lazarus died. Death is not any more permanent than sleep is permanent is what he meant apparently. That isn't to say he took death lightly. When he heard about Lazarus, he wept, and it's hard to imagine him doing any differently here. But if death is the closing of one door, he seems to say, it is the opening of another one. Talitha cumi. He took the little girl's hand, and he told her to get up, and she did. The mother and father were there, Mark says. The neighbors, the friends. It is a scene to conjure with.

Old woman, get up. Young man. The one you don't know how you'll ever manage to live without. The one you don't know how you ever managed to live with. Little girl. "Get up," he says.

The other use of funerals is to remind us of those two words. When the last hymn has been sung, the benediction given, and the immediate family escorted out a side door, they may be the best we have to make it possible to get up ourselves.

~originally published in
Frederick Buechner: Whistling in the Dark and later in Beyond Words

Pain & Suffering

Last year around this time I came across this book by Timothy Keller: "Walking with God through Pain and Suffering.

Little did I know how timely it would be, but I guess that God knew.

 The book was so much more than I expected....theology, contextual history...philosophical ideas, amazing!

For many years I have held to the belief that if God truly is in control, then everything that happens, and I do mean EVERYTHING, has value.

I guess my own upbringing was that as well.  We were not taught answers to everything, but purpose...trust.

I struggled with that for many years.  Especially in light of what my grandparents went through, and my great-grandparents who were lost to famine...labour camps, persecution.

There is meaning there.


I went away in October of last year for my annual private retreat.  My time away to just think and pray and process.

I took this book and both listened and read.

Little did I know that our Mom would get cancer, and then leave us just 2 months after her diagnosis.

I think I was being prepared.  Who knows.  But I understood a little more...or at least, looked at things a little differently.

My Mom knew that as well.  Her words to me in hospital were "I know people are praying for me.  God suffered for me, I can suffer for Him".

So, she saw and understood the value of pain and suffering as well.

This book was helpful to me...it pointed to something bigger than me.  

A plan. A Purpose.  A Person.

I'm thanking for this revelation.  The still small voice that gently leads and directs.

Grace abounds.

Leave No Man Behind

I am not, what you would call, a perfect Dad.

There, I've said it.  Actually, I feel grieved to even think it. I am so NOT where I thought I would be at this point in my life.

After all, Dad's have dreams too.  When I started on the parenting journey with my dear wife, I thought I knew it all.  After all, I knew where my own parents had failed, where they had made mistakes, and I would be the one who would right them!

LOL.

It seems I was mistaken.  Either I made the same mistakes, aka doing what EVERY parent does, or I just blew it because, well, because I just blew it.

That being said...I DID actually learn an important and pivotal part of parenting.  Actually I learned it from my Dad. (Perhaps the GREATEST Dad of all times)

Leave NO MAN behind.

Basic military principle.

I saw it put into practice a few times by my Dad for those close to him.

There were probably stories and circumstances I knew nothing about...but I did know my Dad was following this principle.

And so I do too.

I do it for those closest to me.  Even in the midst of great turmoil...I will search for you and do my best to try to rescue you.

That means a lot of different things based on the circumstances, I know. 

But it means to me that family does not give up on family.  It is a legacy given to me by my Dad...and so I leave it with my children.

Go and do likewise.

Post-Charismatic 2.0

Well, I finally finished this book by Robby McAlpine.

I guess I should have written about it sooner. He does, after all, write a whole lot about a whole lot of things I believe!

I've seen a lot in my short 54 years on this earth.  I've seen a lot of weird things too.

More often than not, I have felt like Tevye from Fiddler on the Roof.

That is, he is asked repeatedly to bend and bend.  At last he draws his line, and he stands his grown.  The answer is no.

"If I try bend that far, I'll break", states the character Tevye.

Through the years, on this faith journey, I have had to bend.  Some of these blog posts here deal with some of the topics I have had to deal with.  Disagree with close people and friends about.

For every post here, the reader has no idea the struggle I have had to deal with in deciding not to bend.

Even now, I write these words only for those after me.  That you muster the courage in your own faith walk to just say no.

Sometimes it might mean just walking away from the situation.  Other times, it can mean much more.

I don't pick fights.  I don't look for battles.  But I do look and seek for truth. 

Robby's book is a balanced and well-thought out description of someone deciding that they could bend no further.  But rather than walk away from it all, he decided that Truth was still worth pursuing.

Jesus stated in John 14:6:

"I am the way and the truth and the life.

He Himself  is worth it.

Not some silly bells and whistles show, where everything is accepted and nothing is discerned whether it is right or wrong.

Happiness and Truth is found in a person, and no where else.  His name is Jesus.

Thanks, Robby McAlpine for reminding us of that fact!!

So you want to be a prophet?

Some great advice from Robby McAlpine:

So, you want to pursue the gift of prophecy...

Biblically, this is a very good thing. In fact, the apostle Paul encourages people to "eagerly desire" this gift of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 14:1).  To seek the gift of prophecy, to strengthen, encourage and comfort people (1 Cor. 14:3), is very commendable.

Ultimately, we all know that it's the Holy Spirit who decides who gets what spiritual gift (1 Cor 12:7-11), but Paul also encourages us to seek God for the gift of prophecy.
But suppose we're past the point of asking. We feel like we've maybe received the gift of prophecy. Perhaps God imparted a spiritual gift during a prayer time (without or without somebody laying hands on us for that purpose). However it happened, the gift of prophecy appears to be part of our spiritual tool kit.

So, now what? What's a newbie prophetic person to do? What are our first steps?

Go to a Bible school.

Preferably a non-charismatic one.

Yes, yes, I know -- I've heard the joke about cemetery seminary, and also all the horrified warnings about getting "filled with man's wisdom". (sigh...) Frankly, that kind of thinking is a steaming pile of bovine by-products, if you catch my meaning.

Here's the thing: anybody claiming prophetic ministry these days will always tell you that "the Bible is our final authority" and that all prophetic words need to pass the Bible Test.

More......