Stories about dying, going to heaven (or hell) and selling books about it has become a veritable cottage industry these days.
Two pastors, Don Piper and Steve Sjogren, both wrote about visions of heaven in their death or near-death experiences. Piper’s 90 Minutes in Heaven, (2004) was followed by Sjogren’s, The Day I Died (2006).
The stories of two children and their encounters with heaven were published in 2010. The boy who came back from heaven, A remarkable account of miracles, angels, and life beyond this world, recounts 6-year-old Alex Malarkey’s journey into heaven while he was in a two-month coma. The story of Colton Burpo, who was almost four-years old at the time of his surgery when he had his visitation of heaven, is described in Heaven is for Real, A Little Boy’s Astounding Story of His Trip to Heaven and Back.
In Colton Burpo’s heaven no one wore glasses, no one was old, everyone appeared to be in their twenties, but everyone Reverend Don Piper encountered in heaven was the same age they had been the last time he saw them---“except that all the ravages of living on earth had vanished.” The people Colton saw in heaven had angel-like wings, a detail unique to his vision. Alex Malarkey’s heaven is a lot like earth, only it’s perfect and has a hole that leads to hell. Sjogren didn’t actually have a vision of heaven, although he heard the voice of God.
Colton’s father is forthright is stating that Colton’s experience of heaven happened while he was in surgery.
Malarkey’s injuries were severe, but he was never pronounced dead.
Sjogren’s heart stopped, but neither was he pronounced dead.
Piper’s claim of death comes from the testimony of those who were at the scene of his car accident: “Someone examined me, found no pulse, and declared that I had been killed instantly.” It would be 90 minutes before another EMT checked on Piper and again found no pulse.
Could a distracted EMT have missed something? Or was Piper actually dead?
We can’t know for sure.
What should we make of these accounts?
Dr. Kevin Nelson, M.D., Professor of Neurology at the University of Kentucky maintains that near death experiences are in the brain. After the heart stops, brain activity continues for another 10-20 seconds and develops other wave forms. As the blood flow stops, memories become very discombobulated.
Furthermore, during cardiac arrest there is often a small amount of blood flow to the brain, allowing the brain to go in and out of consciousness, even though those around the person don’t know it. Nelson concludes from his research that in near-death experiences, the brain blends REM (rapid eye movement) with non-REM sleep, and this gives near-death experiences many of their important qualities. Out of the body experiences are a part of this phenomenon and have even been clinically reproduced by disrupting the temporal parietal areas of the brain.
During near-death episodes, people are likely to draw on life memories that are most significant to them---hence the visions of heaven and encounters with people of personal significance. Nelson documents his findings in his just published book, The God Impulse, Is Religion Hardwired into the Brain?
His conclusions would help explain why people of different faiths and cultures frequently have varying visions of heaven during near-death experiences. Other studies report, for example, a Hindu entering heaven on the back of a cow and a Muslim identifying the bright light as Allah.
I have no doubt that something profoundly spiritual happened to the Burpo and Malarkey children, as well as the pastors, Piper and Sjogren. I also am convinced they have no deceptive motive; they are sincere and convinced that the events they describe truly happened.
And maybe they did.
And maybe they didn’t.
That’s why we must not anchor our belief in the reality of heaven on such accounts.
Now, if someone were to come back after being dead several days, and in doing so fulfill a myriad of ancient prophesies about the event, and if this person were to live on earth in a resurrected body for several weeks before ascending into this heaven--- well, that would be something worth banking a belief in heaven on.
Hmm, wouldn’t that be the story about Jesus, the One whose resurrection Christians just celebrated last Sunday?
Wherever he is, that’s heaven. Whatever it’s like, that’s where I want to be.
You can contact David B. Whitlock, Ph.D., at drdavid@davidbwhitlock.com or on his website, davidbwhitlock.com.
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Thursday, April 21, 2011
The Sad Side of Easter
My family followed traditional American Easter traditions, so when I was a child---in addition to preparing for the Sunday morning worship of the resurrected Christ---we anticipated the Easter event by dyeing Easter eggs for the family Easter egg hunt, sending Easter cards, and exchanging little chocolate Easter bunnies. Dad was a dentist and candy was generally discouraged in our house, so chomping down on one of those miniature chocolate Easter bunnies was a rare and unusual treat. (One year my older brother Mark was lucky enough to receive a life-sized chocolate bunny, not a tiny one--- but he was permitted to eat only one bunny ear on Easter day.)
Ahh---Easter, a very happy celebration of life.
It wasn’t until years later that I came to know the sad side of Easter.
It came not at once but in a slow accumulation of events---beginning with the death of my brother, Dougie, my buddy, my playmate, my friend--- and the realization at age 6, that he wasn’t coming back from up there in the sky, that death was permanent. It continued with other tragedies along life’s way: the assassinations of John F., Bobby, and Martin Jr., ---- their murders marking the end of innocence--- grandmother’s funeral, then another grandmother’s funeral, and granddad too. Then my “happily ever after, I do,” was followed after so many years, by the death of my wife--- and the subsequent massaging of grief in the lives of my two children who no longer had a mother.
Easter brought no one back, nor did it preserve life from other tragic events.
But neither was it meant to.
After all, Lazarus did at last die--- once and for all.
The sad side of Easter is life before Easter, without Easter---life without the hope of Easter-life.
That means the road to Easter cannot be an easy one. Millions of Christians will celebrate Easter this Sunday. But to get there, they must go through Good Friday. And Good Friday is no walk in the park. At least it wasn’t for the One who made it Good Friday. For him it was anything but good. The betrayal, the scourging, the crown of thorns, the leering crowds, the nails piercing his hands and feet, the spear in his side---that’s not exactly a T.G. I. F. day.
Tragic events of life remind us that there is a sad side of Easter. It’s real. And it’s painful.
The recently released film, “Soul Surfer,” depicts that unpleasant truth in the life of surfing champion, Bethany Hamilton, whose left arm was ripped off in a shark attack in 2003, when she was 13 years old. Refusing to give up on her dream of becoming a professional surfer, Bethany learned to surf with one arm and went on to compete successfully.
But she struggled with why it happened; she burned with jealous feelings when she saw beautiful girls with pretty arms; she had to train hard to do what once came easily.
And she worked through it.
“God put me on earth to serve Him, and I know He’s gone through so much worse things. I know that having one arm is the way He uses me. And I’m so happy,” Bethany said in a 2006 interview.
When Bethany spoke of God going through so much worse than she had experienced, I assume she was talking about the suffering of Jesus---something Christians observe this week in what is called Holy Week, which culminates with Jesus’ death on Good Friday.
Good Friday is good only because of the bad that Jesus endured. I like the way cartoonist, Johnny Hart, put it in a poem he has one of his “B.C.” cartoon characters write. Wiley sits under a tree and pens the words:
“When History has recorded it all/Events both happy and sad/Good Friday shall reign as the worst and the best/that mankind has ever had.”
The worst and the best, the very same day, gave way to what Easter is: an invitation to life.
I think Bethany Hamilton would agree. And so would all of Jesus’ followers--- at least those who know how the sad side of Easter can lead to its happy side, come Sunday morning.
David B. Whitlock, Ph.D. is a resident of Marion County and is an instructor at Campbellsville University in Campbellsville, Ky. You can contact David at drdavid@davidbwhitlock.com or at his website, davidbwhitlock.com
Ahh---Easter, a very happy celebration of life.
It wasn’t until years later that I came to know the sad side of Easter.
It came not at once but in a slow accumulation of events---beginning with the death of my brother, Dougie, my buddy, my playmate, my friend--- and the realization at age 6, that he wasn’t coming back from up there in the sky, that death was permanent. It continued with other tragedies along life’s way: the assassinations of John F., Bobby, and Martin Jr., ---- their murders marking the end of innocence--- grandmother’s funeral, then another grandmother’s funeral, and granddad too. Then my “happily ever after, I do,” was followed after so many years, by the death of my wife--- and the subsequent massaging of grief in the lives of my two children who no longer had a mother.
Easter brought no one back, nor did it preserve life from other tragic events.
But neither was it meant to.
After all, Lazarus did at last die--- once and for all.
The sad side of Easter is life before Easter, without Easter---life without the hope of Easter-life.
That means the road to Easter cannot be an easy one. Millions of Christians will celebrate Easter this Sunday. But to get there, they must go through Good Friday. And Good Friday is no walk in the park. At least it wasn’t for the One who made it Good Friday. For him it was anything but good. The betrayal, the scourging, the crown of thorns, the leering crowds, the nails piercing his hands and feet, the spear in his side---that’s not exactly a T.G. I. F. day.
Tragic events of life remind us that there is a sad side of Easter. It’s real. And it’s painful.
The recently released film, “Soul Surfer,” depicts that unpleasant truth in the life of surfing champion, Bethany Hamilton, whose left arm was ripped off in a shark attack in 2003, when she was 13 years old. Refusing to give up on her dream of becoming a professional surfer, Bethany learned to surf with one arm and went on to compete successfully.
But she struggled with why it happened; she burned with jealous feelings when she saw beautiful girls with pretty arms; she had to train hard to do what once came easily.
And she worked through it.
“God put me on earth to serve Him, and I know He’s gone through so much worse things. I know that having one arm is the way He uses me. And I’m so happy,” Bethany said in a 2006 interview.
When Bethany spoke of God going through so much worse than she had experienced, I assume she was talking about the suffering of Jesus---something Christians observe this week in what is called Holy Week, which culminates with Jesus’ death on Good Friday.
Good Friday is good only because of the bad that Jesus endured. I like the way cartoonist, Johnny Hart, put it in a poem he has one of his “B.C.” cartoon characters write. Wiley sits under a tree and pens the words:
“When History has recorded it all/Events both happy and sad/Good Friday shall reign as the worst and the best/that mankind has ever had.”
The worst and the best, the very same day, gave way to what Easter is: an invitation to life.
I think Bethany Hamilton would agree. And so would all of Jesus’ followers--- at least those who know how the sad side of Easter can lead to its happy side, come Sunday morning.
David B. Whitlock, Ph.D. is a resident of Marion County and is an instructor at Campbellsville University in Campbellsville, Ky. You can contact David at drdavid@davidbwhitlock.com or at his website, davidbwhitlock.com
Thursday, April 14, 2011
It's in your smile
I was at one of my favorite restaurants, Jason’s Deli, when I noticed the man sitting at another table, eating with his wife and three young children. He was a big, raw-boned, burly guy, who towered over me when I walked by him, both of us on our way to sit down. He plopped onto his chair, perhaps exhausted from work. I slid into the booth with my wife.
That’s when I took a good look at him. Stern-faced and serious, he cast what seemed like an intimidating aura over his family as they ate together.
On a second trip to the salad bar, I couldn’t help but overhear a piece of his conversation with his oldest boy, who appeared to be about 8 or 9 years old. “You got three RBIs, but I think you can do even better,” he said, rather gruffly, obviously referring to his son’s little league baseball game.
Immediately I began creating a personality profile of the man. “He must be one of those dads,” I thought to myself. You know, the father who pushes his children to excel in sports. As he sat there at the dinner table with his brow furrowed, his big hand enveloping his fork, which he used with rapid-fire efficiency to attack his food, and his broad shoulders slightly slumped over his plate, I found myself visualizing him at the ball park, barking orders to his son to throw farther, hit harder, and run faster.
Interesting, isn’t it, how quickly we form first impressions, and in our mind create an image of what someone is like? Based on someone’s facial expression, body language, demeanor, and dress we make a quick evaluation. And, once our opinion is formed, it’s difficult to change it.
Evolutionary psychologists argue that making snap judgments is an evolutionary adaptation necessary for survival: life or death situations demanded speedy decisions. The prehistoric hunter couldn’t dally before concluding either to run from a wooly mammoth or gather a team of hunters and spear it for dinner. And assembling a team of hunters was itself an evolutionary social development that required quick evaluations.
In his book, Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, Malcolm Gladwell, author of The Tipping Point, concludes: “The only way human beings could ever have survived as a species as long as we have is that we’ve developed another kind of decision-making apparatus that’s capable of making very quick judgments based on very little information.”
Inviting a co-worker over for dinner, for example, is a conscious decision. It’s something we think through. A spontaneous decision to argue with that co-worker is made unconsciously from a different part of the brain. “Whenever we meet someone for the first time, whenever we interview someone for a job, whenever we react to a new idea, whenever we are faced with making a decision quickly and under stress, we use that second part of the brain,” says Gladwell.
Sizing up that dad at Jason’s Deli, I was forming an instant image of who he was. And imagining him swaggering over to my table and demanding my dessert, that part of my brain that evaluates danger would instantly process the situation--- and estimating the size of his arms compared to mine, his large body frame next to my smaller one, a spontaneous decision would be made: relinquish the dessert, grab my wife, and run to the car.
Then something unexpected happened that totally changed my image of this man.
The big guy got up with his wife and kids to leave. For some reason, I glanced at his children, and approvingly smiled at them. Then my eyes met his, and in that unspoken communication, one dad connected with another dad, one father---with a daddy-smile to another’s children, spoke to the other dad without saying a word, “I see your precious children, and they are beautiful.”
In that moment, his stiff upper lip melted into a soft smile, and with his eyes gleaming, it was as if he said, “Thanks, I appreciate that.”
My image of the dad was suddenly transformed from that of a hard-driving, performance-requiring, disciplining-demanding sergeant into a teddy-bear of a pappa---a daddy who might invite his kids to sit in his lap while he read Winnie the Pooh, a guy who could break into a grin, and nodding in agreement to my smile, whisper, “Aren’t kids great?”
It happened, all in an instant.
First impressions can’t be avoided. But they aren’t always right. And when we are willing to take a second or third, longer look---and maybe flash a sincere smile--- our whole perception can change for the better.
David B. Whitlock, Ph.D., can be contacted at drdavid@davidbwhitlock.com or at his website, www.davidbwhitlock.com
That’s when I took a good look at him. Stern-faced and serious, he cast what seemed like an intimidating aura over his family as they ate together.
On a second trip to the salad bar, I couldn’t help but overhear a piece of his conversation with his oldest boy, who appeared to be about 8 or 9 years old. “You got three RBIs, but I think you can do even better,” he said, rather gruffly, obviously referring to his son’s little league baseball game.
Immediately I began creating a personality profile of the man. “He must be one of those dads,” I thought to myself. You know, the father who pushes his children to excel in sports. As he sat there at the dinner table with his brow furrowed, his big hand enveloping his fork, which he used with rapid-fire efficiency to attack his food, and his broad shoulders slightly slumped over his plate, I found myself visualizing him at the ball park, barking orders to his son to throw farther, hit harder, and run faster.
Interesting, isn’t it, how quickly we form first impressions, and in our mind create an image of what someone is like? Based on someone’s facial expression, body language, demeanor, and dress we make a quick evaluation. And, once our opinion is formed, it’s difficult to change it.
Evolutionary psychologists argue that making snap judgments is an evolutionary adaptation necessary for survival: life or death situations demanded speedy decisions. The prehistoric hunter couldn’t dally before concluding either to run from a wooly mammoth or gather a team of hunters and spear it for dinner. And assembling a team of hunters was itself an evolutionary social development that required quick evaluations.
In his book, Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, Malcolm Gladwell, author of The Tipping Point, concludes: “The only way human beings could ever have survived as a species as long as we have is that we’ve developed another kind of decision-making apparatus that’s capable of making very quick judgments based on very little information.”
Inviting a co-worker over for dinner, for example, is a conscious decision. It’s something we think through. A spontaneous decision to argue with that co-worker is made unconsciously from a different part of the brain. “Whenever we meet someone for the first time, whenever we interview someone for a job, whenever we react to a new idea, whenever we are faced with making a decision quickly and under stress, we use that second part of the brain,” says Gladwell.
Sizing up that dad at Jason’s Deli, I was forming an instant image of who he was. And imagining him swaggering over to my table and demanding my dessert, that part of my brain that evaluates danger would instantly process the situation--- and estimating the size of his arms compared to mine, his large body frame next to my smaller one, a spontaneous decision would be made: relinquish the dessert, grab my wife, and run to the car.
Then something unexpected happened that totally changed my image of this man.
The big guy got up with his wife and kids to leave. For some reason, I glanced at his children, and approvingly smiled at them. Then my eyes met his, and in that unspoken communication, one dad connected with another dad, one father---with a daddy-smile to another’s children, spoke to the other dad without saying a word, “I see your precious children, and they are beautiful.”
In that moment, his stiff upper lip melted into a soft smile, and with his eyes gleaming, it was as if he said, “Thanks, I appreciate that.”
My image of the dad was suddenly transformed from that of a hard-driving, performance-requiring, disciplining-demanding sergeant into a teddy-bear of a pappa---a daddy who might invite his kids to sit in his lap while he read Winnie the Pooh, a guy who could break into a grin, and nodding in agreement to my smile, whisper, “Aren’t kids great?”
It happened, all in an instant.
First impressions can’t be avoided. But they aren’t always right. And when we are willing to take a second or third, longer look---and maybe flash a sincere smile--- our whole perception can change for the better.
David B. Whitlock, Ph.D., can be contacted at drdavid@davidbwhitlock.com or at his website, www.davidbwhitlock.com
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Are you out of your mind? Or is it March Madness?
What causes us--- normally restrained, responsible people with jobs and families---to lose our minds, whoop and holler, jump up and down, pump our fists in the air, and shout “YES!” as we high five each other?
It’s March Madness, of course, the NCAA Division I basketball tournament which results in the national champion. And if your team didn’t make it, you can find a favorite. For me, it’s usually an underdog---and with the bracket Kentucky had to claw through this year, they surely qualify as one.
In the surprising moments that that make March Madness what it is, anything can happen. For a few hours, we forget about the heavy stuff: economic uncertainties, tragedy in Japan, turmoil in the Middle East, stress at work, problems at home, and we breathe in the moments that make March Madness what it is. In the words of Dick Vitale, “It’s unbelievable, baby!”
But wait a minute, before you stay up too late enjoying the Kentucky-UConn matchup this Saturday night, you might want to know there’s something amiss on the court, and it’s not a conspiracy by the referees to give the Big East representative an advantage over the Cats.
No, it’s more serious than even that, according to U.S. Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan. The real March Madness is the fact that 10 of the 68 teams invited to the NCAA tournament this year did not meet the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics proposal that teams should be eligible for postseason play only if they are graduating at least half of their players. Although Duncan acknowledges that the NCAA has made progress in boosting the academic performance of Division I basketball teams, there is still much, much work to do.
And that’s not all: In the last five NCAA tournaments, 44% of the $409 million distributed to the teams with top performances went to teams not on track to graduate at least 50% of their players
But that’s not all. There’s more; it gets worse. Not only did 10 of the 68 teams fail to meet the Knight Commissions proposals, but there also exists a growing disparity between the graduation rates of blacks and whites, with a national average of 91% of white players graduating compared with 59% of blacks. (The University of Kentucky graduated 31% of their black players, compared to 100% of their white teammates.)
And March Madness gets more problematic. Richard Vedder and Matthew Denhart, in an article published by The Wall Street Journal, contend that this whole business of March Madness is just that, a business, specifically a business in which the athletes are being exploited by the coaches they play for and universities they represent. The athletes bring in much more revenue for the university’s athletic program and the bloated salaries of the coaches than the players receive in return. The authors suggest that the players should unionize, or something like that.
And silly me, all I wanted to do was enjoy a March Madness moment. After all, isn’t it the moment we wait for? It’s the team’s go-to-man charging down the court with only a few seconds left, the ball leaving his fingertips, the crowd cringing, the ball swishing through the net just as the buzzer signals game over. One team rejoices in victory; the other falls prostrate on the floor. Isn’t that it---the reason we watch, and isn’t that why we lose our minds over a game?
I believe it is. It’s Kentucky coach John Calipari flashing that proud papa smile at DeAndre Liggins as coach embraces player; it’s Virginia Commonwealth coach Shaka Smart leaving the court with the net around his neck; it’s Kansas star Markieff Morris crying as he walks slowly off the court. Yes, the moment.
The real March Madness is caught up in a series of moments the summation of which is a collective craziness that helps us keep our sanity for the real world we must face on Monday morning.
So, for a brief period of time this weekend, I’m going to enjoy the moment. I’m going to put the Knight Commission’s proposals on the backburner; I’m not going to think about the graduation ratio and the question of whether players should band together for a better deal than an opportunity for a college education and a chance to make a lot of money.
I’m going to enjoy the moment, and if I run yelling and screaming through the house as the Kentucky Wildcats score the winning basket, don’t accuse me of being out of my mind. It’s only March Madness.
David B. Whitlock, Ph.D., is Pastor of Lebanon Baptist Church in Lebanon, Ky. He also teaches on the adjunct faculty at Campbellsville University in Campbellsville, Ky. You can contact him at drdavid@davidbwhitlock.com
It’s March Madness, of course, the NCAA Division I basketball tournament which results in the national champion. And if your team didn’t make it, you can find a favorite. For me, it’s usually an underdog---and with the bracket Kentucky had to claw through this year, they surely qualify as one.
In the surprising moments that that make March Madness what it is, anything can happen. For a few hours, we forget about the heavy stuff: economic uncertainties, tragedy in Japan, turmoil in the Middle East, stress at work, problems at home, and we breathe in the moments that make March Madness what it is. In the words of Dick Vitale, “It’s unbelievable, baby!”
But wait a minute, before you stay up too late enjoying the Kentucky-UConn matchup this Saturday night, you might want to know there’s something amiss on the court, and it’s not a conspiracy by the referees to give the Big East representative an advantage over the Cats.
No, it’s more serious than even that, according to U.S. Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan. The real March Madness is the fact that 10 of the 68 teams invited to the NCAA tournament this year did not meet the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics proposal that teams should be eligible for postseason play only if they are graduating at least half of their players. Although Duncan acknowledges that the NCAA has made progress in boosting the academic performance of Division I basketball teams, there is still much, much work to do.
And that’s not all: In the last five NCAA tournaments, 44% of the $409 million distributed to the teams with top performances went to teams not on track to graduate at least 50% of their players
But that’s not all. There’s more; it gets worse. Not only did 10 of the 68 teams fail to meet the Knight Commissions proposals, but there also exists a growing disparity between the graduation rates of blacks and whites, with a national average of 91% of white players graduating compared with 59% of blacks. (The University of Kentucky graduated 31% of their black players, compared to 100% of their white teammates.)
And March Madness gets more problematic. Richard Vedder and Matthew Denhart, in an article published by The Wall Street Journal, contend that this whole business of March Madness is just that, a business, specifically a business in which the athletes are being exploited by the coaches they play for and universities they represent. The athletes bring in much more revenue for the university’s athletic program and the bloated salaries of the coaches than the players receive in return. The authors suggest that the players should unionize, or something like that.
And silly me, all I wanted to do was enjoy a March Madness moment. After all, isn’t it the moment we wait for? It’s the team’s go-to-man charging down the court with only a few seconds left, the ball leaving his fingertips, the crowd cringing, the ball swishing through the net just as the buzzer signals game over. One team rejoices in victory; the other falls prostrate on the floor. Isn’t that it---the reason we watch, and isn’t that why we lose our minds over a game?
I believe it is. It’s Kentucky coach John Calipari flashing that proud papa smile at DeAndre Liggins as coach embraces player; it’s Virginia Commonwealth coach Shaka Smart leaving the court with the net around his neck; it’s Kansas star Markieff Morris crying as he walks slowly off the court. Yes, the moment.
The real March Madness is caught up in a series of moments the summation of which is a collective craziness that helps us keep our sanity for the real world we must face on Monday morning.
So, for a brief period of time this weekend, I’m going to enjoy the moment. I’m going to put the Knight Commission’s proposals on the backburner; I’m not going to think about the graduation ratio and the question of whether players should band together for a better deal than an opportunity for a college education and a chance to make a lot of money.
I’m going to enjoy the moment, and if I run yelling and screaming through the house as the Kentucky Wildcats score the winning basket, don’t accuse me of being out of my mind. It’s only March Madness.
David B. Whitlock, Ph.D., is Pastor of Lebanon Baptist Church in Lebanon, Ky. He also teaches on the adjunct faculty at Campbellsville University in Campbellsville, Ky. You can contact him at drdavid@davidbwhitlock.com
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Daylight Saving Time: How's That Working for You?
Daylight saving time (DST) --- how’s that working for you?
Apparently it’s not so good for many of us. According to a study at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, DST may not be the best thing for our health, since it comes as such a jolt to our cardiovascular systems.
Have you been dragging out of bed since March 13, the date we moved our clocks forward this year? It’s worth it, isn’t it? After all, we do get that extra hour of daylight. Well, that extra hour of afternoon sunshine is associated with a 10% increase in the risk of having a heart attack on the Monday and Tuesday after moving the clocks forward, according to Martin Young, Ph.D., Professor of Cardiovascular Disease at UAB. The opposite occurs in the fall when we move the clocks back; there is a 10% decrease in risk of heart attacks.
Why the potential for harm in moving the clocks forward? One theory, Dr. Young says, is that each cell in our body has something like an internal clock that allows it to anticipate change. When there is an abrupt change---like springing forward one hour---the cells don’t have time to readjust, creating stress, resulting in a detrimental effect on the body.
Maybe that’s why there is a higher incidence of traffic accidents and work place injuries on the first Monday and Tuesday after moving our clocks forward.
So, here I am, almost two weeks into this time change, and I’m still groping for that lost hour of sleep, dragging myself to the coffee pot at 5:30 a.m., reminding myself---with every heavy, burdensome, languid step--- that it’s really 4:30 a.m., at least according to the circadian rhythms of those cells in my body, which obviously haven’t had time to readjust to this barbaric method of enjoying an extra hour of afternoon sunlight.
I feel like Bill Murray as the character Bob Wiley in the film, What about Bob? Bob awakens himself each morning by repeating the words in his half-awake state, “I feel good, I feel great, I feel wonderful... I feel good, I feel great, I feel wonderful... I feel good, I feel great, I feel wonderful...” I’m with you, Bob; it’s just that the internal clocks in my cells haven’t gotten the message yet.
It should remind us that as slippery as time is, we are still subject to it. Even something as small as a one hour time change can throw our systems into confusion for days, even weeks. Last Sunday, one of the persons who meets regularly for prayer was absent. Seeing her later in the morning, she simply explained, “Time change. I’ll get used to about the time it changes again.”
I understand. I get that.
Time. That’s all it is, after all. And time in its essence is well nigh impossible for us to grasp. Who after all invented time? God? Not necessarily, at least according to Stephen Hawking. In his book, A Short History of Time, he states, “So long as the universe had a beginning, we could suppose it had a creator. But if the universe is really completely self-contained, having no boundary or edge, it would have neither beginning nor end: it would simply be. What place then, for a creator?”
Other scientists have proposed a mulitverse—a theory that describes the continuous formation of universes through the collapse of giant stars and the formation of black holes. And physicists Paul Steinhardt and Neil Turok have postulated a model where two universes collide to produce a new beginning for the universe. Time changes; it reaches back and forward beyond time, meta-time.
I still want to leave room for God in his universe, even though I have difficulty articulating the concept of time. That’s why I’m with St.Augustine, who believed in God as the creator of the heavens and the earth and of time itself. But when he tried to explain time, he too was at a loss for words, “What then is time? I know what it is. If I wish to explain it to him who asks, I do not know.”
Wiping the sleep from my eyes, shuffling toward the coffee pot, I know time not as a theory to be explained but as a drag on both hemispheres of my brain.
One little hour reminds me of my weakness, my vulnerability, my dependency on the One who cared enough to enter what he created---our little time zone here on this terrestrial ball, our little moment in time---and deliver us from it, awakening us to more, even as we make our way through the daily routine.
Even through, God help us, Daylight saving time.
David B. Whitlock, Ph.D., can be reached at drdavid@davidbwhitlock.com or through his website, www.davidbwhitlock.com.
Apparently it’s not so good for many of us. According to a study at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, DST may not be the best thing for our health, since it comes as such a jolt to our cardiovascular systems.
Have you been dragging out of bed since March 13, the date we moved our clocks forward this year? It’s worth it, isn’t it? After all, we do get that extra hour of daylight. Well, that extra hour of afternoon sunshine is associated with a 10% increase in the risk of having a heart attack on the Monday and Tuesday after moving the clocks forward, according to Martin Young, Ph.D., Professor of Cardiovascular Disease at UAB. The opposite occurs in the fall when we move the clocks back; there is a 10% decrease in risk of heart attacks.
Why the potential for harm in moving the clocks forward? One theory, Dr. Young says, is that each cell in our body has something like an internal clock that allows it to anticipate change. When there is an abrupt change---like springing forward one hour---the cells don’t have time to readjust, creating stress, resulting in a detrimental effect on the body.
Maybe that’s why there is a higher incidence of traffic accidents and work place injuries on the first Monday and Tuesday after moving our clocks forward.
So, here I am, almost two weeks into this time change, and I’m still groping for that lost hour of sleep, dragging myself to the coffee pot at 5:30 a.m., reminding myself---with every heavy, burdensome, languid step--- that it’s really 4:30 a.m., at least according to the circadian rhythms of those cells in my body, which obviously haven’t had time to readjust to this barbaric method of enjoying an extra hour of afternoon sunlight.
I feel like Bill Murray as the character Bob Wiley in the film, What about Bob? Bob awakens himself each morning by repeating the words in his half-awake state, “I feel good, I feel great, I feel wonderful... I feel good, I feel great, I feel wonderful... I feel good, I feel great, I feel wonderful...” I’m with you, Bob; it’s just that the internal clocks in my cells haven’t gotten the message yet.
It should remind us that as slippery as time is, we are still subject to it. Even something as small as a one hour time change can throw our systems into confusion for days, even weeks. Last Sunday, one of the persons who meets regularly for prayer was absent. Seeing her later in the morning, she simply explained, “Time change. I’ll get used to about the time it changes again.”
I understand. I get that.
Time. That’s all it is, after all. And time in its essence is well nigh impossible for us to grasp. Who after all invented time? God? Not necessarily, at least according to Stephen Hawking. In his book, A Short History of Time, he states, “So long as the universe had a beginning, we could suppose it had a creator. But if the universe is really completely self-contained, having no boundary or edge, it would have neither beginning nor end: it would simply be. What place then, for a creator?”
Other scientists have proposed a mulitverse—a theory that describes the continuous formation of universes through the collapse of giant stars and the formation of black holes. And physicists Paul Steinhardt and Neil Turok have postulated a model where two universes collide to produce a new beginning for the universe. Time changes; it reaches back and forward beyond time, meta-time.
I still want to leave room for God in his universe, even though I have difficulty articulating the concept of time. That’s why I’m with St.Augustine, who believed in God as the creator of the heavens and the earth and of time itself. But when he tried to explain time, he too was at a loss for words, “What then is time? I know what it is. If I wish to explain it to him who asks, I do not know.”
Wiping the sleep from my eyes, shuffling toward the coffee pot, I know time not as a theory to be explained but as a drag on both hemispheres of my brain.
One little hour reminds me of my weakness, my vulnerability, my dependency on the One who cared enough to enter what he created---our little time zone here on this terrestrial ball, our little moment in time---and deliver us from it, awakening us to more, even as we make our way through the daily routine.
Even through, God help us, Daylight saving time.
David B. Whitlock, Ph.D., can be reached at drdavid@davidbwhitlock.com or through his website, www.davidbwhitlock.com.
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
An Act of God?
"Frightening beyond belief. I have no words."
---Resident of Sendai, Japan, victim of the tsunami
Most of us who saw the telecasts of the tsunami’s destruction in Japan could understand that man’s reaction to the horror of the cataclysmic event. Your jaw drops. Your eyes widen. You have no words.
The devastation in Japan was so enormous----it’s beyond words. In Minami Sanriku, a town in northeastern Japan, it’s estimated that 9,500, people---half the town’s population---may be unaccounted for. The death toll in Japan has exceeded10, 000. Multiple nuclear meltdowns threaten thousands more. Japan’s prime minister said it is the nation’s gravest disaster since World War II. In the words of President Obama, it is “heartbreaking.”
The question inevitably edges in somewhere between the televised reports of the heartache and pain, between the visuals and the commercials, between the interviews and analyses, just as it did in other major natural disasters---whether it’s Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the 2008 cyclone in Myanmar, or the 2010 earthquake in Haiti ---the question arises and begs an answer, “Where is God in all this?” Where indeed? Why does God allow natural disasters like tsunamis, typhoons, tornados, earthquakes, and hurricanes?
The question is not only reserved for the monster sized disasters. Yesterday morning while updates of the tsunami were being broadcast on television, my wife received a text messaged prayer request. A friend of hers has a relative whose two day old baby is undergoing open heart surgery.
Included in the message were the heartfelt words, “I can’t help but wonder how and why this is a part of God’s plan.”
Anyone who has felt the fear of loss and the agony of grief can empathize with the words in that text message. Even Job, righteous as he was, asked the question. Having been slammed to the canvas of life’s tragedies, having lost everything except a nagging wife, he wanted to know why and just what in the heck he had done to deserve it. Is this pain of ours a result of random chance or an act of God? Rather than giving Job an answer, God revealed himself to him. And, in the presence of God, all Job could do was lay his hand over his mouth.
Which is another way of saying, our question of who is responsible is unanswerable.
Nature itself, the apostle Paul tells us, is fallen, waiting for complete redemption. We can study nature and point to reasons for natural disasters. Hurricanes can be traced to warm waters and gale force winds, tsunamis are caused by underwater earthquakes, earthquakes are caused by the earth’s shifting plates, and there is, I’m sure, a medical explanation for what caused the infants’ heart problem.
The question on our minds is, why didn’t God do something? Why didn’t he direct Hurricane Katrina to some harmless place in the Gulf of Mexico? Why didn’t he divert the earthquake in Haiti to an obscure place? Why didn’t he take that tsunami into an unpopulated area in the middle of the Pacific? And why didn’t he intervene in the life of the baby, preventing that heart problem from ever occurring? After all, he is God, isn’t he? Isn’t he in charge?
And the answer is yes, God is God. And at the same time, we live in this world and not another. The hurricane that died in the middle of the ocean doesn’t make news, the tsunami that rocked the middle of the Pacific where no people live is a five second report on the Weather Channel, and God isn’t questioned when the baby is healthy. God is rarely mentioned in those instances.
In the world we live in, it is inevitable that we will experience disasters. It’s the natural order of things, and for God to intervene in every unsavory instance of our life would place us in a different world altogether. As C.S. Lewis wrote in his classic work, The Problem of Pain: “Fixed laws, consequences unfolding by causal necessity, the whole natural order, are at once the limits within which (our) common life is confined and also the sole condition under which any such life is possible. Try to exclude the possibility of suffering which the order of nature and the existence of free wills involve, and you find that you have excluded life itself.”
It’s the world we live in; it’s life itself, painful and tragic as it is.
It’s an act of God.
David B. Whitlock, Ph.D., is Pastor of Lebanon Baptist Church in Lebanon, Ky. He also teaches as an adjunct professor at Campbellsville University in Campbellsville, Ky. You can contact David at drdavid@davidbwhitlock.com or through his website at www.davidbwhitlock.com
---Resident of Sendai, Japan, victim of the tsunami
Most of us who saw the telecasts of the tsunami’s destruction in Japan could understand that man’s reaction to the horror of the cataclysmic event. Your jaw drops. Your eyes widen. You have no words.
The devastation in Japan was so enormous----it’s beyond words. In Minami Sanriku, a town in northeastern Japan, it’s estimated that 9,500, people---half the town’s population---may be unaccounted for. The death toll in Japan has exceeded10, 000. Multiple nuclear meltdowns threaten thousands more. Japan’s prime minister said it is the nation’s gravest disaster since World War II. In the words of President Obama, it is “heartbreaking.”
The question inevitably edges in somewhere between the televised reports of the heartache and pain, between the visuals and the commercials, between the interviews and analyses, just as it did in other major natural disasters---whether it’s Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the 2008 cyclone in Myanmar, or the 2010 earthquake in Haiti ---the question arises and begs an answer, “Where is God in all this?” Where indeed? Why does God allow natural disasters like tsunamis, typhoons, tornados, earthquakes, and hurricanes?
The question is not only reserved for the monster sized disasters. Yesterday morning while updates of the tsunami were being broadcast on television, my wife received a text messaged prayer request. A friend of hers has a relative whose two day old baby is undergoing open heart surgery.
Included in the message were the heartfelt words, “I can’t help but wonder how and why this is a part of God’s plan.”
Anyone who has felt the fear of loss and the agony of grief can empathize with the words in that text message. Even Job, righteous as he was, asked the question. Having been slammed to the canvas of life’s tragedies, having lost everything except a nagging wife, he wanted to know why and just what in the heck he had done to deserve it. Is this pain of ours a result of random chance or an act of God? Rather than giving Job an answer, God revealed himself to him. And, in the presence of God, all Job could do was lay his hand over his mouth.
Which is another way of saying, our question of who is responsible is unanswerable.
Nature itself, the apostle Paul tells us, is fallen, waiting for complete redemption. We can study nature and point to reasons for natural disasters. Hurricanes can be traced to warm waters and gale force winds, tsunamis are caused by underwater earthquakes, earthquakes are caused by the earth’s shifting plates, and there is, I’m sure, a medical explanation for what caused the infants’ heart problem.
The question on our minds is, why didn’t God do something? Why didn’t he direct Hurricane Katrina to some harmless place in the Gulf of Mexico? Why didn’t he divert the earthquake in Haiti to an obscure place? Why didn’t he take that tsunami into an unpopulated area in the middle of the Pacific? And why didn’t he intervene in the life of the baby, preventing that heart problem from ever occurring? After all, he is God, isn’t he? Isn’t he in charge?
And the answer is yes, God is God. And at the same time, we live in this world and not another. The hurricane that died in the middle of the ocean doesn’t make news, the tsunami that rocked the middle of the Pacific where no people live is a five second report on the Weather Channel, and God isn’t questioned when the baby is healthy. God is rarely mentioned in those instances.
In the world we live in, it is inevitable that we will experience disasters. It’s the natural order of things, and for God to intervene in every unsavory instance of our life would place us in a different world altogether. As C.S. Lewis wrote in his classic work, The Problem of Pain: “Fixed laws, consequences unfolding by causal necessity, the whole natural order, are at once the limits within which (our) common life is confined and also the sole condition under which any such life is possible. Try to exclude the possibility of suffering which the order of nature and the existence of free wills involve, and you find that you have excluded life itself.”
It’s the world we live in; it’s life itself, painful and tragic as it is.
It’s an act of God.
David B. Whitlock, Ph.D., is Pastor of Lebanon Baptist Church in Lebanon, Ky. He also teaches as an adjunct professor at Campbellsville University in Campbellsville, Ky. You can contact David at drdavid@davidbwhitlock.com or through his website at www.davidbwhitlock.com
Thursday, March 10, 2011
The Days Go By
It’s a line from the Eagles 1975 classic hit, Tequila Sunrise: “The days go by.”
And they do. Whether you like it or not, whether you waiting for (or enduring) a tequila sunrise on a beach in Acapulco, or working in a coal mine in eastern Kentucky, or trading stocks on Wall Street, or writing songs in Nashville--- the days go by. Like wet sand slipping through our fingers, the days go by.
Lori and I have a friend who takes old videos and transfers them into a DVD. People give him their wedding ceremony, children’s birthday parties, anniversaries, and other significant life events. The quality on the DVD is better and more enduring.
So Lori has been going through all our family videos to see which ones we want our friend to convert onto DVD. The other night after dinner, she asked me, “Want to watch some of the family videos?”
Two and a half hours later, teary-eyed and smiling, we turned off the VCR. I went to bed, thinking that was the last of our family viewing. But the next morning, instead of the news in the background of our get-ready-for-work routine, Lori was playing another family video. “Look at that, would you?” she chuckled while putting on her make-up, pointing to then three year old Madi’s recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance.
That evening when I arrived home, there was Lori again, glued to the TV, video in, on the road to becoming a family video junkie--- this time watching the then young Dr. Whitlock preaching. “Wow!” she exclaimed. “Your preaching style has changed. You used to be sooo loud, and you preached FOREVER!” I think it was a compliment, but all I could see was a fuller head of hair, no gray---and smoother skin on my youthful face.
We are a blended family, so our family video viewing takes twice as long. There was Mary-Elizabeth dancing, Harrison being awakened on Christmas day by the kisses of Skittles, his new puppy, Madi with her baby dolls, and Dave playing in his Davy Crocket outfit. Grandparents, aunts, uncles, brothers, sisters---they were all there, through all those years.
The days go by: Mary-Elizabeth gave up ballet long ago; Madi’s baby dolls are somewhere; Harrison and I buried his Christmas day puppy, by then the grizzled Skittles, several years ago; And it’s been years since I could hold tiny Davey high above my head--- balancing him in one hand, the toddler sucking on his pacifier, kicking his chubby legs, giggling uncontrollably---and proclaim while laughing with him, “Behold, the child!”
Each moment was a moment, caught in time, pictured on camera, fleeting ever so easily, always so quickly, passing through time---time, the common denominator that levels us all until we are all equal, everyone of us dust.
But not dust in the wind, floating along random like, drifting in the currents of time, without meaning or purpose. Seeing years compressed in minute segmented videos reminds us of our two inescapable boundaries: birth and death. But as long as we travel, we can and should sing because we have hope of a forever life that endures beyond the family movie. As Moses said it in his prayer, “Satisfy us each morning with your unfailing love so we may sing for joy to the end of our lives.”
Yes, Moses, to the end of our lives, and beyond, to a life that extends beyond our lives. William Faulkner put it like this in his 1950 Nobel Prize speech, “I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among the creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance.”
Maybe, just maybe, Don Henley and Glenn Frey---sipping straight tequila, waiting on the sunrise---were somehow, somewhere deep within themselves hoping for hope, thinking that there must be more, more than what is here, as “the days go by.”
And there is.
David B. Whitlock, Ph.D., can be reached at drdavid@davidbwhitlock.com or through his website at www.davidbwhitlock.com
And they do. Whether you like it or not, whether you waiting for (or enduring) a tequila sunrise on a beach in Acapulco, or working in a coal mine in eastern Kentucky, or trading stocks on Wall Street, or writing songs in Nashville--- the days go by. Like wet sand slipping through our fingers, the days go by.
Lori and I have a friend who takes old videos and transfers them into a DVD. People give him their wedding ceremony, children’s birthday parties, anniversaries, and other significant life events. The quality on the DVD is better and more enduring.
So Lori has been going through all our family videos to see which ones we want our friend to convert onto DVD. The other night after dinner, she asked me, “Want to watch some of the family videos?”
Two and a half hours later, teary-eyed and smiling, we turned off the VCR. I went to bed, thinking that was the last of our family viewing. But the next morning, instead of the news in the background of our get-ready-for-work routine, Lori was playing another family video. “Look at that, would you?” she chuckled while putting on her make-up, pointing to then three year old Madi’s recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance.
That evening when I arrived home, there was Lori again, glued to the TV, video in, on the road to becoming a family video junkie--- this time watching the then young Dr. Whitlock preaching. “Wow!” she exclaimed. “Your preaching style has changed. You used to be sooo loud, and you preached FOREVER!” I think it was a compliment, but all I could see was a fuller head of hair, no gray---and smoother skin on my youthful face.
We are a blended family, so our family video viewing takes twice as long. There was Mary-Elizabeth dancing, Harrison being awakened on Christmas day by the kisses of Skittles, his new puppy, Madi with her baby dolls, and Dave playing in his Davy Crocket outfit. Grandparents, aunts, uncles, brothers, sisters---they were all there, through all those years.
The days go by: Mary-Elizabeth gave up ballet long ago; Madi’s baby dolls are somewhere; Harrison and I buried his Christmas day puppy, by then the grizzled Skittles, several years ago; And it’s been years since I could hold tiny Davey high above my head--- balancing him in one hand, the toddler sucking on his pacifier, kicking his chubby legs, giggling uncontrollably---and proclaim while laughing with him, “Behold, the child!”
Each moment was a moment, caught in time, pictured on camera, fleeting ever so easily, always so quickly, passing through time---time, the common denominator that levels us all until we are all equal, everyone of us dust.
But not dust in the wind, floating along random like, drifting in the currents of time, without meaning or purpose. Seeing years compressed in minute segmented videos reminds us of our two inescapable boundaries: birth and death. But as long as we travel, we can and should sing because we have hope of a forever life that endures beyond the family movie. As Moses said it in his prayer, “Satisfy us each morning with your unfailing love so we may sing for joy to the end of our lives.”
Yes, Moses, to the end of our lives, and beyond, to a life that extends beyond our lives. William Faulkner put it like this in his 1950 Nobel Prize speech, “I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among the creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance.”
Maybe, just maybe, Don Henley and Glenn Frey---sipping straight tequila, waiting on the sunrise---were somehow, somewhere deep within themselves hoping for hope, thinking that there must be more, more than what is here, as “the days go by.”
And there is.
David B. Whitlock, Ph.D., can be reached at drdavid@davidbwhitlock.com or through his website at www.davidbwhitlock.com
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