Monthly Archives: May 2020

Important Life Knowledge

Family, Home schooling, Inspirational, Parenting, Uncategorized
I’m sharing a Facebook post from a friend. It was not written with knowledge it would be shared beyond the original post. I have permission to share it. It is, indeed, a good place to start.
Dean

As we move toward a new world order, I sat down today and tried to problem solve how I’m going to manage homeschooling my kid for the next few months. It’s hard for me to imagine keeping my child occupied while still adding value to his life, without having him glued to a screen all day doing online school work. So I built a schedule that would allow me to feel confident in teaching him, balance my need for personal work time, and still keep him on track with a first grader’s pace.

WHICH GOT ME THINKING (oh god, I know, bear with me here…😂)- Why can’t I be teaching him first grade education level skills, but apply them to REAL WORLD CONCEPTS?! We don’t know what the future holds for us, and as much as I want my son to be book smart, I also want him to be culturally educated and have a broad perspective mindset.

So I made a list- “Important Life Knowledge”
Things I want to teach my son that he might not necessarily learn in school. Things that he will face when he walks out of my front door a grown man. Things that he may have to face before then.

As I looked over my list, I thought to myself- these are things I’m still learning. These are things I see people around me still learning. These are things I see grown adults not having the slightest clue about.

It inspired me to share the list with you all. Food for thought. Think about what these things mean to you. Think about if you’ve started teaching your kids these things. I’m sure I’ll be endlessly adding to the list as I start this new journey with (my son), and I’m sure many of you have lots of great ideas to add to this list as well! But I thought this was a good start.

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Bringin’ It!–Chapter five

faith-based, Inspirational, motivational

Bringin’ It!

R—Restoration,  E—Exercise,  A—Attitude,  D–Diet

The first days of this seminar were marked by my rigid diet. I was a month or two after open-heart surgery and being given a diet. Carole listened to, read and researched experts. My diet consisted of very little meat. I consumed protein from shakes and followed the best medical wisdom. That means I consumed and talked a lot about oatmeal, bagels and other carbs.

Of course almost every dietary “law” of that day has been discounted or changed. Cholesterol is no longer the biggest threat, although my doctor is pleased that mine is in a good range. I wonder if he is going to put a happy face sticker on my forehead.

In the face of that, I don’t talk much about diet anymore. I’m still concerned about nutrition. I’m not going to suggest what you should or should not eat. For decades, I didn’t eat donuts, ice cream, candy or sweet rolls, but now I long for cookies, pie and cake like a smoker wants a cigarette.

If we had the money we’ve spent on books about diets and dieting, we could make a down payment on a new car. My family is very knowledgeable about food, vitamins, supplements and how they contribute to body and brain function. I have settled here: Nutrition, moderation, common sense, listening to your body and biblical wisdom is a good way to go.

Dan Buettner is the founder of Blue Zones as a concept and author of The Blue Zones. (National Geographic, 2012.) In recent weeks, the Seventh Day Adventists have purchased Buettner’s company. Blue Zones is a life-enhancing read.

In early reporting, COVID-19 was linked to obesity, at least recovery was connected to dietary health habits. Since body resiliency is part of dealing with the pandemic, Blue Zone habits can be a tool.

A RATIONAL DIET

A rational diet in contrast to an emotional diet. This diet is good news—it helps us live long, healthy and productive lives. Somewhere in this series I have talked about exercise and diet including fresh air, plenty of sunshine and bare feet and fingers in the soil. This approach to nutrition reconnects us and energizes us. The subtitle to my book, Mosquito Park Secrets, is “How to Live Outrageously Happy Lives.” Westerners who live the Blue Zone lifestyle contend the good news effect is outrageous.

Buettner found LOMA LINDA’S BLUE ZONE SECRETS

Find a sanctuary in time. (One day in seven.)

Maintain a healthy body mass index.

Get regular, moderate exercise.

Spend time with like-minded friends.

Snack on nuts.

Give something back

Eat meat in moderation

Eat an early, light dinner.

Put more plants in your diet.

Drink plenty of water.

I now know at least two words used in Okinawa. Ikigai-–the reason to get up in the morning. And, moai—the tradition of forming a moai provides secure social networks. “Always someone there for me.” That is some diet!

A HEALTHY DIET OF PERCEPTION

Early on in this world-wide pandemic, I began to pray for friends and family specifically to enhance their emotional, mental, spiritual immune system. These seemed important to me:

Plans, Perspective, Proportion, Peace, Productivity

I left out the most important element: Perception.

Perception is easily defined by the twelve God sent into Canaan to spy out the land and report what they found. The twelve all saw the same beautiful and bountiful land as well as the giants and barriers. Each group had a multi-colored picture in mind. The twelve described the giants’ size; the other two said, “take a look at the size of grapes.

Ten said, “We are unable to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we” (Numbers 13:31).

Joshua and Caleb reported,  “Let us go up at once and take possession, for we are well able to overcome it—we can do this!” (Numbers 13:30).

“Perception is all there is.”

That declaration by business writer Tom Peters and then others, seemed wrong, wrong to me. My perception is not all there is, I thought. There is reality! Peters’ statement is not global. My perception is all there is for me. In an 8:00 college accounting class I said, “That doesn’t seem right.” The teacher said, “Mr. Benton, you are welcome to your opinion, but it won’t work on a balance sheet or on my tests.”

Psycho-Cybernetics, the original book by Maxwell Maltz and the updated version written by Maltz and Bobbe Sommer has guided much of my thinking about human behavior. A director of the Maxwell Maltz foundation says people in a Covid-19 era need a reason to hope and a reason to believe.

Perspective and perception are attached, but different. Perspective is, “From my perspective….” Perspective of experience, standing, education, insight, as a Democrat or Republican. Perception is like your worldview. It is a brain “servo-mechanism” that determines perspective and guides in determining what will work. Perception gives permission to the brain to pursue, like a laser, the destination you give to your brain. Something like guard rails on a mountain highway. Perception marks danger or dangerous people and the route to success. Most of all, it tells us if we are worthy of success, belonging, loving. The most determining is perception of ourselves: self-image.

This reasoning says that people will believe only what fits with their perception. Much of the difference between Republicans and Democrats is their perceptions of reality, causes and effects. I listened to a political spokesperson and wondered how she could believe what she was saying. It contradicted the facts, as I know them, and projected a radically destructive outcome. The spokesperson wasn’t saying what she had learned or believed, she was telling what determines her life.   Perception is what we KNOW! 

I talk about perception in my book, You Can Handle It! (© 1988 Spring Daisy Publications).

“Your behavior—good, crazy, bad, sane, productive, self-destructive—comes from you inner being. This core mechanism gives you handles that you cling to in crisis and you depend upon to guide you in making decisions. These handles provide the coping mechanism that function or falter under pressure.”

“We always act in our own best interest—at least from our present point of view.”

“Eighty percent of your perception is visual. You do not think in many abstractions when you know what will meet a need. You have a real picture. You can see it.”

My thinking gripped the concept of Reticular Activating System and has not been the same.

Definition of RAS: “a diffuse network of nerve pathways in the brainstem connecting the spinal cord, cerebrum, and cerebellum, and mediating the overall level of consciousness.” This is an interesting piece of the brain and brain function. Put it in your computer search engine and see. It is what makes perception so important to how we act and respond to stressful events and feelings.

Again from You Can Handle It!

“It (RAS) is a filter that sorts out what we perceive as useful to us. If we have given that filter data to believe there is no solution for a specific problem or situation, the Reticular Activating System will screen out all solutions—we will not even see them.”

“Perception is all there is! An American proverb: Perception is so strong that if you do not believe there is a solution, you would not recognize it even if Fed-Ex delivered it to your front door.”

“You alone give meaning to events. The seriousness of any event is really in how you perceive things which is why Freud and Menninger taught that feelings are more important than facts.”

Still with me? Give me a couple of minutes to list sources from which we build our perceptions:

How Perceptions are Acquired.

  1. Biological needs (Survive, reproduce and function.)
  2. We need to belong. When we no longer believe that we belong, we question if we want to survive.
  3. Modicum measure of power. The less power we have—the power to get, provide, protect or determine–the more we stress. (Stress comes from inside us. We stress (verb) in reaction to external stimuli. Stress is not like pollen.
  4. Our wants. Some are legitimate, some are selfish. If our wants are threatened, we stress.
  5. Comfort zone.
  6. Influences: Social and culture context, heredity, current physical condition, mental health, psychological constitution, emotional wiring, personal values, attitudes, experiences, aspirations, education, spiritual maturity and view of God. Role behavior, personal values, reflex actions, brain wiring, spiritual beliefs, current mental health.
  7. Self-image. I have a five-foot two friend who weighs less than 100 pounds. She sees herself as fat. No one can change her perception—the mirror she looks into proves it to her. Our actions, feelings, behaviors and skill-building are consistent with our self-image, self-concept, and feelings of self-worth.
  8. Parental proverbs. These are interesting to trace: “Never loan money to, or do business with family.” “Good fences make good neighbors.” “We do not discuss family issues outside the house.”

In spite of the “diagnosis,” perceptions are not always wrong or negative. Biographer, Richard Norton Smith, says “Herbert Hoover became a victim of his own certainties.” Certainties are another way to say perception. An unexamined certainty  limits us.

Change your perception and you change your life.

Changing Incorrect or Inadequate Perceptions.

“…maturity does not come by age or accumulated experiences. It comes through basic responses to grace.” E. Stanley Jones

DISCOVERY

The discovery that one or more of our perceptions—our automatic response—is a grace-presented opportunity. That is a life journey bend. God won’t change your perceptions, but He will be or will send catalysts to question your certainties and offer alternatives. Agents include:

  1. Scripture can open the mind. A rhema word has the power to break through to teach something new. Beware—we interpret Scripture through the faulty lens we are seeking to refocus.
  2. Interaction with a broad range of ideas and people’s experiences. It is helpful to have a diet of information from those with whom we disagree. Why do they say what they do?
  3. New Information. All new discoveries are based on new information or on rearranged information. Discoveries follow seeking, asking, knocking.”
  4. Healing prayer.
  5. Direct revelation. Usually Holy Spirit works in combination with the above. Sometimes, He works apart from other stimuli. The soul receives a download of insight or mental adjustment. It is a gift of grace.

               DECISION

Discovery is not enough, we must make a choice and then act on it. Remember that we think in pictures not equations. The decision is to change the pictures we carry in that brain file labeled, “My life—the way I want it, the way I can get it.” What picture(s) come to mind when Jesus says to you, “I came that you might have abundant life.” How is abundant defined? Are you qualified to receive abundance? What does Jesus’ promise look like to you as you plan for life beyond the shut down? How is that different than pre-Covid-19?

We keep hearing that this shut down is a reset. Maybe the decision is first. We decide to hit the reset button and then ask how to discover what limiting perceptions need to be changed and what creating perceptions need updating and embracing.

DISCIPLINE

Nothing fights back like an old way of seeing things. Again, we create perceptions to be mental infrastructure usually without much thought. They become protection, pathways and safety producing coping skills. To change any or all of that threatens our being. We are talking about changing the way we see ourselves and the world.

“Once you’ve used your left brain to challenge your false beliefs, bring your right brain into play to create new ones. Don’t forget that the subconscious mind needs vividly realized images to agree and comply with—‘new memories.’” Maxwell Maltz & Bobbe Sommer

Upgrade your mental picture album.

A MOTIVATING DIET OF PURPOSE

Around 2010, Dan Buettner visited and then designated seven Blue Zones. Sardinia, Italy; Loma Linda, California; Nicoya, Costa Rica; Okinawa, Japan and Ikaria, Greece where he found secrets of the longest lived people. The common denominator is living with a purpose. Purpose! The Psycho-Cybernetics people call this “A sense of direction—an objective to pursue.”

You can read everything in this chapter to this point and say, “Yada, Yada, Yada,” or “Blah, Blah, Blah.” When you have a purpose, mission, dream or revealed direction, you begin to ask what trip-trigger perceptions will keep you side-tracked or disqualified. You will formulate mission statements and strategies. When that purpose grips you, you shed the inadequate or unsatisfying certainties or at least you will ask how to lose the insidious, invisible limitations.

Buettner met a nutritionist in Nicoya, Costa Rica who told him,

“We notice that the most highly functioning people over 90 in Nicoya have a few common traits. One of them is that they feel a strong sense of service to others or care for their family. We see that as soon as they lose this, the switch goes off. They die very quickly if they don’t feel needed.”

Buettner concludes,

“…it’s the human imperative to feel needed that keeps the river of life running…”

(The Blue Zones, pages 190-191).

HUNGER FOR THE DYNAMIC GOD

Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. For I am about to do something new. See, I have already begun! Do you not see it? I will make a pathway through the wilderness. I will create rivers in the dry wasteland (Isaiah 43:19).

What is your reaction and response to those words? Does “new” scare you? To your way of thinking and feeling, how logical is “getting back to normal?” Was the old normal acceptable economically? How about spiritually? Biblically? Morally? How did the old normal square with your perception of God’s best plan? Who can be trusted with your picture of a new normal?

“I am doing a new thing. I’m about to do something new. I have already begun. Do you see it?”

God is dynamic, not static. That is one of Isaiah’s messages. Making a way is God’s brand. Our assignment is to perceive what He is doing and to join Him. In normal times, we could respond with “I see what you are saying.” These days a gut-feeling may be perception. Clarity may come when a soul nudge says there is a better, more effective, more efficient way. Keeping ones soul full is imperative. Sustenance is found in a couple of phrases.

“The joy of the Lord is my strength,” (Jeremiah 8:10).

In the flock of our lawn birds, there is one that demands our attention. He is larger than a hummingbird, and about half to two-thirds the size of a sparrow. As small as he is, he has the largest voice of all. His call and melodies fill the neighborhood. That bird exudes joy and an invitation to join him.

“My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work”  (John 4:34).

“Beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news.”

Bring It!

©2020 D. Dean Benton

 

Hunker Inn West Wing

Uncategorized

My wife and I just think differently.

If something gets dropped on the floor, she wants it cleaned up immediately. My approach is to let dry and then get it with the vacuum.

Today she is busy cleaning the guest room and asked me to help her move the furniture. Who is she expecting? In this day of isolation and staying home, if we invite guests we’ll probably be arrested. Move the furniture? Yep! A total rearrangement. Everything in “The West Wing” except the bookcases. To my way of thinking, any virtual guest will not notice that the bed is facing a different direction and that the plants have been moved to the porch.

The most annoying is that she doesn’t measure time well. Again today she asked, “Will you help me for five minutes?” I know, even if she doesn’t, that we’ll be working on the project an hour later. Moving furniture in the West Wing cannot be done in 5 minutes!

I heard when China began to open up from Stay At Home!, the first stop for many couples was the divorce court. (I didn’t even know divorce was allowed in China.) The government clerks were unable to keep up with the crowds. These days can pull at relationship seams.

One of my go to thinkers and writers about marriage is John M. Gottman, PH.D.

“Certain kinds of negativity, if allowed to run rampant, are so lethal to a relationship that I call them the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Usually these four horsemen clip-clop into the heart of a marriage in the following order: criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling.”

I come away from Gottman’s writing assuming the most dangerous is contempt. The other three can be fixed, but contempt is a heart issue that becomes physical.

“Couples who are contemptuous of each other are more likely to suffer from infectious illnesses (colds, flu, and so on) than other people.”

The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work, John M. Gottman and Nan Silver. (Three-Rivers Press, 1999) Chapter 2—How I Predict Divorce—with 91% accuracy)

Men and women are different. We are wired different, we function from different brain hemispheres. Of course this is a generality. Unless we acknowledge and celebrate the differences, we move toward contempt. Because I love my wife and want to affirm her, I usually give her the five minutes she requests. (I respond to her requests for “5 minutes” with “you lie.”) The real reason is that I don’t want her to lift the chest of drawers.

Experience shows that furniture is difficult to lift while one’s body is leaning at a 45-90 degree angle toward the door.

©2020 D. Dean Benton

Watch Mark Gunger, Tale of Two Brains

Bringin’ It! Chapter Four

Christian, faith-based, Inspirational, motivational

Bringin’ It!

R—Restoration,  E—Exercise,  A—Attitude,  D–Diet

NOUN

“Attitude–A settled way of thinking or feeling about someone or something, typically one that is reflected in a person’s behavior.”

synonyms:

point of view · view · viewpoint · vantage point · frame of mind · way of thinking · way of looking at things · school of thought · outlook · angle · slant · perspective ·

“A habit (attitude) is a pattern that you inhabit, and it is not so much something you see as something through which you see everything else.” (Michael Hanby)

I ran across Attitudes That Attract Success by Wayne Cordeiro in my library. “You are only one attitude from a great life” the subtitle proclaims. The page marker indicates I stopped reading at page 17. Dean! oh Dean! Oh Dean! I have several of Cordeiro’s books and all have been helpful, so why page 17? If I had a therapist, I think I would bring that up in our next session.

You need an attitude adjustment? Maybe a whole new set of attitudes? The pre-Covid, Western world mindset and attitudinal worldview left us wide open. Unprepared emotionally and spiritual for the non-medical collateral damage of this pandemic. The mental and emotional damage is and will be great, if we are to believe the people who know such things.

Andy Stanley said, and our friend Sam Kirk reminded us:

Your PRESENT will become your PAST that will impact your FUTURE

We carry into this crisis all we did not know and all the unhealed issues. Unhealthy attitudes grow out of our experiences and expectations interpreted by the self-filter. Cumulative is a big word in stress, depression, burnout literature. Negative stress piles up–“Out of nowhere he went ballistic.”

          AND THEN, THERE’S ME

A young friend asked the FB family, (and I quote!) “Why am I only good at fucking up shit?” Assuming that is not just a single bad day, the words indicate, “A settled way of thinking or feeling” which inevitably leads to discounting possibilities and one’s future. Probably in more delicate language, but with the same passion, we trash ourselves. Those words become biblical strongholds which lock us into self-diminishment and dismissal.

An aside. Through the writing of this series, I’m wide-eyed amazed how God, or colossal coincidences, put resources in my path just at the right moment. Thanks, Lord. Such as a book: Daring Greatly, Brené Brown, (Penguin, ©2012)

Brené Brown says the church in which she grew up made her feel, “…small, unheard, unseen.” She assumed that was the gospel. It still doesn’t feel like good news to her. Or to me. To be a Jesus Follower we must embrace the values and virtues of the Kingdom, not just acknowledge we are a sinner and need forgiveness. Some of us hear and feel “small, unheard, unseen.” God’s Kingdom message includes healing of the bad news that dominates the soul. Good News Bringers enlarge us, hear us, see us and talk to us about healing.

Stephen Mansfield said in a recent blog,

“That we are going through a bruising season is something I do not need to tell you. What I may need to remind you of is the toll it takes on you. The fear, the worry, the grief, the offense, and the sheer physical strain—even while you are simply sitting on your couch—all exact a great price. Medical doctors tell us that these forces drain us biologically and can even produce a destructive rewiring of our brains.”

Monitor the cumulative and respond with corrective and healing action. I’m still thinking about Ms. Brown. Did she ever talk to anyone about the “small, unseen, unheard?” What about my friend? We can understand how a person could come to feel what my friend does, but how do we continue to feel that until it colors out lives? Dr. Brown’s research leads her to believe scarcity is one cause. Listen to these words:

“Scarcity thrives in a culture where everyone is hyperaware of lack.”

“Scarcity doesn’t take hold in a culture overnight. But the feeling of scarcity does thrive in shame-prone cultures that are deeply steeped in comparison and fractured by disengagement.” (27)

“Never good enough. Never perfect enough. Never thin enough. Never powerful enough. Never successful enough. Never smart enough. Never safe enough. Never extraordinary enough.” Given the social media, Ms. Brown says, “…I see the shame-based fear of being ordinary. I see the fear of never feeling extraordinary enough to be noticed, to be lovable, to belong, or to cultivate a sense of purpose.”

Or, inadequate.

Brené Brown concludes the difference between people who feel they belong, are loved, are capable of competence and those who do not is—I am worthy of being loved, belonging, being seen and becoming competent. Worthy. The Children of God receive worthiness through their relationship with God.

Who am I in Christ? Then plan accordingly! What does He say about you? Therefore! Adjust attitudes and adjust lack into enough. That is what repentance means: To change our mind, turn away from the destructive self-appraisal and walk in Kingdom values. Repentance is not a one-time thing to get us into Heaven, it is also the decision to live by God’s assessment and Kingdom values.

Someone posted their new tattoo on the back of their shoulder that says, I Am Enough! I think those words should be engraved where the wearer can see them at all times.

Quoting Seth Godin, “Plan and act accordingly.”

SEEING TOMORROW

Debi, Carole and I were having lunch with Uncle Everett and Aunt Fern. Although Aunt Fern was 55 when she married, she was concerned that Debi, then in her middle 20s, was not yet married. Auntie leaned in and in a pathetic tone, asked, “Do you have any prospects…at all?”

At all?

The one most emphatic truth I’ve learned in the past dozen years is that we have not done our work of “getting people saved” until we market in healing the whole person. If local churches and Kingdom entrepreneurs come out of this crisis with a renewed passion and vision, we will experience a healed land. Kingdom driven and focused on: not one child of God dominated by small, unheard, unseen and not one person who hears the Good News and drops his or her head to think or say, And then, there’s me.

I’ve been confused by 2 Chronicles 7:14. “If my people…confess their wicked ways….” What wicked ways?

An acquaintance loved the Lord and followed God’s call to build church buildings and communities. While doing his work, he alienated his children because of his own wounds. He lived his whole life with a broken spirit and shredded soul. The Gospel he loved never reached far enough. He ended his life by blowing his head off with a shotgun. Were there no Bringers? Or, if there were, did he not listen? It becomes personal Good News when the offer has your picture on it and you specifically apply it.

God, send Bringers of Good News who creatively tell the world that You are concerned and have provided healing for us body, soul and spirit. Send Bringers who will refresh us with Your Word to regenerate us.

   EMBRACING MY GLORY

“…You, O Lord, are a shield for me, My glory and the One who lifts up head” (Psalm 3:3).

When I first heard that song, I realized how unimportant “You’re my glory” was to me. I’m all in on “Lifter of my head,” but “glory” sounded too ethereal. Then I read Psalm 3:3. That phrase is not a song lyric by a spiritual poet; it is biblical—words of a warrior. David wrote this when he was running from Absalom, who was intent on killing the king and usurping the kingdom.

Thank you, Hannah for the C. S. Lewis book, The Weight of Glory, (©1949. Renewed Harper Collins, © 2001.) I want to share some of Lewis’ words as he talks about “You are my glory.”

“Glory suggests two ideas to me, of which one seems wicked and the other ridiculous. Either glory means to me fame, or it means luminosity.

When I began to look into this matter I was shocked to find such different Christians as Milton, Johnson and Thomas Aquinas taking heavenly glory quite frankly in the sense of fame or good report. But not fame conferred by our fellow creatures—fame with God, approval or (I might say) “appreciation by God. And then, when I thought it over, I saw that this view was scriptural; nothing can eliminate from the parable the divine accolade, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant”….

“Indeed, how we think of (God) is of no importance except insofar as it is related to how He thinks of us.”

“To please God…to be loved by God, not merely pitied, but delighted in as an artist delights in his work or father in a son—it seems impossible, a weight or burden of glory which our thoughts can hardly sustain. But so it is.”

“Perhaps it seems rather crude to describe glory as the fact of being ‘noticed’ by God. But this is almost the language of the New Testament. St. Paul promises to those who love God not, as we should expect, that they will know Him, but that they will be known by Him (I Corinthians 8:3). Does not God know all things at all times? But it is dreadfully reechoed in another passage of the New Testament. There we are warned that it may happen to anyone of us to appear at last before the face of God and hear only the appalling words, ‘I never knew you. Depart from me.’ In some sense, as dark to the intellect as it is unendurable to the feelings, we can be both banished from the presence of Him who is present everywhere and erased from the knowledge of Him who knows all. We can be left utterly and absolutely outside—repelled, exiled, finally and unspeakably ignored. On the other hand, we can be called in, welcomed. Received, acknowledged…. And to be at last summoned inside would be both and honour beyond all our merits and also the healing of an old ache.” (Portions of pages 36-42)

C.S. Lewis is speaking in the last quote of that time when we shall stand before God as judge and hear Him say, “Come in!” or “Go away!” I say, while standing soul-deep in grace, that the Good News and good news are the foundation of meaningful and healthy attitudes. We have His approval! We are accepted, welcomed, received and acknowledged. We are in His pleasure.

To live to please God—feel, think, do—empowers us. No reason to be defensive or nasty. The knowledge of being accepted by God can grow healthy attitudes. It is the foundation of attitude.

I don’t want you to miss this from Lewis:

“Part of the bitterness which mixes with the sweetness of that message is due to the fact that it so seldom seems to be a message intended for us, but rather something we have overheard.” (p. 40)

Overheard as in intended for someone else. Not even in my cone of silence at Starbucks or Digger’s Rest does this seem personal, but in a private conversation God says to me, “You are accepted—I accept you. You are enough!” That does something to the soul and can influence attitudes tucked away inside or how we interact with our world.

What has this world crisis revealed to you about you? There are major-league attitudes that hit us like softball size hail; others eat at us like termites in our souls, to quote the doctor. Some just settle on us like, Oh well, it doesn’t really matter.

I question whether I should put product on my hair, trim my mustache, shave or use deodorant, after all who is going to see me. My wife’s example answers. She puts on makeup, fixes her hair each day and continues to remind me to clear the counter. She knows local or USA Today news people probably won’t drop by with cameras to do an article. But, her decisions are moderated by that overheard voice—how she feels about herself and her desire to please me. Yes!

Enough? Enough!

I was on my way to a pre-weekend preparation conversation. I don’t remember what the current economic crisis was in Ohio. I stopped in a café for coffee before the church meeting. There was a poster on the wall which showed a car in a dark tunnel. The driver said, “I see a light at the end of the tunnel.” It was a speeding train heading his direction. I tried to describe to the committee the humor and possibility of the cartoon poster. No one got it! No matter how hard I tried to explain, they just stared at me and glanced at each other.

Let me try with you. Reading headlines from the Internet does not present good grist with which to build your day, tomorrow, next week or your future. I walked away from the news this morning and was struck with—this really is a big deal! We are not going to fix it in the next few days. Dr. Birx says we will be wearing masks for months. Tyson Foods says the food supply chain is broken. And this plague is returning in the fall. I felt like Wil E. Coyote in that dark tunnel facing the on-coming light and The Road Runner had blocked my only escape route.

If we can get our assumptions, commitments and relationships right with Self, our Future and God, the probability that our attitudes toward other people and blockages will be in the positive range. It is part of the immunity package. The key is to…

      Plan and act accordingly.

©2020 D. Dean Benton

“Beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news.”