What was Martin Luther's stand on Creation/Evolution?

The biblical scholar and Protestant reformer, Martin Luther believed in Creation and taught that the world was young. For example, Luther stated,

“We know from Moses that the world was not in existence before 6,000 years ago.”Luther insisted that Moses wrote about Creation in normal, literal language.

“He [Moses] calls 'a spade a spade,' i.e., he employs the terms 'day' and 'evening' without Allegory, just as we customarily do we assert that Moses spoke in the literal sense, not allegorically or figuratively, i.e., that the world, with all its creatures, was created within six days, as the words read. If we do not comprehend the reason for this, let us remain pupils and leave the job of teacher to the Holy Spirit.”

REFERENCE 

Martin Luther in Jaroslav Peliken, editor, “Luther's Works,” Lectures on Genesis Chapters 1-5, Vol. 1 (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1958), pp. 3, 6.

Read More

A 75-Year Harvard Study Finds What It Takes To Live A Happy Life

Scott Stossel, The Atlantic, Apr. 25, 2013
In June 2009, The Atlantic published a cover story on the Grant Study, one of the longest-running longitudinal studies of human development.

The project, which began in 1938, has followed 268 Harvard undergraduate men for 75 years, measuring an astonishing range of psychological, anthropological, and physical traits—from personality type to IQ to drinking habits to family relationships to “hanging length of his scrotum”—in an effort to determine what factors contribute most strongly to human flourishing.

Recently, George Vaillant, who directed the study for more than three decades, published Triumphs of Experience, a summation of the insights the study has yielded. Among them: “Alcoholism is a disorder of great destructive power.” Alcoholism was the main cause of divorce between the Grant Study men and their wives; it was strongly correlated with neurosis and depression (which tended to follow alcohol abuse, rather than precede it); and—together with associated cigarette smoking—it was the single greatest contributor to their early morbidity and death.

But the factor Vaillant returns to most insistently is the powerful correlation between the warmth of your relationships and your health and happiness in old age. After The Atlantic’s 2009 article was published, critics questioned the strength of this correlation. Vaillant revisited the data he had been studying since the 1960s for his book, an experience that further convinced him that what matters most in life are relationships.

For instance, the 58 men who scored highest on measurements of “warm relationships” earned an average of $141,000 a year more at their peak salaries (usually between ages 55 and 60) than the 31 men who scored lowest; the former were also three times more likely to have achieved professional success worthy of inclusion in Who’s Who.

Vaillant’s key takeaway, in his own words: “The seventy-five years and twenty million dollars expended on the Grant Study points … to a straightforward five-word conclusion: ‘Happiness is love. Full stop.’”

Read More

He Answers!

By Rosalind Goforth

Download Audio (7.9MB)

I am convinced that God has intended prayer to be as simple and natural, and as constant a part of our spiritual life, as the [interaction] between a child and his parent in the home. And as a large part of that [interaction] between child and parent is simply asking and receiving, just so is it with us and our Heavenly Parent.

Perhaps, however, the most blessed element in this asking and getting from God lies in the strengthening of faith which comes when a definite request has been granted. What’s more helpful and inspiring than a ringing testimony of what God has done?

As I have recalled the past in writing these incidents, one of the most precious memories is that of an evening when a number of friends had gathered in our home. The conversation turned on answered prayer. For more than two hours we vied with one another in recounting personal incidents of God’s wonderful work, and the inspiration of that evening still abides.

A Christian minister once said to me: “Is it possible that the great God of the universe, the Maker and Ruler of mankind, could or would, as you would make out, take interest in such a trifle as the trimming of a hat! To me it is preposterous!”

Yet did not our Lord Jesus Christ say: “The very hairs of your head are all numbered”; and “not one sparrow is forgotten before God”; and again, “Your heavenly Father knoweth what ye have need of before ye ask him”?

It is true that “There is nothing too great for God's power,” and it is just as true that “There is nothing too small for His love!”

If we believe God's Word we must believe, as Dan Crawford has tersely and beautifully expressed it, that “The God of the infinite is the God of the infinitesimal.” Yes, he

“Who clears the grounding berg
And guides the grinding floe,
He hears the cry of the little kit fox
And the lemming of the snow!”

No more wonderful testimony, perhaps, has ever been given of God’s willingness to help in every emergency of life than that which Mary Slessor gave, when asked to tell what prayer had meant to her. “My life,” she wrote, “is one long daily, hourly record of answered prayer. For physical health, for mental overstrain, for guidance given marvellously, for errors and dangers averted, for enmity to the Gospel subdued, for food provided at the exact hour needed, for everything that goes to make up life and my poor service. I can testify, with a full and often wonder-stricken awe, that I believe God answers prayer. I know God answers prayer!”

I have been asked the question: “Has God always given you just what you have asked for?”

Oh, no! For Him to have done so would have been great unkindness. For instance: when I was a young woman I prayed for three years that God would grant me a certain petition. Sometimes I pleaded for this as for life itself, so intensely did I want it. Then God showed me very clearly that I was praying against His will. I resigned my will to His in the matter, and a few months later God gave what was infinitely better. I have often praised Him for denying my prayer; for had He granted it I could never have come to China.

Then, too, we must remember that many of our prayers, though always heard, are not granted because of some sin harboured in the life, or because of unbelief, or of failure to meet some other Bible-recorded condition governing prevailing prayer.

The following incidents of answered prayer are by no means a complete record [referencing the book this is excerpted from]. How could they be, when no record of prayer has been kept all these fifty years? Had there been, I doubt not that volumes could have been written to the glory of God’s grace and power in answering prayer. But even from what is recorded here I, too, can say from a full heart, I know God answers prayer.

“He answered prayer: so sweetly that I stand
Amid the blessing of his wondrous hand
And marvel at the miracle I see,
The favours that his love hath wrought for me.
Pray on for the impossible, and dare
Upon thy banner this brave motto bear,
‘My Father answers prayer.’”

*

In October 1887, my husband was appointed by the Canadian Presbyterian Church to open a new field, in the northern section of the Province of Honan, China. We left Canada the following January, reaching China in March 1888. Not till then did we realize the tremendous difficulties of the task before us.

Dr. Hudson Taylor, of the China Inland Mission, writing to us at this time, said: “We understand North Honan is to be your field; we, as a mission, have tried for ten years to enter that province from the south, and have only just succeeded. It is one of the most anti-foreign provinces in China. … Brother, if you would enter that province, you must go forward on your knees.”

These words gave the key-note to our early pioneer years. Would that a faithful record had been kept of God’s faithfulness in answering prayer! Our strength as a mission and as individuals, during those years so fraught with dangers and difficulties, lay in the fact that we did realize the hopelessness of our task apart from divine aid.

*

The following incident occurred while we were still outside Honan, studying the language at a sister mission. It illustrates the importance of prayer from the home base for those on the field.

My husband was finding great difficulty in acquiring the language; he studied faithfully many hours daily, but made painfully slow progress. He and his colleague went regularly together to the street chapel, to practise preaching in Chinese to the people; but, though Mr. Goforth had come to China almost a year before the other missionary, the people would ask the latter to speak instead of Mr. Goforth, saying they understood him better.

One day, just before starting as usual for the chapel, my husband said: “If the Lord does not give me very special help in this language I fear I shall be a failure as a missionary.”

Some hours later he returned, his face beaming with joy. He told me that he realized most unusual help when his turn came to speak; sentences came to his mind as never before; and not only had he made himself understood, but some had appeared much moved, coming up afterward to have further conversation with him. So delighted and encouraged was he with this experience that he made a careful note of it in his diary.

Some two months and a half later a letter came from a student in Knox College, saying that on a certain evening a number of students had met specially to pray for Mr. Goforth. The power of prayer was such, and the presence of God so manifestly felt, that they decided to write and ask Mr. Goforth if any special help had come to him at that time. Looking in his diary, he found that the time of their meeting corresponded with that time of special help in the language.

“I cannot tell why there should come to me
A thought of someone miles and years away,
In swift insistence on the memory,
Unless there is a need that I should pray.
We are too busy to spare thought
For days together of some friends away;
Perhaps God does it for us—and we ought
To read his signal as a sign to pray.
Perhaps just then my friend has fiercer fight,
A more appalling weakness, a decay
Of courage, darkness, some lost sense of right;
And so, in case he needs my prayers—I pray.”

Abridged from “How I Know God Answers Prayer—The Personal Testimony of One Life-Time” by Rosalind Goforth, missionary to China (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1921). Read more at Project Gutenberg:
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/26033/26033-h/26033-h.htm.

Published on Anchor April 2013. Read by Bethany Kelly.

Read More

The Heart of It All: The Holy Spirit & the Messiah

http://directors.tfionline.com/

By Peter

April 30, 2013
The Holy Spirit and the Messiah

In the previous article, we saw how the Spirit of the Lord was manifested in the Old Testament. God’s Spirit moved in the lives of specific individuals, empowering them, causing them to prophesy, and anointing them with other abilities. In the Old Testament, the Spirit of the Lord generally came upon or interacted only with specific individuals and only on a temporary basis. It was prophesied, however, that a time would come when God would pour out His Spirit in abundance upon all His people.[1]
The Messiah

The Old Testament also includes prophecies about the Messiah who was to come, who would be powerfully filled with the Spirit of God and would do great things in God’s name. While the Jewish people did not think that this Messiah would be the Son of God, as they had no concept that God was a Trinity, they understood that the Messiah, an anointed king, would be greatly empowered by God’s Spirit.

The Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels states:

A major strand of Judaism anticipated a Messiah mightily endowed with the Spirit, as both the Spirit of prophecy (affording unique wisdom and knowledge of the Lord as the basis of dynamic righteousness) and the Spirit of power.[2]

Referring to the Messiah, the book of Isaiah says:

There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit. And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon Him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.[3]

This prophecy tells us that the Messiah would descend from the lineage of David, the son of Jesse, and that God’s Spirit would rest upon Him, meaning that the Spirit would remain on Him. He would be endowed with wisdom, understanding, counsel, knowledge, and the fear of God. Isaiah prophesied further about the Messiah, declaring again that God’s Spirit would be upon Him.

Behold My servant, whom I uphold, My chosen, in whom My soul delights; I have put My Spirit upon Him; He will bring forth justice to the nations … He will not grow faint or be discouraged till He has established justice in the earth.[4]

Later it was again prophesied in the book of Isaiah that God’s Spirit would be mightily upon the Messiah and that He would be anointed and do His work with the power of the Spirit of the Lord.

The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me, because the Lord has anointed Me to bring good news to the poor; He has sent Me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn; to grant to those who mourn in Zion—to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit; that they may be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified.[5]
Fulfillment of Prophecy

These prophecies were fulfilled in the life of Jesus, the promised Messiah. All four of the Gospels speak of Jesus being filled with the Spirit at the beginning of His ministry, when He was baptized by John the Baptist.[6]

Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heavens were opened, and the Holy Spirit descended on Him in bodily form, like a dove; and a voice came from heaven, “You are My beloved Son; with You I am well pleased.”[7]

John [the Baptist] bore witness: “I saw the Spirit descend from heaven like a dove, and it remained on Him. I myself did not know Him, but He who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain, this is He who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’ And I have seen and have borne witness that this is the Son of God.”[8]

Later, when asked about Jesus, John the Baptist said:

He whom God has sent utters the words of God, for He gives the Spirit without measure. The Father loves the Son and has given all things into His hand.[9]

On the advent of Jesus’ ministry, the Holy Spirit descended upon Him without measure and remained on Him permanently. Immediately after this, the Spirit led Him into the wilderness, where the Devil tried to defeat Him, to no avail.

Then Jesus, being filled with the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness for forty days, being tempted by the Devil.[10]

After overcoming the temptations, Jesus began ministering to others in the power of the Spirit. He gained popularity and was highly praised by all.

Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit to Galilee, and a report about Him went out through all the surrounding country. And He taught in their synagogues, being glorified by all.[11]

When Jesus returned to Nazareth, the village where He grew up, He was chosen to read from the Scriptures in the synagogue. The passage He read was from Isaiah, about the ministry of the Messiah, and at the end of the reading, Jesus made it clear that it was speaking about Him—that He was the Messiah upon whom the Spirit of the Lord had fallen.

The scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to Him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent Me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” And He rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on Him. And He began to say to them, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”[12]

Jesus was stating that His ministry had begun, that He would proclaim the good news, bringing liberty to the captives, healing and freeing those who were oppressed, with God’s Spirit upon Him. The apostle Peter later stated that Jesus did these very things through the anointing of the Holy Spirit.

You yourselves know what happened throughout all Judea, beginning from Galilee after the baptism that John proclaimed: how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power. He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the Devil, for God was with Him. And we are witnesses of all that He did both in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem.[13]
The “Promise of the Father”

The Holy Spirit, who descended upon Jesus, played a major role in His ministry—leading, guiding, and empowering Him. Right before Jesus ascended into heaven, He told His disciples that He would send the “promise of the Father,” which was the Holy Spirit, the power of God, and that they were to wait in Jerusalem until they received this power from on high.

Behold, I am sending the promise of My Father upon you. But stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.[14]

While staying with them He ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which, He said, “you heard from Me; for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”[15]

The Holy Spirit which led, guided, and empowered Jesus was going to do the same things for His disciples. Jesus prepared His disciples for His departure, saying that in order for the Holy Spirit to come upon them, He had to leave, but that once He was gone the Spirit would come to them.

It is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send Him to you.[16]

Jesus said it was necessary that He ascend to heaven, to return to the Father and be glorified, before the Holy Spirit—the Comforter, the Helper—could come. This was exactly what happened, as the apostle Peter testified to the crowd on the day of Pentecost, right after being filled with the Spirit.

Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, [Jesus] has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing.[17]

On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. Whoever believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’” Now this He said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.[18]

Jesus had been with His disciples for about three and a half years. They had traveled with Him, lived with Him, learned from Him, heard Him preach to and teach the crowds. They had seen Him heal the sick, raise the dead, and cast out demons. They had private instruction from Him and watched how He interacted with others—the rich, the poor, the outcasts, the religious. They saw Him get arrested and crucified. They knew He was dead, yet He stood before them in the upper room alive again. Then came the time for Him to go. He had been many things to them, and now He was going to depart. He had told them He would ask the Father to send them another Comforter or Helper.

I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, to be with you forever …[19]
The Paraclete

The word Helper or Comforter used in this verse is translated from the Greek word paraklētos, (pronounced parr ra clee tas), which is defined as called to one’s side, to one’s aid, a helper, aider, assistant; as well as one who pleads another’s cause before a judge, counsel for defense, an advocate.

Jesus is saying the Father will give the disciples another Comforter, which infers they presently have one. Jesus, the Helper, Comforter, Counselor, and Advocate they presently have is going to depart and in His place the Father is sending the Holy Spirit, the “Paraclete.” (The word Paraclete is used in many modern Christian writings in the place of Helper, Comforter, etc.)

What Jesus had been to the disciples, and what the Holy Spirit was going to be to them, were very similar.
Both “come forth”/“are sent” from the Father into the world.

Jesus: I have come in My Father’s name … I came from the Father … For this purpose I have come into the world—to bear witness to the truth.[20]

Holy Spirit: The Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name … When the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father … When the Spirit of Truth comes …[21]
Both are called “Holy” and are characterized by “the truth.”

Jesus: We [Jesus’ disciples] have believed, and have come to know, that You [Jesus] are the Holy One of God ...[22]

Holy Spirit: The Helper, the Holy Spirit …[23]

Jesus: I am the way, and the truth, and the life.[24]

Holy Spirit:He will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of Truth …[25]
Both teach.

Jesus: You call Me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am.[26]

Holy Spirit: The Holy Spirit … will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance ...[27]
Jesus bears witness of God and reveals things about Himself and the Father. The Holy Spirit bears witness of and reveals God the Son.

Jesus: No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, He has made Him known … For He whom God has sent utters the words of God.[28]

Holy Spirit: The Spirit of Truth, who proceeds from the Father, He will bear witness about Me: When the Spirit of Truth comes … He will glorify Me, for He will take what is Mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is Mine; therefore I said that He will take what is Mine and declare it to you.[29]
Jesus came to convince and to convict the world, though many did not receive Him, as is also the case with the Holy Spirit.[30]

Jesus: He came to His own, and His own people did not receive Him. But to all who did receive Him, who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God …[31]

Holy Spirit: I will send Him [the Holy Spirit] to you. And when He comes, He will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment: concerning sin, because they do not believe in Me; concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father, and you will see Me no longer; concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged. … The Spirit of Truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him. You know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you.[32]

While Jesus was Helper and Comforter to the disciples, as well as teacher and truth-teller, and a witness, He said that after He departed He and the Father would send another Comforter who would do these things as well. This Comforter would mightily anoint the disciples in their mission. That was exactly what happened, as we’ll see in the next article.



[1] It shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions. Even on the male and female servants in those days I will pour out My Spirit (Joel 2:28–29).


[2] Joel B. Green, Scot McKnight, Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1992), 342.


[3] Isaiah 11:1–2.


[4] Isaiah 42:1,4.


[5] Isaiah 61:1–3.


[6] Matthew 3:13–17, Mark 1:9–11.


[7] Luke 3:21–22.


[8] John 1:32–34.


[9] John 3:34–35.


[10] Luke 4:1–2 NKJV/ESV.


[11] Luke 4:14–15.


[12] Luke 4:17–21.


[13] Acts 10:37–39.


[14] Luke 24:49.


[15] Acts 1:4–5.


[16] John 16:7.


[17] Acts 2:33.


[18] John 7:37–39.


[19] John 14:16.


[20] John 5:43, 16:28, 18:37.


[21] John 14:26, 15:26, 16:13.


[22] John 6:69.


[23] John 14:26.


[24] John 14:6.


[25] John 14:16–17.


[26] John 13:13.


[27] John 14:26.


[28] John 1:18, 3:34.


[29] John 15:26, 16:13–15.


[30] Points 1–5 are from Joel B. Green, Scot McKnight, Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1992), 349.


[31] John 1:11–12.


[32] John 16:7–11, John 14:17.



Copyright © 2013 The Family International.

Read More

Contagem Regressiva para o Armagedom

Read More

Depois do Armagedom

Read More

George Washington's Productivity Tricks

By Thorin Klosowski, Lifehacker, April 29, 2013
In order to become a famous inventor, president, scientist, or just about anything else with a semblance of importance, you have to know how to get things done. With that in mind, we know that we can learn a lot about productivity and leadership from these types, so we figured we’d look into exactly how they do it, starting with President George Washington.

George Washington was the quintessential jack of all trades. He not only led the United States in the Revolutionary War, he was also our first president. It takes some serious management and leadership skills to get that much done, so here are three of our favorite tips we’ve gleaned from him.

Maximize Your Strengths and Listen to Everyone. It’s no secret that America was the weaker side in the Revolutionary War. Washington’s troops were outnumbered by the British in both manpower and firepower, but somehow the then commander-in-chief George Washington found a way to win the war.

Author David Hackett Fisher looked at the turning points of the Revolutionary War in his book Washington’s Crossing. The key takeaway, and the thing we all learned in elementary school, is that George Washington decided to use guerilla tactics instead of facing the British head-on as was the custom at the time. This wasn’t just a decision that came overnight of course. Washington and his generals had to look at the strengths of the American army and figure out how to maximize them, even if that meant breaking long-standing rules of war.

While most of us know that the Revolutionary War was won with tactics, it was also because Washington was willing to listen to anyone regardless of rank. Fisher explains how Washington differed from the British in the way he made decisions before the Battle of Trenton:

That night British and American councils of war made different decisions—and also made them differently. Again [officer] Cornwallis imposed his plan from the top down, against the judgement of able inferiors, and prepared to attack in the morning. Washington in his council of war welcomed the judgements of others and presided over an open process of discovery and decision that yielded yet another opportunity. in the night, Washington disengaged his forces from an enemy only a few yards away, and an exhausted American army found the will and strength to make another night march toward the British base at Princeton.

We’re all aware that ideas can come from anywhere, and sometimes beginners can come up with better ideas than experienced people. Washington knew that too, and when taking on an enemy that was far bigger than him, he looked to anyone—regardless of age or rank—for ideas.

Create a Set of Rules for Yourself. It might seem silly to think you need to write out a list of rules to live by, but that’s exactly what George Washington did when he copied down and adapted The Rules of Civility and Decent Behavior in Company and Conversation. While most of these rules are about etiquette and are a bit outdated now, NPR points out that the exercise is still interesting. Much like Benjamin Franklin’s 13 virtues, Washington’s purpose was to outline how he wanted to live his life. Unlike Franklin, some of Washington’s rules are pretty goofy, like “Put not off your clothes in the presence of others, nor go out of your chamber half dressed,” but that doesn’t me he doesn’t include a few gems:

14. Turn not your back to others, especially in speaking; jog not the table or desk on which another reads or writes; lean not upon anyone.

18. Read no letter, books, or papers in company, but when there is a necessity for the doing of it, you must ask leave; come not near the books or writings of another so as to read them unless desired, or give your opinion of them unasked. Also look not nigh when another is writing a letter.

35. Let your discourse with men of business be short and comprehensive.

73. Think before you speak, pronounce not imperfectly, nor bring out your words too hastily, but orderly and distinctly.

Washington’s idea here is essentially a to-do list for life. You certainly don’t need to make a list of 110 things, but if you want to solidify something in your head—whether it’s a healthy habit or a behavior change—listing them out as a sort of “personal guide to living” is certainly one way to go about it.

Be Punctual and Stick to a Schedule. We’ve talked a bit about the importance of being punctual and how sometimes a rigid schedule can help you be more productive and defeat distractions. George Washington took this advice to the extreme. The Art of Manliness shares a few examples of just how important promptness and punctuality were to the president:

When he told Congress that he’d meet with them at noon, he could almost always be found striding into the chamber just as the clock was striking twelve.

Washington’s promptness extended to his mealtimes as well. He ate dinner each day at exactly 4 o’clock, and when he invited members of Congress to dine with him, and they arrived late, they were often surprised to find the president halfway done with his meal or even pushing back from the table. To his startled, tardy guest he would say, “We are punctual here. My cook never asks whether the company has arrived, but whether the hour has come.”

And when Washington’s secretary arrived late to a meeting, and blamed his watch for his tardiness, Washington quietly replied, “Then you must get another watch, or I another secretary.”

Whether it’s a deadline or a meeting, being on time is important for jobs and personal relationships.

Washington wasn’t perfect, and had his fair share of vices and failures. That said, Washington certainly did things differently than most, and he had to work in an environment that didn’t have a lot resources to accomplish a lot.

Read More

Consciousness After Death: Strange Tales From the Frontiers of Resuscitation Medicine

By Brandon Keim, Wired, April 24, 2013
Sam Parnia practices resuscitation medicine. In other words, he helps bring people back from the dead—and some return with stories. Their tales could help save lives, and even challenge traditional scientific ideas about the nature of consciousness.

“The evidence we have so far is that human consciousness does not become annihilated,” said Parnia, a doctor at Stony Brook University Hospital and director of the school’s resuscitation research program. “It continues for a few hours after death, albeit in a hibernated state we cannot see from the outside.”

Resuscitation medicine grew out of the mid-twentieth century discovery of CPR, the medical procedure by which hearts that have stopped beating are revived. Originally effective for a few minutes after cardiac arrest, advances in CPR have pushed that time to a half-hour or more.

New techniques promise to even further extend the boundary between life and death. At the same time, experiences reported by resuscitated people sometimes defy what’s thought to be possible. They claim to have seen and heard things, though activity in their brains appears to have stopped.

It sounds supernatural, and if their memories are accurate and their brains really have stopped, it’s neurologically inexplicable, at least with what’s now known. Parnia, leader of the Human Consciousness Project’s AWARE study, which documents after-death experiences in 25 hospitals across North America and Europe, is studying the phenomenon scientifically.

Parnia discusses his work in the new book Erasing Death: The Science That Is Rewriting the Boundaries Between Life and Death. Wired talked to Parnia about resuscitation and the nature of consciousness.

Wired: In the book you say that death is not a moment in time, but a process. What do you mean by that?

Sam Parnia: There’s a point used to define death: Your heart stops beating, your brain shuts down. The moment of cardiac arrest. Until fifty years ago, when CPR was developed, when you reached this point, you couldn’t come back. That led to the perception that death is completely irreversible.

But if I were to die this instant, the cells inside my body wouldn’t have died yet. It takes time for cells to die after they’re deprived of oxygen. It doesn’t happen instantly. We have a longer period of time than people perceive. We know now that when you become a corpse, when the doctor declares you dead, there’s still a possibility, from a biological and medical perspective, of death being reversed.

Of course, if someone dies and you leave them alone long enough, the cells become damaged. There’s going to be a time when you can’t bring them back. But nobody knows exactly when that moment is. It might not just be in tens of minutes, but in over an hour. Death is really a process.

Wired: How can people be brought back from death?

Parnia: Death is, essentially, the same as a stroke, and that’s especially true for the brain. A stroke is some process that stops blood flow from getting into the brain. Whether it’s because the heart stopped pumping, or there was a clot that stopped blood flow, the cells don’t care.

Brain cells can be viable for up to eight hours after blood flow stops. If doctors can learn to manipulate processes going on in cells, and slow down the rate at which cells die, we could go back and fix the problem that caused a person to die, then re-start the heart and bring them back. In a sense, death could become reversible for conditions for which treatments become available.

Wired: Are you talking about bringing people to life days or weeks or even years after they’ve died?

Parnia: No. This is not cryogenics. When you die, most of your cell death occurs through apoptosis, or programmed cell death. If your body is cold, the chemical reactions underlying apoptosis are slower. Making the body cold slows the rate at which cells decay. But we’re talking about chilling, not freezing. The process of freezing will damage cells.

Wired: You also study near-death experiences, but you have a different term for it: After-death experience.

Parnia: I decided that we should study what people have experienced when they’ve gone beyond cardiac arrest. I found that 10 percent of patients who survived cardiac arrests report these incredible accounts of seeing things.

When I looked at the cardiac arrest literature, it became clear that it’s after the heart stops and blood flow into the brain ceases. There’s no blood flow into the brain, no activity, about 10 seconds after the heart stops. When doctors start to do CPR, they still can’t get enough blood into the brain. It remains flatlined. That’s the physiology of people who’ve died or are receiving CPR.

Not just my study, but four others, all demonstrated the same thing: People have memories and recollections. Combined with anecdotal reports from all over the world, from people who see things accurately and remember them, it suggests this needs to be studied in more detail.

Wired: One of the first after-death accounts in your book involves Joe Tiralosi, who was resuscitated 40 minutes after his heart stopped. Can you tell me more about him?

Parnia: I wasn’t involved in his care when he arrived at the hospital, but I know his doctors well. We’d been working with the emergency room to make sure they knew the importance of starting to cool people down. When Tiralosi arrived, they cooled him, which helped preserve his brain cells. They found vessels blocked in his heart. That’s now treatable. By doing CPR and cooling him down, the doctors managed to fix him and ensure that he didn’t have brain damage.

When Tiralosi woke up, he told nurses that he had a profound experience and wanted to talk about it. That’s how we met. He told me that he felt incredibly peaceful, and saw this perfect being, full of love and compassion. This is not uncommon.

Parnia: At the very least, it tells us that there’s this unique experience that humans have when they go through death. It’s universal. It’s described by children as young as three. And it tells us that we should not be afraid of death.

Wired: How do we know after-death experiences happen when people think they do? Maybe people misremember thoughts from just before death, or just after regaining consciousness.

Parnia: That’s a very important question. Do these memories occur when a person is truly flatlined and had no brain activity, as science suggests? Or when they’re beginning to wake up, but are still unconscious?

The point that goes against the experiences happening afterwards, or before the brain shut down, is that many people describe very specific details of what happened to them during cardiac arrest. They describe conversations people had, clothes people wore, events that went on 10 or 20 minutes into resuscitation. That is not compatible with brain activity.

It may be that some people receive better-quality resuscitation, and that—though there’s no evidence to support it—they did have brain activity. Or it could indicate that human consciousness, the psyche, the soul, the self, continued to function.

Wired: Couldn’t the experiences just reflect some extremely subtle type of brain activity?

Parnia: When you die, there’s no blood flow going into your brain. If it goes below a certain level, you can’t have electrical activity. It takes a lot of imagination to think there’s somehow a hidden area of your brain that comes into action when everything else isn’t working.

These observations raise a question about our current concept of how brain and mind interact. The historical idea is that electrochemical processes in the brain lead to consciousness. That may no longer be correct, because we can demonstrate that those processes don’t go on after death.

Wired: This seems to verge on supernatural explanations of consciousness.

Parnia: Throughout history, we try to explain things the best we can with the tools of science. But most open-minded and objective scientists recognize that we have limitations. Just because something is inexplicable with our current science doesn’t make it superstitious or wrong. When people discovered electromagnetism, forces that couldn’t then be seen or measured, a lot of scientists made fun of it.

Read More

Daily Rituals

By Mason Currey, Slate, April 25, 2013
In 1885, Pyotr Ilich Tchaikovsky rented a cottage in a small village some 50 miles northwest of Moscow. After years of restless wandering through Europe, the 45-year-old composer found his new living arrangement a wonderful relief. “What a joy to be in my own home!” he wrote to his patroness. “What a bliss to know that no one will come to interfere with my work, my reading, my walks.”

Those walks were especially important. Before sitting down to work in the morning, Tchaikovsky took a short stroll, lasting no more than 45 minutes. Then, after lunch, regardless of the weather, he went out again. Tchaikovsky’s brother later wrote, “Somewhere at sometime he had discovered that a man needs a two-hour walk for his health, and his observance of this rule was pedantic and superstitious, as though if he returned five minutes early he would fall ill, and unbelievable misfortunes of some sort would ensue.”

Tchaikovsky’s superstition may have been justified—his walks were essential to his creativity, and he often stopped to jot down ideas that he would develop later at the piano. But then this is true of the majority of the composers in my Daily Rituals book—most of them required a long (and sometimes very long) daily walk to keep the ideas flowing.

Beethoven went for a vigorous walk after lunch, and he always carried a pencil and a couple of sheets of paper in his pocket, to record chance musical thoughts. Gustav Mahler followed much the same routine—he would take a three- or four-hour walk after lunch, stopping to jot down ideas in his notebook. Benjamin Britten said that his afternoon walks were “where I plan out what I’m going to write in the next period at my desk.” Working outside of Paris in 1971, Morton Feldman described his routine: “I get up at six in the morning. I compose until eleven, then my day is over. I go out, I walk, tirelessly, for hours.”

But the most extreme example is the French composer Erik Satie, who each morning would walk from his home in a Paris suburb to the city’s Montmartre district, a distance of about 6 miles. There he would visit friends, work on his compositions in cafés, eat dinner, and go out drinking—often missing the last train home, in which case he would walk back again, slipping into bed just before sunrise (and then getting up and walking back a few hours later).

Of course, it is not just composers who take long walks. Søren Kierkegaard had his best ideas during his daily walks, and sometimes he would be in such a hurry to get them down that, returning home, he would write standing up before his desk, still wearing his hat and gripping his walking stick or umbrella. Immanuel Kant took a walk every afternoon at precisely 3:30. Milton walked up and down his garden most afternoons, for three or four hours. And, according to one biographer, “If it rained, he would swing himself to and fro in a seat suspended from the ceiling, pulling on a rope.”

Most artists prefer a solitary walk, but I ran across some figures who enjoyed company. Mahler liked to drag his wife along on his afternoon hikes. Ludwig Wittgenstein would ask a close associate to accompany him on his walks. “A walk with Wittgenstein was very exhausting,” wrote Norman Malcolm, in a memoir of his friendship with the philosopher:

“Whatever we talked about, he turned his mind to it with great seriousness and intensity, and it was a formidable strain on me to keep up with his thoughts. He would walk in spurts, sometimes coming to a stop while he made some emphatic remark and looking into my eyes with his piercing gaze. Then he would walk rapidly for a few yards, then slow down, then speed up or come to a halt, and so on. And this uncertain ambulation was conjoined with the most exacting conversation!”

Whew! I could go on, but you get the idea: If you’re trying to generate creative work, you should really consider taking a daily walk—and maybe look into rigging up an indoor rope swing, too.

Read More

Kids From Local Institution Enjoy May Day Fair!

Fair in Barcelos, Portugal from Dennis Molinski

Here is a power point with the activity we did with the children/teens from a local institution! It´s not difficult to arrange.

We first approached the owner's of the rides and asked if they would be willing to offer free rides for the children from the institution. We also approached some of the food stands and found two owners who were willing to donate refreshment for the 19 children. Finally, after organizing when would be the best night to come, which was when the fair would not be too busy, we arranged with the institution to go at the time.

This was the fourth activity of this type we have done for the local institution, who do not have the time to devote personel to arrange such extra activities themselves. It's fun for the kids and rewarding for us and for those who help. We offered a newletter from the association http://www.and-pt.org/  for each owner and an Activated magezine http://www.activatedministries.org/activated, and made sure the children thanked them afterwards!

At the end, some of the other owners were asking us to come on their rides, but we did not have enough time as the children had school the next day. Other owners told us to come back some other day for another go. People enjoy helping when they see it is going for the proposed end! Also, it is a lot easier to offer services than money. We are all in need of money, but most people are willing to donate a service if it does not involve them losing too much time and goods which do translate into money!

Try it. You may be able to brighten up the life of some needy child and in the same time find more purpose in your own!

Read More