It goes like this. . . you walk into your Doctor’s office. You tell him or her about an intermittent problem you are having. Just like getting the brakes looked at over at the mechanic’s shop, this particular day you are not suffering the problem, but you needed an appointment, so this was the day of the appointment. The doctor looks at you and says, “You like fine to me, come back when symptoms are present.” The next time symptoms are present however, your Doctor’s office is closed. Perhaps a walk-in Doctor might be of more help because the symptoms are happening and you were told to return when the symptoms showed up. You spend several hours at the walk-in, finally see a doctor, tell them your symptoms, they give you a sheet of paper for some tests and send you out the door. You dutifully complete the tests, but weeks go by with no phone call. You call your Doctor’s office and are told they only phone if a problem shows up in the tests.
Is your intermittent problem really all in your head? Are you imagining this? In today’s medical landscape, chances are you are NOT imagining the problem, but you didn’t check off all the boxes in any particular malady, so you were sent home as not having the problem you are experiencing symptoms over. Things get worse if you are on basic BC Medical, because Doctor’s can’t recommend courses of action only covered under extended medical benefits. You are told to go to Emergency if symptoms appear again because they are setup with the tools to get to the bottom of it.
Hmmm. . . There’s a problem here, and it’s hitting more and more people, particularly those who don’t have a family doctor anymore. More and more people are tired of being sent home with problems they know they have and some have almost died thanks to such mainstream medical behaviour. The average Joe is starting to take matters into their own hands and cross the street to the alternative health care options there. While alternative healthcare is indeed helpful, it has it’s own pitfalls, most notably cost. Many of the people being brushed off by mainstream medical sources, can’t afford the typical cost of a naturopathic visit, let alone the remedies found at the natural healthfood store. For these people, researching their own problem may or may not sound like a credible course of action. Those who do get brave and start doing their own research either get bogged down by all the terms suddenly coming at them, overwhelmed by the range of sources thrown at them, or develop a fascination with the knowledge they are gaining and they begin to empower not just themselves to take positive action for their health, but share it with others too. (how’s that for a run-on sentence?) This third group goes on to offend mainstream medical personnel because they had the gall to educate themselves on their condition and find workable solutions that led them to ask more questions. Mainstream medical is not interested in patient self-education and sees it as having no benefit to the patient, but instead causing more trouble.
These reasons and others taking place within my own family as we speak, are why I have chosen to become a Natural Health Practitioner. This Diploma program available from New Eden School of Natural Health and Herbal Studies, will give me a Biblically-based holistic natural health education that will position me to assist others in taking back control of their and their families’ health. My focus will be on herbal and whole food nutrition with a background in historical use of food and herbs and medicine, including Scriptural background on the subject as well. Don’t worry, I won’t expect you to go vegan and claim Scripture supports that eating style! There is plenty in God’s Word to support omnivorous eating habits. See the list of Scriptures I shared over at Webtalk for awhile and this blog article.
One of the things I love to do, is teach others how to do things. I love seeing the lightbulb go on in their minds when they discover they’ve just learned some new task or skill. My love of history has been passed to my daughter who shares in the fascnation with historical use of herbs and whole foods as medicine. While most medicines through the centuries have been derived from plants and minerals, it is amazing just how far back in history the concept of self-management of one’s health fell out of favour. Just as far back into history, one finds the basis and materials used for most medications becoming somehow divorced from the medications themselves, and those who harvested to create such medications seen as being on the fringes of society. Interestingly enough, this mental separation between one’s medicines and the plants they were derived from, is shown throughout history as occurring among those wealthy enough to afford a doctor. By the time the witch hunts began, the idea of harvesting your own herbs and sharing your concoctions with friends was somehow the realm of those involved in the dark arts. Even a book written in the US called The Farmer’s Own, contains repeated nods to chants, mantras, rites and rituals that make the common person raise an eyebrow thinking, “That was expected to work???”
To this day, there are many who feel you can’t be involved in holistic medicine unless you espouse Shamanistic ways of various tribal religious practices associated with herbs and healing from around the world. These range from ancient oriental teachings to East Indian mantras to aboriginal medicine men to African medicine men and everyone else in between. What amazes me is the lack of solid Christian teaching in this area, at least here in Canada. Christians, who know Creator personally, who believe Creator created all things for our use for food, medicine, shelter, and transportation, and who knows how the human body, soul and spirit work better than any other imagined diety out there, seem to shy away from offering whole-person healing and maintenance.
There is no reason, financial or otherwise, why the plants and animals God gave us for food and healing, can’t be returned to once again. Historically, my mention above about the wealthy and their mental divorcing of plants from medicine, has now come full circle. This separation of plants from medicine is now as widespread as the concept of getting your beef from the grocery store, not the local farmer’s butcher. People have forgotten where their food comes from and where their medicine comes from. First world society has a general level of wealth available to make even someone on low-income default to the local grocery store rather than head outside into the back yard. As economies get worse, it will become increasingly necessary to teach people how to forage again. It is already necessary to teach people how to use their food as medicine because many can’t afford the prescriptions their doctor’s give them. We are starting to arrive at that point where foraging will cease to be a fascination of hippy-type folk who have money to spend on all the hiking and off-grid materials they could ask for, and shift toward those who can barely afford to reach the trails, let alone buy food or medicine at the grocery store.
The medical divide is already present in Canada on the “see your Doctor” level. People don’t lose their smarts just because they can’t afford the doctor’s recommendations. It is time for medical professionals to do as doctors used to do in centuries past, and write down recipes for making medicines in one’s own home with one’s own kitchen paraphenalia. Bloggers are already doing this. Integrative doctors slowly coming onto the scene are starting to do this as well. This information needs to get out to a much wider audience in ways that many of them have access to. It’s amazing how many people don’t know where to look online for this information, and just how many people don’t want to go online either. The poorest among us in our cities will sometimes make use of library computers, or find wifi zones for their phones, but otherwise rely on word of mouth and what they can hold in their hand. But they are not idiots. The poorest among us are treated just as they were centuries ago, sad to say. But the knowledge of what peasant-folk had for home remedies has either been lost, or chalked up by mainstream medical as so many old-wives’ tales or medicine-man nonsense.
Student Workbook: http://www.amazon.com/dp/1928160077
Three Month Journal: http://amzn.to/1PY95ng
It is my desire to be a source of education on all these topics. For those who need alternative medicine but who can’t afford general going rates, there will be workshops offered on such topics as foraging, researching your issue and learning where to look for answers, food as medicine, making your own medicines, contraindicators to watch out for, etc. I wrote a budgeting course that will be offered to the general public for the hourly fee of $5 per session. Some of the proceeds from that course will subsidize people who need my help, pay for the workshop expenses, etc.
There has always been a medical divide between the haves and the have-nots. Those equipped to engage on their own would shrug it off while others went on to suffer unnecessarily. Today the number of those suffering unnecessarily is growing because dissemination of information is seen as a premium product sold to those who can afford it.
I encourage you, once my NHP Diploma has been paid for, licenses acquired, association dues paid, and I am set up to accept clients, to come see me. Don’t only bring yourself, but bring someone along that you know has been struggling with their health. Let’s start turning the tide on the health picture for today’s poor and “untouchables”.
When I am up and running, you can take part by sponsoring one or more sessions for the less-fortunate. If you run your own business, or you are part of a business that likes to sponsor such things, your business can be featured among the sponsor lists. Such lists may appear in the office, on office material, on social media, etc. Sending you more business is a justifiable thank you for helping someone who would not otherwise get the help they need.
The fundraising goal set here is an estimated amount for the tuition, books, replacement computer, fees and dues. It does not currently cover any office rental or office space set-up. As we get closer to paying for my tution and books, if you are wanting to donate funds to start-up capital, let me know and I’ll adjust the fundraising goals to include that as a next step.
Pass this around to those you know who are concerned with where modern healthcare is taking the average person the street. Share this with those who feel lost medicinal knowledge needs reviving, particularly among those most vulnerable in today’s society. Share with rebels, with do-it-yourselfers and with those who want a more sustainable way to manage their health.
While I don’t agree with this book’s author at all about potatoes or pasta, and I have my own ideas about bread and what has happened to it in more recent times, chapters 21 – 23 of The Glycemic Load Diet are totally down my alley! This doctor spells out the types of fats found in red meat, pork and fish, and reveals that only half the fats found in red meat are saturated. The remainder are split between unsaturated and mono-saturated fats. Pork gets a similar mention in this book, with lower but still substantial nutritional content for potassium, iron and the B vitamins. Fish of course, is everyone’s favourite, particularly for those leaning more toward plant-based diets who still want their meat but believed the current ongoing diatribe against red meat.
Animal rights activists have jumped on the no-meat bandwagon due to various meat farm practices. PETA has been particularly bad spreading misinformation about this, that too many people swallow as fact without doing any fact checking of their own. In Canada for example, most of the apparent animal-raising practices are far more humane than some of the legitimately-proven practices PETA has railed against in the US. Unfortunately, due to the nature of the Internet, most people assume such accusations are aimed at the practices within their own countries, often forgetting that many of these accusations are US-only. If and whenever animal farm abuses have been found in Canada, there has always been swift rebuke, even leading to fines, shutdowns or jail time for those farmers who don’t maintain their farms according to national code. Two situations in recent years involving a pig farm out east and a chicken farm in the Lower Mainland here in BC, actually saw employees walk off the job when abuses came to light. Canadians can be assured that our standards for raising animals for food are much higher than many places around the world. A person simply has to do their own due diligence to see this. Unfortunately, this doesn’t stop people from holding demonstrations outside pig roast and rib-fests. But it sure does make those who take part in such demonstrations look rather foolish and hood-winked.
As with various foods around the world, both wild and in the grocery store, meat is best enjoyed in moderation and not as the key focal point of every meal. Soups, stews, chili’s, tacos, wraps, sandwiches, burgers, steaks, kebobs, etc, not to mention the wide range of pastas, pizzas, pitas and other ways of serving meat often include it with vegetables, rices, potatoes, noodle variations, and breads of many types. The northern European diet was often nicknamed “meat and potatoes”, and for good reason. That description often fit many of the dishes served at mealtimes. If you are of northern European or eastern European descent, chances are high that such a diet will do you more good than someone of Mediterranean, central American, Oriental or Middle Eastern descent. Remember to always consider your heritage when deciding on any sort of dietary change to your daily eating habits. Remember what I said about the accessibility of nutritional elements in the potatoe versus much of the vegetarian fare out there today.
Eating too much of a good thing always has consequences. The Glycemic Load Diet loves to say that sugar itself only has a glycemic index of 28, so this doctor encourages people not to give up their candy, only eat till their body says enough. Unfortunately, today’s culture doesn’t know when “enough” is when it comes to sugar intake. The taste of sugar trips the pleasure centre of the brain long before it trips any glycemic hormones in the small intestine. Too much sugar in our diets is what causes a large number of problems ranging from some position on the diabetic stick to large fat deposits and more. His push for using artificial sweeteners also bothers me, particularly with findings in recent years linking aspertame in any of it’s various forms and names, to breast cancer in both men and women, not to mention it’s so-far largely undocumented (officially that is) propensity to cause numbness in one’s extremities. So cutting out potatoes but encouraging candy and artificial sweeteners doesn’t rank this doctor’s opinions too high on my “to be recommended list”. He is however, ranked higher than those that push a vegetarian/vegan-only food lifestyle.
Some who argue against humans eating meat will try to point to the teeth in the human mouth as being unsuitable to eating meat. I’m not sure when the last time it was that they looked at their own mouths in the mirror, but their incisors and canines are precisely suited to the tearing and shredding action necessary to break up meat. We have shredders in front, and grinders in back (our molars). When you look into the mouth of a herbivore, even the so-called incisors up front have a thicker, broader striking surface intended for the grabbing and grinding of plant matter rather than meat. Any critter that is suited to being an omnivore will have both types of teeth, while critters that only eat meat such as dogs or cats, will have fewer molars and more rippers. Herbivores will have more molars than rippers.
The human gut also contains the necessary enzymes to break down meat and access the nutritional components most easily made available to us through meat, such as iron, zinc, and B12. It should be noted in the Scriptures, that dairy is also a human food, whether from calf or goat. Goat’s milk gets direct reference in Scripture and scientists have found that it’s molecular make up most closely resembles that of human milk. So when a person discovers they can’t digest cow’s milk due to a missing enzyme their body stopped creating, or some other reason, goat’s milk is often a good substitute. The mere fact that enzymes exist in our digestive system to break down meat is proof that when God gave meat to Noah after the flood, He accounted for our needs to process it. This is something that even Christian nutritionists and dietitians overlook. Sin has crept into our bodies since the fall of Adam and Eve, and this means sometimes a person will be born with these necessary enzymes missing. We now have enzyme preparations that can be bought over the counter, or purchased via prescription to aid in such people being able to eat our full God-given range of foods.
Others, thanks to sin again, find themselves allergic to meat and meat byproducts. I am one of those people with regards to poultry. When I was 20 years old and living on my own, I thought one day that I’d under-cooked my chicken roast. I had a nasty reaction and vowed to try again with other chicken pieces the next day. I deliberately overcooked them, only to have the same nasty reaction. My reaction began in my mouth, then went down my throat into my bronchials. This is known as a respiratory reaction and it can be fatal. At first, I thought it was to the meat itself, but in a strange “Russian roulette” sort of way. Sometimes I reacted, sometimes I didn’t, and I had to stay away from mayonnaise, eggs, and anything with those ingredients in them. It would be more than a decade later when I’d discover it wasn’t the eggs, chicken or turkey I was allergic to at all, it was what they were feeding them. I have since learned that I can eat these birds if they are NOT fed any kind of pellet mixture. Grain-fed and pasture fed birds are fine. I can’t trust “free-range” labels because discussions with breeders often reveal that this simply means the birds get exercise every day and are still fed pellets. Hormone-free and antibiotic-free labels still don’t mean I can eat them. There are two labels I can seem to eat now when it comes to eggs, and I am SO glad I can, because I’d come to miss my omelets, scrambled eggs, potatoe salad, etc.
The big issue that animal rights activists should be going after rather than the slaughter of animals for food, is how those animals are fed. Here in Canada, added hormones are banned. More and more fast food places in Canada proudly announce hormone-free and antibiotic-free meat. A&W was doing this before it became cool to do it. It raised their burger prices I remember, but they were the first place in town to make such claims over 15 years ago. Canada’s beef is sought worldwide because of it’s quality. Canadians have far less to worry about with regards to ethical sourcing of their meat. Our biggest issue is actually our fish farms, and those farms DO use antibiotics because fish farms breed viral issues found quite sparingly in the wild. When a fish farm’s fences break and the farm fish escape, there is an understandable panic, both with the release of high levels of these viruses as well as the danger of antibiotic-fed fish breeding with other fish. Add to that concerns over what the Fukushima disaster is doing with Cesium leaks in the Pacific, and Canadians have some valid concerns about our fish supply in stores. I grew up with free fish in the family freezer, so just having to pay for it is always a bit of a shock to the system.
Meat is not the horrible thing many claim it is. As with every other food out there, eat in moderation to get the best benefit.
Reading further through The Glycemic Load Diet, its becoming apparent that this doctor had begun living the Paleo Diet before it became a thing a few years after his book was published. If nuts weren’t so expensive here in Canada, it’s not a terrible diet if you have to cut something out. Certainly safer than Keto or the Atkin’s variants out there, not to mention safer than diet pills and so many of the gadgety/proprietary-food-product heavy diets that also exist.
The issue modern first-world people have is moderation. We live in a society that teaches lavish extravagance at whatever income level you are at. Live poor? Such lavishness is trips to the corner store every week. Live middle class? It’s eating out at least once a week and thinking cookies are a grocery item. Live wealthy? It’s trips to the winery and high-end foodie date nights. When this kind of thinking is considered normal, teaching moderation feels like “dieting”. Moderation doesn’t merely impact what you eat and how often or how much you eat of it. It also impacts your finances in ways that most first-world people never consider.
Finances are a huge problem for many in the first world because of inflation not matching income, but also because of desired lifestyles that the income doesn’t quite support. While it isn’t wrong necessarily, to want a better lifestyle than the one you can afford, learning how to live within your means will free up funds for things that can make life more enjoyable. This includes things such as the relief the bills are all up to date, being able to create and maintain a savings account for retirement, trolling thrift stores for really amazing finds that the corner store trips would have thwarted, being able to afford a little more gas in the car or have spare change for that suddenly-necessary emergency bus pass. But if you are eating your money and don’t even know by how much, that’s wasteful. Moderation and self-control (the ability to tell yourself “No!” and obey) help with diet, weight loss, household finances and more.
Peace of mind, or the lack of it, can affect your body’s health. Stress causes some people to gain weight while it causes others to lose it. Learning to manage stress wisely aids in learning how to moderate one’s spending and eating. While eating may or may not be a cause of weight gain, stress definitely can be. Some people cope by nibbling as their knee-jerk stress reaction. Some end up so stressed out they can’t eat and it’s a chore just to get a few bites down. This has caused me personally to lose weight at times. Others manage to eat normally, neither binge-ing nor starving, but their body’s stress reaction is to gain or lose anyway. This is where I am currently at, with my body gaining without any change to my diet, although at times I am forcing myself to eat. I am not eating anywhere near starvation levels, but it is my body’s current stress reaction. Learning to manage stress helps in all these scenarios.
A third group of people exist for whom money isn’t a problem, nor is stress. They can successfully manage both and could teach you how to do it. Unfortunately, their bodies have health problems that have caused weight gain or loss. Address the problems and address the weight issue as a bonus. Many times, health-related issues can be solved with nutrition, treating food as medicine for a certain period of time. Some foods discovered around our area, when treated as medicine, actually have the same warnings and time-frames of usage as conventional medicine. They can even have side effects that must be noted, and could even interfere with other medications! As a result, using food as medicine isn’t something that should be taken lightly. Understanding what existing medications are doing and why the doctor prescribed them is helpful in putting together nutritional regimens that complement the doctor’s efforts, rather than complicate them.
Wild food, due to some perceptions out there that because it’s wild it must be healthy, must also be treated with the same caution and moderation as anything you’ll buy in the store. Misconceptions abound around the Internet and it takes some research to uncover discrepancies, reasons for those discrepancies, find the solution, and then assess if that solution really does the job or not. Sometimes I’ve found what seemed like a promising plant, but by the time I completed by research, it was good for nothing more than salad inclusion and recreational tea. Other times, I’ve researched a seemingly boring plant only to discover a myriad of uses from the dinner table to the medicine cabinet even to personal hygiene.
God gave us the plants and animals for our food. I’ve shared verses about that over the past couple months on the publicly viewable side of my Webtalk profile that you can scroll through to read. We simply have to buck the advertising machine, buck the media machine, admit that both we and our resources are limited, and learn to live within those limitations to realize a healthier lifestyle. Some people joke that the Paleo Diet is for hunter/gatherers. You can engage with it in the grocery store, but regardless of where you get your food, it cuts out nutrition that may be necessary for someone out there.
Nutrition is not a one-size-fits-all, although many diet pushers try to say that. Diet is only part of the overall health picture. Following something like the Paleo Diet really only helps those for whom the starch group of foods have caused trouble. Not every people group has had the same level of access to starchy foods as they do now. If your ancestral heritage comes from one of those people groups, then you might benefit. If your doctor has said you are suffering gluecose-related problems and to cut out starch from your diet, give it a try. But don’t jump on the bandwagon because it’s the latest fad to shoot across your screen. The gluten-free bandwagon has made that diet far more expensive for those who desparately need it because too many people who don’t need it have driven up the supply and demand curve. I know people personally who struggle to afford what they need to survive, because too many fad adopters got on board when they should have stayed off.
Unfortunately, the doctor who wrote The Glycemic Diet engages in broadstroking as if everyone would benefit from such a diet, not just those battling some form of diabetes. This kind of behaviour encourages bandwagon hoppers because a doctor has done the encouraging. If a doctor promotes it, it must be good right? If a doctor says everyone should do it, then let’s all jump on board! Such thinking couldn’t be more wrong. Almost every diet and diet gadgety-food product out there claims to have one or more doctor endorsements. You can’t be eating every diet out there simply because a doctor said everyone should. That’s foolhardy to put it gently. What your body needs, another may find problematic. The more we realize this for ourselves, the better off many will be.
This article needed a few minor edits now that I have taken my training, so it is now reposted and updated on my coaching blog. The potatoe has far more going for it than most will admit.
As I research who is out there in the world of alternative medicine, nutrition, and holistic concepts, Christians are few and far between. I wrote a blog post some time back wondering why it seemed that to join the holistic world, a Christian had to be mystical. A year later, I am getting ready to start taking the Natural Health Practitioner’s Diploma over at New Eden, (studying online), and the picture is getting a little clearer. (EDIT 2021:Â This ended up not happening till August 2021)
There are two aspects to the world of holistic, natural, and naturopathic healing. One aspect is highly spiritual, and often in ways that do not honour the One True God. The other aspect is highly nutritional, often in ways that leave mainstream medical practitioners offended. This offense has apparently been present down through civilized history, being recorded as far back as just a few hundred years after the fall of Rome. Those that teach foraging, the making of one’s own healing oils, tinctures, ointments, salves, and even just the concept of food as medicine as taught by Hippocrates himself, are considered fringe, out there, or worse. There was a time in history when anyone delving into such things was automatically labelled a witch.
Even today, New Age, Pagan, Wiccan, and apparently hippy mindsets and behaviours permeate a world of eating and treatments that really should be the world of the Christians instead. There are Christians out there who still think chiropractic adjustments are evil, and who look on natural medicine as somehow threatening. Counterfeit behaviours such as aligning energies, mindfulness, yoga, rewriting memories, and other methods known by alternative medicinal practitioners as “modalities” often mimic healthier alternatives found within the pages of Scripture.
Meditation for example, should not be done by emptying one’s mind. That is an invitation for demons to take up residence. No, not the demons that people think they’re fighting when they refer to bad habits, recurring problems, etc, but actual fallen angels. Yoga should be avoided by Christians at all costs, because it is worship to Hindu gods and goddesses. I once read that an Indian guru from somewhere in India was incensed that well over 200 poses had been “stolen” by western yoga gurus. Scripture tells us not to do as the heathen do in the futility of their thinking. Scripture also talks about positions that worship God, ranging from prostration face down on the ground to raising one’s hands to singing, to dancing, to kneeling, to looking toward heaven. Instead of rewriting the memories of what brought us to where we are, we are to bring those memories to God and allow Him to use them to make us into a better person, redeeming them if you will, never wasting an experience but working all things together for our good. When Christians are truly submitted to the Holy Spirit’s efforts in their lives, the idea of getting on the same page to be about His business is done by sending time in His Word and in prayer. When we do this, it is not uncommon to find ourselves “on the same wave length” so to speak, with other Christians near us, and sometimes even half way around the world, being led of God to pray or take action that benefits others also tuned in. When we bring our lives into line with how God wants us to live, we are given the means to carry out what God has called us to do.
The crazy thing about the lack of Christians in the holistic space, is that we have a personal relationship with the God who created every plant and animal on this planet. He created every mineral ever mined, every water reservoir ever found. When God said that His Word is good for training in all righteousness, that means training in right living. If you want to treat the mind, look at what the Holy Spirit has given us for information on how the mind works. Scientists continue to prove Scripture correct as they learn more and more about how the human body and brain works. They continue to prove God correct the more they learn about how the human mind works. But to point this out is often considered sacrilegious to those who worship evolution. But if we believe the dictionary definition of holistic as “body, soul and spirit”, who better to address these three areas in a way that honours God and makes use of His Guidebook, than those who know Him personally?! Christians have dropped the ball on this repeatedly over the centuries.
Both as a Christian and as an author, I began to get mildly intrigued that books have begun popping up over the past 20 years purporting to offer diets from the Scriptures. What seems strange as I read the book blurbs and reviews of these books by others, is the idea that God somehow frowns on the concept of eating meat. I read a blog post just this past week (see timestamp of blog post for context) where someone of a clergy level was telling people this very thing, even as New Testament Scripture warns that anyone commanding to not eat meat is leading you astray. I shook my head.
I’ve decided to do a quick run-through pulling up verses in the KJV (could be others in other translations, I just like the KJV personally) referring to food, meat, and briefly, Passover. The word “meat” in the KJV is used in some places to refer to food from animals, and in others to refer to food in general, whether or not meat is actually present. The term is a catchall referring to what you eat. However, based on today’s push for everyone to go vegetarian or vegan, many of these verses are now quite controversial.Â
I also went through the Scriptures looking for health-related passages. In the KJV that means searching for words such as health, wine, balm, etc.
New Eden’s Natural Health Practitioner Diploma lets me customize half the required credits for graduation, and I intend to include the Biblical nutrition/health track for sure. There is a historical nutrition track, a herbology track, and a few others that I will pull from to round out the program. But it seriously isn’t necessary to bow to false gods to receive alternative medicinal benefit. God’s Word gives us all we need for life and godliness right within it’s pages. The astute student of God’s Word will recognize many references to Scripture that I haven’t specifically pointed out here. But I seriously feel like slightly rewriting that old song, “Why should the devil have all the good music!”. . .
When I was a child, handwriting and where our letters came from, fascinated me. We had WorldBook Children’s Encyclopedias in the house that had certain themes. The one volume on language had a few pages showing the progression from Ancient Phoenician writing to the English lettering, and the progression from Arabic numerals to modern numerical digits. I can still see those pages in my head when the memory comes back to me. In my tween years, I found a book of symbols and what they meant. This was a really large, thick book at the local public library that I hauled home and studied for quite some time. It would be at that time, that I learned the commonly-seen peace symbol with the upside down broken cross, was used by witches and satanists as a curse symbol. Ever after reading this little tidbit, any time I’ve seen this symbol used for peace, I have cringed. I also learned via this book of symbols that the two-finger peace sign is actually representative in satanism as the symbol for the satanic head god. The folded hand is the goat’s head with the two fingers as the two horns. Again, ever since discovering this tidbit, any time I see Christians using this symbol, or putting it over other people’s heads, I cringe.
Fast-forward a number of years. I now have my own daughter who loves all things historical and etymological. We end up in some great, fascinating discussions at times because of her own interest in such things. I’ve had to caution her occasionally on the spiritual nature of some of her findings throughout history, and that those spiritual overtones still hold power today. One of her fascinations is with our family’s Celtic heritage, the history of the northern peoples of Europe, their artwork, their clothing, and of course, their stories, legends, mythos and languages. But while she was working on a yet-to-published novel in the years surrounding high-school graduation, she decided to see if the name of Christ would change in her fictitious language created for the world she’d placed her characters in. To our amazement, this translation of Jesus’ name into this fictitious language had the same effect as when translated into any other known earthly language. In other words, Christ’s name didn’t change, it merely changed spelling. The pronunciation stayed largely intact. Discovering the Wycliffe translation and the resulting dive into Middle English and by extension, Anglo-Saxon, morphed into her latest fascination. She recently decided to do a personal challenge. If God said that the name of Jesus would be the name above all names at which all peoples must bow in heaven and earth, and by which all men must be saved, then would His name translate into an ancient northern European writing system that today we now associate with the dark arts?
*****
It was the time of tribal Europe when each people group gathered around the fires of their own kind, language, and way of life. The Northmen as they called themselves, or the barbaric celts as the Romans knew them, had their own stories, writings, alphabet and numerical system. Writing in those days was done with a chisel and a hammer on pieces of wood, thick leather, metal, stone, etc. Some people wrote in a hurry. Others needed lines or their words went everywhere. Others became artists at the craft and would do up signage for estates, businesses, road markers, grave stones, and more. A young mother wound her way through the worn paths back to her home from shopping in town at the market. There it was again, that crazily-chiseled stone out front of her neighbour’s gate. Why oh why hadn’t they hired the services of her nephew she’d never know. Oh it was an eyesore to behold! She hurried past and on toward her own stone marker that was carved much tidier, neater, and far easier to read, announcing her home as the place where one could get special notes carved to their loved ones featuring flowers or animals and other finely-carved features. She was proud of her family tradition. Upon entering her home, she set down her goods, and put the perishables in the root cellar. She’d have to send her son for more ice from the docks soon.
Her son was the inquisitive type, always asking questions and wanting to learn new things. Strange people calling themselves missionaries from the Asian peninsula had come through the village recently. She’d gone to their meetings and accepted Yeshua as her Lord and Saviour. This had her now at odds with the local tribal leaders because she would no longer show up at their celebrations, but instead stay home to have celebrations of her own. Her husband too accepted Yeshua, but this was all so new, they hadn’t yet figured out how to tell their son.
This day however, her son came running in from the garden, excitedly yelling at the top of his lungs, “Mom! I heard someone say there are people spreading strange stories again! They say YOU are helping tell those stories! They say you could be in trouble Mom! Are you safe? Shall I chase them with my axe?”
The young mother laughed at her son’s desire to protect her. She went over to a small pile of wood bits left over from her husband’s latest carvings. She picked up a piece large enough for what she was about to do. Laid it on the stone table, and waved at her son to grab the chisel off the block. He frowned, but obediently grabbed the chisel and hammer and brought them over. “Sit down my son, and let me tell you a story indeed!”.
Her son pulled the stool out, sat down and watched as his mother began to chisel the wood.
“You see son, many years ago a great king left his estate of the sun and came down to earth. His light was brighter than ours, but his torch was much more humble than the sun’s rays. He taught how to find true Joy in His strength, that though one’s faith might be as small as a mustard seed, it could grow to become a mighty oak tree.” She lifted her chisel and moved it to begin a new line of letters on the wood.
This once great king had come to earth to rescue His people, and as we say around here my son, he had to drink from a cruel cup. The cup of wrath would not be moved from him and he died. While in the otherworld, this great king rode to the abode of death and hela, snatching their keys, and like the slippery nature of an eel, he slipped out of their grasp, returning to the tomb and the body he’d left behind. An angel rolled the stone away from the tomb and the great king walked out. 40 days later, he ascended into heaven to be at the right hand of God the Father. This great king is none other than God the Son, called Yeshua Christos.”
The son looked in amazement at the two words his mother had just chiselled out. Taking the board, he ran to his room, vowing to never let it out of his sight. Mother risked dieing a martyr’s death in their village, but he would carry her message on to future generations.
*****
The language this mother wrote in, was none other than Anglo-Saxon Futhork Runes. Ancient Runes had two main dialects: The Futharc of the Norse folk, and the Futhork of the Anglo-Saxons. Today, we generally associate the concept of runes with magic or the dark arts. However, these languages were not merely used for dark arts, but according to various historical sources, used in general day-to-day life as well. Just as English words and letters can be used for good or evil, so the runes were also used for good or evil. Let’s look at the letters the young mother in my story above actually carved out:
It should be noted that the following pronunciation guide is also the names of the rune letters themselves, very much like how we in Canada say “Zed” to not only name the last letter of the English alphabet, but also to denote how to say that letter in a word. We want the zzz sound for that letter. Zed therefore, is both a name, and a pronunciation guide all in one and is never confused with pronouncing C “see”, because we can’t slur the word Zed very well into a fuzzy “s” sound.
Oak – pronounced “a” or more closely “ao” or “aw”. Sounds in Anglo-Saxon were often written as close to the desired sound as possible such as here.
Calc/Chalice – pronounced as a somewhat hard “c” although in other words, it could also be the “ch” sound. Anglo-Saxon had no individual letter for “C” or “H”.
Ethel/Estate – pronounced “eh”.
Ior/Eel – pronounced “ee”.
Os/god – pronounced “ah/aw”.
Ride – pronounced “rrrr”.
Sun – pronounced “s”
Cen/torch – pronounced with a soft “ch” sound.
Together, sun and cen runes are pronounced with a softer “sh” sound.
Stein/stone – pronounced “st”. Anglo-Saxon had a character specifically for the “st” sound, not separate runes for the “s” and “t”.
Wynn/Joy – pronounced as a “w” sound.
Year – pronounced as the hard consonant “y” sound.
*** This is only a partial list of the full runic alphabet as given by Omniglot.com.
If we take all the runes above, and re-arrange them, using the Hebrew and Greek words for Jesus Christ, we suddenly become aware of the fact that the Futhorc Rune spelling of Christ’s name, is the Gospel in a nutshell! Take a look at the following graphics.
From this arrangement of runes,we have the following letter names:
Year, Estate, Sun, Torch, Joy, Oak, Chalice, Ride, Eel, Stone, God, Sun. Together they spell “Yeshua Christos”. Now to back and re-read the fictional story I wrote above about the young mother and her son. Could this particular use of the written language of that time, indeed have been used to tell the story of Jesus in this way? It certainly lends itself to the idea.
Yes, truly, the name that is above all names, trumps even alphabets that today are relegated to the dark arts. Christ is King, even there.
EDIT December 17, 2024
Potentially 2 to 300 years before my fictional tale where the name of Christ still reigns supreme is told, (500 to 1000 AD), an amulet recently found in Frankfurt, Germany, shares how Christianity had already spread to northern Europe! You can read about that find and read the inscription here.
Measuring just 1.4 inches (3.5 centimeters) long, the amulet contains a wafer-thin sheet of silver foil that’s rolled up tightly. Archaeologists discovered it in the grave of a man who died between A.D. 230 and 270 and was buried in a cemetery on the outskirts of Frankfurt.Â
end edit
Yes, this blog’s sporadic nature has shone over the past couple years with posts showing up with months in between. This hasn’t been due to writer’s block so much as trying to figure out how to balance hidden health problems with dwindling work I can do from home in a less stressful environment. That pursuit has led to more posts over at my financial blog over the past couple years than here. I have some fledgling earnings going on that I write about over there and it is my prayer that they will grow.
However, in the fall of 2018, a question in a writer’s group spawned an idea in my mind that led to breaking the publishing silence. This person wanted to know if there were any resources they could use to help break writer’s block. In reality, a quick google search will reveal tons of source material for this plague in the writing world. But this person wanted something they could hold in their hand, so I went to Amazon to do a search there. This time I didn’t just look at the total number of available resources, but also checked out reviews here and there of books that appeared to have a following. I found a couple different thoughts being expressed from various angles:
- While some people like themes, others do not. If a writing prompt book was claiming to be varied in its content and a themed showed up partway through, authors weren’t too happy to see it. Others were looking for themes and not happy about the variety instead.
- Writing prompt styles seemed to be gathered together one or two styles per book. If you liked a particular style of prompt, you would buy that book. I saw very few books that incorporated multiple prompt styles.
As I continued doing a quick bit of research, I ran across some prompt styles that I thought would make a great way to encourage writers and authors to think outside the box. This appealed to me because I tend to think outside the box already. I wrapped up my searching with the knowledge that I could do themed writing prompts, stating boldly up front what each book’s theme was, and I would incorporate as many of the writing prompt styles as I’d seen over the years and in this search.
The result is a new line of journals in the Themed Writing Prompt series:
These are great for jump-starting your creative thinking processes! They would also make great resources for creative-writing classes whether in schools or at home. As they are written by a Christian, there are prompts here and there that reference Scripture, or Godly themes or Godly perspectives on a given theme or portion of it.
While my intention is to eventually release them as ebooks as well, featuring only the prompts themselves and not the lined or unlined blank pages, they are currently available in paperback off Amazon via the following paid links:
Christmas |Â Spring |Â New Year | Valentines
While I waited for some of my new proofs to arrive during the month of January 2019, another idea hit me.
New Years is typically a time to set resolutions. We called them “New Years Resolutions”. For many, this is a yearly ritual that often ends in frustration by the time they hit February. This is particularly true for those who set dietary or exercise-related resolutions. A new resolution has begun to work its way into modern society. Bloggers are starting to write more and more about living life “off the grid”. For those who are 40 and older, this isn’t hard to imagine. We weren’t born with a cellphone in our ear or a computer mouse built into our right hand. But for many of the younger generation, a mere power outage can leave them wondering how to keep a store open, let alone count the cash at the end of a shift. Needless to say, another brainwave hit me!
Scratchbooks! In researching this concept, I realized that most people think of scratchpads or notebooks. Scratchpads tend to get used by the artsy folk while notepads tend to get used by everyone else. I don’t know about anyone else, but I tend to use scrap paper quite a bit to scratch down notes when I’m on the phone, or when I need to remember something already. Phone numbers, calculations, doodles in the page corners, you name it! Sometimes, if I was too fast or not feeling well, I will return to my notes later and wonder what on earth I wrote! So to me, that is scratch paper, it holds my written scratches ideally for use at a later time. So why not a whole mini-book of scratch paper? A Scratch Book?!
Let me introduce you to:Â Your Personal Paper Assistant – Scratchbooks 1, 2 and 3.Â
At the bottom of every blank page is a small Scripture verse, or part of a verse related in some way to either God’s creativity or His sovereignty. Between the three scratchbooks you will get a few verses from every book in the Bible.
With people starting to make resolutions to be less dependent on their technology, the days of the personal digital assistant, otherwise known as the PDA that Palm Pilot first made popular, are waning. People want alternatives. So why not an inspirational alternative to the phone in your pocket? At just 4″x 6″ and 90 blank pages for your scribbling pleasure, your personal paper assistant can literally go anywhere you go, except perhaps for water. . . unless you are wearing waders or a dry suit. . . put it in a waterproof ziplock bag with a pencil, and it can even ford the creek with you on your next camping trip. They cost just $5.25 each on Amazon, allowing you to buy as many as you want. Amazon links are:
Yes, those are in reverse order. But hey, does a creative mind always start at the beginning?
It’s possible more books may land in the Scratchbook series, covering other topics of Scripture such as finances or family or something else. We shall see what comes along.
The themed writing prompt series has more books coming, including prompts for Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Thanksgiving, and other themes. These books currently fit into the time frames I have available for any dedicated writing.
If you want to see a given theme explored in Scripture or in writing prompts, drop me a line and I will take a look at it. I won’t promise to do every theme that comes along, but you never know if your theme might get chosen.
If you know people who could benefit from the prompts series or the scratchbook series, feel free to share this blog article with them. Happy writing!
Today I came across a fellow Christian author chastising people for being real online and showcasing their struggles while they claimed to trust God. I am so glad Scripture didn’t follow this admonition! If Scripture was put to screen as is where is, it would be R-rated in how deep the struggle went for various people through the books of the Old Testament and on into the New.
We see Job’s wife telling him to curse God and die. We see Joseph in prison for a while before he’s called before Pharoah to interpret a dream. We see King David being so bold about his struggles that if he were to post a stanza from any number of Psalms one per day, he’d get chastised by this fellow author and others for being faithless or fragile. But when we keep reading his words, we discover with him that God is in his circumstances and can lift him above them. But there’s the key, we keep reading. We don’t cut David off in the middle of his rant, lament, depression or suffering. We wait patiently until we reach the portion of each Psalm when he begins to see God’s presence, hand, and redemption. This man who was called a “Man after God’s Heart”, was quite raw and would not be accepted online today by people who perpetuate the thought that we must always show the world a life lived in victory.
Sometimes like David’s Psalms, we can see the beginning, middle and end of the struggle in a single Psalm. But other times, we see Noah who had to endure ridicule and derision for 100 years before the promise God gave him would be physically seen by others. To my knowledge, no one since then has had to wait that long or struggle through for that long before they finally saw God’s promise come to pass and put all their hecklers to shame. No, in today’s world, struggles may last for hours, days, weeks, months, even years. But as the idea has been expressed before, the learning and growing are in the struggle, the rejoicing is on the mountain top while the growth is in valley. It is on the road of life that we struggle and grow.
The unsaved world has a very unrealistic expectation of Christianity. If you are truly saved you will never sin, never slip up, never get mad, never lose your cool, never struggle, always be healthy and wealthy, never lack anything, and the list goes on. We do the world no favours by agreeing to perpetrate such nonsense!
As we approach Christmas, we must remember that Christ chose to join us in our mess. He chose to join us in our struggle. He experienced sorrow, mourning, anger, frustration, love, loss, betrayal, homelessness, etc. The book of Hebrews tells us that because He joined us in our struggle, He is qualified to be our High Priest because He has gone through it all with us.
Let us not forget that Christ is Emmanuel, God with us! God in the good times, God in the bad times, God in the euphoria and God in the struggle.
The image shows up in fantasy art, superhero depictions, descriptions in books and acted out in movies. Often the depiction involves the sending of interference between good and evil either on behalf of, or against the plans and efforts of an entity, human, organization, etc. What am I talking about?
Before I answer that question, let me share similar descriptions from another side of the fence:
Gen_48:14 And Israel stretched out his right hand, and laid it upon Ephraim’s head, who was the younger, and his left hand upon Manasseh’s head, guiding his hands wittingly; for Manasseh was the firstborn.
Num_27:23 And he laid his hands upon him, and gave him a charge, as the LORD commanded by the hand of Moses.
Luk_4:40 Now when the sun was setting, all they that had any sick with divers diseases brought them unto him; and he laid his hands on every one of them, and healed them.
Luk_13:13 And he laid his hands on her: and immediately she was made straight, and glorified God.
Act_6:6 Whom they set before the apostles: and when they had prayed, they laid their hands on them.
Act_8:17 Then laid they their hands on them, and they received the Holy Ghost.
Act_8:18 And when Simon saw that through laying on of the apostles’ hands the Holy Ghost was given, he offered them money,
Act_13:3 And when they had fasted and prayed, and laid their hands on them, they sent them away.
Act_19:6 And when Paul had laid his hands upon them, the Holy Ghost came on them; and they spake with tongues, and prophesied.
1Ti_4:14 Neglect not the gift that is in thee, which was given thee by prophecy, with the laying on of the hands of the presbytery.
Heb_6:2 Of the doctrine of baptisms, and of laying on of hands, and of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment.
If you look up each of these references and read their context, you will discover something in the way God chooses to do things. From the perspective of the unsaved, as shown in one of the references above in the book of Acts, this particular action can be seen as mystical, powerful, and even perhaps magical.
Exodus 9:33 So Moses went out of the city from Pharaoh, and spread out his hands to the LORD; and the thunder and the hail ceased, and rain no longer poured on the earth.
Exodus 7:19 Then the LORD said to Moses, “Say to Aaron, ‘Take your staff and stretch out your hand over the waters of Egypt, over their rivers, over their streams, and over their pools, and over all their reservoirs of water, that they may become blood; and there will be blood throughout all the land of Egypt, both in vessels of wood and in vessels of stone.'”
Other references in Scripture relate to spreading hands out over fields, mountains, cities, groups of people, and generally in reference to blessing or cursing or seeking such from God over the person or region the hands reach toward.
Deu_4:34 Or hath God assayed to go and take him a nation from the midst of another nation, by temptations, by signs, and by wonders, and by war, and by a mighty hand, and by a stretched out arm, and by great terrors, according to all that the LORD your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes?
Exo_14:16 But lift thou up thy rod, and stretch out thine hand over the sea, and divide it: and the children of Israel shall go on dry ground through the midst of the sea.
Exo_14:26 And the LORD said unto Moses, Stretch out thine hand over the sea, that the waters may come again upon the Egyptians, upon their chariots, and upon their horsemen.
Mar_3:5 And when he had looked round about on them with anger, being grieved for the hardness of their hearts, he saith unto the man, Stretch forth thine hand. And he stretched it out: and his hand was restored whole as the other.
By now, if you haven’t been able to clue into what I am about to say in answer to the question posed at the beginning, let me carry on.
Reaching out with our hands indeed does have spiritual and powerful significance. We reach toward God in surrender, prayer, praise, supplication, requests, need, etc. When we reach out in our need, we are reaching out in faith trusting that God will answer that need just as a child reaches out to their parent or caregiver, trusting that the person being reached out to will meet their need.
When we reach out to another as we pray over them, we allow the Holy Spirit to work through us to the need that person is facing. Just as Moses and Aaron did not actually touch the waters or the sky or the children of Egypt, their obedience to God in stretching out their hands was the signal to God that they were working with Him, granting Him the permission necessary to follow through on His Word against Pharoah. We see God chastising Moses later in the book of Exodus when he struck a rock instead of speaking to it. The power present by the Holy Spirit does not merely come through the action, but through the heart of obedience accompanying the action. This is why Simon the Sorcerer thought he could buy the power he saw in Paul and Silas as they healed various people and cast out demons from others.
When you obey God’s directive to raise your hand or hands toward a person or a situation, there is a power released through the Holy Spirit in your life. Sometimes when I do this, there does indeed seem to be a sensation of something leaving my hand toward the focus of the outreached hand. This sensation gets so strong sometimes that it reminds me of the depictions of the enemy’s attempts to copycat this behaviour – an area of the palm that fills with God’s power and launches toward the person or situation needing His touch. I may be too far away to actually lay hands directly on the person or situation, but I can reach out my hands and trust God to go before me into that person’s life or situation.
As noted, the enemy of our souls has seen this powerful behaviour and sought to counterfeit it, turn it into something magical, mystical, super-power in nature, etc. Now the thing to note here is that he’s not entirely wrong. Remember that to deceive someone, you need a hint of the truth. That hint here is that this power is indeed not within ourselves but is supernatural by nature. It is endowed on us not by some suit of armour or by the wielding of some stick, wand or amulet. Instead, it is endowed on us by the Holy Spirit in answer to us lifting our hands, by answering the question, “What is in your hand?” and offering it to God for His use and purpose. The natural eye sees Moses’ raised stick and does what the court magicians did, grabbing their own sticks. But God will not be shown up by evil. The court magicians’ snakes were eaten by Moses’ snake and when his snake became a rod again, the court magicians were now missing their own walking staffs. It must never be downplayed that the enemy has what we call “lying wonders”. Wonders because he can manipulate created things, lying because they take eyes off God and onto things and cause the observer to worship the created instead of the Creator.
But the power of the Holy Spirit being sent out from one person to another can’t be copied. Fantasy tries to copy it by showing lightening bolts of static energy leaving people’s hands and causing objects to explode, stopping attacks from taking place, splitting rocks, you name it. Superheros are seen throwing their hands out in front of them to send out beams of light to stop attacks, save innocents, rescue captives, break bonds, etc. We see in the verses quoted above, that this power is only available from God Himself and is nothing we can do ourselves. In many fantasy and superhero universes, such power is wielded by demigods, halflings, super-powered exoskeleton suits, etc.
The mere fact that these depictions often include magic or demigod understandings shows again that mankind does not have this power in and of themselves. We rely on another being more powerful than ourselves to affect others and situations beyond our reach. Whether we rely on the demonic world or on the Holy Spirit, is determined by our prior choices regarding our personal status as children of God or children of the devil. Lack of decision to follow Christ is a decision to stay in the realm of satan. Those choices will determine if our actions honour God or not, and if they are detrimental or not to ourselves and those around us. How many novels and movies out there show people making deals to obtain awesome power only to have that power turn on them? It is amazing sometimes that such stories are out there, because indeed, playing with supernatural power at the behest of a being who only wants your demise will be dangerous. Only God has the power to heal, restore, renew, rebuild, rescue, and grant eternal life with Him. Yes God’s power is also destructive, there is the story in the Old Testament where a prophet was asked to curse the nation of Israel as they were about to take the Promised Land. We see Christ cursing a fig tree for not having fruit on its branches. We are told that what we curse on earth is cursed in heaven and what we bless on earth will be blessed in heaven.
As Christians, when we reach our hands out in prayer seeking blessing on others, that’s what God sends. When we reach our hands out in cursing, we better be prepared for the consequences! The Christian who is in tune with the Holy Spirit’s Will, will only call down blessing or cursing as God Himself dictates. As the lady with a long-term bleeding issue touched Christ’s garment hem and He felt virtue flow out of Him, so too do we become conduits for the work of the Holy Spirit in others’ lives. Maybe I’m the only one who occasionally senses it as it leaves the palm of my hand toward whoever or whatever is the focus of my prayer, but the fact remains that God’s power is real, and He uses His people to disseminate it in the lives of others.
Are we superheroes? No. . . not in the worldly sense. Are we warriors? Yes indeed we are as we stand on the spiritual world stage as it intersects with average human life. Are we magicians or sorcerers? NO! No chant, no incantation, no outlined perfect set of words will conjure up the necessary strength or feat of power necessary to interject in another’s life. This is demonic and not part of the Christian way of doing things. There are many books out there that outline lists of do’s and don’ts to get God to answer prayer, reach through you to others, etc and if you just pray this prayer or do that action (such as fasting), then the desired answer, action, result will be yours. Sorry, but as God has said over and over in the Scriptures, He looks on the heart, He judges our motives.
Jas_4:3 Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.
Many of these teachings are self-focussed, getting God to do our bidding, meet our desires, etc. But Scripture teaches that our desires must line up with His desires, that the steps of the righteous are ordered by the Lord, and that our prayers will not be answered if our goal is to squander the answer on our own pleasures. As a result, there are Christians within the Body of Christ who look at others who seem to work in supernatural ways, wondering why they can’t do the same things as those they observe. They get their nose out of joint and figure that either God does not look at them the same way, or they must be doing something wrong, so they turn to these books teaching a very self-focussed, very selfish view of obtaining God’s blessing.
The second reason we are not magicians or sorcerers or superheroes as we understand them in the comic book world, is that God’s efforts on behalf of mankind are always to draw men to Himself. They are never intended to be museum showcases hidden inside church walls to be enjoyed only by the faithful. They are evangelistic tools many times, to show God’s power, not our own, to a world that needs Him desperately. Many in the Church wonder why we don’t see miracles, signs and wonders in the modern church. I need to make a correction to that wonderment by pointing out that these things are still happening in places around the world where God is actively showing His power to those who need Him. Westernized churches act often like God is some sort of court jester doing tricks and showing His power like a caged WWF fighter. But that is not who God is nor how He will allow Himself to be treated. If the modern Western church wants to see God move again in miraculous and awe-inspiring ways, they need to stop being self-focussed, stop being self-centered, and start being more outward focussed again to a world around them that desperately needs Him.
This isn’t to discount the many answers to prayer and displays of God’s power in individual situations where healing is needed, finances turned around, etc, but it does mean that on the greater scale, God is still feeling much as Christ did when we read:
Mark 6:4-6 But Jesus said unto them, A prophet is not without honour, but in his own country, and among his own kin, and in his own house. 5 And he could there do no mighty work, save that he laid his hands upon a few sick folk, and healed them. 6 And he marvelled because of their unbelief. And he went round about the villages, teaching.
The born-again child of God has the power of the Holy Spirit residing within them to do mighty works as demonstrated in the book of Acts. Christ even said we would do greater things than He did because He went to His Father and would send the Holy Spirit. Fantasy and superhero universes try to capture this power, but only God can wield it for the betterment of mankind. The next time you are asked to stretch out your hand to someone in prayer on their behalf, remember that you are a conduit of the Holy Spirit and be humbled that God has chosen to work through you. What is in your hand?
Who knew that going for fewer chemicals and more natural products in a person’s home and life would mean delving into and rubbing shoulders with some very strange spiritual philosophies as well. Just like going to a healthfood store means carefully sifting through hype from fact, with hype often accompanied by some form of either New Age, Pagan, Wiccan or other focus. It seems that delving into a healthier lifestyle free of chemicals means the general Health and wellness craze has those same pitfalls as well.
I still don’t understand why worship to Hindu gods is considered exercise, but there are practitioners, gurus, and even Christians out there who engage in it and think it’s perfectly fine. You can’t find an exercise company out there now that doesn’t promote it in some fashion. Occasionally, a practitioner will admit to what they are doing, but others are seriously blinded to the problems they are both courting and teaching.
Holistic medicine and various iterations of the holistic lifestyle are not wrong in the fact that they understand the whole person is mind, body, soul and spirit. Many stop at the soul part of that phrase, but the fact remains, the unsaved mind does recognize there is a spiritual side to mankind that needs nurturing. But earth worship in all it’s various forms, names, and expressions, along with a number of other false religions that claim to bring one peace of mind, stability, reduced stress, etc., all miss the mark.
I was delving into these spaces because of my desire to have a workshop that exemplifies what I talk about in my tiny 80pg book: Mom’s Little Black Book of Skincare & Makeup. The idea that you can’t seem to go chemical-free without also brushing past almost every religion under the sun is very interesting to say the least.
As a Christian, God’s Word tells me that God gave us the plants and trees as food and medicine. God gave us the animals of the field, birds of the air and fish of the sea as meat for food(Genesis 1:28-30, Genesis 9:3, Revelation 22:2), bones for sewing, sinew for thread, pelts and feathers for clothing and warmth. As a Christian, I do not worship the earth as some form of living entity. It is a created thing and God’s Word tells me not to worship the created, but the Creator. As a Christian, my Bible tells me to subdue the earth and multiply. It tells me to steward the earth and manage it. This means engaging in both plant and animal husbandry.
As my daughter and I have gotten into foraging over the past couple years, we have seen how plants and trees respond to being cared for and harvested out in the wild. For stationery, scientifically-documented sentience that is rather social among themselves and other species, and for a type of creation whose responses you won’t see if you expect the quick responses of birds, animals or people, the plants we harvested have shown appreciation, gratitude, and even perked up that a human wants what they offer. We’ve seen chokecherry trees give us bigger berries just in two years of revisiting them. We are now “friends” with a small thimbleberry bush and it’s been so much happier since we gathered it’s only two or three berries the first time we saw it. We’ve seen whole plots of dandelion, plantain and false solomon’s seal almost vibrate with excitement as they shoot across their root networks that we’re coming. Last summer on one of the few outings we could make due to smoke, this actually made me laugh outloud.
Does this mean we should worship these plants? No! No more so than we should worship each other or the animals in our care. It just means that when we actually engage in what God told us to do, the plants appreciate it just as much as the animals do. Orchards generally have very happy trees because they get harvested and cared for every year. We’ve even learned that due to the benefits various plants have for humans, those plants can generally be found where the plants figure humans will need them most. Plantain and dandelion are both good for cuts and scrapes, bug bites, etc and field guides will tell you to find them near sidewalks, baseball diamonds, etc. Other plants in these field guides will tell you they can be found in “disturbed ground” which is very sanitized language to say, “where people have turned up the ground”.
Is it mystical to see God’s creation respond when treated responsibly? The unsaved mind says it is. The unsaved minds worships such things. While this is misdirected worship, this is where I find myself looking for vendors and speakers for my workshop. It may very well be that hearing a Christian talk about interacting with plants the way one interacts with animals will either weird out some people, or cause others to think this Christian has gone “ethereal” in the mystical definition. (you do have to watch definitions of words in these spaces!)
But from where I sit, no, there is nothing mystical. Scripture says that nature worships God and looks to Him for their sustenance. God created everything good. Only sin has done the corrupting. We can undo some of sin’s corruption in our bodies by being more obedient to God’s command to subdue and steward the earth and re-learn how to use the plants He’s given us for our food and healing.
