The academic requirements for Medical School

"I told the doctor I broke my leg in two places.
He told me to quit going to those places." - Henny Youngman

There is a strange air of mystery around the field of medicine, which is one of the 3 classic fields of study; the others being law and theology.

Here I will dispel some of those myths.

Myth#1 - you have to be a genius to be a doctor. Since my grandmother's former doctor prescribed a medication for her for 40 years, which had a maximum prescription length of 5 years, obviously this isn't the case. Recently, a friend in her forties was told by her doctor that she was pregnant. When she asked him to conduct a urine test to make sure, he berated her with "I have been a doctor for years, and years!" Well, turns out she has a fibroid tumor. One would think that after "years and "years" one might be able to distinguish between a tumor and a human baby. Go figure.

Myth#2 - You have to decide to be a doctor when you are 20. As the Roaming Gnome would say "Pish!". Most medical advancement is made by men and women in their late 40's to their 60's.

Myth#2 - You have to be a straight "A" student to be a doctor. Again, "Pish!" The truth is, it certainly helps to have a high GPA. The average is about 3.0. But a higher science GPA is better than a high overall GPA. For example, my undergrad GPA was 3.35, but my science GPA so far is 4.0. , which is better than having an overall GPA of 3.9, but getting 3.2 in your science courses.

Myth#3 - Medicine is a science. A science is defined as "The observation, identification, description, experimental investigation, and theoretical explanation of phenomena." (American Heritage Dictionary). Much of medicine falls into the theoretical portion, because as organisms, humans are most complex. Each individual is a subset of him or herself. If I develop a vaccine which provides a killed virus, it may react differently in different people, which is why some people have strange side effects to certain drugs while others do not. Medicine is not exact.

Myth#4 - You have to be a science genius before medical school. Does one have to be a theological genius before seminary? or a literary genius before graduate school? Medical school is no different. Medical school in fact, doesn't want people with bizarre preconceptions trying to act as if they know everything already. The basics are all that is needed - a foundation from which to build. To that end, here are the science academic requirements for admission to most medical schools:

1 year of Chemistry (with lab)
1 year of Biology (with lab)
1 year of Physics (with lab)
1 year of Organic Chemistry (with lab)

That's it! By the way, one doesn't even have to have a college degree. Only 90 hours are required (though most people do have a degree)

Myth#5 - only science majors become doctors. Nope. Actually, unless you are not going to practice clinical medicine (you are going to do research) liberal arts degrees are preferred!

If you don't believe me or are generally inclined to ignore God's mercy and be pessimistic, then you may obtain all of this info for yourself by visiting the American Association of Medical Colleges at www.aamc.org.

Happy doctoring!

I got an "A"!

Only God could be so good to me. Well, I suppose my Bio prof had something to do with it. Check out his website at http://www.gideonadjei.com.

So far, I'm on track for a 4.0!

Not bad for a white guy!

Meanderings and musings

"Have you not known? Have you not heard? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?

It is He who sits above the circle of the earth, And its inhabitants are like grasshoppers, Who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, And spreads them out like a tent to dwell in. He brings princes to nothing; He makes the judges of the earth useless." (Isaiah 40:22-23)

"To whom then will you liken Me, Or to whom shall I be equal?" Says the Holy One." (Isaiah 40:25)

Whom indeed. Today, the nation of Iraq experienced its first parlimentary election - in its history. How did this come about? Some in Washington would like to take credit for it. Nearly all who lead media organizations would decry it, but the fact of the matter is that the Bible and this passage in particular tells us that God plainly did it.

God involved in freeing the nation of Iraq? Absolutely. By the way, I am writing here of the God of the Bible; nowhere in the Quran is Allah given to freedom or freeing people from tyranny. Now, I cannot say why God allowed Iraq to suffer under decades of torture and tyranny, just as I cannot suggest why He would allow 100 lac Pakistani's to die in a terrible series of earthquakes. I can say however, that He, in His mercy has freed an oppressed people and He used the United States of America, and her allies to do it. We ought to be humbly proud.

Our world today is filled with both the child-like wonder of Charles Dickens and the fear and loathing of Hunter S. Thompson. We are living in historic times; times which if we are not careful will sweep us away into history and leave our children gasping for their souls. My children learned nothing of this election in school. On the various radio stations I turned to I heard how to decorate a Christmas tree, why persons of African descent should be paid reparations for slavery and why a lawyer should be able to sue for the violation of the rights of illegal immigrants. On only two stations, did I hear anything about the elections; one was Shawn Hannity and the other Michael Savage.

I believe that the import of today's event is lost, in the myopic world of American consumerism, nearly everything except the hawking of the latest product - is. I am as guilty as most of turning a blind eye and a deaf ear to the workings of the world; something that as a Christian, I am woefully ashamed of. After all, it is God's world and I should be particularly interested in what is happening in it.

The myopia of America often causes me to forget that in my lifetime, the greatest threat to world freedom was destroyed (Soviet Communism) and the greatest threat to world survival is being beaten back (Islamic statism). It is God's grace that America has led the way on both of these fronts.

As God sits enthroned in heaven, we must rejoice as He pours out His grace upon our world. We must also entreat Him, asking His favor to stop the violence and brutality of the middle east and Islamic terrorism. Take some time today and thank Him for freeing the people of Iraq and Afghanistan as well as the Soviet Union. Thank Him that you can read this post and thank Him if you live in the U.S. - a nation where one can freely express any opinion, even one full of banality or vitriol. Thank Jesus that you were not born in Kamchatka twenty years ago, when the mention of animosity toward Comrade Andropov might have produced a midnight visitation of a black sedan and an unwanted free trip to a Siberian labor camp.

Thank God that you were not born in Afghanistan 5 years ago, when the Taliban might have cut off your hands for trying to gather some food to feed your starving family. Thank Him that you were not born in Uganda 30 years ago, or as a Tutsi in Rwanda, just a few years ago. Thank Him that you did not live in Germany under Hitler, or Cuba under Castro.

After you have thanked God for this grace, let's remember to ask Him for more for those still suffering - those in Kashmir, Indonesia, India and other places devastated by natural disasters. Pray that the Mullah's of Iran will fall in a bloodless transfer of power and that Syria will learn democracy and put off terrorism. Pray that the Arab brothers of the Palestinian people will take them in and teach them to live for something other than the death of a Jew.

Please take some time today to thank God - you will be glad you did.

Oxidative Phosphorylation, chemiosmosis and God

Oxidative Phosphorylation is part of the final step in a process known as cellular respiration. When one eats something, depending upon what it is (protein, fat or carbohydrate) it is converted into glucose and then encounters this or that and eventually through the process mentioned above is converted into the most important stuff inside your body - ATP. ATP (which is short for Adenosine Triphosphate) is the fuel that all of your cells use to do things. Without ATP you would be dead because none of the 3+ trillion cells in your body would regenerate, or do anything else for that matter. In effect, one eats because one needs to make ATP.

Did you know that your body is electrical? When you run a comb quickly through your hair, the friction causes an electrical current, causing your hair to stand on end. This same affect is going on in all of your cells - all the time.

Outside each of your cells is a membrane, called a plasma membrane. Inside the cell are other objects called organelles which also have membranes. Across these membranes flow hydrogen ions, or more accurately protons. This flow of ions across the membrane creates a "friction" of sorts and generates an electrical current. This current is used by proteins embedded in the membrane to carry out work, such as the making of ATP by the protein complex - ATP Synthase, during a process called chemiosmosis.

Animals use this process and plants do also - in a slightly modified form.

The whole process looks something like this:

Glucose (sugar) + Oxygen = Carbon Dioxide + Water + Energy (ATP)

What on earth does this have to do with God?

Dr. Gerald Schroeder, an MIT Physicist has put together some terrific material about the probability of this type of complexity happening by chance. To quote from Dr. Schroeder,

"Humans and all mammals have some 50,000 genes. That implies we have, as an order of magnitude estimate, some 50,000 proteins. It is estimated that there are some 30 million species of animal life on Earth. If the genomes of all animals produced 50,000 proteins, and no proteins were common among any of the species (a fact we know to be false, but an assumption that makes our calculations favor the random evolutionary assumption), there would be (30 million x 50,000) 1.5 trillion (1.5 x10 to power of 12) proteins in all life. (The actual number is vastly lower). Now let's consider the likelihood of these viable combinations of proteins forming by chance, recalling that, as the events following the Cambrian explosion taught us, not all combinations of proteins are viable.

Proteins are coils of several hundred amino acids. Take a typical protein to be a chain of 300 amino acids. There are 20 commonly occurring amino acids in life. This means that the number of possible combinations of the amino acids in our model protein is 20 to the power of 300 (that is 20 multiplied by itself 300 times) or in the more usual ten-based system of numbers, 10 to the power of 390 ( Ten multipled by itself 390 times or more simply said a one with 390 zeroes after it!!!!!) . Nature has the option of choosing among the possible 10 to the power of 390 proteins, the the 1.5 x (10 to power of 12) proteins of which all viable life is composed. Can this have happened by random mutations of the genome? Not if our understanding of statistics is correct. It would be as if nature reached into a grab bag containing a billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion proteins and pulled out the one that worked and then repeated this trick a million million times.

But this impossibility of randomness producing order is not different from the attempt to produce Shakespeare or any meaningful string of letters more than a few words in length by a random letter generator. Gibberish is always the result. This is simply because the number of meaningless letter combinations vastly exceeds the number of meaningful combinations. With life it was and is lethal gibberish."

Gibberish is indeed lethal in the human genome. Any non-specific cellular activity is in fact, lethal. Even viruses which attack and destroy are cells are specific in the way they go about doing this.

Can order and specificity emerge out of randomness? No. In fact, just the opposite - the universe is decaying or experiencing entropy - disorder, out of the grand order it began with.

Where does this leave us? Well, one can either accept that order cannot occur from disorder and understand that an intelligence must have designed the universe or one can, like Mr. Newdow in California, walk blindly in ignorance and pretend that this intelligence, which we know to be God, does not exist.

I have actually spoken to some persons who desire ignorance. They had hearts and minds which have become so calloused that despite any pleadings to the contrary, they refused to believe the truth. Yet, unbelief does not negate truth. Just because I do not believe in gravity does not mean I will not die if I jump off of the roof of a multi-story building.

Every deliberate action in the universe (and they are all deliberate) has a cause. This cause also creates an effect. There is no randomness in the universe.

The bible tells us that God is a God of order, not chaos. He desires order in our lives as well as the universe around us. He also tells us in the bible that He created us to enjoy this universe and Him as well. But we cannot enjoy either the universe or God if we are tainted with sin, which we all are.

So in order to "untaint" or remove the stain of sin from us, God designed another process - He sent His Son, Jesus Christ to take the punishment for all of us and thereby act as our scapegoat and remove our guilt - if only we will believe.

Have you believed in Jesus? Do you believe in the order He created? Isn't it time you did?

The problem of American Education

In a recent column, Dr. Walter Williams wrote;

"A 1990 Gallup survey for the National Endowment of the Humanities, given to a representative sample of 700 college seniors, found that 25 percent did not know that Columbus landed in the Western Hemisphere before the year 1500, 42 percent could not place the Civil War in the correct half-century, and 31 percent thought Reconstruction came after World War II.

In 1993, a Department of Education survey found that, among college graduates, 50 percent of whites and more than 80 percent of blacks couldn't state in writing the argument made in a newspaper column or use a bus schedule to get on the right bus, 56 percent could not calculate the right tip, 57 percent could not figure out how much change they should get back after putting down $3 to pay for a 60-cent bowl of soup and a $1.95 sandwich, and over 90 percent could not use a calculator to find the cost of carpeting a room. But not to worry. The American Council of Trustees and Alumni's 1999 survey of seniors at the nation's top 55 liberal arts colleges and universities found that 98 percent could identify rap artist Snoop Doggy Dogg and Beavis and Butt-Head, but only 34 percent knew George Washington was the general at the battle of Yorktown."

Why such disastrous results? It is my hypothesis that American Colleges and Universities have become the Soviet Union. In Soviet Russia, perhaps the most sought after commodity was not diamonds or cavier, but "tuletnaya Bumaga" - toilet paper. Pensioners and wives might wait in lines in the bitter cold for 8 hours or more to purchase a single roll costing a days wages. Why would the soviet citizen put up with such nonsense? I asked this question myself and the perfunctory response I received was "potomy chto my dolzhni" (Pardon my transliteration - I never could combine english and cyrillic; my brain thinks in either one or the other - but never both at the same time) which means "because we must". There was no competition in the Soviet form of Communism.

Today I drove the 20 minutes to the campus I attend in order to see an academic counselor. I only need one to sign a simple form allowing me to select a degree program so that I may apply for financial aid. Upon reaching the campus and standing in a brief cue, I was told by the kindly desk attendant - "Oh, they are in a meeting today"; perhaps you could call later and see if they are out."

Clearly there is a problem. The posted hours of counseling are 9:00 - 1:00 on fridays and I was there at 9:00. If the school were a hamburger stand, and I were told the hamburgers were out today, I would boycott the stand, advertise to all I knew my displeasure, and on the basis of the laws of common markets the stand would be doomed and close. So why do I have to put up with such gross inefficiency in academia? Because I must.

As many of you know (this includes the one other person who reads this blog and my schizophrenic partner) I am preparing to go to medical school. The hoops I am encountering are necessary in order to apply. But they dramatically illustrate why our nation is enduring a precipitous decline in the arts, sciences and even hamburger distribution. If I want to attend medical school, I have no choice but to enjoin the services of a local institution of higher learning. There is no competition in the American higher educational system.

Above the cries of "Wait - that's not fair", and "What about the University of Phoenix online?" I must say that anyone who has recently attended college knows that I speak the truth. While online universities are indeed popping up everywhere; many of whom are fully accredited, those who wield academic authority are not seriously thinking of allowing them to supplant the gross bureaocracy found in most schools. When applying for a research position, even in todays "enlightened" world, non-classroom, or online study isn't going to cut it.

Though there was no competition in Soviet Russia, wouldn't the personal pride of the individual bring about a positive work ethic? Unfortunately, comrades Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, Brezhnev and Gorbachov crushed the idea of the individual and so no personal pride was allowed to bloom and grow. In the university today, cronyism, nepotism and reverse upward mobility ensure that individuals with a creative bent are squashed at each turn. As an experiment, visit your local administration office and take a survey of how many family members and friends work there. The labor union movement has nothing on the college administrative fraternity.

What are the options? Well, one can be disgusted as I was for 3 decades and ignore the educational system, choosing instead to earn money and use entrepeneurship to advance myself and my family. But this leaves us with a feeling of inadequacy - education is a God-ordered gift,

2 Timothy 2:15 tell us to "Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth"and in Acts 24, Festus (not the one on Gunsmoke) told St. Paul, 'Too much learning has made you mad!" to which he replied " I am not mad, most noble Festus; but speak forth the words of truth and soberness." Paul was a very learned man - having studied at the highest level of Jewish thought under Israel's greates teacher - Gamaliel. God wants us to be educated. Education is also a gift of mankind - no other creature in the world can learn as we can. A dog can learn to sit but it cannot learn the various muscular contractions necessary for this to occur, or the amino-acid sequences which provide its impuse.

We might just "go with the flow" which is the sad state of most students today. Better is to demand something more. Not through militancy, but through respectful correction to incorrect actions. Write letters, ask for public forums and hearings and vocalize your displeasure in a courteous manner.

A professor of mine recently told me that the dean of his department called him to tell him of students who were complaining that he was "making them study too hard". This is a shame. Rather, we ought to complain that the administrations of schools aren't working hard enough. Let's have the Soviet Union remain a parcel of history. American students deserve better.

Death part deux

Today I attended the funeral of my friend who died on saturday. His body lay in a very ornate silver casket. I didn't think of Lenin in Moscow, but I should have; not because my friend in life resembled Lenin, but because in death everyone resembles Lenin. Dead bodies are pasty, pale, flaccid and icky looking no matter how much makeup is applied.

On my graduation night from High School, one of my best friends was decapitated in an auto accident. His parents, being new to America were convinced that an open casket was the best way for people to remember their son. The mortuary did a very poor job of sewing his head back on.
and I will always remember the way his body looked in death more than in life.

I have seen my share of death and dead persons. I have a close friend who through two tours in Vietnam saw enough for a whole city. It is hardest when young persons die prematurely. The old are expected to die and so their deaths shouldn't be the shock that it often is.

As a denial society, Americans, who are allegedly preoccupied with life, spend most of their time pursuing things that bring about death. Alcohol, smoking, violence, sex outside of heterosexual, monogamous marriage, overeating, under-exercising and stress all lead to premature death. These are also the things which most spend their lives pursuing - often unwittingly.

At the funeral today, a young member of the deceased's family chastised the other, older members for not being a close-knit family unit. Some of his relatives, he claimed, had not been seen in years. He was visibly shaken by this and his speech was a good lesson in the things which are important - God, love, family, relationships.

Is it not odd that America which has the highest level of medical care in the world has one of the highest premature mortality rates and highest disease rates?

I have always wanted to open a Gen-X cemetary called, "The Bone Yard". The entrance would have neon pink and green flashing lights and dancing skeletons. The hearse would be a '69 lincoln painted lime green with fur on the dash. The caretaker would dress like Huggy-bear from Starsky and Hutch. Gravesights could also be lighted - for a fee, with neon signs and even animatronic creatures. The mausoleum would feature pachinko machines with cool prizes. We would raffle off one free gravesite per month. I bet the place would be filled in no time.

I mentioned this idea to someone earlier and they said I was nuts. I already knew that - but wouldn't having an eclectic place to visit and spend time thinking about a loved one be better than walking or driving to some wasted golfcourse land and staring at a piece of stone? Wouldn't it be cool if while you were visiting the gravesite of a loved one, you could get a diet coke from a machine? I bet less people would be sad. It would be pretty hard to be sad if your loved one was buried in a place that boasted dancing skeletons and neon lights. Beats the heck out of the undertaker motif most places have. Besides, how come only the living get to have fun?

I know that I will be accused of being irreverant and lots of people will email me and ask when I lost my salvation, blah, blah, blah. What is more irreverant than staring at a composite of dying tissue which in no way resembles the person who once resided in it? WHat's more insulting that staring at the dead corpse of someone we wouldn't give the time of day to when they were alive? What is more selfish than going to pay your respects to someone you never respected?

What if you died today?

No, I haven't taken an evangelism course from the Navigators, I simply thought it was an apropos question for today. Have you thought about dying? When I ask people this question, some quickly turn to small-talk or make a simple joke, but everyone is affected by it in a serious way.

As humans and certainly as Westerners, we do not like to think about death. Subconsciously, everyone knows it will happen, and yet most people spend their entire lives pretending it does not. Did you know that some of our most frequent customs stem from death? When sitting on a bus or in a restaurant and someone next to you sneezes, immediately someone will say "bless you". Ever wonder where that practice stems from? It actually stems from England during the black plague of the 19th century. Sneezing was seen as an imminent sign of oncoming death and to say "bless you" was to offer some spiritual guidance to a person one thought would die horribly very soon.

Death for all of us is just around the corner. For a friend of mine, it was literally, as on friday he was found dead in a room where he was painting. My friend was a God-fearing man who had a very close relationship to Jesus and so I'm not concerned for him, but he left behind a 19 year old daughter and a fiance'. What do they think about death?

As with everything, death in America is commercialized. In the middle east, some deaths result in violence especially if a person was killed in a crime or by a non-muslim. In parts of Sub-Saharan Africa, the dead are left where they fell in order for animals and time to wear them away. In Japan, the lack of space has neccessitated cremation as the main form of disposal of corpses.

We have a great movie about dead people "The Corpse Bride" and my favorite film contains lots of them; (The Nightmare before Christmas). What do you thing about death?

Rather, what do you know about it? You see, some things are acceptable to think of casually. "What will I wear today?", or "Will I visit someone?" or "What's for lunch?". Some things must never be thought of this way, and death is one of them. Why?

Because unlike everything else we encounter on earth, death is permanent. Has it always been?
For all but a few people it has been and continues to be. So, unless you are one of the very few persons throughout history that has returned from the dead, it is incumbent upon you to think very seriously about yours. What will happen when it occurs? We mustn't forget those who will be left behind (death insurance is VERY cheap - it is called Term Life Insurance) and we must prepare ourselves for this inevitible occurance.

How does anyone prepare for death? Well, I for one have a great need to be certain about my death. Not that it will happen, of course but of what occurs afterward. For those who think that one can't possibly know, you are mistaken.

If I wanted to climb the K2 summit of Mount Everest, I would first start by finding someone who knows how to do such an incredible thing. Reinhard Messner would be the guy. As the greatest mountain climber that has ever lived, I would ask Mr. Messner to show me how to do it - because he has already done it. To just set out on my own is an invitation to disaster for myself and anyone else I bring along; many, many people have died on the slopes of that mountain.

But, if I have the guidance, training and encouragement of someone who has already conquered Everest, then my chances of success are very great.

If I wanted to know how to die (and I do) then likewise I would consult someone whom I knew had already "done" it and succeeded and could tell me what I need to do. Unfortunately, there aren't a whole lot of those folks around. In fact, when I looked around for someone who had died, came back, was confident that death could no longer harm them, and could teach me about death so that it couldn't harm me - I found only one person. His name is Jesus Christ.

Jesus not only historically died, he also historically came back and has promised to do so again. He offers anyone who will believe in Him the same immunity to death that He experienced. I wanted this immunity and He offered it to me so I accepted. Now, because of Jesus I no longer have a fear of death; in fact in many ways I look forward to it.

A long time ago, St. Paul wrote in a letter, "to live is Christ, and to die is gain". In other words, if Paul said that if he kept living he would get to live for Jesus Christ who has conquered death and so he could live fearlessly and if he happened to die, then great! He gets to see Jesus face-to-face. We should live our lives this way too - it changes your perspective and makes one excited to wake up in the morning.

Why Hillary Clinton must never be President

In my attempt to annoy as many people as possible, I am, (in this brief issue) delving into the hostile arena of politics; being as dogmatic as possible about the subject of this post. Hillary Clinton must never be President. All political loyalties aside, she is a communist and someone of her political ideology must never fill the office once held by Abraham Lincoln, George Washington and Ronald Reagan. If one does - America is finished.

Last week, Hillary Clinton called for a $20 Billion dollar tax on oil companies because she would suggest that "we reinvest the tremendous drain that higher energy prices are exacting on middle-class families and the economy in a better energy future." She then went on to make perhaps the single most idiotic statement any American can make when she said, "Americans cannot just let the current marketplace go at its own pace."

I wish I were indeed joking.

The puzzling thing about these two most incredulous statements is that they were made by someone generally regarded as having some intelligence. They weren't made by Arlen Spector or Dennis Kucinich or Nancy Pelosi. We would expect Ted Kennedy to say something like this in between martinis. But there appears to be (at least if one believes the intelligentsia in New York and Washington) some thought that she might actually be capable of making decisions on a presidential level. God help us.

Vladimir Putin might have said something on this order. On second thought, he actually embraces free markets.

What we have in Senator Hillary Clinton is a communist. Before the firestorm of pedantic name-calling begnis, let me remind you that a communist is simply a "member of a Marxist-Leninist party" (American Heritage Dictionary). Communists, are allowed to live in America (precisely because we are not a communist country). Communists are not allowed to govern America.

There are certainly more communists in government than Ms. Clinton. Both political parties have them. Some are communist because they aren't smart enough to recognize that their belief's make them such and others - the dangerous kind, know precisely what it means to be of a Marxist-Leninist persuasion. I know these dangers well myself having spent many years studying them and tracking them for a very highly overbudgeted governmental agency. I also speak the language of the former Soviet Union and as part of my work for the government interviewed hundreds of dissidents and expatriots who had first-hand experience with those who felt as Hillary Clinton does that; "We must stop thinking of the individual and start thinking about what is best for society."

Dr. John Warwick Montgomery has said that "civil rights is a sexy subject" and that "everyone is in favour of human rights - even the most evil dictator". These are truisms; claiming a passion for people is the mantra of every evil leader who has ever sat in a seat of power. Hillary Clinton isn't satan, nor is she going to single-handedly transform America into a gulag. But gulags aren't created overnight and dictators almost always come to power upon the heels of a disastrous political administration. Hillary Clinton's actions, voting record and rhetoric are clear - the individual is important, but only government, led by someone like her can effectively bring about a stable society. New Yorker's may have their communist as long as she remains theirs.

Things boys do better than girls - Part 1

This week's post is the first in a series of lectures I presented to a small, green fern which sits beside my computer monitor. I have entitled this series "Things boys do better than girls" not owing to any jealousy or inherent disdain for the "fairer sex"; rather it is my desire to highlight the unequivocal supremacy of males in certain aspects of the the order of life.

Requests for the audio series of this lecture may be made to:

Things boys do better than girls - series (include lecture number)
Attn: The plant behind the computer monitor
Andrew's bedroom, left wall
Ipswich, U.K. 33245

Lecture one:

First of all let me begin by saying that it was very gracious of you, being a small, slightly green fern to welcome me in such a gracious manner and to so attentively listen as I rambled incessantly on.

As any sentient being knows, there are a great many things which boys do that are far superior to the things girls do and it is my intention throughout this series to highlight them in the hopes that someone will become enraged or at least mildly irritated and also to initiate a rivalry of sorts between girls and boys on the subjects I present. The first and most obvious action in which boys are far superior to girls is the act of eating dirt. Before you begin shouting "that's not bloody fair!" at your screen or the audio player, let me remind you that I am a scientist and everything described in these lectures will have been tested according to the scientific method.

Now, to continue, when I discovered that boys were far superior to girls in the eating of dirt, I began developing hypothoses which might explain or at least demonsrate this important fact. I asked the following questions:

1. Do boys generally live closer to dirt?
2. Does dirt have an attraction to boys?
3. Are boys electronegative compared to dirt?
4. Does dirt not like girls?

After much investigation I determined that none of these questions even began to explain how boys might be better at eating dirt than girls. Then, one morning as I and the plant began discussing this subject, I hit upon it.

May I have the first slide please? Yes, thank you.

Here we have Ascaris Lumbricoides. (plant has waved slightly in approval or perhaps from the ceiling fan)

Ascaris Lumbricoides is an intestinal roundworm found mainly in males which lives in soil (Dirt). It lives in the human body and breeds, (sometimes as many as 200,000 eggs in 1 - day) and are ingested from soil, then multiply and pass through the digestive system and into the pulmonary system, through the walls of the Alveoli and into the respiratory tract. They then are re-digested in the intestinal tract and start the whole things all over again. The discovery of large numbers of this parasite in males vs. the relatively few incidences of infection in femals is proof positive that boys are far superior to girls in the eating of dirt.

One can imagine the elation I experienced having discovered this proof. I must say that at the risk of sounding boorish or perhaps even a bit conceited, it is now my belief that I am much better at finding intestinal parasites in boys than girls are. Perhaps a subject for another lecture?

At any rate, it has been my great pleasure to lecture before you and my thanks go to the academy for all of its support during my long minutes (O.K. seconds) of painstaking research.

I love the writings of John

Everyone should learn classical Greek. We sell our society short by not teaching the languages upon which ours was founded.

Anyway, reading John's gospel in it's original language, allows one to picture the aged apostle, sitting at a dusty desk somewhere, sometime in the latter portion of the 1st century. Scribbling on parchments with a quill, the Apostle must have smiled as he recollected his life and the journey that God had taken him on.

The first portion of his gospel is my favorite and specifically, Chapter 1, verse 12. In the Greek, this verse reads "Hosoi de elabon autou, edooken autois exousian tekna theo genesthai, tois pisteuousin eis to onoma aoutou". (pardon my transliteration)

The most important part of this verse for me is the highlighted portion above. This portion reads, "He gave (granted) the power to be children of God".

This unspeakable gift is in response to "those who believed in His name" which is mentioned previously. Now imagine John writing this. He may have been in the city of Ephesus, and he had no idea that he would be soon exiled to the island of Patmos in a slave-labor camp and called upon by God to write yet another book - Revelation. John was "the disciple whom Jesus loved" and was the only disciple present at the cross when Jesus was crucified. He cared for Mary, the mother of Jesus and his gospel more than any other expresses the love of God. When he wrote these words, which have been the foundation of Christian faith for more than 2000 years, did he really understand what he was saying? I believe so, and this is where the Greek language is so important. The word "exousian" means, "the granting of authority or power" (shorter lexicon of the Greek NT - Wilbur Gingrich,Fred Danker). In the Greek context, since the world at that time was ruled by Rome, this would have meant the authority of a Roman tribunal granting some power to a person - an official act. Rome brought about the rule of law (unfortunately enforced by brutality) to a unified world, and the granting of authority under Roman law was a serious issue. One did not flaunt the laws of Rome casually.

John, in writing this, tells his readers "everyone who has believed in the name of Jesus, has been granted official authority to become a literal child of God". By whom? Jesus Himself.
This authority comes from its only possible source - and cannot be derived or coopted by man. Only God can grant the right to become one of His children. This flies in the face of all of the mysticism or spirituality we see today - beliefs that empower man and deny any external authority.

My love for this passage doesn't stem from authority, (I know God has that) it stems from its meaning - that if I believe in the name of Jesus, I become a child of God; with all of the accompanying rights and responsibilities. No denominations, no church buildings, no testimonies, no clubs, no money - just believing in Him. This passage scares the heck out of most prefessional clergy because it pokes a hole in their false theology and undermines their desire to aggrandize themselves in the guise of Christianity. Yes, people are to gather together in worship and study. Yes, people are to tithe to support the poor and widows and help their neighbors and support their pastor, but it is only God's amazing grace- free and conditioned only by belief which gives us the authority and the right to become His children.

Our world does not need programs, advertising, radio stations, concerts or DVD's. What people need today is what they have always needed - a Heavenly Father who desires to grant them the right and authority to be His children.

Do people REALLY understand what is happening in Iraq?

Whether one is a fan of George W. Bush or not, what is taking place in Iraq must be looked upon with an indifferent, historical eye - not one tainted by political fervor. Voting is taking place in Iraq. Now in America, where voting is looked upon as a nuisance, especially if one is a politician, casting a vote in Iraq makes one think of other blase' events like mowing the lawn or picking up one's mail. It is not. Iraq has NEVER in its history, held a vote. Since its inception in 1920, Iraq has been ruled, but never governed.

This morning in a newspaper, I saw a photograph of a woman voting in the current election. Having lived in an traveled about the Muslim world, this is an incredible feat. It would be foolish at best and deadly at worst for us to miss the significance of this. Under Shariya Islamic law, women have no rights. Apologies in advance for the "pro-Islam" folks who will email me disagreeing, but I have read the Quran and have lived in and traveled about the middle east. Women have no rights under the strict interpretation given to the Quran by the theocracies in most Islamic countries. Yes, there are exceptions (Yemen is one, Pakistan in changing) but by and large, women do not express opinions or vote in elections. In a new Iraq, (as in a new Afghanistan) women will not only express their opinion, but will be a part of government.

Was it worth it? That is a question I cannot answer. The humanistic part of me (what the bible calls the "Sin nature") believes that if Iraq was such a threat, a squadron of B1-B bombers could have taken care of the entire country in less than a day and there would be no insurgency. The Christian part of me ( the part I hope governs my life and actions) has seen the dramatic suffering in the middle east and wishes that Saddam could have been persuaded to go and live in San Francisco with the rest of the illuminati and a transition to democratic government could have happened peacefully. Neither has been the case so we now have what is commonly seen as a "difficulty". The average man or woman on the street in Baghdad wants nothing more than to live life with the hope of peace and some measure of prosperity. This was of course, impossible under a dictatorship, but will now be possible because of a new government. But will it be reality?

We need to pray fervently that it will be.

You have to give the devil an A for perseverance

Yesterday was thankfully unlike many other days in that I received notice of a very unfortunate event. The announcement was that a couple which my wife and I had counseled in the past, were filing for divorce.

As I have said many times previously, the devil is out to make as many nasty things happen as possible and mankind (often unwittingly) gives him a glad hand in doing so. With regard to the couple mentioned above, they had struggled through many things, some dark and some not so dark, but at one point it looked like the lights were coming on and they had finally resolved that being married to the person with whom you first make a marital commitment is the best thing, (notwithstanding the fact that God says this is the BEST thing.) However, they have thrown in the legal towel.

What I cannot fathom is how humans believe that by simply changing environments and biological partners, everything will be rosy and soon one will find oneself floating in a quiet pool beneath a cabana on Cozumel, sipping Red Bull. If environment were the problem, Sherwin Williams would be the great relationship-saver: all one would need to do is paint their room! But Alas, that won't cut it. You see the problem with changing marriage partners is that we are still involved in the relationship, and more often than not, WE are the problem! (I know, not in your case).

Here's a bit of a wierd analogy that might work if you really use your imagination. You are 20-something, full of energy or ("piss and vinegar" as my grandfather used to say) and you meet the man who looks most like your favorite movie star, but not really and you get married. Well, things go O.K. for about 5 years and then he starts working late to make more money to pay for the larger house you had to have and he isn't paying as much attention to you, and so forth - you get the idea. So you listen to Dr. Laura (Whom you should never listen to) and you decide to get a divorce because "you deserve better". So you divorce. It is painful (Always is) and after about 6 weeks you are starting to recover and you meet someone new at the pet store. He is very nice and so is his dog and so you begin to date and soon, you decide to marry - again. About 3 years pass and then guess what - he isn't paying as much attention to you as he should and the story repeats itself.................................

Now there are tons of variations on this theme, some include violence, some include infidelity, some include laziness and so on. But the general idea is that no matter which relationship you enter into, one thing is certain - YOU are in it. And so are all of your proclivities, and "needs" and desires, etc. which you will carry with you into every relationship , until you get rid of the one thing which keeps recurring in this scenario - YOU!

No, I am not advocating suicide or enlightenment. I am advocating God through Jesus Christ. If you've come this far, don't hang up now - hear me out.

The Bible says that Jesus can and will make us new persons (creatures) and by doing so will get rid of our "old" person and put in its place a "new" person. This in fact does happen - it did in my case and I have seen it countless other times in people in all walks of life, from the boardroom to the penitentiary and everywhere in between. So if you will follow Christ - He can and will remove the one factor which hinders every relationship - US!

I am 39 years old and have been married for nearly 18 years to the same woman. Before we met, I knew her a grand total of 5 months, 4 of which I spent floating in the North Atlantic on a huge, grey chunk of metal, propelled by atoms slamming into each other. Well, how does a 22 year old navy punk marry a 20 year old woman and stay faithfully married for almost 2 decades (having spent less than 2 weeks in the same country)? Because I was not in the equation. I'm not being metaphysical or silly - the only reason my wife and I are still married is that for a large portion of our time together, we have been "new creatures" in Jesus Christ. And these new creatures don't think about proclivities, desires and wants ahead of Him or of serving others. Not a bad recipe for success? Best of all, its free!

Before you call the $69 divorce ad in the back of the Greensheet, try asking God to fix what you can't. You'll save money and I guarantee you'll be much happier.

Sexual Russian Roulette or why there won't be a cure for HIV

Hopefully, most literate persons by now understand that HIV and the fatal disease this virus carries are wholly preventable. The only transmission medium for this virus is body fluids, thus no body fluids - no virus!

What I have had difficulty with is why the virus and its accompanying symptoms are so difficult to figure out. Last night, I was given the answer.

The Human Immunodeficiency Virus or HIV is an incredibly devilish creature. I mean this sincerely - it is my belief that this virus was not created, but engineered by the devil himself.

All living things contain DNA as their basic building block of life. There is a counterfeit if you will to DNA which nature has developed, called RNA.

The HIV-1 virus is a retrovirus. A retrovirus isn't called retro because it like Elvis Presley. A retrovirus uses the counterfeit RNA instead of DNA as its basic genetic material. The HIV virus is one of these viruses. Here's where the devilish part comes in:

The retrovirus (in this case HIV) enters a healthy cell and uses a special enzyme called RT or "Reverse Transcriptase" to switch its RNA into DNA which the healthy cell incorporates into itself. The HIV virus is extremely effective in doing this and may do so very rapidly, multiplying itself by many generations is a very short period of time (perhaps as quickly as 15 minutes). Normally when cells pass on DNA information, the information is read by a "reading frame" and it is passed on in tact or without error. The reading frame catches errors and eliminates them. But a retrovirus such as HIV doesn't have this reading frame and so each time it replicates itself, it may be filled with errors, creating a new mutated offspring.

Here's the plumber's view of what I'm talking about:

Jimmy is single and in college and is fairly attractive and meets Sally at a party. They like each other and after dinner and some drinks a few nights later, they end up in Jimmy's apartment having sex. Jimmy thinks Sally is a pretty nice girl and they agree to date for awhile. What Sally doesn't know is that Jimmy has done this before and 2 times ago, unbeknownst to Jimmy, he became a carrier of the HIV-1 virus. It has not spread throughout Jimmy's body for some reason, but he is still a carrier.

Sally dates Jimmy but she also really likes Mike who plays college volleyball. One night after a tournament she has the "opportunity" to sleep with Mike and she jumps at the chance. Mike has a great car and a terrific apartment. He also has something else which he doesn't know about.

About 2 weeks later, Sally begins to feel lethargic. Her energy is gone and she seems to be losing weight, even though she doesn't do much exercise. She goes to see the doctor who is very busy trying to pump as many patients through his practice as possible and after 1.88 minutes, he tells her that she is probably under alot of stress and prescribes something to help her sleep.
Sally feels much better, after resting and sees Jimmy again. They sleep together.

After another week, Sally feels tired again and this time she thinks she is looking pale. She re-visits her doctor and he suspects anemia so he orders a blood test. Sally is at work when she receives a call from her doctor's receptionist telling her that she must come to the office immediately and he will explain why. Sally is worried and she should be - she is about to learn that because of her behavior, she has just been sentenced to death. So has Jimmy and Mike, although they don't know it yet.

Why doesn't a pharmaceutical company make an inhibitor or an agent which will directly kill the HIV-1 virus which is known?

Because the virus mutates as I described above - sometimes very rapidly and sometimes not for years. Each person's symptoms will be different. And even if a vaccine for the virus itself were given, the offspring's mutations and use of RNA to enter healthy cells means that each succeeding generation could be an entirely different organism. So what entered your body as a single virus may now be millions of unique variations all trying to kill you.

Is sex worth it? If you are single, before you have sex with anyone - marry them. Before you marry them - each of you should get a complete physical including blood screening.

Your life depends upon it.

Answered Prayers

The God of the bible is the only true and living God, but he is not the only one who can answer your prayers. For many years I have spoken with persons who claimed gifts from God - gifts which turned out to ruin their lives or cause them great pain. We must remember that there is a mastermind of evil in the world - his name is satan and it is his entire purpose for being to cause you pain and either convince you that you need to spend eternity in torment with him, or if you have already accepted Christ and are free from the possibility of eternal separation from God, that you should forfeit your eternal inheritance (gifts - not salvation) by living a life filled with sin.

Satan, though he is not God, can also answer your prayers. In the 4th chapter of Matthew's gospel, (Vv. 8-10) satan confronted Jesus with desire and the offer of answered prayer. We read that;

"The devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. "All this I will give you," he said, "if you will bow down and worship me."

Jesus' reply?

"Jesus said to him, "Away from me, Satan! For it is written: 'Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.'"

Notice that Jesus did not say, "satan you are such an idiot - you can't give me those things!" because satan can and he does. But when he gives you a gift - it is always deadly.

I am reminded of Mr. Walid Shoebat who as a young Palestinian terrorist, traveled into Jerusalem with a huge loaf of bread - ostensibly as a "gift" for visitors to the church of the nativity. This gift contained a large bomb and Mr. Shoebat had been trained his entire life to use it to kill jews and himself in exchange for glory. By God's mercy and grace, Mr. Shoebat flinched - he saw children at the site he intended to bomb and could not carry out his evil plan.
(you can read Walid's story at www.shoebat.com)

I have asked for many things in my life which have harmed me and my family. I asked for riches and when I had them, they nearly destroyed all that was important to me. Not long ago a young woman shared with me her joy at having a brand new car. "It must be a gift from God" she beamed, because: "we prayed about it and after 3 dealers turned me down, this one financed me!".
This young woman made about $25,000 per year, placed her children in daycare (even though she is married and her husband earns a good living) and now had a $600 a month car payment not including insurance - for 6 years. Folks, that is not a gift from God, it was a lie of the devil and she now realizes this every time she has to send her children to daycare so that she can work full-time to support her new $600 per month payment.

Composer Nicolo Paganini asked for something that was given him by the devil - he asked to be the greatest composer in the world. As a young man, he floundered in his art and played the violin poorly. Yet, one day he entered a court-sponsored contest and won. Paganini went on to begin composing pieces for the court of Napoleon's sister. He wrote music that only he could play - he was born with extreme flexibility in his wrist and fingers, giving him an unequaled reach on the violin. Paganini was capable of playing three octaves across four strings in a hand span, an impossible feat even by today's standards.

He sought fame - and achieved it, as well as riches and lust; his home was filled with beautiful young women waiting to spend time with the great composer. He fathered one child by a singer who toured with him, yet whom he never married.

How did Nicolo Paganini go from inept musician to world-class composer in such a short time? His friends claimed he made a deal with the devil. His life seems to back this up. In his portraiture, he looks evil. While playing, his eyes would roll back in his head - exposing the whites of his eyes. Despite earning millions, he would scrounge through the streets of France searching for coins. He once had to pawn his violin, having lost a fortune in gambling.

He died at age 58 of cancer in Nice, France.

How do we know it is God who is answering our prayer?

The Bible tells us over and over again that God wants to be the one who answers your prayers - the God of the bible wants only our good. There is a catch however. The catch is, He cannot and will not violate His will or His holiness. What do I mean by this? If you are asking God for something, then thee are certain rules which you must follow. In America today, the devil has tricked the church into believing that one can ask God for anything no matter what. This is not true. God Himself tells us that in order for Him to answer our prayers, we must worship Him, and worship Him in a manner which He will accept. (John 4:24). If a person has never accepted Christ's sacrifice on the cross in payment for her sin, then she can ask God for everything under the sun and He will not give it to her. Therefore, if she gets it - it didn't come from God as an answered prayer. It may have come from God by virtue of His universal goodness, (for example, it rains in Iran even though their country is a Muslim theocracy) but this person cannot claim unique favor from God.

So, before one may ask anything of God, one must be a Christian. A real one.

Now, having become a Christian, does God give us everything we ask? Of course not. I know people who ask for amphetamines or Marijuana or crack. God is not in the business of giving His children bad things. (Matthew 7:11) tells us that God wants to give us good things. If this is true, why do people spend so much time asking for things which they seemingly never receive?

Because we ask the wrong way and for the wrong reasons. (James 4:1-5) tells us all about this.

By the way, James 4 defines the source of all human conflict. Anyway, in James we are reminded that "you ask and do not have". What gives? Why not? Because, "You ask and you do not receive, because you ask for the wrong reasons". What are those reasons?

"that you may spend it on your pleasures." (v.3b)

God does want to reward you and give you good things, but He isn't interested in rewarding you for your pleasures. The word used here for "pleasures" is the Greek word "Hedone" which would be better translated as "lust". God isn't going to give you things to fulfill your lusts - lusts are bad for you!

Psalm 37:4 tells us, "delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart".
If you want answered prayers, then you better delight yourself in the Lord.

Proverbs 10:22 tells us, "It is the blessing of the Lord that makes men rich AND HE ADDS NO SORROW TO IT." (Emphasis mine).

So here's the formula:

If one asks of God, one must:

A. Be a child of God. The only prayer God will hear from non-children is "help, me I need to be saved".

B. Be delighted in God and seeking His purpose.

C. Ask for a reason other than you really want it (lust).

D. Praise Him when you receive it.

E. If it ever comes with sorrow - it ain't from God.

Example:

1. A man asks for riches and starts earning as much as $100,000 per month. But he can't sleep because he is afraid he will be audited or someone will sue him or one of his vendors will rip him off because his product is not collateralized. Is this a reward from God? No, because it fails test #E - it has lots of sorrow. It also failed test #B and C, because even though this man talked about how great God was and gave lots of money to the church, he wasn't helping anyone HIMSELF.

2. A woman asks for a new car, because the preacher at her church told her that if she wanted it badly enough and could emotionally claim it (see it in her mind), then God would have to give it to her. Is this a reward from God? No, because it fails B and C and will at some point fail E.

3. A Christian woman knows of a divorcee who has to find work to support herself. She hasn't worked in many years and has no money. The woman gives her an old car that she has so the divorcee can drive to find work. Some time later, someone gives the Christian woman a car. Is this a reward from God? You bet. It passes every test.

I think you get the idea. God wants to answer your prayers. Just be sure when you get what you asked for that it really came from Him.

Further peanut devastation

Recently a very annoying person happily posted a comment about my peanut anarchy. This person's annoyance-ability initially stems from posting a comment as "anonymous". Unless one is wanted by the FBI for human trafficking it is very silly to write in terms of anonymity on the internet. Blogs are where stupid things are supposed to be said (just read most of my posts).

Now, onto her comments. (How I know it was a female is my little secret. - YEARS of very-expensive government training)

This piece will consist of Ms. Anonymous' quotes followed by my highly evocative and disdainfully sarcastic reply.


"My concern is about some of the unintended misinterpretations that have been made in your piece."

If the interpretation is unintended it is a corollary that it is a misinterpretation. This is a literary error known as a reverse-axiomatic entendre' with a syllogistic falsification. (Please see Jesse Jackson for a detailed explanation of its usage)

"For those who are NOT peanut allergic (a large majority), it is actually very important that they are regularly exposed to peanuts."

I heartily agree. My next proposal would be that all children between the ages of 6 and 11, be buried in peanut butter at least once per week. I am going to assume that "anonymous" is suggesting prolonged exposure to peanuts either to develop in children a system prophylactic against allergens or because she wants them to smell nutty. Not sure which. However, if it is the former, this type of prophylactic measurement does not work with all allergens and may not work with peanuts. For example, all humans are highly allergic to tetrodotoxin, found in highest concentration, I believe in the ovaries of puffer fish. If we were to apply Ms. Anonymous' theory to this substance we would lose large segments of our population. (as long as we started in California or Massachusetts, it really wouldn't be such a big deal).

"On the flip-side, peanuts are one of the single most dangerous allergies known to man. This sounds dramatic right? However, those with severe reactions, can be effected by simply the smell. As you might be aware, smelling a peanut doesn't require that it be actually placed in one's nose."

Actually, it does. When one uses the word "smell" and is not referring to the President, or Charlie Sheen's acting, one is referring to the use of an organ medically referred to as a "nose". The nose is a wonderful thing. It provides a transport pathway from the outside world into your respiratory system. But it does much more. Have you ever seen a Mexican or Latin woman with huge, black hairs growing out of her nose? Didn't it give you the heebee-jeebies? (Just imagine if you were her husband!) Anyway, as unerotic (is that a word) as those hairs may be, they are part of a defensive system which keeps all sorts of nasty creatures from poisoning you. As air enters your nose, the hairs within it, capture foreign particles and screen them out. These particles, some of them known as "airborn pathogens" could be very harmful. The nose also warms the air, etc. But back to peanuts. In order to be physiologically harmed by a substance, said substance must interact with our bodies on at least the tissue level. An allergen which could harm you through your nose must be airborne. Medically this is known as a "aeroallergen". I am not Leonardo DaVinci (you thought I was going to say DiCaprio, didn't you!) but I am pretty certain neither peanuts or peanut butter are airborne unless one throws them. Now, certainly, Ms. Anonymous is correct if someone heaves a honking-sized peanut up your nose. You will be hating life - BIG TIME. But otherwise, it can't harm you physiologically. But Psychologically is another matter. I'm not a psycho so I can't address that.

"Imagine, little Joey sits at his peanut-free table in the school cafeteria. Joey's best friend Matt can't sit with his buddy. This is because he is at the table across the aisle is eating his peanut-butter sandwich. After lunch, Matt says "hhhhi" to Joey. The peanut butter smell from Matt's breath enters Joey's cardiovascular system. Joey's system begins to shut down. His blood vessels throughout his body begin to constrtict. His airways begin to close. Joey can no longer breathe and begins to turn blue. He passes out. If an epipen is not near, he will go into a coma and die. This isn't a hypothetical - this is what happens."

If Matt's saliva, laced with toxic peanuts flies into Joey's mouth or nose (see above), then Joey would need access to vasodilator such as epinephrine. Even the folks who make the "EpiPen" in whose best interest it is to SELL them as often as possible state, "There have even been rare cases documented in which inhalation exposure to a food has triggered an anaphylactic reaction." They cite a parameter from the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and immunology, which must provide the most extreme possibility for doctors to be aware of. But Joey cannot have a physiological reaction to something he is not actually exposed to. He can have a psychological reaction to a problem, but that is for the psycho's to comment upon - I am not qualified. So obviously, this is not "what happens". Nyah, Nyah, Nyah, Nyah, Nyah, Nyah.

"The Food and Allergy network does NOT recommend peanut bans in schools, but instead education. But while you can certainly trust Joey to wash his hands and stay away from peanut products, how do you ensure that Matt washes his hands well enough? That a small amount doesn't get smeared on the monkey bars? That he brush his teeth? Should peanut allergic kids be kept in a bubble?"

How do you know you can trust Joey to wash his hands? The Monkey bars? Joey needs to stop licking them. Brushing his teeth? Tell Joey to stop using Matt's toothbrush!
You may have just stumbled onto a solution for the problem of this generation - stopping radical Islam and extricating the U.S. from Iraq. Peanuts! If we have thousands of Americans brush their teeth after having eaten peanut brittle, we can then partially sterilize the brushes and send them in deceptive packaging to the terrorists who will then use them and die! Or, we can construct hundreds of sets of Monkey bars, laced with peanut butter throughout Baghdad. Either way, we win!

Yea Baby!!!!!!!!!

And some of you want a woman to be President?

The fearsome Peanut

When chemist George Washington Carver began his discovery of the myriad uses of the peanut, little did the unwitting American public understand that Dr. Carver was in fact creating a monster. ( I was tempted to use the term "peanutstein" but that would be going to far. )

Anyway, 100+ years later, Carver's discoveries strike fear in the hearts of frail children and anxiety-ridden mothers from Seattle to Annapolis and all points in between. Peanut Butter - once the staple food of champions (and something I literally lived on for more than 2 months at sea) is now believed to be as deadly as Anthrax and something to be avoided at all costs. The reason? Allergies.
School districts throughout the country are asking parents to rid their children's lunch boxes of this nasty menace. Is this fear unfounded? Or is the sinister peanut biding its time, while hapless children munch blithely away on their modern hemlock?

Today a frantic mom told me that she was asked not to pack peanut butter anymore because the "scent" of it is enought to trigger allergic reactions in some children.

Since I am embarking upon a career in science (well, sort of - medicine is actually a combination of art and science) I thought I would use this time to find out what the skinny is regarding peanut butter.

For the frantic mom, I didn't need to consult the latest scientific journals because I already knew that peanut butter's molecular structure is a SOLID, not a GAS, so unless someone stuffs it up their nose, it would be impossible for the substance of peanut butter to react with one's immune system.

Now, as the Thomas Dolby would say; science!

In the Journal Clinical and Experimental Allergy (Clinical & Experimental Allergy
Volume 35 Issue 7 Page 933 - July 2005), the results of a test conducted by researchers at the Imerial College at St. Mary's London tested 13,638 seven-year old individuals, of which 6,412 yielded results. (I guess the others snuck off for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich - ungrateful cretins).

Anyway, the chillins were exposed to MTV, aeroallergens (dust mites, cats, dogs, horses, rabbits, and one other thing. Then, as if this weren't cruel enough the children were exposed to peanuts and other nuts as well as more than a few very angry squirrels.)

The result of all of this exposure was that 8.5% of the population demonstrated some reaction to the airborne allergens and 1% demonstrated the same reaction to the evil nuts. Hopefully they were all allergic to MTV.

If this data is to be extrapolated (and it is), this test reveals the following:

According to the U.S. Census Bureau there are now approximately 72 million persons under the age of 18 living in this country. If 1% of them would suffer an allergic reaction to the peanut or any nut, this amounts to 720,000. If we spread them evenly between states, (which, of course they are not) then we would get 14,400 children per state who demonstrate an allergic reaction to peanuts. In Texas there may be 81 school districts (not sure - couldn't get a definite number from the TEA website) which would mean 177 children per district. The state's largest district is Houston, which has more than 50,000 students. There are at least 300 schools in this district (per the HISD website, not counting charter or magnet schools) which means a bit more than half of all schools could have a child with an allergic reaction to nuts.

But this test was conduct with BRITISH children, not Americans. When a similar test was conducted by the NIH (Prevalences of positive skin test responses to 10 common allergens in the US population: results from the third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey.) they found that Americans are far more sensitive to allergens than our English counterparts. The NIH study - not nearly as comprehensive, nearly 3% demonstrated a positive reaction to nut allergens.

Even if the results were tripled, this would still mean that each school district in Texas (statstically, very loose, I know) would only have 2 or 3 students who were allergic to peanut allergens. While this seems incredibly inconsequential, it is very symbolic of our nation at this time. We are ruled by minutae. Instead of the minority or aberrant, making their way in society, society must bend to make way for them. This is why the single Epehdra patient who died was allowed to create a huge windfall for the plaintiff's lawyers, and why persons who die from smoking still sue tobacco companies for wrongful death.

And this is why school districts want the thousands of parents with children who don't have allergies to change their lives to accomodate the very few who do.

Children who have allergic reactions to peanuts should not touch them. Such reactions can be anaphylactic or hypotensive, meaning they can bring on very nasty symptoms. If your child has a KNOWN allergy to these substances, then avoid them. But don't try and make all of society accomodate you and your child. Instead send your child to school with chicken salad, or just jelly and train them to avoid the foods which cause problems. There are many more times the number of children in society who suffer from genetic diabetes. Should all sugars be eliminated so that they won't be tempted to risk their lives by eating them? Of course not, and parents of diabetic children DO teach their kids what they can and cannot eat.

Give GW Carver his due and society a break. The peanut is a great thing; so is peanut butter. We ought to be asking ourselves why we are 3 times more allergic that the Brits, but we should also be willing to take responsibility for ourselves, our children and our actions - and hopefully research will soon bring about a prophylactic against peanut allergies.

Meanwhile, if you care to join me, I would be happy to share my peanut butter sandwich with you!

More tales of the nutty and insane

Today I received an email telling me that someone I know who is a fireman, was being shot at by residents of Beaumont, Texas who wanted their houses to burn so they could get the insurance money. Others were actually setting their houses on fire. I know that stupidity is rampant (always has been), but do these people actually think their insurance company isn't going to ask the local fire inspector who started the blaze that consumed their house?

This is almost as bad as the morons who looted the convenience store here in Houston. After they broke in, the owner went to the store and boarded it up and called the police. The police waited in the parking lot across the street and sure enough, the morons returned to re-loot the store and were arrested. When a local reporter asked one of the world's dumbest people why he did such a stupid thing, his only reply was "I was only inside - that's all". Good thing for him breathing is an automatic reflex.

Filed under the "funny, but kind of wierd" section are the people who are now angry that the Hurricane didn't even bring enough rain to water their lawn or alleviate the 100+ temperatures we are having. I thought not being hit by a hurricane was a GOOD thing? Who knew?

How about the supra-genius mayor of New Orleans, inviting Louisiana residents to return to their flooded, biologically infected disaster area? Does anyone else have qualms about giving this guy and Governor "hold it, I'm weeping", Blanco 50 Billion dollars to rebuild their corrupt state? Am I being to harsh? Well, the 100+ families I interviewed at a relief center here in Houston all told me "We ain't goin' back". They were stunned that somebody like Nagin would receive 50 cents to rebuild the city (er, slum) of New Orleans. The only people I found who really wanted to return were a group of very friendly Rastafarians and in this particular blog I can't tell you why :)

I know there are some folks who think that Christians ought not to label certain acts as "stupid" or the people who do them as "morons", but there is a precedent for doing such things. When Job's wife advised him to curse God and die after he had suffered so much, Job told her "you speak as one of the foolish women". In other words, you are an idiot. (very large paraphrase from the Hebrew). Job then went on to say "are we to accept good from God and not bad"? (Job 2:10). People are always made in the image of God, but when I do something very stupid, I want people to let me know so that I don't continue to do it. If I were going to rob the same convenience store twice in one day, I would hope someone would have sense enough to call me an idiot.

Some advice for men and women in marriage

Not that I'm gunning for Dr. Laura or Dr. Phil, but last night I experienced a very sad event and think it needs addressing:

A young minister was buried today, his funeral held last night. He was murdered by an act of sin and killed by a virus designed by the devil, commonly referred to as AIDs. This young man, for some reason, known only to him, decided to have sex with a woman to whom he was not married and it cost him his life. Unfortunately, most of the statistical data tell us that this is not an uncommon occurrance. George Barna, the Christian researcher, has come under fire recently for telling the truth about the hidden sin within the church. Data from the Census and other statistical references point to a behavioral pattern among those calling themselves "Christians" that is very unhealthy at best and deadly at worst. It can properly be said that today more "Christians" are divorced and engage in extramarital affairs than those who do not identify themselves with God.

Why? Well, one reason is that the "church" has been redefined as a building, which is a topic for another conversation, but another more important reason is that most people have placed their trust in a god they neither know, nor obey; not the God of the bible. Many persons living in America today, claiming the Christian faith, simply do not read, understand and follow the bible.

"Wait!" I can hear the cries now. I attend Beth Moore's study every monday! I have read the purpose driven life 3 times! I pray Jabez' prayer every day! Good resources all, but I repeat; most people have no more than a rudimentary understanding of the Bible.

If you have read this blog previously, you may know that the axiom upon which I have built my adult life is, "Reality is the mind of God revealed in the word of God". Dr. Steve Sullivan, Pharmacist, Pastor and Seminary Professor came up with this - and he's correct.

So, what does the word of God (reality) say about the subject of marriage?

1. It says that married people do not belong to themselves. In fact, all people belong to God, but Jesus makes is even clearer in the New Testament when He says that "wives submit to your husbands" and "Husbands love your wives, just as Christ loved the church." (1 Cor. 5:22-25).

How in the world can a wife love someone who ignores her, stays gone all the time, never talks to her and isn't interested in her goals, dreams or ideas and instead of having a six-pack stomach now has the whole keg?

or

How in the world can a husband love a wife who nags, sticks plastic cylinders in her hair, appears to have more and more menstrual cycles every month, has decided to start looking more like a man every day and who has exchanged her svelte figure for some new figure consisting of double digits?

How do we as fallen, nasty humans live with someone else for our entire lives?

We cannot - as fallen humans. But as children of the living God, we can put aside our nastiness, our selfishness and our laziness and carve out a life worth living - together.

This is the Bible's secret to lifelong marriage. Living together isn't marriage. Homosexuals live together, as do geese and octopi. Marriage is a man and a woman living in a triune love relationship with Jesus Christ, themselves and one another. How can the Bible help us have marriages that reflect this?

We must read it! But read it carefully!

The bible's wisdom section (Proverbs) tells us "It is better to live on a corner of the roof than share a house with a quarrelsome wife." (Proverbs 21:9). This is a truism, but not a recipe for a lasting relationship unless you are a roofing contractor.

The Bible does have an answer for everything. It does not address every situation, but its principles apply to any thing we may face living on this planet.

I recall an exchange between a man who had come for counseling prior to a divorce.
A question was asked of the man, "do you love your wife?"

No! He replied, I can't stand her.

"At this point, would you consider her your enemy?"

"You bet", he replied.

A smile came upon the counselor's face; the sort of smile the Grinch smiles when he has
discovered yet another unsuspecting Who, that has believed in a merry Christmas.

The counselor, casually picked up his bible and asked, "Let's look at what Jesus had to say about our enemies."
He turned to Matthew 5:44 and read, "But I tell you, LOVE your enemies, pray for those who persecute you."
The husband began to squirm.

Was Jesus making up a biblical rule He knew nobody could follow? Was He the greatest practical joker who ever lived?
No, Jesus is God and God's Son and wants only the greatest benefit to accrue to the account of those who worship Him. So why such a demanding doctrine?

It isn't demanding. It only seems so. Satan, or the devil or whatever you want to call him, has deceived our world into thinking that living life together as husband and wife is a demanding, thankless task only to be undertaken for the sake of appearance or as one psychiatrist has written, "for the sake of the kids". Nonsense.

Marriage is hard - if you try to do it on your own. In fact, I believe its impossible without God, which is why so many western "Christians" find it hard to remain faithful to their spouses.

Make no mistake - being a real Christian does not guarantee perpetual happiness and fun in marriage. While the bible tells us very little about Peter's wife, we know that Peter was martyred by crucifixion. His wife must have been devastated by this; it certainly was not a source of fun for her.

But these things are only like shadows on a mirror, not the true reality which are untold treasures promised to believers in Jesus Christ. (See 1 Peter 1 for details)

What the Bible tells us is that by following Jesus Christ and living by adoption into the family of God DOES guarantee us eternal power to overcome the trials, snares and temptations which destroy marriage. If human beings were capable of overcoming these things on their own, this world would be devoid of drug addicts or alcoholics; there would be no need for counselors or detoxification centers. The trials of this life are often not ours to choose.

What is ours to choose is whether we use the power of God as He has intended it to be used in order to overcome them.

Although much of popular psychology and self-improvement is garbage, there is an exercise which I believe has great merit. Anthony Robbins of late-night T.V. fame calls it his, "rocking chair" test. He pictures himself in a rocking chair at the age of 90, looking back over his life. He then asks himself the question, "did I live my life to its fullest?"

I would keep the chair, but swap the question for one more eternal; "did my marriage reflect God?"

If you asked this question regarding your marriage, what would the honest answer be?

The good you don't hear about Hurricane Katrina

My friend Rick Leatherwood, who has faithfully served God for many years in very hostile places has a saying with which I heartily agree; "The media is the handmaiden of the devil." It is. There has been a tragedy of immense proportions in the United States; one which in geography, loss of life and economic impact dwarfs 9/11. And true to form, every media outlet and every reporter are salivating at the opportunities for criticism, and the hope that some even greater catastrophe will befall those who have already suffered so much. So, to counteract some of the idiocy of the media, I would like to offer the following:

These comments are derived from counseling sessions with refugees from Louisiana, which I have had over the last five days.

"Thank you so very much for what your city and state are doing".

"I am being treated very well and am so grateful".

"Praise God for Texas".

One family I met with had been robbed 3 times on interstate 10 by roving gangs of armed bandits. Their shoes, money and watches were taken. Having arrived here, they received food, clothing and temporary shelter and a chance to take a deep breath.

Another woman I met lost her 3 children in the flood. Yesterday I received news that they have been found in Mississippi. She last saw them on a bridge in Louisiana. All are safe.

Wal-Mart, Inc. has ordered its Texas store Directors to Lousiana and when all is said and done will have provided at least tens of millions of dollars in aid.

Chili's restaurants has offered to hire any employee of their chains who was displaced by the floods and hurricane.

In the Houston Astrodome, somewhere around 17,000 people are safe, sleeping on clean cots, taking hot showers and eating three square meals a day, plus ice cream. Children have a play center. The Reliant center is now a hospital complete with a 24-hour pharmacy.

At the second mile mission center in Stafford, Texas more than 3,000 refugees have been given food, water, clothing, gasoline and temporary housing since last wednesday. When the churches of Fort Bend County, Texas decided to support the relief effort, 4 - 40 foot trailers were donated to collect goods as well as 2 box trucks to deliver them. Nearly 100,000 sq.ft of warehouse space has been given free of charge.

So far, churches have been helping without trying to take credit for it!

At the Galleria Hampton Inn where I attended a medical missions symposium on satuday night, the hotel hand an excellent command center complete with a job locator and a red cross representative.

At Hope House Houston, nine families have each received a 2-bedroom house rent free for one month.

You have all undoubtedly heard similar reports - these are just the ones I have first-hand experience with. God is blessing the people of New Orleans in incredible ways. This is a great gift to them and to us - another opportunity to serve.

In a strange metaphysical way, it almost seems like God allowed this tragedy so that people who claim to be His could indeed serve. Some of us were getting lazy.

So, turn off your television and read a good book AFTER you return from helping somebody today. Don't pull the old junk out of your closet to give, go buy a package of diapers and some baby food. Better yet, find a place to serve - doesn't have to be all day, even 30 minutes will be welcome. If you see a Louisiana license plate, stop what you are doing and greet the people in the car - share the love of Jesus with them. We have been given a great opportunity to be a light in a very dark world and to help some truly needy people. Good things are being done. Could they be better? Of course - humans are involved. But there must be hosts of people and angels praising God for His goodness and mercy in a time of terrible tragedy - make sure you are one of them!

Are you really living?

"In 1927, at the age of 32, Buckminster Fuller stood on the shores of Lake Michigan, prepared to throw himself into the freezing waters. His first child had died. He was bankrupt, discredited and jobless, and he had a wife and new-born daughter. "(www.bfi.org)

On the verge of suicide, it suddenly struck him that his life belonged, not to himself, but to God. At that moment, Mr. Fuller decided to embark on what he called “an experiment to discover what the little, penniless, unknown individual might be able to do effectively on behalf of all humanity.”

Over the next fifty-four years, he proved, time and again, that his most controversial ideas were practical and workable.

During the course of his remarkable experiment he:

•was awarded 25 U.S. patents
•authored 28 books
•received 47 honorary doctorates in the arts, science, engineering and the humanities
•received dozens of major architectural and design awards including, among many others,
the Gold Medal of the American Institute of Architects and the Gold Medal of the Royal
Institute of British Architects
•created work which found itself into the permanent collections of museums around the
world
•circled the globe 57 times, reaching millions through his public lectures and interviews.

Was Buckminster Fuller a Christian? Near the end of his life, when speaking to a group of young people about his amazing life, told them that in his lifetime he had earned between 25-30 million dollars, all of which came without plan. He said "You have to live in absolute faith in God - and I have". Sounds like a Christian to me!

So, my question is, why do so many people who claim to be Christians, live defeated, suffering lives filled with self-hate, covetousness and waste?

Because we forget who made us, and why we are here, and we have distorted the teachings of Jesus to fit our modern minds. We fuss and scream when we are denied our "rights". Listen to what Buckminster Fuller said about getting what we want, "The amazing thing is that when I don't get what I thought I wanted, it's because I didn't need it. I was on the wrong track. This way God can steer me."

Now, I am going to share with you a statement which is incredible in its complexity and yet so simple that even a small child can understand it. Yet, most completely miss it. I will preface this statement with the teaching of Jesus as recorded in the book of Matthew, chapter 10, verse 39; "He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for my sake, will find it."

Here's what Mr. Fuller said, "If I am going to carry on that way, and if I actually get on, if I really get on, I am going to have to, then, bound to have insights that would not develop if I were trying to earn a living. Can you understand that?"

Buckminster Fuller made such a huge impact on this world precisely because he decided never to make a living, but instead to make a life. He understood his place in this universe and more importantly understood his relationship to God. Having just received the Medal of Freedom from the President of the United States, Mr. Fuller said, "So when things like being given the medal of freedom and things like that occur, I simply do what I do every time I am going to lie down and take even a nap. I try to talk, as best I can, to God and I say, "Yours, dear God, is all the glory! All the glory! I am nothing."

Buckminster Fuller had a right perspective on his life, that even through great achievement, nothing or no one deserves glory but God. The power of this message is so clear, if we will only see it. Mr. Fuller also said, "That's why I am trying to let my audiences know that there is nothing that i've been able to do that they couldn't do, individually, equally well or better if they'd gone down the same circumstances; because I made this experiment, I am actually free from earning a living! And for fifty years I haven't thought about how to earn a living."

Are you bent on earning a living?

I know all the arguments, as I hear them almost daily; "Pastor, you don't know what it costs to feed my family" or "You don't understand what I have been through" or "Have you ever had to raise 3 children on your own?" And though I don't pretend to have the answers to any, let alone all of these questions, I know someone who does. He is the same person who helped Buckminster Fuller not drown himself in lake Michigan, and his name is Jesus. If you are focused on earning a living, you aren't focused on making a life - which is what Jesus wants. When Jesus told us to lose our lives, He really meant it. And we must never forget the second half of his promise which is that we will find a new life in Him. And when we find it, it won't be the same as it was - it will be entirely new - much better than we could have dreamed.

Just because we choose to live for Jesus instead of a paycheck, does that mean each of us will become a Buckminster Fuller? No. Some of us will be Sister Mary's who for 40 years has cared for retarded children in Pakistan. Some of us will be Marshall Rorie's who counsels men, women and children in need of God and direction in their lives. Some of us will be Charles Swindoll's who preach to thousands of people and some of us will be Ted Curby's who quietly and faithfully clean rooms, move tables and chairs and set up a church for people to visit on a sunday. A pastor friend of mine told me this morning about a young man in his first church who had suffered a brain trauma in a motorcycle accident and the only job he was capable of carrying out was to replace the chalk in the various classrooms of the church. Some of us will be like him. in fact, I hope that when I meet Jesus, I am considered 'like him" because this young man was faithful in all that he could do. Are you and I so faithful?

One of my professors, who is also my friend, told me that in his P.hD. program, only 31% of those who began the program completed it 3 years later. When I asked why, he said, "Jeff, they just quit. Earning a doctorate isn't really about being the smartest person in the world, it's about perseverance; about finishing what you start, and starting when others will not."

If you are living to earn a living, may I please urge you to stop. Seek God while He is near and don't put off another day, what He has intended you to do. it may be very hard at first, but as you look back, I promise you it will have been well worth it.

Is Martin Luther Forgotten?

I just finished watching the film "luther" the biographical story of Martin Luther who began his ecumenical life as a Roman monk and ended it as the catalyst used by God to break apart the tyranny of organized religion in the 15th century and to open the door of the gospel to every man, woman and child, first in Germany and then throughout the world.

What I couldn't get out of my mind is how similar the church today seemed to the Roman church in Luther's day. In the 15th century, Pope Leo and the Roman church sold indulgences - the offering of salvation for one's relatives suffering in purgatory; all for the price of a few pennies. For a bit more, one could save several family members or even one's long dead evil friend. Pope Leo took this a step further when he offered salvation for monies given to build St. Peter's Basilica.

Today in any major city are gigantic buildings dedicated to the memory of men, built upon the few pennies of the faithful, with the promise of rewards for those who give freely. These buildings are mistakenly called churches. Not that in some of them, perhaps even many, people are worshipping the One, true, God, it's just that the word we translate church never once applies to a building in sacred scripture.

For hundreds of years in America and certainly with much aplomb and grandeur in the 20th century, Americans have built great buildings to God, each one bigger and brighter than the next. Pass by the former Compaq center in Houston and one now sees "Lakewood Church" in all it's newly remodeled glory, with its benefactor in clear, orange letters "Joel Osteen - Pastor" emblazoned for everyone to see. It isn't hard to find one of these monuments to man, they are in nearly every city, whether one is in Houston, or Atlanta, California or Arkansas - these temples of man are increasing in number and grandeur.

Now wait a minute, some are now saying, "You've gone too far; My church is built out of the desires of the people to honor God and after all shouldn't He have a grand house to live in? "

Did you undergo a "building campaign" to build this magnificent house for God? What were you promised if you freely gave? Or perhaps you were told that "The Lord loves a cheerful giver" while you were made to feel guilty for not supporting the campaign, while the rest of the church kicked in.

What might God say about this? In Isaiah 66:1-3 states, "This is what the Lord says, Heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool. Could you ever build me a temple as good as that? Could you build a dwelling place for me? My hands have made both heaven and earth and they are mine. I, the Lord have spoken! I will bless those who have humble and contrite hearts, who tremble at my word. But those who choose their own ways, delighting in their sins, are cursed. Their offerings will not be accepted, when such people sacrifice an ox, it is no more acceptable than a human sacrifice."

Am I saying it is wrong to build a church? No. But we need to stop kidding ourselves, that the temples we are building for the glory of men are built to serve God. How does burdening people to give money to build something that will burn up one day, honor God? And if you think I have just had too much coffee today, consider this: People who come to the church for help, frequently bring up the fact that "I tithe to the church", as if this entitles them to some special consideration. They are convinced they have stored up for themselves treasures - an indeed they have. Where do they get this idea? From the church! They aren't getting the idea from cereal boxes.

Drive by a Mega church this week. Whose name is on the outside? Is Jesus mentioned anywhere? The very odd thing is - if you drive by a Mormon temple, His name will be prominently displayed.

What do we do? I propose we stop pretending we are glorifying God by building structures for the glory of man. People can worship God under a tent, in a warehouse and in the mall. There are more than enough empty buildings for you to put your church and you'd be doing both the landlord and the local business community a favor. Some might say, "Isn't that what Lakewood did, by renting and remodeling the Compaq center?" Well, did the 90+ million they spent to remodel it and the millions in lease payments they will spend, have any eternal significance? Will anyone get into heaven because of the shiny, new building? Whose name is on the building?

I would very seriously like for you to consider the following question - don't play games with your own mind; consider it truthfully. Picture the follwing person coming to your church - dark skin, thick, black hair, long nose, a fairly well trimmed beard and worn hands. Being poor, and not having bathed in many days, he would stink. His clothes have holes from wear, his shoes also would be worn or perhaps broken. What would happen? At my church, a "campus alert" would be issued in case he were a robber. He would be encouraged to visit our benevolence center - several miles away from our church, at a safe distance. If he asked for water, he might get it, but he would certainly recieve some strange looks and wouldn't be encouraged to sit on our very plush furniture.

The person described above would not be very welcomed at our church - and I suspect at many buildings in our country which are incorrectly named after a group of believers who are to gether to worship Christ, fellowship together and bear one another's burdens. Sadly, the description above is probably a fairly accurate description of a first-century Galileen, who is named Jesus. Jesus said "a prophet is not without honor except in his own country." The people of Jesus own hometown rejected Him. Would the "church" do the same today?