I remember once having a discussion with a group of young mothers about what values and qualities they would like to teach their children.  A Christian parent's list might be like this:  1.   faith in God    2.  Obedience   3.  compassion for others    4.  honesty

The young mothers (many of them unwed and not Christians) had a list that was topped off with 1.  independency or 2. self-reliance.

Most of them would never admit to spanking or striking their child because of fear from intervention from authorities.  Most of them were trying to escape domestic violence themselves.  Likely they did strike their children in angry but would never admit it to anyone else.  

They particularly found obedience to be a unneccessary or "stupid" virtue.   Obedience to parents, teachers and God is all good but their rebellious nature could not see this.

Some people do not understand that disciplining a child involves guiding a child to make the correct decisions, teaching them to control their anger and actions in an emotional response,  teaching them to take responsiblity for their actions or face the consequences.  Setting out reasonable expectations for a child, giving them responsibilities, setting consistent rules and consistent consequences when rules of broken.  When rules are broken there are reasonable punishments such as removal of priveledges or spankings.  They just understand that "spare the rod, spoil the child" means when you are angry at your kid, hit them.  Satan is always trying to pervert scripture.  

The scripture Proverbs 13:24 actually says "He who spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is careful to discipline him."    The Hebrew word for rod (shebet) is referring to a branch of a tree, a stick that could be used for walking.  I like to think of it as a shepherd's staff.  I do not get the image of a shepherd spanking a lamb with his staff but gently guiding and protecting the lamb from danger.  Sheep can learn to obey the shepherd and will suffer consequences when they do not.  Children are much more willful and clever than sheep.  Chastise, the Hebrew, is a word to correct with blows or words.  My concordance does not show what the Hebrew word is in this scripture so I am not clear.  

I happen to know an American woman who has a disability and many chronic health problems.  She has a part-time job.  While she has whatever the public insurance is, she can not find a doctor that will take her health insurance.  She lives in the New York City area.  She was quite amazed that people in Canada could go to "walk-in clinics" and see a doctor.  

So much for Christian mercy.  Yes, it is about money.  

Do you really resent paying taxes so that poor people, children and the disabled can go to see a doctor?

If you do have to go to emergency again, try to get a family member to phone your family doctor.  If your family doctor phones or faxes the emergency department, he/she can give them important information about your medical conditions.  Otherwise, you might have to wait longer for tests to be done.  Emergency departments work on a triage system.  It is not first come, first served.  They treat the most critical cases first.  

There are hundreds of experienced foreign trained doctors living in Canada who are not allowed to practice.  Plus many Canadian trained doctors will go to United States from Canada to practice: some for more money, some for experience.  Often they return.  Yes, there does seem to be more doctors in the larger cities.  Some communities organize buses or carpools to transport people to their appointments once a week.  Some specialists often fly in to northern communities to see patients once a month.  Just because a health insurance scheme is public, does not mean that the people do not have a say in how it should be run.  Many communities have worked hard to raise money to build their hospitals and they should be able to keep them open.  Some communities even top up a salary to keep doctors and their local emergency open.  

Do not be fooled.  For profit insurance companies and hospitals are run FOR PROFIT.  

The Canadian health system, while not perfect, does work.  It is quite fair for all Canadians.  

The system is set up so that all Canadians, regardless of where they live or their income have reasonable access to health care that they need.  There are some problems in accessing health care in remote and underpopulated regions, such as the Arctic.   Where there are no roads, everything has to be flown in or out by bush plane.  There are some waits for non-emergency surgery but people are getting what they need.  Toronto, for example, has many excellent hospitals.  The children's hospital in Toronto is excellent and gives equal treatment for all children regardless of their family income.  It does work and that is because Canadians want it to work.  Perhaps Americans do not think this type of system would work in their country because they already have so much greed and corruption in their present health care system and they are so used to having their politicians lie to them.  

Let's start with the Christian standard of morality and the Western countries legal system  (North American, European countries).

If someone can make money from this, it will happen.  Of course technology is always promoted as a miracle to feeding the starving.  But it will never replace good stewardship of the earth as God intended.

I always find it amusing that the soy vegetarian "ground beef" is more expensive than the real thing.  

Interesting article.  
 

Don't you think that someone who might be labelled with a personality disorder might be helped by church ministry and prayer?   They might seen odd or difficult to handle but this requires patience.

Thomas Jefferson owned slaves.  But owning slaves was not his only accomplishment.  There are many statues honouring Thomas Jefferson but they are not dedicated to promoting slavery.  

I think the idea behind the Alexander Wood's statue was that the city was probably "fooled" somewhat into providing some of the funding.  People who know how to write the applications in a certain manner will get the funding.  While an organization raised money for the statue, is it known that they represented themselves as a gay organization while they were funding raising?  

If some Christian organization in San Francisco wanted to erect a statue to honour Saint Francis (the saint the city was named for),  would it be allowed?  

As for Alexander Wood being a homosexual -  innocent until proven guilty.  He did face some charges but I could not give an opinion because I have not seen any historical court documents.  

I can agree with Dr. Rogan, having a Christian viewpoint on the world does help others.   Most churches are more accepting of those suffering from mental illness than other organizations.  But there is still a long way to go in educating people, even Christians, about mental illness.  There is still much prejudice even within churches.  

Mental health issues are important as genetic testing is becoming more and more advanced.  Consider that the "treatment" for a diagnosis of an unborn baby with trisomy (Down's syndrome) is death (abortion),  this is already very scary.  If there were prenatal tests for mental illnesses such as schziophrenia, bi-polar, autism,  are the "treatments" recommended going to be death too?  

I think Dr. Kessler might be a little off in saying that one in four Americans meets the criteria for mental illness.  Consider these definitions for personality disorders and it seems most Christians (or any other religious people) might fit the criteria for Schizotypal Personality Disorder.  If they like to evangelize, they might be put into another group etc:

<sub>"Currently, there are 10 distinct personality disorders identified in the DSM-IV:

Antisocial Personality Disorder:  Lack of regard for the moral or legal standards in the local culture, marked inability to get along with others or abide by societal rules.  Sometimes called psychopaths or sociopaths.

Avoidant Personality Disorder:  Marked social inhibition, feelings of inadequacy, and extremely sensitive to criticism.

Borderline Personality Disorder:  Lack of one's own identity, with rapid changes in mood, intense unstable interpersonal relationships, marked impulsively, instability in affect and in self image.

Dependent Personality Disorder:  Extreme need of other people, to a point where the person is unable to make any decisions or take an independent stand on his or her own. Fear of separation and submissive behavior. Marked lack of decisiveness and self-confidence.

Histrionic Personality Disorder:  Exaggerated and often inappropriate displays of emotional reactions, approaching theatricality, in everyday behavior. Sudden and rapidly shifting emotion expressions.

Narcissistic Personality Disorder:  Behavior or a fantasy of grandiosity, a lack of empathy, a need to be admired by others, an inability to see the viewpoints of others, and hypersensitive to the opinions of others.

Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder:  Characterized by perfectionism and inflexibility; preoccupation with uncontrollable patterns of thought and action.

Paranoid Personality Disorder:  Marked distrust of others, including the belief, without reason, that others are exploiting, harming, or trying to deceive him or her; lack of trust; belief of others' betrayal; belief in hidden meanings; unforgiving and grudge holding.

Schizoid Personality Disorder:  Primarily characterized by a very limited range of emotion, both in expression of and experiencing; indifferent to social relationships.

Schizotypal Personality Disorder:   Peculiarities of thinking, odd beliefs, and eccentricities of appearance,  behavior, interpersonal style, and thought (e.g., belief in psychic phenomena and having magical powers).

According to Dr. Sam Vaknin, author of Malignant Self-Love: Narcissism Revisited, individuals with personality disorders have many things in common (see The Interrelationship Between Personality Disorders):

Self-centeredness that manifests itself through a me-first, self-preoccupied attitude

Lack of individual accountability that results in a victim mentality and blaming others, society and the universe for their problems

Lack of perspective-taking and empathy

Manipulative and exploitative behavior

Unhappiness, suffering from depression and other mood and anxiety disorders

Vulnerability to other mental disorders, such as obsessive-compulsive tendencies and panic attacks

Distorted or superficial understanding of self and others' perceptions, being unable to see his or her objectionable, unacceptable, disagreeable, or self-destructive behaviors or the issues that may have contributed to the personality disorder.

Socially maladaptive, changing the rules of the game, introducing new variables, or otherwise influencing the external world to conform to their own needs

No hallucinations, delusions or thought disorders (except for the brief psychotic episodes of Borderline Personality Disorder)"</sub>

Thank you for warning about Logo.

There are ways to lock out certain channels from viewing.  Contact your cable company to find out how to do this.   That way you will not be assaulted by unwanted images that you might see while flipping around the channels.

Some DVD players also have a lockout feature.  A code has to be entered before some DVD will play.  

Children and teenagers should also be taught to "self-censor".  They should be taught to look for ratings on any media:  DVD, video, recordings.  If they pick up a book or watch a program that has any nudity, foul language or excessive violence (hard to define that one), they should stop and tell their parents about it.  

Every family should have standards to what they will watch, read or listen to in their home.

Well it is easy to forgive some people, people we like or admire, or people who are truly repentant and apologize.  So I am going off from the original posting some what.  No offense is meant to anyone here because I am not talking about that type of forgiveness that is easy.  

We must consider how difficult it is to forgive those who commit terrible crimes against the innocent and even ourselves.  We might have forgiven them before and they were not apologetic or even repentant.  They may have repeatedly sinned against us and God harming us in many ways.  Do these people deserve our forgiveness?  How do we forgive those who hurt us many many times and are not sorry for it?  I am talking about liars, thieves, rapists, murderers.  

Do any of you Christian women like to sew your own clothing?  I find the choice of modest and affordable clothing in stores to be limited.  I find it difficult to find dresses that are modest and fit properly.   So I have been sewing much of my own clothing such as dresses and long skirts.  Does anyone like to sew their own dresses and skirts?

He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows.  It is difficult for some people to understand that when we suffer, Christ understands our suffering.  We should not ask why are we suffering?  but how may we serve God in our suffering?  

So greatly did Jesus suffering and bear our inequities.  We should think of Christ's suffering as we suffer.  Many who have suffered serious illnesses at first wondered why.  Then some come to understand that their suffering helped them to understand, just a small bit, of the suffering that Christ bore for us.  

When we are suffering and can not do much in illness except lie in bed, how can we serve God?  We can pray for others.  We can share Christ with those we visit us.  If we can use the telephone, we can call others.  Most importantly, we can pray.  

I am grieved by the number of children and young adults who are bullied and taunted by namecalling of "homo", "freak", "lesbian" in schools.  Some children look different or have different mannerisms such as a male having a higher pitched voice, more effeminate gestures, different interests than other males.  This is no reason for someone to be bullied or to think they must be "gay".  

Often people with mild autism come across as looking or acting differently.  I know one young woman who has Asperger's Syndrome, a type of high functioning autism.  She was constantly called lesbian and gay during her school years because she was not interested and could not afford fashionable clothing.  She did not have too much interest in flirting with boys either.  Even as she pursued higher education she was constantly being asked if she was gay either as an insult or by sexual predators.   There was constant pressure with men she dated to "prove" she wasn't gay by participating in unwanted sexual contact.  She actually started to wonder if she was gay because she was constantly being told she must be.  Only she was not gay.

This is the kind of pressure and abuse our youth are going through these days.  Children and young adults should not be bullied, especially by being labelled as homosexual because they are different.  

Autism is just being diagnosed more often as are learning disabilites and Attention Deficient Disorder.  Most likely it is just a "brain type" that has always existed.  It seems to be a problem in today's schools because of the type of teaching being done.  Children are expected to learn sitting in a class all day listening to a teacher.  Not all people find this is the most effective learning style for them.  

Children were required to receive immunizations such as MMR or they would not be permitted into school.  So parents were forced to immunize their children or homeschool in some cases.  

Thimerosal is a common preservative for many pharmaceutical preparations including contact lenses solutions.  It is mercury based.  Mercury and other heavy metals such as silver and gold have anti-microbial activities.  Lead and mercury can cause many health problems.  

Many adults have autism or ADD that are undiagnosed.  Some don't feel that they need medication.  Pharmaceutical companies and schools are pushing drugs on children.  

You both should seek some professional counselling to ensure that any verbal abuse stops and that physical abuse will not occur again.  Ask your pastor for a referall.

You and your husband need to understand why he is swearing at you.  Is his anger caused by your actions or attitudes or some other situation such as work?  Regardless of any reason for his anger, he should understand that swearing at you hurts you and dishonours you.  You must also examine your behaviours and attitudes that dishonour your husband.  For example:  are you neglecting agreed upon chores or responsibilites because you are angry with your husband?  Are misunderstandings or lack of communication causing the problems that result in angry behaviour?  

Does your husband swear at others as well as you?  If it is a bad habit, it can be broken.  Spending some time praying together and reading scriptures can be helpful.  I hope that you will both find comfort and help in the Lord.