Did you figure out what was wrong in the Noah story from the pictures in the last post? Here it is: It talks about the animals’ and man’s “goodness.” The true account in the Bible never mentions anything about the animals’ or man’s “goodness.” In fact, David says that no one (meaning no person) is good, (Psalm 14:3) and Jesus says that only God is good. (Matthew 19:17) The New Age would believe that man is good because they think we are all God, therefore they would think that we would have to be considered good. They also are into self-esteem and being sure you’re respected and treated well by others. Sounds a bit selfish to us Christians who are taught in the Bible to die to self, doesn’t it?
As I said before, the New Age is a conglomerate religion in that they have drawn on ideas from just about every religion in existence, including Christianity. You can join them and bring Jesus with you if you wish, but you just can’t claim that He’s the only way to Heaven or to God. They even have their own God, Jesus, and Holy Spirit, which sounds good to begin with, but on further investigation you find that they are not the same as our God, Jesus, and Holy Spirit. We’ll address that later.
There are many New Age leaders, some you’ve heard of and some you haven’t. Here are just a few: Norman Vincent Peale, Alice Bailey, Jerry Jampolsky, Dr. Bernie Siegel, Neale Donald Walsch, Ken Blanchard, and MANY more. Brace yourself...in a few days you'll read some names here that may shock you.
You’ve probably heard of Norman Vincent Peale. (He died in 1993.) I remember hearing of him when I was a child in the '60s and about a book he wrote that practically everyone has heard of: “The Power of Positive Thinking.” Sounds good, doesn’t it? Let’s investigate.
In the introduction to “The Power of Positive Thinking,” he says you can rise above obstacles “…by channeling spiritual power through your thoughts.” Channeling is occult and the Bible tells us very plainly that we are to stay away from anything that smacks of the occult, including mediums, witchcraft, sorcerers, etc. (Deuteronomy 18:9-12) Galatians 5:20-21 speaks of those who will not inherit the kingdom of God and includes those involved with witchcraft. There is much more in the Bible about the occult. A simple internet search will show you all you want to know about where to find this in the Bible.
Here are a couple of Peale’s quotes: “Practice self-affirmations, for example…I can do all things through belief in myself.” Did you catch that? Isn’t that in direct opposition to the Bible in Philippians 4:13 which says, “I can do all things through Christ…?” Here’s another quote of his: "Only use positive thoughts in prayers, never negative. Only positive thoughts get results.” Does that mean if I’m on my face before God crying out to Him in pain (not a very positive situation) that He won’t answer me? No. It does not. He also quotes an “inspiring friend,” who said, “Learn to pray big prayers. God will rate you according to the size of your prayers.” Not true. In fact, the Bible speaks of not praying long, wordy prayers just for the sake of wordiness.
Norman Vincent Peale pastored Marble Collegiate Church in NYC for 52 years. I heard Donald Trump on the radio awhile back saying that he had attended that church as a young man and Peale was his pastor.
Part of Peale's and his church’s legacy??? Guideposts Magazine! No wonder so many people have read it for decades…my guess is that it’s unrealistically positive and makes them feel ecstatic!
You may want to take a few minutes to do a search for Norman Vincent Peale, but keep your Christian hat on...don't be fooled by all the positive things you'll read! Speaking positive things doesn't make someone a Christian.
More to come. I'd love to hear from you!
Showing posts with label 1960's. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 1960's. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 20, 2016
Saturday, January 16, 2016
Entry #3 in the New Age Series
Have you had time to study the scripture passages from the previous post? You'll remember that we talked about how Satan makes things that are not of the Lord easy to swallow. Here's an example of "easy to swallow but off-track." Can you figure out what's wrong with the pictures below? (Hint: It's in the wording, not the pictures.) It took me two or three times of reading to my grandchildren to finally catch it! (Apologies to their parents, my daughter and her husband!) Compare this version to Genesis 8:16-19 in your Bible, or read it in KJV here. 16 Go out of the ark, you and your wife and your sons and your sons’ wives with you. 17 Bring out with you every living thing of all flesh that is with you, birds and animals and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth, that they may breed abundantly on the earth, and be fruitful and multiply on the earth. 18 So Noah went out, and his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives with him. 19 Every beast, every creeping thing, and every bird, everything that moves on the earth, went out by their families from the ark.
We MUST stay in communication with God through prayer and Bible study. If we don't know what's in the Bible, how can we know when something confronting us isn't biblical?
The New Age didn't die out with the hippies and flower children that some of us remember seeing on TV when we were children in the '60s and '70s. I lived in a pretty sheltered area of the country so TV was my only exposure to that culture, and my household didn't take it seriously. We just laughed them off as a bunch of weirdos. The New Age is alive and well and has gone through a bit of a transformation over the decades with the help of Shirley MacLaine and others who have polished it up and repackaged it so that respectable, intelligent people are being misled and are buying into it. You may remember that Shirley gained a bit of notoriety with her New Age beliefs, including informing the world that she is "God." (According to God Himself, she is not, by the way. The first Commandment says, "You shall have no other gods before Me." Exodus 20:3) She wrote an autobiographical book published in 1983 called "Out on a Limb." In 1987 it was made into a TV miniseries. Here is a clip where she discovers that she is "God" and announces it to the world. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccb2GsnOoBM Start at about the 3:00 mark.
AND...the New Agers are a peace-loving bunch, for the most part. I suppose if you're "God" you could be pretty peaceable, right? It makes a lot of sense to me now when I think about folks who want to save the whales, and save the earth, and save the trees, and won't build a house or a business or a shopping center on a particular piece of land because there is a snail on the endangered species list whose habitat is there. You must save the whales and the earth and the trees and the snails because...they are "God." They believe that everything in the universe is connected, therefore everything is "God." Stay tuned! (If you don't figure out what's wrong with the pictures below, I'll tell you in the next post.)
The New Age didn't die out with the hippies and flower children that some of us remember seeing on TV when we were children in the '60s and '70s. I lived in a pretty sheltered area of the country so TV was my only exposure to that culture, and my household didn't take it seriously. We just laughed them off as a bunch of weirdos. The New Age is alive and well and has gone through a bit of a transformation over the decades with the help of Shirley MacLaine and others who have polished it up and repackaged it so that respectable, intelligent people are being misled and are buying into it. You may remember that Shirley gained a bit of notoriety with her New Age beliefs, including informing the world that she is "God." (According to God Himself, she is not, by the way. The first Commandment says, "You shall have no other gods before Me." Exodus 20:3) She wrote an autobiographical book published in 1983 called "Out on a Limb." In 1987 it was made into a TV miniseries. Here is a clip where she discovers that she is "God" and announces it to the world. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccb2GsnOoBM Start at about the 3:00 mark.
AND...the New Agers are a peace-loving bunch, for the most part. I suppose if you're "God" you could be pretty peaceable, right? It makes a lot of sense to me now when I think about folks who want to save the whales, and save the earth, and save the trees, and won't build a house or a business or a shopping center on a particular piece of land because there is a snail on the endangered species list whose habitat is there. You must save the whales and the earth and the trees and the snails because...they are "God." They believe that everything in the universe is connected, therefore everything is "God." Stay tuned! (If you don't figure out what's wrong with the pictures below, I'll tell you in the next post.)
Monday, February 24, 2014
The Misses Head, Whom I Have Forgiven
The Misses Head, Ada Belle and Alpha Retta (not kidding) were my sitters when I was in elementary school. The Misses Head were not among my favorite people. Ergo, this story.
First, let me just say this before anyone gets the idea that I'm complaining about my parents. I am not. I had a loving mother and daddy whom I loved very much. Make no mistake about it. And they did the best they could by us kids. No matter who your parents are, though, life just has a way of being a little rough sometimes. At the same time, let me also recognize that the frailties of my childhood pale in the face of others.
My mother worked a large portion of my childhood. I don't think it was so much because she wanted to but that she thought it necessary. Some mornings, with my older sister inside getting ready to go to work herself, I would tell my mother goodbye then sit on the front porch swing and watch her climb in with her carpool buddy. Off they would go, out the driveway and down the hill. Then, when my mother couldn't see me, I would unleash the tears. I didn't want her to see me crying. I'm not sure why. My greatest wish in the world was that my mother didn't work and would be home with me in the summers and waiting for me when I got off the bus during the school year. Never mind the milk and cookies. I just wanted my mother there, so it was bittersweet when she became disabled with a couple of different kinds of heart conditions when I was about thirteen years old.
Until that time I had been left with different sitters in the summer and after school. My paternal grandmother, who lived with us for a short time, tended me until she died six days before my fifth birthday. I was taken aside and told that the anticipated birthday party was canceled. It sort of wouldn't look nice if we were partying six days after my grandmother passed away. I agreed. I don't think I even missed the party. It wasn't like I had one every year. That practice wasn't as rampant as it is now. (Heck, these days it can even be true for adults. "We're having a party for Joe Doe! He's turning 42 next Wednesday!")
When I was around nine or so, my parents decided to rent out the tiny house next door that they owned and had lived in for a short time many years before I was born, probably not 500 square feet to the place. They married in 1935, and I was born in 1954, after two somewhat older siblings. (No, I wasn't an accident...I asked Mother and was promptly put in my place. "No, ma'am! I'll have you know I had to beg your daddy for all THREE of y'all!") Yikes! I was silent on the subject thereafter.
So...they rented the house to The Misses Head, two elderly (well, at the time I thought 64 and 68 were elderly) spinster sisters who wore their yellow-gray hair in buns, cardigans and head scarves inside the house, and snuggies (a really ugly but warm thigh-length precursor to Under Armour) and what appeared to be orthopedic shoes. You know, those black lace-up things with the chunky heel. The little house had no air conditioning, which was okay...ours didn't either. Not many houses did in the 60s. It had never had paint on the wood plank walls, and they wouldn't let my daddy paint it for them. The house had a small kitchen and a tiny area where the wringer-type washing machine sat, through which you walked to enter the living room, through which you walked to enter the lone bedroom where the feather bed beckoned me to sink into its fluffiness. That was the best part about being there. That, and the yellow and white cat with the unlikely name "Pinky."
Well, there was one more good thing. On occasion Retta would make tea cakes for me. I have not had a cookie since then that compared. They were marvelous cake-type cookies that retained their soft yellow dough color even after baking and seemed as big around as a cat-head biscuit. Probably if I saw one today I would think they were tiny, but back then they looked huge. And they were delicious.
The Misses Head had a radio tuned not to our local station but to a station in the next county, familiar to them before they moved into Daddy's little house. They had no TV or bathroom. They had no running water but walked to my house next door and got water either from the well or from a spigot. They had a wood pile outside for their only source of heat, the little wood stove that sat in the middle of the tiny living room, but I'm not sure where they got the wood. I think they lived on Social Security, so maybe there was a Benevolent Giver of Wood. Doesn't matter now. They are long gone.
Now that I ponder the situation, they probably agreed to babysit me in the summers and after school as a part of the rental deal. Why do I think this? Attitude is everything. They were not particularly fond of my presence, not that I was mistreated (hey, they made me tea cakes and let me make peanut butter and syrup sandwiches) but one particular day I remember backtalking Ada (for some stupid reason I can't remember) and she started "having a spell." I was promptly told that I had caused it. (Somehow, though, she seemed to get over it pretty quickly.)
So you can imagine, and I hope forgive me, if I was just a little overjoyed when I found out my mother, in the hospital at Christmastime having had a radical mastectomy, was told she had heart troubles that would keep her from working. I tried not to do Snoopy dances. Yes, we had Snoopy back then.
That was a miserable Christmas, by the way. My mother was in the hospital an hour away from home so my sister, father, and I arose early and I pretended, for the movie camera, to happily inspect the Christmas gifts that Santa had brought, an Oscar-worthy performance which my mother would watch and enjoy later. But all I really wanted was to get to that hospital to see my mother. The house wasn't "right" when she wasn't there, especially on Christmas morning.
That was in the day of the telephone party line. The explanation, for those of you who have never heard of this antiquated phone system, is that several houses shared one line. Each had their own phone number but shared the same line. It's complicated, but the bottom line is, if you picked up the receiver to make a call and heard someone talking, you immediately replaced the receiver and tried later. (Well, you were supposed to.) One day during the middle of mother's breast cancer situation, I picked up the phone to make a call and immediately heard two familiar female voices talking about my mother. When I heard them say, "You know it's malignant," I quietly replaced the receiver in a state of shock. Even at the age of thirteen I knew what that normally meant. However, the radical mastectomy took care of it and she never had any treatment, or cancer, again.
There were other painful situations in my childhood. Maybe I'll tell you about them later. Or not. The point I'd like to make is this: Even though life sometimes stunk back then, there were many, many happy times and I wouldn't change any of it. See, your life, however it is that you have to live it, helps shape who you turn out to be. This means you can turn out to be a stinker because you whine that life has treated you badly, or you can use the past to strengthen the future.
And if you are as fortunate as I am to have had a loving and caring person (Thank you, Joyce!) come along in your life and introduce you to the Jesus Christ that you claimed to know but really didn't, you are infinitely empowered to view your future as a bright one (if not in this life, then in the unending life hereafter) one for others to observe and emulate. And when they ask you about the light that radiates from you, tell them about this Jesus Christ, the One Who alone is the Light of the World. The One Who alone makes THE difference in your life.
Sometimes you don't even suspect that someone had a difficult childhood, and sometimes it is painfully obvious.
I think the Misses Head had difficult childhoods. I hope they found peace.
First, let me just say this before anyone gets the idea that I'm complaining about my parents. I am not. I had a loving mother and daddy whom I loved very much. Make no mistake about it. And they did the best they could by us kids. No matter who your parents are, though, life just has a way of being a little rough sometimes. At the same time, let me also recognize that the frailties of my childhood pale in the face of others.
My mother worked a large portion of my childhood. I don't think it was so much because she wanted to but that she thought it necessary. Some mornings, with my older sister inside getting ready to go to work herself, I would tell my mother goodbye then sit on the front porch swing and watch her climb in with her carpool buddy. Off they would go, out the driveway and down the hill. Then, when my mother couldn't see me, I would unleash the tears. I didn't want her to see me crying. I'm not sure why. My greatest wish in the world was that my mother didn't work and would be home with me in the summers and waiting for me when I got off the bus during the school year. Never mind the milk and cookies. I just wanted my mother there, so it was bittersweet when she became disabled with a couple of different kinds of heart conditions when I was about thirteen years old.
Until that time I had been left with different sitters in the summer and after school. My paternal grandmother, who lived with us for a short time, tended me until she died six days before my fifth birthday. I was taken aside and told that the anticipated birthday party was canceled. It sort of wouldn't look nice if we were partying six days after my grandmother passed away. I agreed. I don't think I even missed the party. It wasn't like I had one every year. That practice wasn't as rampant as it is now. (Heck, these days it can even be true for adults. "We're having a party for Joe Doe! He's turning 42 next Wednesday!")
When I was around nine or so, my parents decided to rent out the tiny house next door that they owned and had lived in for a short time many years before I was born, probably not 500 square feet to the place. They married in 1935, and I was born in 1954, after two somewhat older siblings. (No, I wasn't an accident...I asked Mother and was promptly put in my place. "No, ma'am! I'll have you know I had to beg your daddy for all THREE of y'all!") Yikes! I was silent on the subject thereafter.
So...they rented the house to The Misses Head, two elderly (well, at the time I thought 64 and 68 were elderly) spinster sisters who wore their yellow-gray hair in buns, cardigans and head scarves inside the house, and snuggies (a really ugly but warm thigh-length precursor to Under Armour) and what appeared to be orthopedic shoes. You know, those black lace-up things with the chunky heel. The little house had no air conditioning, which was okay...ours didn't either. Not many houses did in the 60s. It had never had paint on the wood plank walls, and they wouldn't let my daddy paint it for them. The house had a small kitchen and a tiny area where the wringer-type washing machine sat, through which you walked to enter the living room, through which you walked to enter the lone bedroom where the feather bed beckoned me to sink into its fluffiness. That was the best part about being there. That, and the yellow and white cat with the unlikely name "Pinky."
Well, there was one more good thing. On occasion Retta would make tea cakes for me. I have not had a cookie since then that compared. They were marvelous cake-type cookies that retained their soft yellow dough color even after baking and seemed as big around as a cat-head biscuit. Probably if I saw one today I would think they were tiny, but back then they looked huge. And they were delicious.
The Misses Head had a radio tuned not to our local station but to a station in the next county, familiar to them before they moved into Daddy's little house. They had no TV or bathroom. They had no running water but walked to my house next door and got water either from the well or from a spigot. They had a wood pile outside for their only source of heat, the little wood stove that sat in the middle of the tiny living room, but I'm not sure where they got the wood. I think they lived on Social Security, so maybe there was a Benevolent Giver of Wood. Doesn't matter now. They are long gone.
Now that I ponder the situation, they probably agreed to babysit me in the summers and after school as a part of the rental deal. Why do I think this? Attitude is everything. They were not particularly fond of my presence, not that I was mistreated (hey, they made me tea cakes and let me make peanut butter and syrup sandwiches) but one particular day I remember backtalking Ada (for some stupid reason I can't remember) and she started "having a spell." I was promptly told that I had caused it. (Somehow, though, she seemed to get over it pretty quickly.)
So you can imagine, and I hope forgive me, if I was just a little overjoyed when I found out my mother, in the hospital at Christmastime having had a radical mastectomy, was told she had heart troubles that would keep her from working. I tried not to do Snoopy dances. Yes, we had Snoopy back then.
That was a miserable Christmas, by the way. My mother was in the hospital an hour away from home so my sister, father, and I arose early and I pretended, for the movie camera, to happily inspect the Christmas gifts that Santa had brought, an Oscar-worthy performance which my mother would watch and enjoy later. But all I really wanted was to get to that hospital to see my mother. The house wasn't "right" when she wasn't there, especially on Christmas morning.
That was in the day of the telephone party line. The explanation, for those of you who have never heard of this antiquated phone system, is that several houses shared one line. Each had their own phone number but shared the same line. It's complicated, but the bottom line is, if you picked up the receiver to make a call and heard someone talking, you immediately replaced the receiver and tried later. (Well, you were supposed to.) One day during the middle of mother's breast cancer situation, I picked up the phone to make a call and immediately heard two familiar female voices talking about my mother. When I heard them say, "You know it's malignant," I quietly replaced the receiver in a state of shock. Even at the age of thirteen I knew what that normally meant. However, the radical mastectomy took care of it and she never had any treatment, or cancer, again.
There were other painful situations in my childhood. Maybe I'll tell you about them later. Or not. The point I'd like to make is this: Even though life sometimes stunk back then, there were many, many happy times and I wouldn't change any of it. See, your life, however it is that you have to live it, helps shape who you turn out to be. This means you can turn out to be a stinker because you whine that life has treated you badly, or you can use the past to strengthen the future.
And if you are as fortunate as I am to have had a loving and caring person (Thank you, Joyce!) come along in your life and introduce you to the Jesus Christ that you claimed to know but really didn't, you are infinitely empowered to view your future as a bright one (if not in this life, then in the unending life hereafter) one for others to observe and emulate. And when they ask you about the light that radiates from you, tell them about this Jesus Christ, the One Who alone is the Light of the World. The One Who alone makes THE difference in your life.
Sometimes you don't even suspect that someone had a difficult childhood, and sometimes it is painfully obvious.
I think the Misses Head had difficult childhoods. I hope they found peace.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)