2017 Mar 12^th

The Sunday paper usually holds considerable interest; it typically has the funnies and some right wing political columnists at which to tilt. Today there were several other curiosities: There was a “Northern Living “section with a color picture above the fold of a man who has (gasp) given up his smartphone and gone back to his simple flip phone. His rationale was that his smartphone was becoming a distraction, that he was becoming a slave to the device and was constantly being interrupted by its demands. 

Well, I understand that and that is why I was never interested in owning a smartphone in the first place. So, do I and all the other smartphone “rejecters” get our pictures in the paper? Not a chance. The reason is obvious: Luke 15:7 tells us that there is more joy in heaven over one repentant sinner than over 99 of the righteous. Once again, as the comic said, “I just get no respect.”

The next page finds an article about alternative medicine: This person is pushing “energy healing” which, its proponent claims, can improve physical and mental health. The article states that, “She has studied the law of attraction which states that what people think about is what they will get.” I know that we live in a time of alt-facts so perhaps this is an example. The law of gravitational attraction is very simple. It is the product of the two masses divided by the square of the distance between them. This equation dates back to Newton. What other law of attraction this person is talking about is not likely to be found in any scientific journal.

The idea that what people think about is what they will get has some background in a movie. Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour appeared in “Somewhere in Time,” a movie in which Reeve falls in love with the image of a long dead Seymour and tried, with limited success, to wish himself back into her era. That movie was fiction, indeed, it was fantasy, but not for folks who believe that thinking about what you want will get it for you.

The notion that we can dispense with western medicine can be lethal: A former student went on to earn a doctorate in clinical psychology from Wayne State University. Bob was bright, highly motivated but laid back. After he earned his clinical doctorate and had completed his internship he married an attorney and I guess was prepared to live happily ever after. But Bob firmly believed that any physical problem, say a disease, could be remedied by reading, or listening to the reading, of the appropriate Bible verses.

This was certainly a belief in non-traditional medicine. Shortly after the acquisition of his professional credentials Bob developed a pain in his lower abdomen and two weeks later he was dead from septicemia produced by his burst appendix. He had refused to see a physician or have surgery and I guess hearing the Bible verses and thinking about getting well didn’t work.