This sequence is made up of poses that will improve your core strength and help flatten your abs. While doing yoga is not the best way to get a six-pack, you can expect to significantly tone and strengthen your belly. Strengthening your core can also help relieve back pain and improve your posture (nothing makes your belly look bigger than slouching!). Many of the poses recommended below are balances, which are a great way to work the core.
1. Let's get started by coming onto all fours with your knees underneath your hips and your wrists underneath your shoulders.
2. Do a few Cat-Cow Stretches to warm up, arching your back on your inhalations and rounding your spine on your exhalations. Remember to keep your belly hugging in throughout both motions.
Regardless of how individuals might perceive themselves, they each remain biologically either a man or a woman.
Accepting transgenderism in a child is a form of child abuse.
This is according to the American College of Pediatricians, a professional organization of pediatricians whose leadership includes Dr. Paul McHugh, the former psychiatrist in chief at Johns Hopkins Hospital, one of the leading medical centers in the world.
The ACP quite correctly asserts that “facts - not ideology - determine reality.” The Bible asserts on its first page that there are just two genders - “male and female” - and not five, as homosexual activists want us to believe, or 58 like Facebook wants us to believe.
This biblical statement of the truth about gender identity is confirmed by biological science. Human sexuality is “binary by design.” Binary means there are two and only two options according to medical science - a child either has an “XY” chromosomal pattern or an “XX.” These are genetic markers which indicate God’s design for humanity and create the capacity for human reproduction.
There are rare biological disorders of sexual development, but these are “deviations from the sexual binary norm” and never should be used as a template for understanding normative human sexuality. There is no third sex.
Regardless of how individuals might perceive themselves, they each remain biologically either a man or a woman. Bruce Jenner was conceived a male, born a male and will remain a male until the day he dies. His tragic view of his own sexuality is a delusion.
The way to help a sexually confused child is to help him reconcile his psychological view of his own sexuality with the biological truth of his own sexuality; not to aid and abet him in accepting a discordant view of himself. The confusion in children is not in their bodies, it is in their minds. The good news is that while their bodies cannot and will not change, their minds can.
The American Psychiatric Association (APA) still classifies transgenderism as Gender Identity Disorder, a recognized form of mental disturbance which should not be accepted as normal.
For most teens, gender confusion is only temporary. According to the APA, 98% of gender confused boys and 88% of gender confused girls accept their biological sexual identity after passing through puberty.
To administer hormone treatments to block fertility and growth in a biologically healthy child is a grotesque form of child abuse. Cross-sex hormones, taken in late adolescence by gender confused teens, are associated with dangerous health risks such as high blood pressure, blood clots, stroke and even cancer. No healthy child should ever be exposed to such risks. To do so in the name of perverted science is obscene.
The long-term psychological effects can be devastating as well. Adults who use cross-sex hormones and who undergo surgical mutilation as a part of the sex reassignment process commit suicide at 20 times the rate of the general population. This is true even in countries like Sweden which are notably and spectacularly transgender-affirming, shattering the transparent myth that it’s all due to transgenderphobia.
As the ACP puts it, “Conditioning children into believing a lifetime of chemical and surgical impersonation of the opposite sex is normal and healthful is child abuse.”
There is a stampede underway to make it a criminal act to help a gender-confused teen reconcile his sexual identity with his biological identity. It’s already illegal in four states, with constant pressure being exerted by the sexual deviancy cabal to expand such a ban to the entire country. This is tragically misguided and can only result in lasting, lifelong, and irreversible damage to the physical, emotional, and psychological health of vulnerable children.
No nation that truly loves children would allow this alarming and disturbing trend to continue for another day. Not another day.
(Unless otherwise noted, the opinions expressed are the author’s and do not necessarily reflect the views of the American Family Association or American Family Radio. Likewise no comments directed at the moderator(s) will be approved.)
Olives are one of those wonders of nature that are easy to take for granted, yet deserve special attention. Technically a fruit, olives belong to the group of “drupes,” which are fruits with a pit or stone. Other drupes include peaches, mangos, cherries, nectarines, almonds and pistachios.
There are hundreds of varieties of olives, which grow on trees that are mostly native to the Mediterranean (as well as areas of Asia and Africa). Olive trees are remarkable in their own right, as they tend to live to be several hundred years old. There is at least one record of an olive tree that is 2,000 years old.
In the U.S., five olive varieties make up the majority of the market share: Manzanillo, Sevillano, Mission, Ascolano and Barouni. These are grown mostly in California.
You may also enjoy Kalamata olives, which refer to those from Kalamon olive trees in Greece (they’re named after their city of origin, Kalamata). Bear in mind that olives labeled “Kalamata-style” or “Kalamata-type” are probably not true Kalamata olives.
It’s possible to become quite a connoisseur of olives, as each variety has its own unique flavor profile. Olive bars have even become popular at specialty stores, which allow you to taste different olives and curing methods.
Olives Are Anti-Inflammatory, Disease-Fighting Powerhouses
If you love olives, you’re in luck. This is one satisfying snack or meal ingredient you can feel good about eating. Many people have shunned olives because of their high fat content, but this is precisely one reason that makes them so very good for you. And there are others as well.
Heart Healthy Fats
Most of the fat (more than 75 percent) in olives is oleic acid, a monounsaturated fat known for lowering your risk of heart disease.
It’s worth noting that macadamia nuts also contain high amounts of this beneficial fat (about 60 percent). As reported by the George Mateljan Foundation:
“When diets low in monounsaturated fat are altered to increase the monounsaturated fat content (without becoming too high in total fat), research study participants typically experience a decrease in their blood cholesterol, LDL cholesterol, and LDL:HDL ratio.
All of these changes lower our risk of heart disease. Recent research studies have also shown that the monounsaturated fat found in olives (and olive oil) can help to decrease blood pressure.
The oleic acid found in olives — once absorbed up into the body and transported to our cells — can change signaling patterns at a cell membrane level (specifically, altering G-protein associated cascades).
These changes at a cell membrane level result in decreased blood pressure.”
Research published in the journal BMC Medicine further concluded, “Olive oil consumption, specifically the extra-virgin variety, is associated with reduced risks of cardiovascular disease and mortality in individuals at high cardiovascular risk.”
Powerful Antioxidants and Anti-Inflammatory Properties
Olives contain antioxidants “in abundance,” according to research published in the European Journal of Cancer Prevention.
This includes phenol (hydroxytyrosol, tyrosol), polyphenols (oleuropein glucoside) and other compounds. The antioxidant properties of olives have been shown to be stronger than those of vitamin E.
Olives also contain some unique antioxidants, like oleuropein, which is only found in olives. It reduces the oxidation of LDL cholesterol in your body and may lower markers of oxidative stress.
Oleuropein also helps to decrease the activity of inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS), which is associated with inflammation. Oleocanthal, a phenolic compound found in virgin olive oil, even shows similar anti-inflammatory properties to the drug ibuprofen.
Anti-Cancer Activity
The antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties in olives, as well as other anti-cancer compounds, make them useful for cancer prevention.
For instance, compounds in olive have been found to activate the tumor suppressor gene and apoptotic gene, which induces programmed cell death. Research published in the International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Medicine reported:
“Several studies have shown that the incidence of coronary heart disease and cancers is lowest in the Mediterranean basin as compared to other parts of the world because of the diet … rich in olives and olive products.
… Oleic acid, a monounsaturated fatty acid plays an important role in cancer prevention, while squalene showed anticancer effect …
Olive oil shows a role in the prevention of the development of carcinomas and olive oil may have chemopreventive properties against colon carcinogenesis …
Oleuropein is a powerful antioxidant and anti-angiogenic agent and shows a potent anti-tumor agent and cancer-protective effects.”
Anti-Aging Benefits
The antioxidants in olives likely yield anti-aging benefits. Tyrosol, a phenol found in extra virgin olive oil, has been found to increase lifespan and resistance to stress in roundworms, for instance. In lab studies, oleuropein-treated cultures had their lifespan extended by 15 percent.
Oleuropein, hydroxytyrosol (another antioxidant) and squalene in olives may also help protect your skin against the radiation in UV light; oleuropein in particular has been found to act as a skin protector and has direct antioxidant action on your skin.
And, according to research published in the journal Rejuvenation Research:
“The health benefits of the Mediterranean diet can be largely ascribed to the nutraceutical properties of extra-virgin olive oil (EVOO).
Mono-unsaturated fatty acids and various phenolic compounds, such as oleocanthal, oleuropein, hydroxytyrosol, and tyrosol, are the main nutraceutical substances of EVOO.
These substances have been suggested to have the ability to modulate aging-associated processes. In experimental models, it has been shown that EVOO with high concentrations of polyphenols has anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidant properties.”
Bone Health
Consumption of olive oil and olives has been shown to prevent the loss of bone mass in animal studies of aging-related osteoporosis. Oleuropein may be responsible for this beneficial effect.
In a study of 127 elderly men, consumption of a Mediterranean diet enriched with virgin olive oil for two years was associated with increased serum osteocalcin (a bone matrix protein) and procollagen I N-terminal propeptide (PINP, another measure of bone health), which suggests olives may have protective effects on bone.
Phenolic compounds in extra virgin olive oil have also been found to stimulate human osteoblastic cell proliferation. Osteoblasts are bone-forming cells, so this study also suggests that olives contain compounds that may benefit bone health.
Even More Benefits
Olives, olive oil and compounds in them have been linked to even more health benefits than what’s listed above, including:
Increased insulin sensitivity
Increased testosterone synthesis
Liver protective
Beneficial nutrients for eye health (including vitamin A)
What’s the Difference Between Black and Green Olives?
Olives come in a range of colors — bright green, yellow green, dark purple, or black. Their color is mostly a matter of preference and doesn’t necessarily indicate anything about their state of ripeness or curing process. Some olives turn from green to black during the ripening process, but others start out black and remain black (or start out green and remain green).
Because olives are bitter when they’re first picked, they typically undergo water-curing, brine-curing or lye-curing to make them more palatable. Some olives may also be dry-cured (i.e. rubbed with coarse salt), which results in a wrinkled skin. Most mass-produced olives are cured with lye, as it’s a much faster process. The epitome of this would be black canned olives, which are picked green and unripe, then cured in lye and treated with oxygen to turn them black.
If you want to try olives cured with salt or water, a process that takes months, look for small, artisanal brands or pick and choose from a high-quality olive bar. If purchasing from the latter, make sure the turnover rate is high and avoid any olives with a mushy texture.
Both green and black olives are good for you, but there is research that suggests the oleuropein content decreases as olives ripen. So in some cases, green olives may have more of this beneficial compound (but it’s not enough of a reason to shun black olives if you enjoy them).
Olive Oil Is Commonly Adulterated
It’s relatively easy to find high-quality olives (look for those with the pits intact and sold in a jar, not a can), but this isn’t necessarily the case for olive oil. Olive oil is a common target of food fraud, in which it is deliberately adulterated at your expense, according to the U.S. Pharmacopeial Convention's (USP) Food Fraud Database.
Even “extra virgin” olive oil is often diluted with other less expensive oils, including hazelnut, soybean, corn, sunflower, palm, sesame, grape seed and walnut. But these other oils will not be listed on the label, nor will most people be able to discern that their olive oil is not pure.
If you live in an area where olive oil is made, buying from a local producer is the ideal solution. If not, try an independent olive oil shop that can tell you about the growers, or at least seek out a brand name that you trust to produce quality oil from your local supermarket.
If at all possible, taste the oil before you buy it. While this won’t necessarily be a guarantee of quality (especially if you’re not skilled at picking out all the potentially subtle taste differences), it can help you to pick out the freshest-tasting oil possible (and if you open a bottle at home and find that it tastes rancid or "bad," return it to the store for a refund).
And remember, when you need an oil to cook with, coconut oil, not olive oil, is the ideal choice, because it is the only one that is stable enough to resist heat-induced damage. Olive oil is excellent when used for cold dishes, but cooking with it is virtually guaranteed to damage this highly heat-sensitive oil.
(Homesteading.news) Basic foods like vegetables and general grocery have become quite expensive. Most people spend a lot of cash on grocery shopping which happens to be one of the highest costs related to almost every family.
However, you can now eliminate your family’s grocery bills by growing some of these groceries on your own. The good news is that you can even grow them using scraps which otherwise you would have thrown away. By doing this, your family will be guaranteed of a steady supply of vegetables and grocery at zero cost.
There are a number of fruits and vegetables you can replant and grow in your vegetable garden. This will ensure that you have a variety of vegetables and fruits on hand when you need them and help you cut on grocery costs at the same time. If saving some coins on your grocery bills sounds like a deal, read on and discover 10 vegetables you can grow in your vegetable garden using your veggie scraps.
1. Lettuce
Some very nice lettuce salads go well with either your dinner or lunch and you can actually grow fresh lettuce from those leaves you would normally discard. To have an abundant supply of fresh lettuce from your vegetable garden at home, take the lettuce leftover leaves and put them in a bowl with just a bit of water, then set it somewhere you get good sunlight. Leave the lettuce leaves in the bowl for about four days; once the roots start to grow, take them and replant in soil.
2. Celery
One of the easiest vegetables to grow from kitchen scraps is celery. All you need is the base of a celery plant. Take a bowl and put some warm water in it, then place the base in it. Ensure your bowl is put in a place where it gets direct sunlight. It will only take about a week for leaves to start at the base and these are what you will replant in your vegetable garden and wait for them to grow.
3. Tomatoes
Like peppers, all you need to grow tomatoes in your vegetable garden are the seeds. Pull some of the tomato seeds out and place them on a paper towel and let them dry. You can then put the seeds in potting soil and let them grow indoors until they have grown a few inches long. Transplant them to soil.
4. Potatoes
Did you know new potatoes can be regrown using peelings from other potatoes? It’s true, but you will need peelings with eyes on them. Cut into two-inch pieces ensuring there are 2-3 eyes on each piece; let them dry overnight, then simply replant them in soil, about four inches deep, making sure the eyes are facing upward. It will take 2-3 weeks before you’ll begin to see new plants.
5. Sweet Potatoes
Sweet potatoes grow much the same as regular potatoes. Take a half of a sweet potato and suspend it with toothpicks above a container of shallow water. In a matter of days, you will notice roots beginning to grow, along with sprouts from the top of the sweet potato; once they get to about 4 inches, break them off and submerge them some water. When the roots reach about 1 inch in length, transplant them to soil.
6. Ginger
Ginger root is also very easy to grow; once you get it going, you’ll have an endless supply. Plant a spare piece in potting soil, taking care to make sure that the buds are facing up.You will notice new shoots and new roots in about a week or so and once this happens you can pull it up and use it again. Save a piece of the rhizome for replanting.
Image: Wikipedia
7. Turnips
Turnips are known to grow well from left over scraps and clippings. All you need to do to is just save the turnip tops and place them in a jar of water. In a few days, new green tops will start to grow. Allow the roots to grow until it’s ready for replanting; let the roots grow at least an inch.
8. Avocado
Wash the pit of this superfood and then pierce it with toothpicks for suspension over a small bowl or jar. Fill the water so it covers the bottom inch of the pit/seed. Keep the seed in a warm place but not in direct sunlight, and take care to check the water level daily, adding more as needed. It may take as long as six weeks for the stem and roots to appear; once the stem reaches about six inches, cut it back to three. When leaves begin to appear, transplant to soil, leaving about half of it above ground.
9. Onions
These do well inside or outside. Cut off the root of the onion but ensure you leave about a half-inch of onion when you do. Cover lightly with potting soil and set it in direct sunlight. For green onions you put the white base of the onion with roots attached in a container of water and put in sunlight. Change the water every couple of days and the green will continue to grow. Snip off what you need and it will grow as long as you want.
10. Red Peppers
Red peppers are not hard to plant and do not entail a lot because all you need to do is take the seeds and put them in potting soil. Put it in a place where it can get plenty of sunlight. They do not require much care and take little time to grow; if it’s warm outside, just plant the seeds in the ground.
Growing these vegetables easily from scraps is one of the surest ways of getting more from your vegetable garden. However, it should be noted that, the quality of the parent vegetable scrap helps a lot to determine the quality of the re-growth.
This month, many of the nation's best and brightest high school seniors will receive thick envelopes in the mail announcing their admission to the college of their dreams. According to a 2011 survey, about 60 percent of them will go to their first-choice schools. For many of them, going away to college will be like crossing the Rubicon. They will leave their families -- their homes -- and probably not return for many years, if at all.
That was journalist Rod Dreher's path. Dreher grew up in the small southern community of Starhill, Louisiana, 35 miles northwest of Baton Rouge. His family goes back five generations there. His father was a part-time farmer and sanitarian; his mother drove a school bus. His younger sister Ruthie loved hunting and fishing, even as a little girl.
But Dreher was different. As a bookish teenager, he was desperate to flee what he considered his intolerant and small-minded town, a place where he was bullied and misunderstood by his own father and sister. He felt more at home in the company of his two eccentric and worldly aunts -- great-great aunts, actually -- who lived nearby. One was a self-taught palm reader. She looked into his hand one day when he was a boy and told him, "See this line? You'll travel far in life." Dreher hoped she was right. When he was 16, he decided to leave home for a Louisiana boarding school with the intention of never looking back.
In the book, he describes leaving his Starhill home to pursue a career in journalism -- a career that took him to cities like Baton Rouge, Washington DC, Fort Lauderdale, Dallas, New York, and Philadelphia. He was chasing after a bigger and better career with each move. "I was caught up in a culture of ambition," Dreher told me me in an interview.
While Dreher was a dreamer, Ruthie was satisfied with what she had. When Dreher was living in big cities, going to fancy restaurants, carousing with media types, writing film reviews for a living, and traveling to Europe, Ruthie was back home in Louisiana, living down the road from her parents, starting a family of her own, and devoting herself to her elementary school students as a teacher. Ruthie could not understand Dreher's lifestyle. Why would he want to leave home for a journalism career? Wasn't Starhill good enough? Did Rod think he was better than all of them?
Alli Polin/Flickr
These "invisible walls" stood between Ruthie and Dreher when, on Mardi Gras of 2010, Ruthie was unexpectedly diagnosed with terminal lung cancer -- devastating news that ripped through her community "like a cyclone" says Dreher, who was living in Philadelphia at the time. She was a healthy non-smoking 40-year-old, beloved by her students, her neighbors, her three daughters, and her husband. Now, she had about three months to live. She actually lived for nineteen. On September 15, 2011, Ruthie passed away.
Watching her struggle with terminal cancer for 19 months, and seeing her small-town community pour its love into supporting her, was a transformational experience for Dreher. "There are some things that we really cannot do by ourselves," Dreher said. "When Ruthie got sick, there were things that her family could not do -- they couldn't get the kids to school without help, they couldn't get meals on the table without help, they couldn't pay the bill without help. It really took a village to care for my sick sister. The idea that we are self-reliant is a core American myth."
When news spread of Ruthie's cancer, some friends planned an aid concert to raise money for her medical bills. Hundreds of people came together, raising $43,000 for their friend. "This is how it's supposed to be," someone told Dreher that night. "This is what folks are supposed to do for each other."
***
The conflict between career ambition and relationships lies at the heart of many of our current cultural debates, including the ones sparked by high-powered women like Sheryl Sandberg and Anne Marie Slaughter. Ambition drives people forward; relationships and community, by imposing limits, hold people back. Which is more important? Just the other week, Slate ran a symposium that addressed this question, asking, "Does an Early Marriage Kill Your Potential To Achieve More in Life?" Ambition is deeply entrenched into the American personae, as Yale's William Casey King argues in Ambition, A History: From Vice to Virtue -- but what are its costs?
In psychology, there is surprisingly little research on ambition, let alone the effect it has on human happiness. But a new study, forthcoming in the Journal of Applied Psychology, sheds some light on the connection between ambition and the good life. Using longitudinal data from the nine-decade-long Terman life-cycle study, which has followed the lives and career outcomes of a group of gifted children since 1922, researchers Timothy A. Judge of Notre Dame and John D. Kammeyer-Mueller of the University of Florida analyzed the characteristics of the most ambitious among them. How did their lives turn out?
The causes of ambition were clear, as were its career consequences. The researchers found that the children who were the most conscientious (organized, disciplined, and goal-seeking), extroverted, and from a strong socioeconomic background were also the most ambitious. The ambitious members of the sample went on to become more educated and at more prestigious institutions than the less ambitious. They also made more money in the long run and secured more high-status jobs.
But when it came to well-being, the findings were mixed. Judge and Kammeyer-Mueller found that ambition is only weakly connected with well-being and negatively associated with longevity.
"There really wasn't a big impact from ambition to how satisfied people were with their lives," Kammeyer-Mueller, a business school professor, told me. At the same time, ambitious people were not miserable either. "People who are ambitious are happy that they have accomplished more in their lives," he says.
When I asked about the connection between ambition and personal relationships, Kammeyer-Mueller said that while the more ambitious appeared to be happier, that their happiness could come at the expense of personal relationships. "Do these ambitious people have worse relationships? Are they ethical and nice to the people around them? What would they do to get ahead? These are the questions the future research needs to answer."
Existing research by psychologist Tim Kasser can help address this issue. Kasser, the author of The High Price of Materialism, has shown that the pursuit of materialistic values like money, possessions, and social status-the fruits of career successes-leads to lower well-being and more distress in individuals. It is also damaging to relationships: "My colleagues and I have found," Kasser writes, "that when people believe materialistic values are important, they...have poorer interpersonal relationships [and] contribute less to the community." Such people are also more likely to objectify others, using them as means to achieve their own goals.
So if the pursuit of career success comes at the expense of social bonds, then an individual's well-being could suffer. That's because community is strongly connected to well-being. In a 2004 study, social scientists John Helliwell and Robert Putnam, author of Bowling Alone, examined the well-being of a large sample of people in Canada, the United States, and in 49 nations around the world. They found that social connections -- in the form of marriage, family, ties to friends and neighbors, civic engagement, workplace ties, and social trust -- "all appear independently and robustly related to happiness and life satisfaction, both directly and through their impact on health."
In Canada and the United States, having frequent contact with neighbors was associated with higher levels of well-being, as was the feeling of truly belonging in a group. "If everyone in a community becomes more connected, the average level of subjective well-being would increase," they wrote.
This may explain why Latin Americans, who live in a part of the world fraught with political and economic problems, but strong on social ties, are the happiest people in the world, according to Gallup. It may also explain why Dreher's Louisiana came in as the happiest state in the country in a major study of 1.3 million Americans published in Science in 2009. This surprised many at the time, but makes sense given the social bonds in communities like Starhill. Meanwhile, wealthy states like New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and California were among the least happy, even though their inhabitants have ambition in spades; year after year, they send the greatest number of students to the Ivy League.
In another study, Putnam and a colleague found that people who attend religious services regularly are, thanks to the community element, more satisfied with their lives than those who do not. Their well-being was not linked to their religious beliefs or worshipping practices, but to the number of friends they had at church. People with ten or more friends at their religious services were about twice as satisfied with their lives than people who had no friends there.
lookseebynaomifenton/Flickr
These outcomes are interesting given that relationships and community pose some challenges to our assumptions about the good life. After all, relationships and community impose constraints on freedom, binding people to something larger than themselves. The assumption in our culture is that limiting freedom is detrimental to well-being. That is true to a point. Barry Schwartz, a psychological researcher based at Swarthmore College, has done extensive research suggesting that too much freedom -- or a lack of constraints -- is detrimental to human happiness.
"Relationships are meant to constrain," Schwartz told me, "but if you're always on the lookout for better, such constraints are experienced with bitterness and resentment."
Dreher has come to see the virtue of constraints. Reflecting on what he went through when Ruthie was sick, he told me that the secret to the good life is "setting limits and being grateful for what you have. That was what Ruthie did, which is why I think she was so happy, even to the end."
Meanwhile, many of his East Coast friends, who chased after money and good jobs, certainly achieved success, but felt otherwise empty and alone. As Dreher was writing his book, one told him, "Everything I've done has been for career advancement ... And we have done well. But we are alone in the world." He added: "Almost everybody we know is like that."
***
For many years, Ruthie and her mother had a Christmas Eve tradition of visiting the Starhill cemetery and lighting candles on each of the hundreds of graves there. On that first Christmas Eve after Ruthie died, her mother could not bring herself to keep the tradition going. And yet, driving past the cemetery after sunset on that Christmas Eve, Dreher saw sparks of light illuminating the graveyard. Someone else had lit the candles on the graves -- but who? It turns out that a member of their community named Susan took it upon herself to pay that tribute to the departed, including Ruthie.
In the final paragraph of the novel Middlemarch, George Eliot pays another kind of tribute to the dead. Eliot writes, "The growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs."
In other words, those many millions of people who live in the "unvisited tombs" of the world, though they may not be remembered or known by you and me, are the ones who kept the peace of the world when they were alive. For Dreher, Ruthie is one of those people. She was, he told me, "A completely unfussy, ordinary, neighborly person, who you'd never notice in a crowd, but whose deep goodness and sense of order and compassion saved the day."
Dreher also said of his sister, "What I saw over the course of her 19-month struggle with cancer was the power of a quiet life lived faithfully with love and service to others." While Ruthie, an ordinary person, did not live the kind of life our culture celebrates, she "penetrated deeply into the lives of the people she touched," Dreher told me. "She did not live life on the surface."
What's remarkable, though, is that she was not extraordinary in this regard. Most of the people in the Starhill community were like her in their kindness and compassion, Dreher said.
After Ruthie passed away, Rod decided, with his wife and young children, to put aside their East Coast lives and move back home to Louisiana. They have been there for a year and a half and love it. "Community means more than many of us realize," he says. "It certainly means more than your job."
Tim Allen Shares The Heartbreaking Story That Lead To His Faith In Jesus
Tim Allen may be known for his hilarious jokes and handyman hobbies, but there’s a side of Tim Allen many haven’t seen.
Tim Allen believes in God. And if you meet him in person, you’ll quickly learn that he’s unashamed to tell you so.
But Allen doesn’t claim to be a perfect Christian. In fact, he admits that many of his life’s deepest struggles are what caused him to turn to Christ.
Tim Allen hasn’t always had it easy.. Like many celebrities of our day, Allen wrestled with addiction and alcoholism in his younger days.
Allen’s father was tragically killed by a drunk driver when Tim was only 11-years-old. Through the unimaginable grief, Tim struggled to pick up the pieces.
After his father’s tragic death, Allen questioned whether if he had prayed harder or had been with his father that fatal day, he could have prevented his death. Not knowing where else to turn, Allen found comfort in drug and alcohol abuse.
On October 2, 1978, Allen’s life took a dramatic turn when he was arrested for possession of over 650 grams (1.43 lb) of cocaine. Allen pleaded guilty to drug trafficking charges, and was released after serving two years and four months in federal prison.
Tim Allen hasn’t always been a Christian.
He shared, “For years, I just did not like this idea of God, church,” he said. “(I was) still a churchgoer, but constantly a cynic.”
But today, his relationship with God looks completely different. In fact, Allen’s whole world looks completely different since turning his life over to ‘the Builder’ — as he affectionally refers to Christ.
“I always do ask — whoever put me here; the Builder — what did You want me to do? I just want a relationship with Whoever built me. This is too much; too weird that it happened by accident. I don’t believe that I happened by accident.”
Today, Allen’s life boasts of God’s redeeming grace and goodness, and proves that no man is ‘too far gone.’ With over a decade of sobriety under his belt, Allen is free to enjoy his family and daughters. Tim shared,
“I used to live an isolated existence, even in relationships, but now my family knows me for who I really am. Mostly, that’s a good thing…Yesterday I was swimming with my 3 year-old, and I looked up and thought, ‘How wonderful this world is.’ We’re always searching for something, but it’s going to be all right. Stop fretting so much.
Seeing the worst parts of my behavior helped me to understand the better parts. So while I’m still more anxious than I want to be most of the time, I’m far less anxious than I used to be. I was doing comedy clubs, concerts, movies and TV, and didn’t ever realize how fatigued I was or how much I was missing in my life.”
In a recent episode from Allen’s hit sitcom, “Last Man Standing”, Allen found a way to incorporate Jesus Christ into the script, and it’s absolutely incredible! Watch the clip in the video below:
Since dedicating his life to Christ, it’s simply incredible to see all that God has done through Tim Allen.
“I always do ask… The Builder, what did you want me to do?” Allen said. “And I do ask it. But you got to be prepared for the answer.”
Watch Tim Allen’s powerful interview as he shares about his Faith in Jesus Christ:
Praise God for His redeeming love and grace! While listening to Tim’s inspiring story, I just couldn’t help but think of Colossians 1:13-14 which reads,
“God rescued us from dead-end alleys and dark dungeons. He’s set us up in the kingdom of the Son he loves so much, the Son who got us out of the pit we were in, got rid of the sins we were doomed to keep repeating.”
Thank you, Tim Allen, for sharing your inspiring message of Grace! America needs more men of Faith like you! Please share if you agree!
This year my organization joined with our Roman Catholic allies in filing a legal brief with the U.S. Supreme Court asking the court to uphold Texas’ laws regulating the abortion industry. That isn’t all that surprising. After all, Catholics and evangelicals have been working together for decades to uphold the sanctity of human life. What was surprising was that an opposing brief, filed by a Baptist church, argued that legal abortion is moral and just.
In a Baptist News Global article, the church’s senior minister Donna Schaper defended Planned Parenthood by saying that those of us who oppose abortion are “having a hard time dealing with women as moral agents and as adults.” I thought I recognized her name, and after I looked about I found that I had written about this pastor a decade ago, when she admitted that abortion is murder.
In 2006, Schaper wrote an article about the abortion she had. She wrote that her abortion was the right choice since she and her husband had young twins at the time. “Because women are mature sexual beings who make choices, birth control and abortion are positive moral forces in history,” she wrote. “They allow sex to be both procreational and recreational, for both men and women.”
What was striking to me at the time was that Schaper did not rely on the standard abortion advocacy arguments of the unborn child as a “clump of tissue” or a “mass of cells.” Instead, she called her abortion murder, and spoke of her unborn child as a child. She even named her “Alma,” which means “soul.”
“I happen to agree that abortion is a form of murder,” she wrote. “I think the quarrel about when life begins is disrespectful to the fetus. I know I murdered the life within me.”
“I could have loved that life but I chose not to,” she continued. “I did what men do all the time when they take us to war: they choose violence because, while they believe it is bad, it is still better than the alternatives.”
“When I made my choice to end Alma’s life, I was behaving as an adult,” the pastor concluded. “It was a human life. That’s why we named her, wanted her, but also knew we knew we did not want her enough.”
These words would be chilling coming from anyone. They are especially chilling coming from a pastor of a church. Add to the horror of it all that this church is named for the most beloved Baptist missionary couple of all time, Ann and Adoniram Judson. The Judsons sacrificed their very lives to take the gospel of life to those beyond the ocean. In the pulpit named for them stands a woman who speaks of violence to a defenseless infant in her womb, not in repentance but without apology.
The lessons to be learned here are not just one more reminder of what happens when doctrinal orthodoxy and ethical accountability are lost. We can see that all over the place. What is to be learned here, I think, is that the terms of the abortion debate are deeper than we think. We often assume that the debate is about when life begins. We marshal our scientific and philosophical and biblical arguments about the personhood of the unborn child. And we should continue to do so. But we should also remember that this alone will not end the debate, The problem, after all, is not one of information.
I suspect there are many who share this pastor’s views, though many would be loathe to say so publicly. They know the unborn child is just that: a child, a human being. They know that abortion is an act of violence. But they would rather this violence than the alternative. Behind that is a Nietzschean vision of morality, in which the will to power devours everything in its sight, especially the weak and the vulnerable.
To confront this, we must articulate and embody a different sort of universe, the one Jesus reveals and makes true. We must articulate and embody a kingdom where violence is not a sign of one being a “grown up,” a kingdom where one enters as a vulnerable child. When we refuse to define people in terms of their usefulness, when we bear witness to the image of God in all people, including the most vulnerable, we will find ourselves at odds with a world that sees power, and the violence that maintains it, as all that matters.
The Supreme Court will decide this particular case, of whether the abortion industry should be essentially self-regulating. But we should remember that, in the pile of briefs before them, there’s a church named for missionaries that stands, in its own words, on the side of violence. We must speak to those who hear in that sort of violence a kind of “good news,” a counter-gospel that is attractive to the spirit of the age. And we must hold out a witness for life and for peace and for justice, inside and outside the womb.
This article was originally posted at RussellMoore.com
This tea has similar properties as ginseng, as it is extremely beneficial. It has anti-inflammatory, anti-peptic, antipyretic, anti-allergenic, antibacterial, antispasmodic and anti-fungal properties. All of these characteristic help in strengthening and protecting the liver from being damaged.
You can use it as a relaxing tonic for muscle tension, stress, insomnia etc. You will be able to have deep night sleep and in this way the detoxification process won’t be interrupted.
The 8 Most Effective Nighttime Drinks For Quick Liver Detoxing and Fat Burning
The traditional Chinese medicine says that the human body goes through a 24-hour cycle which is similar to biorhythm that affects the emotional, intellectual and physical state.
According to this cycle, the body energy or chi goes through the essential organs.
During the night sleep, chi is flowing throughout the body and is restoring your health. The liver is the most active organ during the night, especially between 1-3 AM. So before going to bed, it is recommended to consume food that is known to improve liver function so it can clean the body of toxins.
You also need to stay hydrated so the kidneys could clean your body of harmful toxins which are accumulated throughout the day.
8 Detox Teas You Should Drink Every Night
Below you can find 8 healthy teas which can improve the liver function. With their help you will feel energized and you will lose weight faster. These teas can be found in Asian groceries, health food stores and online stores.
Chamomile Tea
This tea has similar properties as ginseng, as it is extremely beneficial. It has anti-inflammatory, anti-peptic, antipyretic, anti-allergenic, antibacterial, antispasmodic and anti-fungal properties. All of these characteristic help in strengthening and protecting the liver from being damaged.
You can use it as a relaxing tonic for muscle tension, stress, insomnia etc. You will be able to have deep night sleep and in this way the detoxification process won’t be interrupted.
Lemon
We all know that warm lemon water should be consumed first thing in the morning. But you should drink it before going to bed as well. The citrus fruit is rich in hesperidin (bioflavonoid), which has hepatoprotective properties. So, just add one unpeeled lemon in a glass of water. You can also add a teaspoon of honey for better results.
Image: Wikipedia
