You can say its because of a global shift in consciousness, a destiny we have arrived at due to spiritual evolution, or the outcome of strange times, but, many people all across the globe are going through intense personal changes and sensing an expansion of consciousness. Personal changes of this magnitude can be difficult to recognize and to understand, but here are 21 traits of an awakening soul, a ‘sensitive’, or an ‘empath.’
1. Being in public places is sometimes overwhelming. Since our walls between self and other are dissolving, we haven’t really learned to distinguish between someone else’s energy and our own. If the general mood of the crowd is herd-like or negative, we can feel this acutely, and may feel like retreating into our own private space. When we have recharged our batteries with meditation, spending time in nature, far away from other people, or just sitting in quiet contemplation, we are ready to be with the masses again. In personal relationships, we often will feel someone else’s emotions as our own. It is important to have this higher sense of empathy, but we must learn to allow another person’s emotions while observing them and keeping our empathy, but, realizing that not all emotions belong to us. Social influence can dampen our own innate wisdom.
2. We know things without having to intellectually figure them out. Often called intuitive awareness, we have ‘a-ha’ moments and insights that can explain some of the most complex theories or phenomenon in the world. Some of the most brilliant minds of our time just ‘know.’ Adepts and sages often were given downloads of information from higher states of consciousness after meditating or being in the presence of a more conscious individual; this is happening for more people with more frequency. As we trust our intuition more often, it grows stronger. This is a time of ‘thinking’ with our hearts more than our heads. Our guts will no longer be ignored. Our dreams are becoming precognitive and eventually our conscious thoughts will be as well.
3.Watching television or most of main stream media, including newspapers and many Hollywood movies is very distasteful to us. The mindset that creates much, but not all, of the programming on television and in cinema is abhorrent. It commodifies people and promotes violence. It reduces our intelligence and numbs our natural empathetic response to someone in pain.
4. Lying to us is nearly impossible. We may not know exactly what truth you are withholding, but we can also tell (with our developing intuition and ESP skills) that something isn’t right. We also know when you have other emotions, pain, love, etc. that you aren’t expressing. You’re an open book to us. We aren’t trained in counter-intelligence, we are just observant and knowing. While we may pick up on physical cues, we can look into your eyes and know what you are feeling.
5. We may pick up symptoms of your cold, just like men who get morning sickness when their wives are pregnant. Sympathy pains, whether emotional or physical, are something we experience often. We tend to absorb emotion through the solar plexus, considered the place we ‘stomach emotion’ so as we learn to strengthen this chakra center, we may sometimes develop digestive issues. Grounding to the earth can help to re-establish our emotional center. Walking barefoot is a great way to re-ground.
6. We tend to root for the underdog, those without voices, those who have been beaten down by the matrix, etc. We are very compassionate people, and these marginalized individuals often need more love. People can sense our loving hearts, so complete strangers will often tell us their life stories or approach us with their problems. While we don’t want to be a dumping ground for everyone’s issues, we are also a good ear for those working through their stuff.
7. If we don’t learn how to set proper boundaries, we can get tired easily from taking on other people’s emotions. Energy Vampires are drawn to us like flies to paper, so we need to be extra vigilant in protecting ourselves at times.
8. Unfortunately, sensitives or empaths often turn to drug abuse or alcohol to block some of their emotions and to ‘protect’ themselves from feeling the pain of others.
9. We are all becoming healers. We naturally gravitate toward healing fields, acupuncture, reiki, Qi-Gong, yoga, massage, midwivery, etc. are fields we often find ourselves in. We know that the collective needs to be healed, and so we try our best to offer healing in whatever form we are most drawn to. We also turn away from the ‘traditional’ forms of healing ourselves. Preferring natural foods, herbs, and holistic medicine as ways to cure every ailment.
10. We see the possibilities before others do. Just like when the church told Copernicus he was wrong, and he stood by his heliocentric theory, we know what the masses refuse to believe. Our minds are light-years ahead.
11. We are creative. We sing, dance, paint, invent, or write. We have amazing imaginations.
12. We require more solitude than the average person.
13. We might get bored easily, but we are really good at entertaining ourselves.
14. We have a difficult time doing things we don’t want to do or don’t really enjoy. We really do believe life was meant to be an expression of joy. Why waste it doing something you hate? We aren’t lazy, we are discerning.
15. We are obsessed with bringing the truth to light. Like little children who say, “that’s not fair” we want to right the wrongs of the world, and we believe it often just takes education. We endeavor to explain the unexplainable and find answers to the deep questions of life. We are seekers, in the Campbellian paradigm. ‘The Hero With a Thousand Faces.”
16. We can’t keep track of time. Our imaginations often get away with us and a day can feel like a minute, a week, a day.
17. We abhor routine.
18. We often disagree with authority (for obvious reasons).
19. We will often be kind, but if you are egotistical or rude, we won’t spend much time with you or find an excuse to not hang out with people who are obsessed with themselves. We don’t ‘get’ people who are insensitive to other people’s feelings or points of view.
20. We may be vegan or vegetarian because we can sense a certain energy of the food we eat, like if an animal was slaughtered inhumanely. We don’t want to consume negative energy.
21. We wear our own emotions on our sleeves and have a hard time ‘pretending’ to be happy if we aren’t. We avoid confrontation, But will quietly go about changing the world in ways you can’t even see.
These 21 traits of an awakening soul are a reminder of how important it is to maintain awareness, clarity and strength in these interesting times. If you are experiencing something that is not on this list, please add it to the comments section below.
"Help! How can I get back my ex!" is the distressed plea of many of my clients when they contact me to launch therapy. After years of gradual relationship deterioration, failing communication in a relationship, and off-putting interactions, at least in the eyes of their partner, some final-straw development suddenly propelled their partner to insist that they separate.
Panic ensues. There's a feeling of having fallen into a fast-moving stream heading straight for the terrifying waterfall of permanent split-up.
The good news is that there is potential for ending up with reunion and a better-than-ever relationship ahead. Here's five steps that can save folks from crashing down the waterfall, enabling them instead to find solid ground and a bridge to a better future.
The Five Steps to Get Back an Ex
1. Get back on your feet.
2. List your spouse's complaints.
3. Clean up your act.
4. Agree to divorce the old marriage.
5. Reconnect from a position of strength.
Let's look at these steps one by one.
Step 1: Get back on your feet.
Peter's young wife Paulette had said to him, "That's it. You've betrayed my trust one time too many. You are far too nice when you talk on the phone to the mother of your daughter, and by contrast you show no love toward me. All you do with me is avoid me or get mad. I've had it. Please, leave the house."
Paulette did agree to join Peter in therapy, but other than that one session a week he was banished from her life.
Peter was devastated. He moved out of his home to a small apartment where he sat each night feeling desparate and miserable, overcome with self-loathing, regrets, guilt and shame, and loneliness.
After starting in therapy Peter began to try to get himself back on his feet by writing his thoughts and feelings. Sending his thoughts via email to his therapist (me) helped him to feel less alone.
I later asked Peter if I could publish excerpts from his emails in this article. He liked the idea that his period of deepest suffering might someday help others facing similar circumstances.
"Human experience has not yet devised anything," Peter wrote on an early email, "that can shield us from the pain of a broken love, the pain of feeling thrown out of your own world and out into the cold. Same as being born: I huddled in a very cosy place that was my natural place to be, then all of a sudden I am ejected into a new and hostile place, one that's not where I felt at home. And there is nothing the baby can do but scream and cry and feel terrible."
In a later email, Peter wrote similarly, "I am overwhelmed today with feelings of loneliness and, yes, anger. I don't want to feel this way and perhaps tomorrow I will feel differently, but I don't really know how much more of this I can take.
"I'm told that there are two people who have created this negative dynamic, and yet I feel like the only person being punished here. I'm locked out of my own house, living in a small lousy room away from my things, my comforts, my bed, and my wife, the only person who means anything to me in Denver. I am living like a gypsy …
"How long am I expected to live like this? The days are VERY lonely. It's an unbelievably depressing feeling to wake up and immediately realize that I'm not home, and have no friends or family to talk with … I get up, I meditate, I swim, I go to work, I eat, I lift some weights, I meditate again and go to sleep. Wash, rinse, and repeat. I'm not enjoying work (which would normally be a decent distraction), but feel I can't quit, as I have too many financial responsibilities I have to uphold. I'm amazed I haven't gone mad yet.
"I just want these feelings of ache and loneliness to go away."
While Peter was suffering deeply, journaling in emails enabled Peter's initial thoughts and feelings to flow through a natural grieving and healing process. Having a trusted friend or relative to talk with can help similarly. The first shock of a separation typically induces a reaction similarly to the disbelief and pain of loss that people experience after the sudden death of a loved one. Peter's journal entries enabled him to dump, explode and vomit out his distress, launching his recovery process.
Peter's writing included many insights, which we then discussed further in his therapy sessions:
"I want to stress that I don't like feeling the way I do right now. I especially don't like the feelings of anger that I am experiencing. Or the feeling of abandonment."
In our therapy sessions Peter recalled that in his family expressions of anger were not allowed. As a young boy with no one who would listen when he felt negative feelings, Peter often felt abandoned.
Early life experiences form templates for later experiences. Peter's reactions to his current situation consequently repeated the abandonment feeling he had felt as a kid whose parents wanted him to be seen but not heard.
"Yesterday, I wanted to read a novel that I have at home and, of course, the house is off-limits except at hours of my wife's choosing. I could have phoned and arranged a time, but why am I always put in the position where I have to ask for something? It's demeaning and emasculating."
While his current situation was inherently upsetting, Peter again gradually saw that he was reacting through the lens of his family-of-origin realities. Loving responses were not freely given there. Asking for his parents' attention felt demeaning and emasculating.
Tracing strong reactions to current life events back to their origin in earlier experiences can enable a person to identify what felt the same then and now. The healing question then is to find what in the present situation is different.
Peter realized that now, as an adult, he had more options than he had had as a child for finding solutions to his life challenges. Therein lay the hope for change, pointing the way toward healing. He could safely ask his therapist for attention. His wife also did not intent to put him in a demeaning or emasculating position. She just wanted change.
Peter discovered that if he wanted to talk with his wife, he would get the best results if he asked from a stance of self-respect. He tried asking if she would meet him for coffee. She replied, "Sure!" In fact, the groveling and self-deprecation that Peter had learned as a child were the opposite of what his wife wanted. The more confidently he addressed her, the more positively she responded.
Writing down his painful feelings helped to free Peter from continuously thinking of them. Writing and then talking with his therapist about his thoughts enabled him to let go of beating himself up in anger and also of drowning himself in self-pity.
Peter meanwhile gradually began to find ways to "get back on his own feet." He began feeling less desparate and terrified, moving forward toward safer ground.
Getting back on his feet involved reconnecting with old friends, and making contact with new ones as he pursued interests in activities he enjoyed. He joined a book group, found a place with religious services that he liked. He recalled the sports activities that in better times, he used to enjoy and returned to doing those activities again. Bit by bit, his spirits lifted.
As he felt stronger, Peter felt less need to rant. No need to play the same recording again and again. Anger begets more anger, and repeatedly reminding himself how bad he felt was making the message 'a little bit louder and a litte bit worse' with each go-round.
To his relief, Peter began to experience his small apartment somewhat more positively. Now it felt like a cozy place to read and enjoy time alone. His loneliness, too, began to abate to the point that some evenings he even preferred staying home alone to running out to activites with others lest he drown in the pain of loss.
Step 2: List your spouse'scomplaints.
For years Peter had reacted to Paulette's complaints about him with defensiveness. When he did allow himself to hear information about what he was doing that troubled his wife, he'd get mad at himself. Listening to her had escalated his agitation and distress instead of leading to learning. Now Peter decided he'd better address her concerns, beginning by writing out a list of all he could recall. "Information is power," he reminded himself to ease the sting of shame and guilt.
a. An affair. Even though it was just a one-night stand, he had to acknowledge that this action had seriously violated the rules of their marriage.
b. Appearing to treat his wife as a second-rate citizen by ignoring her much of the time and by disagreeing with whatever she would say when they did talk. His kindly telephone conversations, by contrast, with his ex-wife added fuel to her fire.
c. Walling himself off from her as he sunk in a sea of depression and self-pity about his job.
Step 3: Clean up your act.
Peter focused one by one on each of the three arenas in which he now realized that he'd made serious mistakes.
a.Learning from the affair: Peter wrote out the series of misteps that he had allowed himself to take down the road to sexual betrayal. He listed what had motivated each step — and also what would have been far better options for responding to his concerns at each point in the pathway. He identified the specific situational, thoughts and feeling cues that triggered each step, and the alternative action he would take in the future in response to each cue.
For instance, in the future when he was traveling for business and staying alone in hotels he would plan ahead what to do in the evenings: phone his wife, work on his computer, read, watch his favorite TV shows. He would NOT go to the hotel bar. If he met people in the lobby, if the acquaintances were women he would speak with them briefly and then say goodbye. He would go out to dinner only with men friends. If women joined them, he would not engage in one-on-one conversations with them. Alcohol, private time with women plus loneliness and a disconnected relationship with his wife had been a dangerous combination for him.
b. The lack of positive conversations with his wife.
Peter realized that his wife was right that he had been avoiding talking with her.
He had been avoiding conversations in part because when they did talk, talking seemed to lead to arguments.
Exercises on listening skills helped Peter identify the counter-productive listening habits that he had developed that had been a major factor in creating needless antagonisms. With more effective listening skills, he could see right away that he could make the tone of their conversations more positive.
As he saw the impact of his new listening skills Peter all the more conscientiously dug into learning all he could from his relationship skills book, workbook and online program. He realized that prior to the relationship breakup he had had no idea of what a high-skilled activity sustaining a loving partnership was. Now that he understood the potency of collaborative dialogue, conflict resolution and emotional self-regulation skills he studied intensely every night as if he was preparing for exams.
c. Depressive self-absorption
With hindsight, Peter could see that the unpleasant situation he found himself in every day at work had left him depressed in the evenings. His response to depression had been to sink increasingly into "poor me" ruminations. "How can they treat me so unfairly? Why can't my boss appreciate my talents? I'm stuck in a job that's not my thing. I hate having a job that doesn't fit and a boss who's chronically negative."
Peter also switched from "awfulizing" about his work situation from a stance of helpless victim to taking a problem-solving stance. What could he do to find a more positive work situation? He began networking with others in his field, stumbled on a job that sounded far more suitable, applied, and at this point is looking likely to get the position.
Step 4: Agree with your ex that you also want to divorce the old relationship.
Explain, and show by your actions, that you would like to keep the partnership, you are determined to radically change your relationship behaviors.
Peter arranged to meet his wife for coffee. He brought with him his list of all the old habits that he now understood had been problematic in the old relationship. He also listed the new habit patterns he was building to replace the old ones.
As they talked Peter often felt tempted to say, "and you do it too!" He successfully refrained. He had learned that his job was to look at what he could change, not to criticize or advise his wife. That change proved to be one of the most potent signs to his wife that Peter was in fact behaving far more appealingly.
Step 5: Reconnect from a stance of strength
Because he was feeling so much better about himself with his new problem-solving and listening habits, Peter was able to talk with his wife in the playful and engaging mode that had attracted her when they had first met. Paulette was delightfully surprised. She appreciated his clarity about the mistaken roads he had taken. She liked his vision of the new Peter. She especially like the many ways that already he was acting in the new ways. She felt for the first time in years that Peter was actually seeing and listening to her instead of locked in a narcissistic bubble.
"I can see now," Peter explained to her, "that in my depression about work I became totally self-centered. I withdrew from you, so no wonder you felt angry and distanced from me. As both of us withdrew from each other we lost our sexual connection. I felt desparate for attention. Then I took the ultimate wrong turn by seeking sexual attention from an infidelity. Big mistake! I'm so glad that now I'm looking for a job that will be a better fit for me. I think I've found one, and I'm thrilled at the prospect."
"You were right too about how much I coddled my children's mother. The reality is that I was afraid of her. Just like when we were married I was always trying to keep her from getting mad at me. When I was depressed I had no spine for anything. That era is over as well. Now when she calls, I get the facts of who to pick up when and where, and that's it."
Closing perspectives on the question "How can I get my ex back?"
Note also that therapy is virtually always more potent if the couple goes together for some of the sessions. Paulette, after initial reluctance, decided to schedule sessions with Peter's therapist as well. They sometimes saw the therapist separately, and sometimes together which helped them to recognize and rectify the problematic patterns in their prior interactions. When both partners participate in a process of growth, the odds zoom up that the outcome will be positive for both of them.
Be sure however that one therapist works with both of you if you want to increase the odds that you will end up re-united as a couple. Two therapists, one for each partner, all but guarantees that the relationship will end.
Lastly, will Peter get his ex Paulette back?
When if ever will they move back in together and enjoy a renewed marriage?
Peter and Paulette have agreed that they need still more time before they make a final split-up or re-unite decision. Paulette is wary of false hope. She wants to be certain that she can trust that Peter's changes will hold, and hers as well.
For sure though, whatever their ultimate relationship decision, both Peter and Paulette feel out of their lifeboat and back on solid ground. The panic of a devastating waterfall ahead has been replaced by anticipation of a safer and sunnier future, whether in fact they end up together or apart.
People work an average of 45 hours a week; they consider about 17 of those hours to be unproductive (U.S.: 45 hours a week; 16 hours are considered unproductive).
We could all be accomplishing a lot more — but then again, none of us wants to be a workaholic, either.
It’d be great to get tons done and have work-life balance. But how do we do that? I decided to get some answers.
And who better to ask than Tim Ferriss, author of the international bestseller The 4-Hour Workweek.
But when we wake up and the fray is already upon us — phone ringing, emails coming in, fire alarms going off — you spend the whole day reacting.
This means you’re not in the driver’s seat working on your priorities; you’re responding to what gets thrown at you, important or not.
Here’s Tim:
I try to have the first 80 to 90 minutes of my day vary as little as possible. I think that a routine is necessary to feel in control and nonreactive, which reduces anxiety. It therefore makes you more productive.
Doctors put in a positive mood before making a diagnosis show almost three times more intelligence and creativity than doctors in a neutral state, and they make accurate diagnoses 19% faster. Optimistic salespeople outsell their pessimistic counterparts by 56%. Students primed to feel happy before taking math achievement tests far outperform their neutral peers. It turns out that our brains are literally hardwired to perform at their best not when they are negative or even neutral, but when they are positive.
So think a little less about managing the work and a little more about managing your moods.
So what’s the first step to managing your mood after you wake up?
2. Don’t Check Email In The Morning
To some people this is utter heresy. Many can’t imagine not waking up and immediately checking email or social-media feeds.
I’ve interviewed a number of very productive people and nobody said, “Spend more time with email.”
Why is checking email in the morning a cardinal sin? You’re setting yourself up to react.
An email comes in and suddenly you’re giving your best hours to someone else’s goals, not yours.
You’re not planning your day and prioritizing; you’re letting your objectives be hijacked by whoever randomly decides to enter your inbox.
Here’s Tim:
Whenever possible, do not check email for the first hour or two of the day. It’s difficult for some people to imagine. “How can I do that? I need to check email to get the information I need to work on my most important one or two to-dos?”
You would be surprised how often that is not the case. You might need to get into your email to finish 100% of your most important to-dos. But can you get 90% done before you go into Gmail and have your rat brain explode with freak-out, dopamine excitement and cortisol panic? Yes.
(For more on how to avoid the email trap and spend time wisely go here.)
Great, so you know what not to do. But a bigger question looms: What should you be doing?
3. Before You Try To Do It Faster, Ask Whether It Should Be Done At All
Everyone asks, “Why is it so impossible to get everything done?” But the answer is stunningly easy:
You’re doing too many things.
Want to be more productive? Don’t ask how to make something more efficient until after you’ve asked “Do I need to do this at all?”
Here’s Tim:
Doing something well does not make it important. I think this is one of the most common problems with a lot of time-management or productivity advice; they focus on how to do things quickly. The vast majority of things that people do quickly should not be done at all.
It’s funny that we complain we have so little time and then we prioritize like time is endless. Instead, do what is important … and not much else.
But is this true in the real world?
Research shows CEOs don’t get more done by blindly working more hours, they get more done when they follow careful plans:
Preliminary analysis from CEOs in India found that a firm’s sales increased as the CEO worked more hours. But more intriguingly, the correlation between CEO time use and output was driven entirely by hours spent in planned activities. Planning doesn’t have to mean that the hours are spent in meetings, though meetings with employees were correlated with higher sales; it’s just that CEO time is a limited and valuable resource, and planning how it should be allocated increases the chances that it’s spent in productive ways.
Has modern life permanently damaged our attention spans?
No. What you do have is more tantalizing, easily accessible, shiny things available to you 24/7 than any human being has ever had.
The answer is to lock yourself somewhere to make all the flashing, buzzing distractions go away.
Here’s Tim:
Focus is a function, first and foremost, of limiting the number of options you give yourself for procrastinating… I think that focus is thought of as this magical ability. It’s not a magical ability. It’s put yourself in a padded room, with the problem that you need to work on, and shut the door. That’s it. The degree to which you can replicate that, and systematize it, is the extent to which you will have focus.
They found that not one of the twelve executives was ever able to work uninterruptedly more than twenty minutes at a time—at least not in the office. Only at home was there some chance of concentration. And the only one of the twelve who did not make important, long-range decisions “off the cuff,” and sandwiched in between unimportant but long telephone calls and “crisis” problems, was the executive who worked at home every morning for an hour and a half before coming to the office.
(For more on how to stop procrastinating go here.)
I know what some of you are thinking: I have other responsibilities. Meetings. My boss needs me. My spouse calls. I can’t just hide.
This is why you need a system.
5. Have A Personal System
I’ve spoken to a lot of insanely productive people. You know what none of them said?
“I don’t know how I get stuff done. I just wing it and hope for the best.”
Not one. Your routines can be formal and scientific or personal and idiosyncratic — but either way, productive people have a routine.
Here’s Tim:
Defining routines and systems is more effective than relying on self-discipline. I think self-discipline is overrated.
Allowing yourself the option to do what you have not decided to do is disempowering and asking for failure. I encourage people to develop routines so that their decision-making is only applied to the most creative aspects of their work, or wherever their unique talent happens to lie.
Establish a closing ritual. Know when to stop working. Try to end each workday the same way, too. Straighten up your desk. Back up your computer. Make a list of what you need to do tomorrow.
This article was posted on FB by a rising college freshman. Interestingly, this young man who is interning for a Georgia legislator this summer, is a product of homeschool.
Youth Groups Driving Christian Teens to Abandon Faith
A new study might reveal why a majority of Christian teens abandon their faith upon high school graduation. (lusi/rgbstock.com)
A new study might reveal why a majority of Christian teens abandon their faith upon high school graduation. Some time ago, Christian pollster George Barna documented that 61 percent of today's 20-somethings who had been churched at one point during their teen years are now spiritually disengaged. They do not attend church, read their Bible or pray.
According to a new five-week, three-question national survey sponsored by the National Center for Family-Integrated Churches (NCFIC), the youth group itself is the problem. Fifty-five percent of American Christians are concerned with modern youth ministry because it's too shallow and too entertainment-focused, resulting in an inability to train mature believers. But even if church youth groups had the gravitas of Dallas Theological Seminary, 36 percent of today's believers are convinced youth groups themselves are not even biblical.
After answering three questions at YouthGroupSurvey.com, each survey participant received NCFIC Director Scott Brown's e-book entitled Weed in the Church: How A Culture of Age Segregation Is Destroying the Younger Generation, Fragmenting the Family and Harming Church as well as access to a 50-minute-long documentary entitled Divided: Is Modern Youth Ministry Multiplying or Dividing the Church? (Divided has been viewed by 200,000 people.)
The survey is still active online through Friday, Nov. 8.
Adam McManus, a spokesman for NCFIC, is not surprised by the church's deep concerns about youth groups.
"Today's church has created peer dependency," McManus says. "The inherent result of youth groups is that teenagers in the church are focused on their peers, not their parents or their pastors. It's a foreign sociology that leads to immaturity, a greater likelihood of sexual activity, drug experimentation and a rejection of the authority of the Word of God.
"Proverbs 13:20 says, 'He who walks with wise men will be wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm.' The result is that the youth stumble, they can't see beyond their noses, and spiritual adolescence is prolonged well into adulthood. It's crippling the body of Christ. That's why it's time to return to the biblical paradigm and throw out the youth group structure entirely."
He continues, "I am greatly encouraged by the results of our survey. American Christians are finally waking up to the disconnect between the clear teaching in Scripture in favor of family-integration and the modern-day church's obsession with dividing the family at every turn. Age segregation, especially during the tender and impactful teenage years, not only hasn't worked, it's been detrimental. Even worse, it is contrary to the Bible. But the good news is that practices in the churches related to youth groups are changing dramatically. Twenty years ago no one was even asking this question."
McManus cited the following Scriptures to document his contention that it's God's will for the church to embrace the biblical model of families staying together in the service as the Word of God is preached: Deuteronomy 16:9-14, Joshua 8:34-35, Ezra 10:1, 2 Chronicles 20:13, Nehemiah 12:43 and Joel 2:15-16.
"Our fervent prayer is that God will raise up Spirit-filled, Bible-preaching, Christ-centered, family-integrated assemblies from the ashes of our man-centered, family-fragmenting churches," McManus adds. "Plus, the church needs to begin to equip Christian fathers to communicate the gospel to their families. Today, Christian parents are beginning to realize that they have not fulfilled their spiritual duties by simply dropping off their kiddos to Sunday school and youth group, allowing other parents to disciple their children by proxy.
"Let's not forget the powerful words spoken by Moses in Deuteronomy 6:4-7: 'Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.'
"It is the parents' primary obligation to disciple their own children, impressing God's commandments upon them in the home on a daily basis."
Cameron Cole, youth director at Cathedral Church of the Advent in Birmingham, Ala., says, "There is a propensity in our culture to outsource the development of our children. For intellectual development, we send them to school. For athletic development, we send them to Little League. And for spiritual formation, we send them to youth group. The church has done a poor job of communicating to the parents that they are the primary disciplers of their children. Parents don't believe this, but the reality is that kids listen to their parents far more than they're going to listen to a youth minister."
"It's time for the Christian father to take the central role which God has ordained," McManus concludes. "Gathered around the dining room table, the father needs to lead family worship once again, which had been standard behavior for a vibrant American Christian family for hundreds of years, dating back to the Plymouth, Mass., colony of 1620. Dad needs to read from and discuss the Bible, sing Christian songs and pray with his family, his little flock over which God has appointed him shepherd. Frankly, I'm not as concerned about what happens in Sunday school in church as I am with what happens in 'Monday school' and 'Tuesday school' at home with the family."
This article was posted on FB by a rising college freshman. Interestingly, this young man who is interning for a Georgia legislator this summer, is a product of homeschool.
Youth Groups Driving Christian Teens to Abandon Faith
A new study might reveal why a majority of Christian teens abandon their faith upon high school graduation. (lusi/rgbstock.com)
A new study might reveal why a majority of Christian teens abandon their faith upon high school graduation. Some time ago, Christian pollster George Barna documented that 61 percent of today's 20-somethings who had been churched at one point during their teen years are now spiritually disengaged. They do not attend church, read their Bible or pray.
According to a new five-week, three-question national survey sponsored by the National Center for Family-Integrated Churches (NCFIC), the youth group itself is the problem. Fifty-five percent of American Christians are concerned with modern youth ministry because it's too shallow and too entertainment-focused, resulting in an inability to train mature believers. But even if church youth groups had the gravitas of Dallas Theological Seminary, 36 percent of today's believers are convinced youth groups themselves are not even biblical.
After answering three questions at YouthGroupSurvey.com, each survey participant received NCFIC Director Scott Brown's e-book entitled Weed in the Church: How A Culture of Age Segregation Is Destroying the Younger Generation, Fragmenting the Family and Harming Church as well as access to a 50-minute-long documentary entitled Divided: Is Modern Youth Ministry Multiplying or Dividing the Church? (Divided has been viewed by 200,000 people.)
The survey is still active online through Friday, Nov. 8.
Adam McManus, a spokesman for NCFIC, is not surprised by the church's deep concerns about youth groups.
"Today's church has created peer dependency," McManus says. "The inherent result of youth groups is that teenagers in the church are focused on their peers, not their parents or their pastors. It's a foreign sociology that leads to immaturity, a greater likelihood of sexual activity, drug experimentation and a rejection of the authority of the Word of God.
"Proverbs 13:20 says, 'He who walks with wise men will be wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm.' The result is that the youth stumble, they can't see beyond their noses, and spiritual adolescence is prolonged well into adulthood. It's crippling the body of Christ. That's why it's time to return to the biblical paradigm and throw out the youth group structure entirely."
He continues, "I am greatly encouraged by the results of our survey. American Christians are finally waking up to the disconnect between the clear teaching in Scripture in favor of family-integration and the modern-day church's obsession with dividing the family at every turn. Age segregation, especially during the tender and impactful teenage years, not only hasn't worked, it's been detrimental. Even worse, it is contrary to the Bible. But the good news is that practices in the churches related to youth groups are changing dramatically. Twenty years ago no one was even asking this question."
McManus cited the following Scriptures to document his contention that it's God's will for the church to embrace the biblical model of families staying together in the service as the Word of God is preached: Deuteronomy 16:9-14, Joshua 8:34-35, Ezra 10:1, 2 Chronicles 20:13, Nehemiah 12:43 and Joel 2:15-16.
"Our fervent prayer is that God will raise up Spirit-filled, Bible-preaching, Christ-centered, family-integrated assemblies from the ashes of our man-centered, family-fragmenting churches," McManus adds. "Plus, the church needs to begin to equip Christian fathers to communicate the gospel to their families. Today, Christian parents are beginning to realize that they have not fulfilled their spiritual duties by simply dropping off their kiddos to Sunday school and youth group, allowing other parents to disciple their children by proxy.
"Let's not forget the powerful words spoken by Moses in Deuteronomy 6:4-7: 'Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.'
"It is the parents' primary obligation to disciple their own children, impressing God's commandments upon them in the home on a daily basis."
Cameron Cole, youth director at Cathedral Church of the Advent in Birmingham, Ala., says, "There is a propensity in our culture to outsource the development of our children. For intellectual development, we send them to school. For athletic development, we send them to Little League. And for spiritual formation, we send them to youth group. The church has done a poor job of communicating to the parents that they are the primary disciplers of their children. Parents don't believe this, but the reality is that kids listen to their parents far more than they're going to listen to a youth minister."
"It's time for the Christian father to take the central role which God has ordained," McManus concludes. "Gathered around the dining room table, the father needs to lead family worship once again, which had been standard behavior for a vibrant American Christian family for hundreds of years, dating back to the Plymouth, Mass., colony of 1620. Dad needs to read from and discuss the Bible, sing Christian songs and pray with his family, his little flock over which God has appointed him shepherd. Frankly, I'm not as concerned about what happens in Sunday school in church as I am with what happens in 'Monday school' and 'Tuesday school' at home with the family."
Movie inspired by a painting, 'Belle' is a true story
Wandering the grand halls of Scone Palace in Scotland you might stumble on a pretty portrait of two beautiful women in 18th-century clothes, seemingly affectionate sisters. Not so unusual — except one of the "sisters" is black.
Who is that, you might well wonder, as did Misan Sagay, then a young British college student of Nigerian descent, long accustomed to being the only black face in most British rooms. She stopped short upon spotting the painting while touring the palace near her university.
"I was stunned. And taken aback," says Sagay, now in her 40s and a screenwriter (Their Eyes Were Watching God). The castle brochure named only the white woman in the portrait, Lady Elizabeth Murray. When she returned a few years later, Sagay says, there was more information on the label, naming the black woman as Dido, "the housekeeper's daughter."
"So the silent black woman had a name," says Sagay. "But I looked at the portrait and the way they were touching, and thought, 'I don't buy this. There is more to this than meets the eye.' "
Indeed there was. Sagay dove into drafty palace archives to learn more, and years later the result is Belle, written on spec by Sagay, directed by Amma Asante, a British woman of Ghananian descent, and starring Gugu Mbatha-Raw,a British woman of South African descent.
An elegantly rendered costume drama that opened Friday, Belle tells a true story only lately becoming better known in Britain and remarkable in its details: An illegitimate biracial child, Dido Elizabeth Belle, born to a British admiral and a former slave he loved, is brought up as an orphaned, beloved member of her father's aristocratic family in 1770s Jane Austen-era England. She is so beloved she is painted as an equal with her white sister/cousin, in marked contrast to the usual subservient poses of black people in paintings of the era.
The movie shows how Dido's close relationship with the great-uncle who raised her, William Murray, first Earl of Mansfield and the Lord Chief Justice of Britain, influences his rulings that later led to the end of slavery in the British Empire.
David Appleby, Fox Searchlight Pictures
Elizabeth (Sarah Gadon, left) and Dido (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) in the true story "Belle."
Wait, how did we not know about this? And is it true?
It's true, the filmmakers say, in all the important aspects. And it's true in showcasing Mansfield's role in paving the way for the landmark 1833 British law abolishing slavery.
If this year's Oscar winner for best picture, 12 Years a Slave, was a British film about a little-known American slavery story, then Belle is a British film about the British experience of grappling with slavery — only with fabulous clothes, legal drama, a star-crossed love story, and a Downton Abbey-style setting. It's also got a Downton Abbey star, Penelope Wilton (Isobel Crawley), plus Oscar winner Tom Wilkinson, Miranda Richardson and Emily Watson.)
Along the way, the filmmakers explore the status of women, the insurance value of slaves, English class prejudices, and the way marriages among the toffs could be negotiated with an intensity akin to billion-dollar hedge-fund deals.
Americans will recognize another story Belle tells, about the contrasting facts of slavery in the two countries at the time: America had to fight a war to rid itself of slavery and the Brits passed a law. Britain had no plantations on its home soil and, according to historians, there were only about 15,000 black people in London at the time, most paid servants. Britain was as dependent as America on a slave economy but it was a faraway trade most didn't have to confront face to face.
"What I went for in the script was truth," says Sagay, who says she had long wanted to write a "Jane Austen slavery drama" to depict how British society of that era was built on its slave trade. "Even if it takes liberties with some facts, it doesn't take liberties with what people feel."
"We tried to not create anything that distorts the truth or takes anything away, but hopefully will illuminate," says director Asante, 44, a former child actress in Britain and a screenwriter (Brothers & Sisters) in the USA.
Paula Byrne, a historian of the era and biographer of Jane Austen (an acquaintance of Lady Elizabeth Murray), says she can understand why moviegoers might be both fascinated and skeptical of the story.
"As historians, we're always worried about what (movie) people do, but I was moved by (Belle)," she says. "At first I thought I might have done other things with it but now I think they actually did the right thing."
The people most thrilled about Belle are members of the Murray family of Scotland, descendants of Earl Mansfield and owners of Scone Palace (900 years old, where early kings of Scotland were crowned). That is where the 1779 painting of Dido and Elizabeth still hangs.
"Historically, (the filmmakers) have done really, really well — my father was really worried, he thought it might be a complete shambles and he was pleasantly surprised," says William Murray, 25, Master of Stormont, the future 10th Earl of Mansfield and a family consultant on the film.
The Murrays are especially pleased that their ancestors' stories (Dido's was largely unknown even to them for centuries) are coming to light, and being added to British school curricula, Murray says.
"(Dido's) story is unbelievable — it went against every social convention of the time," says Murray. "We are so glad the story of the first earl is coming to the screen, because he was a most remarkable man. His (legal) legacy is very active today but he's one of the forgotten (great) men of history."
Mansfield is regularly cited in court rulings to this day, including U.S. court rulings. But few people know about Dido, and that's what Belle intends to correct — albeit with liberal use of imagination since not that much is recorded about her life, even in family archives.
In fact, though the painting is famous among art lovers as one of the first to depict a black person as equal to a white, it's not even clear who painted it. But it's clear Mansfield commissioned it, which would have been a brave act for the time and place.
"Every tourist who sees it stops, their mouths sort of agape," says Byrne, author of the forthcoming The Real Jane Austen: A Life in Small Things. "Wow. It tells a story. Why is Dido wearing the more expensive ostrich feathers? Why is she carrying a plate of fruit? What is the meaning of the grapes? It's a portrait so natural, so playful and incredibly affectionate, the fact one sister is biracial is not even significant."
The Murrays, whose ancestors for centuries were unclear about (or ignored) Dido's identity, are now hoping to hire an art historian to research the portrait, which aside from everything else is a very good painting with powerful appeal and intriguing details.
"Elizabeth is the English rose in an old-fashioned dress of the old regime, while Dido is wearing the catwalk number — the sophisticated, hot, exotic new look," says Murray. The longtime attribution has since been discounted and "we're desperate to pin down who painted it."
Dido was born in 1761, probably in the British West Indies, and was taken to England at age 6. She was named for her mother, Maria Belle, for the earl's first wife, Elizabeth, and for Dido the Queen of Carthage. "It was the name of a popular play at the time," says Murray. "It was probably chosen to suggest her elevated status. It says: This girl is precious, treat her with respect."
She was educated, literate, and clever enough to serve as her great-uncle's legal secretary. Mansfield mentions her lovingly in his diaries and left her money in his will along with a clear statement about her status. "I confirm to Dido Elizabeth Belle her freedom."
She was treated as an equal member of the family with one exception: She could not join them at dinner when guests were present. The voices of the Mansfield women, white or black, aren't found much in family records, but Sagay found evidence of Dido in the account books
"Quite often if they were buying, say, silk bed hangings, they were buying for two," Sagay says. "I came to understand that he loved her, that the two girls in the portrait were in equal relationship to him, both his great-nieces. He loved both of them but he was very close to Dido."
Asante says she joined the Belle project because Dido so inspired her.
"We know who her parents were, we know she was not allowed to eat with the family, we know the historical writings (where she is mentioned), we know who she married (John Davinier) and that she had children," Asante says. "We sew the historical facts together with dialogue that we made up, but all the important facts come from history."
We also know Dido died young, at age 43. We know her last traceable relative, Harold Davinier, died in 1975, a free white South African living in the era of apartheid. But, intriguingly, Murray says the family now thinks there might also be American descendants of Maria Belle in, of all places, Pensacola, Fla.
"It's the newest layer of the onion," says Murray, who attributes it to the work of University of Florida researchers. "We know in 1766 (Dido's father) bought the lot for her house, she was there at least 10 years, and there may have been more kids (with Dido's father, suggesting their continuing relationship). So that's really exciting."
Remarkable as Dido's story is, so are the actions of the men in her life — her father, her great-uncle, her husband. Why did they counter the rigid conventions of their time, not only about race but about class, illegitimacy and wealth?
Murray suggests it may be that Mansfield empathized with his great-niece as an outsider himself in England — he was a Scot, a Catholic, from a family of supporters of the exiled Stuart kings, and a younger son with little money who later climbed to the top of the elite class.
The answer, so many centuries later, may be unknowable, but Belle suggests the simplest explanation: Love.
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