Categories
Personal Posts

Are You Pro-Life?

Ask someone who is “pro-life” what that means and he or she will most likely say they are against abortion. True, but what else? If pressed, they may also mention opposition to euthanasia.

That seems a lot like someone claiming to be a “music lover,” but who only listens to classical music—how limited and shortsighted. Can anyone truly be a music lover if they only experience a small segment of all things musical?

To truly be pro-life seemingly means to affirm all life and seek to improve the condition of all people.

As such, that means pro-life is not just about protecting the unborn and terminally ill, but also about addressing homelessness, unemployment, AIDS, poverty, prejudice, healthcare, social injustice, immigration, repression, war, slavery, genocide, and anything else that relates to life and living.

Historically, one political party in the United States has been preferred by the traditional pro-life crowd. 

However, given the preceding holistic, expanded definition of pro-life, it is the other party who are more fully addressing many of these life issues.

So, the question remains, are you pro-life?

I am.

Do you like this post? Want to read more? Check out Peter’s book, Bridging the Sacred-Secular Divide: Discovering the Spirituality of Every Day Life, available wherever books are sold.

Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront status quo religion and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.

Read more in his books, blog, and weekly email updates.

Categories
Personal Posts

Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?

I used to be fixated with knowing what time it was. You might say I was slave to the clock. I was compulsive about checking my wristwatch and the more concerned I became about time, the more often I looked.

I think it was the dark side of time-management.

As I planned my daily activities, it was under the optimistic assumption that each task would proceed ideally and without problems. I was constantly checking the time to see if I was on-track or falling behind.

But since real-world realities would eventually overtake my unrealistic time projections, I often ended up feeling pressed and stressed.

As a result of the time so frequently, I could generally tell someone what time it was—plus or minus a few minutes—without looking.

One day I had enough and I quit—cold turkey. I took off my watch for good. I made this decision after being on a delayed flight. I was concerned about making my connection and nervously peered at my watch every few seconds.

How absurd! No matter how often I checked, I could not affect the outcome. I would either make the connection or miss it. So why subject myself to this constant stress of worrying about the time?

Yes, I still want to arrive places on time and don’t like to make others wait for me, but beyond that time isn’t nearly the stress factor in my life that it used to be.

The question, “Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?” was posed by the rock group Chicago in 1969. In the song’s chorus they follow-up their first question with a second, “Does anybody really care?”

That pretty much sums it up for me.

Do you like this post? Want to read more? Check out Peter’s book, Bridging the Sacred-Secular Divide: Discovering the Spirituality of Every Day Life, available wherever books are sold.

Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront status quo religion and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.

Read more in his books, blog, and weekly email updates.

Categories
Personal Posts

Life is Better When Shared With Friends

I’m fortunate to have many valued friends in my life. Some of us get together once a month for our writers critique group, where we help each other improve as writers. Collectively, we write non-fiction, memoir, poetry, and an array of fiction.

Regardless of the genre, the important thing is that we encourage one another and share our journey as authors.

Last spring, four of us submitted our work to a national writing competition, with twenty finalists to appear in an anthology.

After waiting months, I was elated when I received notice that they selected my poem. But then I wondered about my friends.

I was afraid to ask, worrying that my joy may cause them pain if they didn’t make the finals as well.

They must have felt the same way, but eventually we learned that all four of us were finalists. How incredible! Even more amazing was that there were hundreds of submissions, yet our work floated to the top.

What a tribute this is to the quality of our writing group and the ability of my friends.

Then we had to wait several more months before finally seeing our work in print.

Art Prize Winners

Earlier this month, we attended a reception to celebrate. Finally, we could hold the printed book in our hands. An unexpected thrill came when people asked me to autograph their copy.

It was great to see my friends’ work in print and for my wife to be present, but even more sweet was to share the experience with my three friends.

Life is truly better when you can share it with others.

The book Imagine This! An ArtPrize Anthology is part of the 2013 Grand Rapids ArtPrize, an international art competition, which sees one million visitors each year.

The book is on sale at several ArtPrize venues and from its publisher, SchulerBooks.

(Don’t buy the book just to read my poem, a Haiku of seventeen syllables and only twelve words it’s hardly a worthwhile purchase. But Jerry’s poem and Jennifer’s and Sally’s essays are definitely worth it.)

Do you like this post? Want to read more? Check out Peter’s book, Bridging the Sacred-Secular Divide: Discovering the Spirituality of Every Day Life, available wherever books are sold.

Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront status quo religion and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.

Read more in his books, blog, and weekly email updates.

Categories
Peter DeHaan News

Top Posts for 2012

Here are the most popular posts from “The Musings of Peter DeHaan” for 2012. Some are quite recent while others are still being read now even though they were posted years ago.

Thank you for reading my posts.

Do you like this post? Want to read more? Check out Peter’s book, Bridging the Sacred-Secular Divide: Discovering the Spirituality of Every Day Life, available wherever books are sold.

Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront status quo religion and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.

Read more in his books, blog, and weekly email updates.

Categories
Personal Posts

The Effects of the Flu

I mentioned that I had the flu a couple of weeks ago. Be assured that I will spare you the gory details, but I do want to share what I learned (or was reminded of) as a result:

  • I tend to take my health for granted—until I don’t have it.
  • Having the flu is a tough way to lose weight (but I do know that I could never be bulimic—I don’t have the stomach for it!)
  • Half of my flu generated weight-loss has been regained (which is to be expected), but I won’t be disappointed if the rest of those pounds never return.
  • When I am sick I desire to be taken care of; my bride desires to keep her distance.  She claims I am a big baby.

Aside from dealing with my illness and sleeping, the only other thing I could do was watch TV.  Even though I have 200 channels to consider, there are even fewer worthy viewing options during the day then at night. 

Here are the “highlights” of my foray into daytime television:

  • Drew Carey now hosts The Price is Right—which is just wrong.
  • Wayne Brady hosts Lets Make a Deal, which is a huge waste of his talent—but they both do have steady paying gigs, so I guess that’s the price of job security.
  • I watched the movie Spy Kids yet again—and continue to enjoy it.
  • I watched the movie Shark Boy and Lava Girl a second time and liked it even less than the first time.
  • I watched a rerun of Friends, which seems to be everywhere throughout the day.
  • I also watched Seinfeld (the one with the scenes aired in reverse chronological order), Everybody Loves Raymond, and Malcolm in the Middle.  I don’t think I ever watched a full episode of any of them—just bits and pieces while channel surfing. I dont think I missed much—or perhaps my judgment was clouded due to fever.
  • I also realized that I could easily become a Discovery Channel junkie.  If in the future, I am ever reduced to watching TV all day, I will just switch to the Discovery Channel and stay there all day.  But hopefully, I’ll never have to!

Do you like this post? Want to read more? Check out Peter’s book, Bridging the Sacred-Secular Divide: Discovering the Spirituality of Every Day Life, available wherever books are sold.

Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront status quo religion and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.

Read more in his books, blog, and weekly email updates.

Categories
Personal Posts

Sleep

I have long maintained—and increasingly so—that my body does not comply with the “normal” 24-hour sleep cycle. 

Among the random press releases, I received today is confirmation that sleep cycle deviations can occur and that one enzyme may be the central culprit.

Although I find this only semi-comprehensible, I nonetheless find it interesting:

Central Gears of the Mammalian Circadian Clock Exposed

“The circadian clock, a 24-hour metabolic rhythm governing sleep cycles and other physiological processes, has long been known to play a central role in regulating the daily activities of living organisms. Its detailed biochemical mechanisms, however, have largely remained a mystery.

“That mystery is one step closer to being unraveled with the latest discovery by a research team led by Hiroki R. Ueda of the RIKEN Center for Developmental Biology and Joseph S. Takahashi of Northwestern University, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 

Researchers analyzed 1260 pharmacologically active compounds in mouse and human clock cell lines and identified ten, which exerted the greatest impact on the clock cycle. 

Surprisingly, all but one were found to target a single enzyme (casein kinase I ε/δ), the inhibition of which, researchers showed, dramatically extends this cycle from 24 hours to more than 48 hours.

“That the circadian clock may be regulated by relatively simple processes involving only a handful of molecules, a possibility indicated by this result, overturns conventional thinking on the topic.

The more important finding that the inhibition process identified is insensitive to changes of as much as 10 degrees Celcius further hints at a breakthrough in the related puzzle of temperature compensation: how circadian clocks maintain constant periodicity over a broad range of temperatures.

“Taken together, these findings suggest the need to fundamentally revise existing models of the mammalian circadian clock. They also point the way toward novel approaches to the treatment of sleeping disorders and other debilitating clock-related conditions.

When human trials begin, sign me up!

Do you like this post? Want to read more? Check out Peter’s book, Bridging the Sacred-Secular Divide: Discovering the Spirituality of Every Day Life, available wherever books are sold.

Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront status quo religion and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.

Read more in his books, blog, and weekly email updates.

Categories
Personal Posts

The Christmas Five

I gained five pounds over the Christmas holiday—and it’s all my wife’s fault. Really; it is.

A few days before Christmas, she, code named “the Queen of Desserts,” went on a baking spree, producing a bodacious bevy of delectable desserts that would have put a bakery to shame.

Ah! So much to enjoy. So little time.  What was I to do?

First, I attacked the Rice Krispie Treats; soft, tasty and good for you, too.  After all, they’re made of cereal and cereal is good for you, ergo Treats are good for you.  I don’t want to say that I ate them all — so I won’t.

The pecan bars, a personal favorite, caught my eye next.  They were so rich, however, that I invoked a self-imposed two-a-day limit.

Then there were sugar cookies, puppy chow, chocolate chip cookies, macaroon kiss cookies, cheese fudge, ginger bread cookies, and a birthday cake for Jesus. 

After all, Jesus is what Christmas is all about. It sounds a bit corny, but we even sing happy birthday to him. At some point, a light-hearted discussion ensues.

I say that somewhere in the Bible it mentions Jesus likes yellow cake with lemon frosting; my wife assures me his preference is chocolate.

Anyway, until I dispatch the desserts, there is no chance I will lose the five pounds. Right now we are down to the gingerbread man cookies. 

Wait, I want to be politically correct. Let me check. Yes, they are all men! How do I know? By comparing them to the icons on most public restrooms—none of these cookies are wearing dresses!

So, the gingerbread cookies are my least fave, but until they are properly dealt with (a euphemism for eaten), there is little chance of me losing my Christmas five.

Until then, happy snacking!

Do you like this post? Want to read more? Check out Peter’s book, Bridging the Sacred-Secular Divide: Discovering the Spirituality of Every Day Life, available wherever books are sold.

Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront status quo religion and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.

Read more in his books, blog, and weekly email updates.