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Letter: Power of prayer worth teaching |
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Written by Suzanne Sage
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Saturday, 28 April 2012 09:50 |
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I'm writing in response to Mrs. Paxton's letter to the editor in the April View Extra. It seems the method of "high chair manners" in Mrs. McCullough's article was not as offensive as the two sentences Mrs. McCullough used to explain how she added to her table manners, the discipline of prayer.
After reading Mrs. Paxton's response, I thought about how I had taught my very young children to pray, and of the multitude of times my own prayers had been answered. It also reminded me of the many personal miracles of others I know. I don't think clinical studies could measure that kind of power. Because space here does not allow me to share the many personal miracles I've had in my own life, I want to share one of the most stirring answers to prayer I've known that involved a friend and neighbor, Doug Mace.
Doug had built his own house and was putting a long trim log up along the eves. He was on a 14-foot cherry-picker's ladder, when the ladder twisted and went out from under him. The log came down and crushed his head, causing massive trauma. My husband and I were called during church services to come and help. As we left, our church got on its knees and prayed. When we arrived, we asked the Sheriff's office to send a helicopter because we knew how serious Doug's injuries were. One just happened to be in the air nearby and landed about the same time the ambulance pulled into the hospital's emergency parking lot. Doug made it to Spokane within an hour, which was an almost-impossible feat from Republic under normal conditions.
The community prayed daily for Doug and when he returned home months later, the community hung a sign across main street welcoming him home. As he rode into town, businesspeople and townsfolk gathered on the street and clapped and waved at their beloved friend. If you knew all the surgeries and how close he was to death several times, you would understand what a miracle this was. The doctors said he never should have lived. Today, Doug has a quality life. He still has some slight residual effects, but his family did not lose its husband or father. This miraculous event affected many people in our community. As Doug sat in my living room with tears in his eyes, he acknowledged it was God and all the prayers of his family and friends who had saved him and preserved his life.
That is the powerful answer from a true living God. When you see a miracle like that or any answer to any prayer, you cannot help but want to tell everyone you know that God is powerful and real, and still answers prayers. It is also why a Christian mother would want to teach her baby respect and love for that kind of powerful God. I am praying, Mrs. Paxton, that you could meet this God, and experience His love in your life through answered prayers.
Hebrews 11:6 "But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him."
Suzanne Sage
Republic
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Letter: Parenting or brainwashing? |
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Written by Maureen Paxton
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Sunday, 01 April 2012 08:31 |
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Parenting or brainwashing?
The March issue of the View had an article titled “High chair manners” by Lisa McCullough. She states in the article that to begin “training,” she would physically hold her babies' hands together and make them pray and give thanks to Mrs. McCullough’s deity before she allows them to eat!
I’ve raised five children and this is not necessary to teach a child table manners. It is necessary if you want to infect the child with the virus of religion. Certainly if Ms. McCullough’s God is so omnipotent as to be able to magically put food on the table, the child will notice this when he reaches age of reason? Why should the child have to be physically coerced, intellectually raped and compelled to give thanks for a God she believes is capable of such supernatural acts as making food appear out of thin air to her table?
Of course in reality, two thirds of the world's population goes to bed malnourished or starving. Does McCullough really think it's worth committing child abuse to “train” a child to “thank” a God that fills her plate, while lettering her brother and sister starve? If Mrs. McCullough can pull herself away from abusing a baby at the dinner table long enough to read the American Heart Journal--April 2006--she will find prayer has been shown to cause significantly more suffering and complications to those in the study group that knew they were being prayed for, and no difference in the two study groups that were kept unaware if they were being prayed for or not! This was a $2.4 million study funded by the religious Templeton Foundation. The largest scientific study on the efficacy of prayer found it to be useless or detrimental to sick patients! What Mrs. McCullough is really doing is not teaching table manners, she’s brainwashing her baby to her religion and I say shame on her!
Maureen Paxton
Wauconda
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LTE: 'Cultural theft' continues a pattern |
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Written by Submitted
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Saturday, 28 January 2012 20:04 |
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Sharon Shumate is a brave defender of cultural theft and its parent, racism, evidently wishing to hide the “elephant in the room” that was editorialized by Melissa Rose.
In "Anti-Indianism In Modern America," Elizabeth Cook-Lynn says "America’s tongue is cloaked in ignorance and racism and imperialism as much as it was during the westward-movement era, and removal is still the infuriating thrust of Indian/white relations … What America wants in its race relations with American Indians is to steal and occupy land, to kill and otherwise destroy the land’s inhabitants, and yet provide an ethical example throughout the world of a democratic and “good” society developed for the purpose of profiting from that activity. This means that America rarely engages in useful discussions of morality and ethics as it applies to race relations. It only engages in popular rhetoric concerning what it thinks of as 'contemporary issues' such as 'What can we do,' 'Who am I,' or 'What does it mean to me?'”
In other words, whites continue to desire to financially prosper from cultural and identity theft from Indians, having already stolen their land.
The Constitution was written by and for white, landowning men, not for women or people of color. Ergo, your white privilege, collective fiction: “a land where all could live in peace … a land of the free and liberty for all through the rule of law.” Sharon, don’t ya know? Really?
Lou Stone
Inchelium
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Where does "cultural theft" end? |
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Written by Submitted
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Saturday, 28 January 2012 16:43 |
Where does "cultural theft" end?
When I first read Melissa Rose’s article alleging that some white people were engaging in “cultural theft” from American Indians by adopting Indian-sounding names, my first reaction was to think “imitation is the most sincere form of flattery.” But then I noticed that “Talksalot” is not really an Indian name since it is written and vocalized in English rather than an Indian language. And many other ethnic groups, such as Hebrews, Celts and Germans have also adopted colorful names. For example, the German name “Wolfgang” means “wolf went by.” And then I also thought that if it is cultural theft to adopt an Indian-sounding name, is it also “cultural theft” to eat corn or use tobacco or other things developed by the Indians? Where does this end? On the flip side, would it also be “cultural theft” for Indians to ride horses (introduced to North America by Europeans) or use white inventions such as cars or airplanes or firearms? Let’s please lighten up and enjoy Christmas and the holy-day season and be of good cheer! And let’s share in the riches that each of our various cultures have created and not be so possessive and grinchy about it!
Wolfgang Tronvig
Curlew
(Tronvig in Norwegian means “throne of the fyord.” My ancestors built sailing ships for many centuries.)
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Letters to the Editor
