Archive for December, 2014

God made Girls

Posted: December 9, 2014 in World On The Edge
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Sure-God-created-man-before-woman-but-then-again-you-always-make-a-rough-draft-before-creating-t-533x400
How would the world be different if women didn’t exist? It’s an interesting thing to think about. According to MensMagDaily.com, everything men do, every decision they make, every item they buy is directly related to how women will react to it. Everything revolves around women, how to get ‘em, how to keep ‘em, how to please ‘em, it’s all about them. If any man in the work place was told to sit down and think about why he did something, it would all come down to a woman.

Christianity also looks at the importance of women, especially in marital relationships. St Thomas Aquinas used the idea of equality in marital friendship to argue against polygamy and in favor of an unconditional love between husband and wife:      

        “The greater the friendship is, the more solid and long lasting it will be. Now there seems to be the greatest friendship    between husband and wife, for they are united not only in the act of fleshly union, which produces a certain gentle    association even among beasts, but also in the partnership of the whole range of domestic activity. Consequently, as an indication of this, man must even “leave his father and mother” for the sake of his wife as it is said in Genesis (2:24).   

Furthermore, Aquinas believed that the fact that Eve was made from Adam’s rib indicates that she was not above him (as she might be had she been created from Adam’s head) nor below him, like a slave (as she might be had she arisen from his feet). She comes from his side, indicating that she is a partner and companion. These statements of the equality of man and women – not the statement of male superiority – were new and radical. The specifically Christian attitude toward women – not the pre-existing pagan attitude – was new and radical. It has taken some time, though, for the wheat to be separated from the chaff.

According to Church Father Gregory of Nazianzus, throughout history Jesus has protected women:

The majority of men are ill-disposed to chastity and their laws are unequal and irregular. For what was the reason they restrained the woman but indulged the man, and that a woman who practices evil against her husband’s bed is an adulteress and the penalties of the law severe, but if the husband commits fornication against his wife, he has no account to give? I do not accept this legislation. I do not approve this custom.” (Oration 37:6)

By establishing one moral code obligatory on men and women alike, Christianity fostered a lasting commitment of unconditional covenantal love, protecting the family structure and putting the sexes on an equal footing.

So when God made woman, he literally rocked the world of man.

Receiver and Donor of Love??

Posted: December 8, 2014 in World On The Edge
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bookcoverAll of us have a hunger within us to be loved and nurtured. The desire to be loved, as experiments have shown, is one of our most basic and fundamental needs. One of the forms that the need to be loved takes is contact comfort–we want to be held and touched. Findings show that babies who are deprived contact comfort, particularly during the first six months after they are born, grow up to be psychologically damaged.

Most of us believe that a significant determinant of our happiness is whether we feel loved and cared for. In conducted surveys, people rate “having healthy relationships” as one of their top goals—on par with the goal of “leading a happy and fulfilling life.”

In our pursuit of the need to be loved, however, most of us fail to recognize that we have a parallel need: the need to love and care for others. This desire, it turns out, is just as strong as the need to be loved and nurtured. The desire to love and care for others is  hard-wired and deep-seated because fulfillment of this desire enhances our happiness levels.

If the need to love is hardwired and universal and is also a powerful determinant of happiness, how come many of us aren’t aware of it? Why, for example, don’t we respond to the question, “What would make you most happy?” with “serving others” of “showering love on someone” than with “money” or “being loved”?

The answer, in my opinion, has to do with the messages to which we are routinely exposed from our care-takers and the media. These messages suggest to us that our happiness lies in being the recipient of others’ attention, love, and respect, rather than in being the donor of attention, love, and respect. For example, most of us are explicitly or implicitly told that happiness lies in achieving self-enhancing goals such as career success, wealth, fame, or power. The need to love and care for others, in contrast, is rarely emphasized, except perhaps in the arts. (summarized from Psychology Today)

My novel, A Hunger in the Heart, is about a boy who needs not only to be loved, but has a desperate need to love. Winston Groom described A Hunger in the Heart as “a story of hope, forgiveness, and redemption–a great read in the tradition of southern fiction.”  Mark Childress said, “Kaye Park Hinckley is a writer with a sensitive ear and a keenly developed sympathy for her characters.”

A Hunger in the Heart is available in Paperback, Kindle, and Hardcover. In this season of love, I think it would make a very special Christmas gift. I hope you’ll consider it. Just click on the cover shot above to order.

My interview with Brian Patrick of Sacred Heart Radio follows the novel’s promotional video!

 

Out of Gas???

Posted: December 5, 2014 in World On The Edge
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Gas-on-emptyHow long can you drive your car without filling it with gas?  Some cars get better mileage than others of course, but without gas any car will stop running.  Not to fill it when you have somewhere to go is ridiculous.

Yet some of us live our lives as if we need no gas, as if we are so all-important that we don’t worry about what we do, who we hurt, or ignore, or abuse, or even kill. We become so pompous that we don’t think we have to forgive anyone for what they may have done to us. After all, we deserve our payback, don’t we?

But then, how can we call ourselves Christian? We are driving our life along dangerous and —dare I say sinful— roads? Where is the gas of our Christianity?  Where is Jesus Christ in our actions?

Many call themselves Reverends, Pastors, or ministers of God. But shouldn’t ministers of God  be the primary advocates for God’s pre-requisite for salvation: Forgiveness?

Without the gas of Christianity, which is forgiveness, sincere Christian love cannot exist.  So, that sort of  Christian car is only a façade that takes us nowhere. It will NOT run. In fact, it will come to a dead stop.

Christianity without forgiveness is not only useless, it is deceitful and brimming with the darkness of lies.

And what we do in the dark will always come into light.

Whoever walks in integrity walks securely,  but whoever takes crooked paths will be found out.–Solomon, Proverb 9

The Necessary Three C’s

Posted: December 4, 2014 in World On The Edge
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The-letter-C-the-letter-c-22187021-500-500Are you a person who likes convenience? I certainly am. I like things to be available when I reach for them. I like for places to be near by so I don’t have to struggle to get there. I like people who are easy to be around so I don’t get my feelings hurt or find myself irritated by someone’s presence. That’s why, for me, Convenience is the first, necessary ‘C’ in the title of this blog.

The second of the necessary C’s is–for me–Comfort. I simply don’t want to be uncomfortable, or frazzled, or stressed out. I don’t want to be too cold, or too hot, but ‘just right.’

Of course, believing that those first two C’s (convenience and comfort) will always be present in one’s life is wholly unrealistic. We all know that “we can’t have everything” no matter how much we may want it.

In one of my last blogs, I spoke about spending the month of November at my favorite beach, Indian Pass,  located between Port St. Joe and Apalachicola, Florida. I had great plans to get a start on a new book entitled Something in the Water.  But just as I began, many things went wrong, not only with the pretty old house in which we were staying–I also came down with pneumonia. None of it was convenient or comfortable. Despite that, I’d still have to say the month was nearly spectacular–I wouldn’t take anything for the time I spent at Indian Pass.

Why is that? Well, it brings me to the third necessary ‘C’, as in Christ. God.

Because God is the all-powerful entity that puts everything into focus–no matter how inconvenient or uncomfortable it may be, and probably will be. God carries us through the inconvenient, the uncomfortable.

God gives us the strength to go on by realizing  value in our inconveniences and discomforts. God can even show us beauty in our suffering.

This poem was found in a dead soldiers pocket after a battle in the Civil War: Read it carefully. Apply it to your own life, and I believe you’ll see how true it is.

I asked God for strength that I might achieve ;
I was made weak that I might humbly learn to obey.
I asked God for help that I might do greater things;
I was given infirmity that I might do better things.
I asked God for riches that I might be happy;
I was given poverty that I might be wise.
I asked for all things that I might enjoy life;
I was given life that I might enjoy all things.
I was given nothing that I asked for;
But everything that I had hoped for.
Despite myself my prayers were answered.
I am among all men most richly blessed.

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