Norman Cousins Laughed His Way Back to Health

Norman Cousins, editor of Saturday Review magazine for more than thirty years, healed himself by laughing. So the over-simplified story goes.

In the mid-1960s, when Cousins was about fifty years old, he was diagnosed as having the life-threatening disease, ankylosing spondylitis.  This is a form of arthritis that primarily affects the spine, causing inflammation of the joints between the vertebrae.  Over time, the vertebrae can join together and can cause paralysis.  When he was diagnosed, doctors gave him only months to live.

Upon hearing this news, Cousins checked himself out of the hospital and took charge of his own treatment, dosing himself with massive quantities of vitamin C and provoking laughter within himself by watching large doses of Marx Brothers movies.

The results were phenomenal. Cousins regained the use of his arms and legs, and he went back to work full-time at the Saturday Review.

Some years later, in 1980, when he was sixty-five, illness struck again, this time in the form of a massive heart attack. Again, Cousins mainly doctored himself and returned to regular activity. He wrote books about the two experiences: Anatomy of an Illness for the first and The Healing Heart for the second. 

Cousins died ten years after the heart attack, at age seventy-five on this date, November 30, in 1990.

The website http://www.dailycelebrations.com/072799.htm quotes Cousins as saying, "Laughter may or may not activate the endorphins or enhance respiration, as some medical researchers contend. What seems clear, however, is that laughter is an antidote to apprehension and panic." He asked, "Is it possible that love, hope, faith, laughter, confidence, and the will to live have therapeutic value?" He said he deliberately had hearty laughs several times a day and that a few minutes of laughter gave him an hour or more of pain-free sleep.

Cousins’ approach to healing was, and is, highly controversial. But the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) now has the Norman Cousins Center for Psychoneuroimmunology, which studies and promotes a holistic approach to medicine. 

If there is any place in your theology for miraculous healing, isn't this akin to what Cousins practiced? If there is value in prayer for the sick, is this somehow related to the experience of Norman Cousins, when healing came in an unexpected way?

This is not a call to abandon medical treatment or to rely on folk remedies in an age of scientific miracles. Rather, this is a reminder that the individual mind and spirit many times has found healing when medical science could not.

Give thanks for the gift of the will to survive.

Verses for Today

“[Jesus] said to him, ‘Do you want to be made well?’ The sick man said, ‘Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool . . .’ Jesus said to him, ‘Stand up, take your mat and walk.’ At once the man was made well, and he took up his mat and began to walk” (John 5:6-8).

Each day through New Year’s Day, January 1, 2013, daily inspirational thoughts will appear on this website, in keeping with Thanksgiving, Advent, Christmas, and New Year’s Day.  These are from my book, Reflections for the Festive Seasons.  © 2002.  All rights reserved. 

C. S. Lewis Reclaims His Faith

C. S. Lewis wrote a shelf full of books on theology and literary criticism, but he is probably best known for a series of children’s books. This is not surprising. The general reading audience is more readily attracted to fiction than to theology and literary treatises.

His seven-volume children’s fantasy series, The Narnia Chronicles, begins with The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, featuring four children who enter the land of Narnia through a wardrobe. They encounter talking animals, including a lion named Aslan, who is generally understood to be a Christ figure.

Born in Belfast, Ireland, on this date, November 29, 1898, Lewis was a child of the church, who turned to atheism in his youth and then---with an intermediate stop in pantheism---found his way back to faith in Jesus Christ in his early 30s.

Clive Staples “Jack” Lewis studied at Britain’s Oxford University and taught there for 29 years. In the final years of his life, he taught at Cambridge.

On the faculty at Oxford, he was closely associated with a group of scholars, including J. R. R. Tolkien, the author of another fantasy classic, The Lord of the Rings. This group influenced Lewis to come back to Christian faith.

Inspired by the writing we looked at yesterday, John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim's Progress, Lewis wrote The Pilgrim's Regress. He describes a young man reared as a Christian who went in search of something better but, in time, arrived at a point that was both identical with and different from, where he started. 

Lewis published scholarly theological and philosophic works, but he also directed writings and lectures to the layman: During World War II, he delivered several series of radio talks which eventually were published in the widely-read Mere Christianity, presenting the basic elements of faith. Other books, including The Great Divorce and The Screwtape Letters, first ran serially in popular publications for general audiences.

Many Americans who had never read Lewis became acquainted with him through the stage play and movie, Shadowlands, which focuses on his marriage late in life to an American Jewish woman, Joy Davidman, who died of cancer after they had been married only four years. His book, A Grief Observed, is his moving remembrance of how he coped with her death.

Lewis’s intellectual and emotional struggle led him to a deeper Christian faith.  In turn, he wanted to point others to faith in Christ. We give thanks in this season of thanks for his testimony of faith.

A Verse for Today

“Then Agrippa said unto Paul, Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian. And Paul said, I would to God, that not only thou, but also all that hear me this day, were both almost, and altogether such as I am . . .” (Acts 26:28-29 KJV).

Each day through New Year’s Day, January 1, 2013, daily inspirational thoughts will appear on this website, in keeping with Thanksgiving, Advent, Christmas, and New Year’s Day.  These are from my book, Reflections for the Festive Seasons.  © 2002.  All rights reserved. 

Christian Classic Written in Jail

John Bunyan wrote at least 60 books, many of them during 16 years in jail in Bedford, England.

Bunyan was imprisoned because he preached without a license from the tax-supported Church of England. He was a Dissenter, who refused to apply for the license.  He was told he could leave jail if he would promise not to preach again, but his conscience did not let him make such a promise.

He served two prison sentences. He was released in 1672, after a 12-year term, when King Charles II issued a Declaration of Religious Indulgences, releasing leaders of dissenting groups such as Congregationalists and Baptists. But Charles changed his mind the next year, so Bunyan returned to jail for another four years.

Bunyan was born on this day, November 28, in 1628. He is best known for his book, The Pilgrim’s Progress, which was begun in jail.

During his imprisonment, Bunyan was allowed to have visitors and occasionally was able to leave the jail for a day visit with his family.

Bunyan was married twice. He and his first wife had four children, the last of whom was born blind. At this time, Bunyan was unconverted, and baby Mary’s blindness is thought to have been a major factor in his turning to God. Bunyan wrote about his conversion in Grace Abounding. After his first wife died, he married again and had two more children.

The prison was only five minutes from his home so he often had home-cooked food, brought by his blind daughter Mary. A flute he is said to have made from a prison stool leg is in a museum. In jail, he made bootlaces to support his family.

The Pilgrim’s Progress tells of a man named Christian on a difficult journey to the Celestial City. The people he meets have symbolic names, suggesting life’s journey is a mix of the bad and the good: Obstinate and Worldly Wiseman, but also Prudence, Piety, and Charity; Sloth, Presumption, and Mistrust, but also Hopeful, Knowledge, Watchful, and Sincere.

Christian passes through the City of Destruction, the Slough of Despond, the Valley of the Shadow of Death, and Vanity Fair.

Upon arriving in Celestial City, after facing the struggles of life, he is welcomed by Christ.

This allegory is a classic of English literature, read and admired by devout believer and sincere doubter alike.

In this Thanksgiving season, we give thanks for people such as John Bunyan who find God’s strength and providence amid life’s difficulty--people who can weave these experiences into words of inspiration that lift our spirits as we face our own trials.

A Verse for Today

“God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble” (Psalm 46:1).

Each day through New Year’s Day, January 1, 2013, daily inspirational thoughts will appear on this website, in keeping with Thanksgiving, Advent, Christmas, and New Year’s Day.  These are from my book, Reflections for the Festive Seasons.  © 2002.  All rights reserved. 

Alfred Nobel’s Peace Prize

The name of Alfred Nobel is closely identified with the peace prizes which are awarded through an endowment he established on this date. Ironically, the name is also associated  with explosives for use in war, including dynamite which he invented.

Alfred’s interest in explosives is something he came by naturally. In this Swedish family, his father, Immanuel Nobel, was an engineer and inventor who built bridges and buildings. To aid his construction work, the elder Nobel experimented with techniques for blasting rocks. Later, he developed underwater mines for use by navies and weapons for armies. 

By age 17, Alfred was fluent in five languages and had a strong interest in English literature and poetry along with chemistry and physics. Immanuel discouraged the boy’s study of literature and sent him abroad to study chemical engineering. In Paris, Alfred met the young Italian chemist Ascanio Sobrero, who had invented the highly explosive liquid, nitroglycerine.

With his father, Alfred experimented with developing nitroglycerine as a commercially and technically useful explosive. Despite explosions which killed several people---including his brother Emil---Alfred continued developing nitroglycerine into a safer, more manageable form.

He found that, by mixing nitroglycerine with silica, he could turn the liquid into a paste which could be shaped into rods to insert in drilling holes. He patented this material as dynamite, which could be ignited with a fuse. Initially used in construction work, dynamite was bought by governments for use in war.

By selling explosives, Alfred Nobel amassed a fortune. In 1895, on this date, November 27, about a year before his death, he drew up his will, leaving most of his wealth to used as awards for excellence in physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature (despite his father’s earlier objections), and efforts to establish peace among nations.

Because Nobel had invested years of energy and much of his money in developing weapons of mass destruction, news of the peace prize created a sensation.

Albert Einstein, who later played a role in developing the atomic bomb, said that after Nobel saw the destructive potential in the use of his invention of dynamite, he sought “to atone for this 'accomplishment' and to relieve his conscience” by instituting the peace prize. But Nobel himself gave no indication of this motive. Einstein’s statement may have been a reflection of his own feelings rather than Nobel’s.

Whatever Nobel’s motivation, in this season of Thanksgiving, we give thanks for this continuing legacy which encourages and rewards excellence in the various fields, especially efforts for peace among nations. We are also thankful for all who wage peace, person-to-person and on the national and world scene.

(On December 10, we will look at a few of the Peace Prize winners.)

A Verse for Today

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God” (Matthew 5:9).

Each day through New Year’s Day, January 1, 2013, daily inspirational thoughts will appear on this website, in keeping with Thanksgiving, Advent, Christmas, and New Year’s Day.  These are from my book, Reflections for the Festive Season.  © 2002.  All rights reserved. 

Peanuts: Coping with the Everyday

When Charles Schulz was a kid growing up in Minneapolis, one day a local movie theater offered free candy bars to the first 100 customers. He was 101st.

Charlie Brown, in Schulz’s Peanuts comic strip, which he drew for nearly 50 years, chronically faced similar misfortunes. His luck always seemed to run out: coaching a losing baseball team, trying to muster the nerve to say something to the little red-haired girl, or trying to kick the football before Lucy pulled it away. Even Snoopy treated Charlie Brown with disrespect, refuting the notion that “a man’s best friend is his dog.”

Born on this day, November 26, in 1922, Schulz often invested his peanut-sized characters with adult outlooks. The strip can be read and enjoyed by children and adults alike, but most grade school children have not developed the sophisticated awareness expressed in the strip regarding life’s bumpy road.

In the strip, which has continued to circulate since Schulz’s death in 2000, Charlie Brown and friends remind us there is an everyday quality to every day that includes difficulty and disappointment.

At at Schulz’s funeral, a Peanuts fan said the cartoonist was able to turn depression and grief into joy. 

Presbyterian Minister Robert L. Short saw Christian truths in the strip and wrote books called The Gospel According to Peanuts and The Parables of Peanuts.  Published in the 1960s, the books are still available.  A reviewer said the Parables book “sheds more light on the Christian faith and how it is to be lived than many more ‘serious’ theological works.”

In this Thanksgiving season, if we are facing difficulty, we may not find much ground for thankfulness. But perhaps we can give thanks for the strength and determination to keep going. An optimistic preacher told his congregation they should give thanks for everything---even potholes in the road. If we cannot thank God for potholes -- and I confess I can't -- perhaps we can give thanks for roads and for cars to drive on the roads, potholes and all. 

As Charlie Brown and the Peanuts gang run into various roadblocks, Linus often turns preacher, quoting pertinent Bible verses. Schulz, who was a long-time member of the Church of God, seems to speak through Linus to remind us that the Scriptures offer encouragement along the road of life. 

Verses for Today:

“. . . Suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us” (Romans 5:3-5). 

“. . . And a little child shall lead them” (Isaiah 11:6).

Each day through New Year's Day, January 1, 2013, daily inspirational thoughts will appear on this website, in keeping with Thanksgiving, Advent, Christmas, and New Year's Day.  These are from my book, Reflections for the Festive Season.   © 2002.  All rights reserved.

Poor Boy Makes Good

Andrew Carnegie’s life story is like a chapter from Horatio Alger Jr.’s rags-to-riches series.

Carnegie’s experience is the American dream, a walking cliché: Hard-working immigrant boy becomes fabulously wealthy, then gives millions to charity.

Carnegie was born on this date, November 25, in 1835, in Dunfermline, Scotland, where his father tried to earn a living by weaving cloth on hand-powered looms.  When the Industrial Revolution, with steam-driven looms, made the elder Carnegie’s trade obsolete, he sold his looms and household goods and went to the United States with his wife and two sons: Andrew, age 13, and Thomas, 5.

Andrew dropped out of school when the family came to America and the Pittsburgh area. With his father, he went to work in a cotton factory. Teenage Andrew’s pay was $1.20 a week. Later, he worked for the telegraph company, first as a messenger boy and then as a telegraph operator. Next, he worked for what is now Penn Central Railroad, becoming a division manager by age 24.

Along the way, he bought stock in Woodruff Sleeping Car Company, the predecessor to the Pullman company. Near the end of the Civil War, Carnegie went into the iron business and then into steel. He became wealthy with Carnegie Steel, which he sold to United States Steel Corporation in 1901.

Carnegie has been dubbed a captain of industry and even a robber baron, but he is remarkable for his determination to give away great sums of his wealth. 

He was one of the first wealthy Americans to point to the moral obligation of the rich. He felt he and other rich men were morally obligated to share their fortunes with people in need. In his book, The Gospel of Wealth, he said all personal wealth beyond what it takes to provide for the needs of one's family should be considered as a trust fund to be used to aid the community. 

One of his most conspicuous donations is the series of more than 2500 free public libraries in many English-speaking countries. When he began this in 1881, there were only a few libraries open free to the public.

He created philanthropic and educational foundations in the U. S. and Europe; endowed Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh). 

Andrew Carnegie was physically little, standing under 5 foot, 6 inches. Though it may sound trite, he was, nevertheless, a giant of benevolence, giving away more than $350 million during his lifetime.

This wealthy man’s spirit of generosity strikes a key note for the Thanksgiving season, challenging us to be generous to others as a sign of genuine thanksgiving for God’s gifts to us. Whatever our level of financial resources, we can give proportionately to help others who are less fortunate.

A Verse for Today

But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth (Deuteronomy 8:18).

Each day through New Year's Day, January 1, 2013, daily inspirational thoughts will appear on this website, in keeping with Thanksgiving, Advent, Christmas, and New Year's Day.  These are from my book Reflections for the Festive Season.  © 2002.  All rights reserved.  

Kilroy Was Here

A mysterious, mythical figure named Kilroy, as elusive as the Abominable Snowman or the Loch Ness Monster, roamed the world during World War II. Whenever US military personnel went to a new assignment, presumably the first Americans on the scene, it seemed Kilroy had gotten there first and scrawled the claim,”Kilroy was here,” on a wall or fence or rock--often accompanied by the drawing of a man peering over a fence, with only his fingers, his big nose, eyes, and the  top of his head visible.

The Kilroy tradition was carried around the world as thousands of soldiers and sailors enjoyed being anonymous contributors to the joke. “Kilroy was here” sightings have even been reported on Mt. Everest, the Statue of Liberty, the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, the Marco Polo Bridge in China, huts in Indonesia, a girder on New York's George Washington Bridge, and even in the dust on the moon.

Pregnant women were reported to have been wheeled into delivery rooms with "Kilroy was here" written on their stomachs.  

At the end of fighting in Europe, the so-called Big Three world leaders -- Harry Truman of the United States, Clement Attlee of Great Britain, and Joseph Stalin of the Soviet Union -- were meeting in Potsdam, Germany.  Kilroy somehow left his mark in a marble bathroom in the closely guarded quarters where the leaders and their staffs were staying.

But what about the real Kilroy? Was he flesh and blood or just a GI prank? The web site, www.anydayinhistory.com, declares James J. Kilroy died on this date, November 24, 1962, at the age of 60. This web site, which lists births, deaths, and other significant events for every day of the year, identifies Kilroy as a tank inspector.

Web sites offer conflicting details, but they generally agree James Kilroy lived in the Boston area and worked on the docks as an inspector in a war-related industry. With a piece of chalk, he scribbled the now-famous words on crates before they were shipped out, as testimony that he had made his inspections. When the crates arrived at their destinations, U. S. forces adopted the words and the tradition was born. So the story goes.

In the final weeks of the year, there is a spirit abroad, at once as pervasive and perhaps as elusive as Kilroy, everywhere we go. Almost inescapable. 

The entire period---embracing Thanksgiving, Advent, Christmas, and New Year’s---can be as superficial as Kilroy: “The Holidays Were Here.” Or each can be a time of renewal as our spirits turn first in gratitude for the blessings of life, then to Advent as preparation for a spiritual observance of Christmas, followed by Christmas itself, and finally the dawning of a new year as a time of spiritual renewal. 

God’s Spirit is with us in all of life. So when the four seasons end, we need not say, as with Kilroy, “God’s Spirit was here.” Rather, we can declare, “God’s Spirit is here!”

A Verse for Today:

By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and do testify that the Father has sent his Son as the  Savior of the world (l John 4:13-14).

From today, November 24, through New Year's Day, January 1, 2013, daily religious reflections will appear on this website, in keeping with Thanksgiving, Advent, Christmas, and New Year's.  These reflections are from my book, Reflections for the Festive Season.

© 2002.  All rights reserved. 

Reflections for Thanksgiving, Advent, Christmas, and New Year's

The final weeks of the year are filled with multiple celebrations: Thanksgiving, Advent, Christmas, New Year’s. Everyone in the United States is impacted by the festivities of Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s, even people who try to ignore the celebrations. Businesses close, public events are numerous, and most families have some kind of activity commemorating these days.

Advent is another story. Many Americans don’t even know what it is. While the Big Three celebrations all have varying degrees of religious significance, Advent is plainly and simply an effort to instill or reclaim the Christian dimension of Christmas. 

Beginning Saturday, November 24, daily religious reflections will appear on this website in keeping with each of these seasons.

These reflections are from my book, Reflections for the Festive Seasons, © 2002.  All rights reserved.

The Advent season begins four Sundays before Christmas Day. Advent starts the Liturgical Year, which many denominations follow, focusing on events in the life of Jesus and the life of the church. Advent means coming, and the Advent season is a time of spiritual preparation for Christmas, which celebrates the coming of Jesus as the promised Messiah.

Advent varies in length. If Christmas is on Sunday, four Sundays before Christmas give Advent 28 days. When Christmas is on other days, Advent is shorter because there are fewer total days from the first Sunday of Advent till Christmas  Day. This series follows the pattern of many Advent books with 24 readings in the  Advent section.

With the inclusion of readings for Thanksgiving and New Year’s and with only seven of the liturgical twelve days of Christmas, this series does not adhere precisely to the Liturgical Year. 

Thanksgiving and New Year’s are not religious days as such, though each holds great potential for reflecting on spiritual dimensions of life. 

Thanksgiving, logically, involves giving thanks to God, although that emphasis easily gets lost in the swirl of football, turkey, parades, and the launch of holiday shopping on the eve of Black Friday. 

New Year’s can be a serious---even holy---time if we use it to look back on our lives in the past year and seek God’s help to make changes and improvements in the  year that is dawning. This may take effort, amid boisterous, drunken parties on New Year’s Eve and ball games, parades, and hangovers occupying many on New Year’s Day.

This series includes seven readings for Thanksgiving, beginning November 24; Advent with 24 readings, beginning December 1; Christmas with seven, beginning December 25; and a final reading for New Year’s Day. 

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, Copyright 1989, by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America.  Used by permission.  All rights reserved.

Most of the daily readings focus on a person who was born or a person who died on that day. These people, whose lives have made a difference in the larger society, include an ever-present wartime legend, industrialists, cartoonists, authors and publishers, musicians, a civil rights activist, religious leaders, television personalities, explorers, martyrs, a politician, an archaeologist, a Bible translator, a saloon wrecker, and the Son of God. 

Other readings are based on events that occurred on given dates, events which had an impact on the world’s life: an invention, awarding of peace prizes, ratification of the Bill of Rights, the openings of a cathedral, the first YMCA in the United States, and Ellis Island as an immigration center.

Each day’s reading is offered with the prayerful hope that it will enrich your understanding of the potential for good in the world’s daily life and that it will encourage you, day by day, with God’s help, to add to the good in your own relationships.

Lawrence Webb