Stupid Literature for Kids: What is your kid reading? Or, the better question might be, what are you reading to your kids and what are you making available to them? My wife brought this to my attention: The book F is for FART has 5,936 ratings on Amazon while The Complete Tales of Winnie-The-Pooh has under 4,000. I refuse to hyperlink the first; you can look for trash if you want. The latter we just finished with our kids a few months ago, and it was pure delight. It is so much fun to see different literary characters, their words, and their personalities become family jokes in the everyday jargon used in the home. So, please consider getting rid of stupid literature and choose that which has the potential to cultivate your child’s intellect, imagination, and character.
It Might Be More Spiritual Than We Thought: What if the demonic is more real than you ever imagined? What if the battles that you are weary of fighting are more spiritual in nature than anything else, but your physical and/or psychological approach to them has resulted in a truncated worldview and deficient method of addressing the issues? Granted, I am not a fan of the flake that wants to find a demon around every corner. That is silliness. Yet, every extreme has its other extreme, and in the West, that other extreme is materialistic in nature—that everything is physical or can be explained in a physical or psychological manner. I love this insight by Neil Anderson who taught at Talbot School of Theology for almost ten years: “There is no inner conflict which is not psychological, because there is never a time when your mind, emotions, and will are not involved. Similarly, there is no problem which is not spiritual. There is no time when God is not present.”
Moral Thought for the Day: Kindness is a choice. What choice am I making? What choice are you making? Who cares whether you “feel” kind” at any given moment! Just ask yourself: What would being kind look like in this situation? Then do it. Behave in a kind manner, and according to Aristotle, you will eventually become a kind person. For Aristotle, virtue is synonymous with “habit.” Of course, kindness is also a fruit of the Holy Spirit, which means that it can become much more than a mere habit. The Holy Spirit wants to cultivate this fruit in us, with our cooperation, so that Christ is glorified. Maybe partnering with him involves little more than the Aristotelian idea of, “I will act kindly until the HS makes it part of my moral character.”
B.J. Condrey, Ph.D. 