Impacts

I'm sure a lot of people think that my faith in Christ is a major influence in my life. While He is an influence in my life, it's more of an indirect/direct sort of way.

I have many influences which formed who I am so far - I'm still quite young, you see. I would say my biggest influence is music, and in particular, Westlife. Through Westlife I learned all about love, friendship, life, and about what it means to be me. To follow my dreams and try, and try again. I know that sounds pretty silly, but it's not as though I'm trying to claim life experience here. What I do claim is wisdom. It's no wonder Westlife was also a favourite band of the late great Blessed Pope John Paul 2. He even got to meet them!

The lyrics Westlife put out aren't songs of lovey dovey love. Their songs, especially the later albums are actually deep meditations on the topic. It touches on a lot of suffering, and a lot of mysteries of the heart and soul. I would venture to say Westlife is the reason I'm an optimist and the reason why I so believe that love is still real, even today.

As for Christ? Well, I don't think for a minute that I didn't just stumble upon Westlife by accident, or that they drew me in close right from that first song just because I liked the song. I remember devouring their songs for days and weeks on end.

It is true though, that what you expose yourself to impacts you. Those exposed to positive, genuine, soul moving material tend to actual have that shift. Those who tend more to violent and degrading things tend to move in that direction as well.

Christ presented to me Westlife for some reason I know not of, and not just to speak to me through the music. Truly a lot of their songs are actually quite devotional. There is still some greater purpose to all this, I just know it.

No matter what happens in life, there is a reason for it and for better or worse that reason is for your good.  "And we know that to them that love God, all things work together unto good, to such as, according to his purpose, are called to be saints." (Romans 8:28)

Healthcare or Sickcare?

With obesity overtaking smoking as the number one killer, and juvenile diabetes becoming the norm is it any wonder the state of affairs we're in? Friends, we do not have healthcare any longer - now we have sickcare.

According to Dictionary.com, one of the definitions given for medicine is, "the art or science of restoring or preserving health or due physical condition..." We have sickcare because we spend most of our time caring for the sick, or supposedly restoring health. If we actually had healthcare, that is, caring for the healthy, we would be more focused on preserving health or due physical condition.

More often, doctors are focused on taking the path of least resistance, that is, prescribing drugs. It would be very appropriate to think of most doctors under the sickcare paradigm as drug salesmen. This is the same for mental health practitioners. Interestingly enough just about any thing, including mental illness, can be cured and/or prevented through diet and exercise.

Don't bother putting all your faith on you government food guides to show you the way. You see, it gets very expensive waiting for people to get sick, and coupled with food industry interests, your government food guide likely reflects this. This is also why it is perfectly acceptable for drugs to have so many devastating side effects including causing those same illnesses they purport to prevent or cure. Side effects keep the lights on, you could say.

You might think being healthy then, would cause a collapse of the industry. It would indeed cause the sickcare industry to collapse, but rest assured out of the rubble the healthcare industry would bloom. And with more healthy people in the population there would be fewer sick days and more focused workers which means a stronger economy. Healthy people tend to maintain their health as they live longer lives and this ultimately means less pressure on social services for the elderly, as well as more elderly living above the poverty line. So while being a healthy society may be difficult at first, once we get over the hump things will be better than they were before.

So where can you go to find information on how to be healthy and become richer as a result? Visit your bookstore or library. Check out www.google.com. You can browse through free scientific journals via the Directory of Open Access Journals. You can browse helpful websites such as Natural News. I recommend you get a great foundation in nutritional science through Dr. Joel Fuhrman's book, "Eat to Live." This foundation will make it much easier for you to, "Test everything. Hold on to the good." (1 Thessalonians 5:21)