Category: Personal Growth and Health

Do We Hate Our Bodies?

Hate our bodies
~ MD Harris Institute ~ Leave a comment

Our Lord loves us and He gave us our bodies, however they may be, for our enjoyment and His glory. Christians do not hate the material world… we love it. Do we hate our bodies? No.

By Mark D. Harris

The other day I read an article written by a hospice chaplain from South Carolina entitled “What the dying really regret.” The author interviewed an elderly woman who was dying of cancer, who said:

“I know I’m supposed to hate my body…Everyone told me — my family, my school, my church. When I got older, magazines and salesgirls and boyfriends (told me), even if they didn’t say so out loud. The world’s been telling me for 75 years that my body is bad. First for being female, then for being fat and then for being sick…But the one thing I never did understand is, why does everyone else want me to hate my body? What does it matter to them?” Kerry Egan, CNN, 17 Oct 2014

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How to Improve your Health and Health Care

~ MD Harris Institute ~ 1 Comment

Most people get lost in the maze of health care, and suffer as a result. Some strategies help…

Throughout Central Asia, the Middle East, and much of the developing world, people have told me that they cannot get good medical care. In some cases good care is too expensive, in other cases medical care is affordable but poor quality, and in still other cases medical care, good or bad, does not exist. Some friends with significant health care problems labor in austere conditions never knowing when a medical emergency will strike, and if they will be able to get help when and where they need.

Some people have similar problems in the developed world, even including the United States. America has been swept by debates about health care, especially about how to make quality health care available to all Americans. Medicare is a government single payer program for the elderly and Medicaid is the same for the poor, but these programs pay providers too little and yet are unsustainably expensive for the nation. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) was the most recent Federal attempt to improve Americans’ health, but the results have been mixed. Fundamentally the ACA was health insurance reform, not health care reform, and providing someone with an insurance card is not the same as providing them with health care. Hence we have millions who lost their insurance, millions who got new insurance, and millions waving their new insurance cards in the air who cannot get care because it doesn’t exist in their area, wait times are too long, or the system pays so little that providers cannot afford to take these patients.

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How ordinary people can contribute to extraordinary change

~ MD Harris Institute ~ 2 Comments

Ordinary people often feel powerless to improve our society, or even our lives. We can, and we do, but we can do it better. 

Last night after dinner my family and I were discussing some of the Middle East events of the day, and the picture was not pretty. Fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria were capturing more territory, killing more people, and destroying mosques and other religious sites. Hamas and Hezbollah were launching rocket attacks on Israel, who was retaliating with air strikes, killing many. Syria remained embroiled in its civil war, and the “Arab Spring” of 2011, with all of its hopes of democracy, has turned sour. My daughter, visibly troubled, asked what our government was going to do about all of this mayhem. I answered that no matter how powerful, governments have limited ability to intervene. The American President Barack Obama, who some consider to be the most powerful man in the world, has four main elements of American national power that he can use to accomplish US goals in the world, which in this case is to restore peace and stability and promote democracy.

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The Problem is the Soil

dry soil
~ MD Harris Institute ~ Leave a comment

Whether in Jesus’ Parable of the Sower or in day to day life, God’s seed is perfect. When we don’t bear fruit, it is because our soil is bad. The problem is us. But God saves us even from ourselves.  

By Mark D, Harris

Last week I was writing a commentary on Matthew 13. Verses 1-23 contain one of the most famous parables of Jesus, the Parable of the Sower. In it some seed fell on a hard path, other seed fell on stony ground, part of the seed fell on thorny ground, and more seed fell on good ground. The seed which fell on the walking path was devoured by birds before it could take root, and that which fell on stony ground took root but the ground was so shallow that the young shoot was scorched in the hot sun. The seed which fell on thorny ground also took root but the young plant was smothered by the weeds around it. Only the seed that fell on good ground produced a harvest.

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A God Thing?

~ MD Harris Institute ~ Leave a comment

Whether are circumstances appear good or bad to us, God is still in control. As with Job, He is using our lives for His glory and our good. Rejoice without ceasing, in whatever state you find yourself. 

By Mark D. Harris

On 9 January 2013 my wife Nancy and I attended the funeral for Mary, a dear Christian friend who had died of breast cancer at age 42. She left behind her husband Eric and two children, ages 11 and 7. Earlier that same day, we discovered that Nancy, age 47, had breast cancer as well. It was the worst day of my life.

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A Sense of Time and Place

~ MD Harris Institute ~ Leave a comment

We are products of our individual lives, but also of our ancestors, our place, and our time. Let’s stop ignoring this, but understand it, and celebrate it. 

By Mark D. Harris

dSeveral months ago I waited with my children at the school bus stop. It was a cool, sunny morning and a neighbor and her child walked towards us. She had a Middle Eastern accent and an olive complexion. Having learned some Arabic in Iraq I greeted her with “Sabah al khair” (“Good morning”) and she replied with “Sabah al noor.” Curious, I asked where she came from, expecting the answer to be an Arab country in the Middle East. She replied “Iran”, where the dominant language is Farsi, and I asked if she spoke Arabic as well as Farsi and English. She answered “no, but Farsi has adopted many Arabic words and phrases since they invaded us.” What strange words to American ears, “since they invaded us.” Her explanation was shockingly personal and immediate, as though it had happened to her, even though the invasion of which she spoke was in 636 AD, climaxing in the famous Battle of al-Qadisiyyah. I couldn’t imagine saying of the British “since they invaded us”, as though it happened to me personally, but the history rolled off her tongue as if it was a current event. I asked if that was the invasion that she was referring to and she said “yes”. The centuries that had passed had no bearing on her feelings about it.

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