I just looked through a Times Magazine article regarding what not to eat, and guess what came up? Those yummy Pepperidge Farm Goldfish Crackers that we feed to our children in schools and churches!!

Ouch!

What Not To Eat

Why? Even though it’s trans-fat-free (one of our funny fads), it has 250 mg of salt per serving.

Guess what the recommended daily intake for salt is? 6 grams – that’s 6000 mg.

That means one serving is only 1/24 of the daily recommended intake of salt.

Is it really that bad then?

My thought for food? Everything with moderation…with some regulations.

I just read an awesome and insightful entry by Pete Wilson, which you can check out here.

The following are my thoughts on a similar topic:

We are blessed. Having the technology, time, and money to access the internet and view this post means that you are blessed. I probably don’t even have to convince you regarding how much you are blessed. Just look at the clothes you’re wearing, the things in your house, the fact that you have a roof over your head, the people in your life, etc.

As a result, there are a few different types of people. There are those who don’t even consider themselves blessed, in comparison to others, and have this insatiable desire for more. These people don’t feel like they have enough as it is, and are always thinking about what else they could buy.

On the other hand, there are those who consider themselves blessed, but still want more regardless.

We hear and read about all the people in the world who are suffering. The fact that one child dies every five seconds from hunger related causes (that’s 16 000 children everyday). The fact that 12 million people have been orphaned by AIDS, across sub-Saharan Africa, by the end of 2005. The fact that 10.1 million children died before they reached their fifth birthday in 2005. And the fact that approximately 30 000 people go to bed hungry everyday.

Sure we read and hear about these facts, but is our heart moved? Are we compelled to act? Maybe…maybe not.

I believe that if we do the following and make a paradigm shift in our thinking, our actions will follow suit:

We need to realize that God has blessed us with all that we have (not just material possessions, but relationships and experiences as well). He has blessed us with it all so that we could bless others. He didn’t just bless us so that we could enjoy life and keep it all to ourselves. He blessed us so that we could go out and be His hands and His feet.

Do you want to know how we can end extreme poverty (see Jeffery Sach’s The End of Poverty)? It’s not by praying that God drops money and rescues all those who are suffering. BUT, it’s by getting out of our seats, taking out our wallets, and giving to others what God has blessed us with.

In my personal experience, I have found that the more that I give, the more that God actually blesses me. I believe God chooses to do this because he knows that I won’t just spend all of the extra money on myself, but because he knows I will give it to others.

What are you doing with your money and time?

Check out the following links. These are places that I actively give my money to:

• Compassion Canada
• World Vision
• Your Local Church
• Power to Change

I just came back from my vacation in Alaska. Here are one of the posts that I was hoping to put up while in Alaska, but chose not to after realizing that it would cost me $0.75 per minute to use the internet on the cruise ship.

June 28, 2008

Upon embarking in Alaska for my vacation, I realized the mind blowing fact that there is no night time in the summer. After 3 hours of sleep, 12 hours of traveling and 7 hours of touring around Anchorage, Alaska (and that was just my first day here), my body was dead tired, but my brain seemed to be confused. My body knew it should be sleeping, but my brain kept on telling my body that it’s still day time!!

In a region where there is nearly 24 hours of daylight 6 months of the year, and nearly 19 hours of darkness the other 6 months, I wonder what kind of holistic effect this has on life?

- Psychological Effect: Does work productivity decrease during the dark winters?

- Sociological Effect: What about our natural patterns/locations in creating community? In the Winter and Summer, I found out that the city of Anchorage puts on lots of carnivals and festivals to provide opportunities to build community and get people out of their homes. They will also create skating rinks and trails.

- Physical Effect: Our personal body clock – is it natural to experience these kinds of extremes? What about our natural body rhythms?

- Spiritual Effect: Depression and suicide? Are there higher rates in these regions?

If there is anyone who has any insight on this, either first hand or second hand, let’s talk about it.

…a boy who puts shaving cream on his face…
…a girl who puts on lipstick and tries on her mom’s heels…
…a teenager who demands complete freedom, while still living at home and being dependent on his/her parents…

I am sure all of us can imagine some point in our life where any one of these scenarios (or like ones) were true. In fact, in the West, we all have this obsession with wanting to grow up and mature. don’t we? This obsession has actually led us to believe that “maturity = independence.”

However, is this notion that “maturity=independence” a hindrance to our maturing as human beings? If “maturity=independence” then, in order to reach maturity, doesn’t logic dictate that we should strive to become as independent as we can? Does independence really lead to maturity though? Real, deep, true, lasting, and holistic maturity? Or does independence actually lead us elsewhere?

Is our obsession with independence a reason why there seems to be a lack of deep maturity in adults today?

What if true maturity does not equal independence?

“We do not discover who we are, we do not reach true humanness, in a solitary state; we discover it through mutual dependency, in weakness, in learning through belonging.”
Jean Vanier - Becoming Human