HEALTH OUTSIDE THE BOX

A belief that our Creator is also our Sustainer has implications for bodily life sometimes overlooked by an incarnationally weak theology. In spite of abundant Scriptures about God’s practical concern for humanity's physical needs, evangelicals often succumb to Gnosticism’s heretical emphasis on spiritual life alone. One result of this theological error is a disregard for God's gracious care for our bodily health through nature.

When illness confronts believers, this lack of faith in natural remedies often leads Christians to entrust their ailments to the latest TV drug advertisement. They doubt that creation itself might offer them any help. In fact, this trend of unbelief tends to consecrate the medical industry as God's chosen gatekeeper of healing grace. But here’s a logical question: Did all prior generations miss out on the Creator’s grace? Did God have to wait for the development of modern medicine so that He could really meet human health needs?

As an RN, I work with modern therapies and appreciate today’s advances in technology. I also witness how pride of knowledge blinds some medical people from seeing and thinking outside their box. God does work inside the walls of their box, even more than they know. But, in keeping with His character, He infused into creation itself, from the very beginning, much that supports the health and healing of humanity.

Many of today’s alternative healthcare modalities were first discovered by the trial and error of our ancient ancestors. Therapies that didn't really help were often associated with practitioners seeking fame or wealth, which are the same motivations in much of the business of medicine today. The ones that did work well still do. They were always natural and free, and still are.

I’m not calling for an exodus of believers from medical care, but I’d like to see God’s people theologically emancipated from the slave market of drug companies. I’m urging Christians to put a proper view of their Provider into practice when it comes to health, and that means being open to what He has already provided for health maintenance in His creation.

God built human bodies to heal themselves. So, the effectiveness of any natural healthcare method is in how it supports or enhances that process. The book that helped me to start thinking “outside the box” was Return to Nature by Aldoph Just. He wrote of sun, air, mud, and cold water bathing, as well as massage therapy, natural diet, and loose clothing. My further study found most of his ideas validated by the research of modern times. I will mention three areas.

One is sunbathing. In his amazing book Sunlight, Dr. Zane R. Kime reports a myriad of natural health benefits gained from judiciously exposing skin to the sun. Because of Just’s book, I’d already started full-body sunbathing in the seclusion of our backyard. Dr. Kime’s research motivated me to stick with it. As my skin tanned, I stopped getting so many colds and sore throats. Vitamin D was strengthening my immune system. I felt as if the sun’s rays were charging my body’s battery. It’s an awesome sensation, and it’s free.

Another is skin contact with the earth. The testimonies reported by Just seemed honest, but my scientific mind had trouble accepting them until recently, when my wife started reading me the book Earthing (get the book, or at least Google “earthing” or “grounding”). We electrically ground our houses, but synthetic-soled shoes usually keep us from grounding ourselves. Rarely do we go barefoot on grass or moist soil. Yet electron-hungry free-radicals in our bodies can steal electrons from healthy tissues causing an array of chronic inflammations. The earth is an endless source of electrons that quench the activity of free-radicals faster than eating anti-oxidant-rich foods or supplements. Lately each morning, I try to ground my whole body on a wet sheet as I sunbathe. It’s starting to alleviate the arthritic pain I’ve been having in my elbow. Try this free therapy yourself. It can’t hurt, and it may help!

Then there’s wearing loose or minimal clothing. The bare-skinned air-and-light baths suggested by Just were coupled with a call for wearing non-restrictive clothing to improve circulation and get more air to the skin. Dress can be toxic to health, as women who wore the once fashionable corset so painfully learned. But the brazier—the remaining vestige of the corset—continues the toxicity. The authors of Dressed to Kill – The Link Between Breast Cancer and Bras show how this restrictive belt around female chests congests circulation and slows the lymphatic system’s natural work of carrying away toxins and wasted material from breast tissue. It's a setup for cancer. Removing the bra allows lymph to flow naturally and perform its tissue-cleansing work, just as God designed it to do. This book's research is in the “no-brainer” category, but why does our culture brainlessly ignore it? Is it that we’re brain-washed by a medical mindset to think of treating disease with drugs rather than with prevention?

These are just examples of an abundance of natural practices built into creation that can help us stay healthy. If they don’t motivate you to do your own research, as I've done, listing more of them won't help. My purpose is to get you to be honest with your theology. If you believe in a good and gracious God Who cares about your body, as well as your soul and spirit, then start putting your faith into practice. Cease to be a skeptic about finding His grace for health and healing in the natural world that He created. Educate yourself in the alternatives.

THE VISIBLE BREAST CONTROVERSY

When my wife showed me the cover of TIME Magazine (5\21\2012) with a lactation consultant exposing her breast to nurse her 3-year old son, I saw it as an opportunity to preach on one of my favorite American controversies: the visible breast.

Such an “in your face” photo! TIME surely knew it would have “shock value” for marketing, despite their stated purpose of celebrating Dr. Bill Sears, the champion of maternal attachment. Online articles about it popped up everywhere, followed by public comments of prudish criticism, perverted congratulations, and sometimes practical commendation, like mine. Bravo for TIME, but especially for courageous Jamie Lynne Grumet, who showed the American public what God created breasts for!

“Teaching God’s Design for Breasts” was an art class assignment that depicts one of my routine tasks: helping topless mothers get their newborns latched on by skin-to-skin nursing. I also intended this self-portrait to SHOCK, but only so it could HEAL. This normal, non-sexual part of my job stands in stark contrast to the way society exploits women's breasts. That many women themselves see their breasts as sexualized objects indicates the degree to which this perception of women's bodies controls our culture.

I grew up with America’s sexualized view of breasts. Later, I pledged religious allegiance to exactly the same view under a new name: prudery. My experience as an RN, especially in teaching moms to breastfeed, cured me of both. I feel privileged and liberated to participate in the reality of God's primary purpose for women's breasts. For a small window of hospital time, I watch first-time moms experience that freedom, too, as they learn the truth about breasts. I encourage them to remember that truth and freedom as they reenter a culture that treats their breasts as sexual commodities. Assertive breastfeeding moms have a unique opportunity to force our society to face its immaturity. By openly nursing their infants and toddlers, they can teach the next generation of American citizens to see breasts wholesomely, as normal parts of the female anatomy and as beautiful organs divinely designed with the potential of nurturing babies.

America’s sex-obsessed focus on breasts is seen by some world cultures as ludicrous. I think of it as toxic. Our cultural prudery promotes a pornographic view of the human body, and we need both spiritual and educational reformation. Everyone’s feelings and reactions to breasts and breastfeeding have been culturally learned. Through my work and my research, I’ve learned body acceptance, thus breast acceptance. If prudish and perverted views were merely harmless opinions, I’d let this issue go. But they're not. Both treat women as sex targets, and both dishonor the Designer of breasts. So, till I die or the Lord returns, I'll keep denouncing this great American obsession and keep telling nursing moms to openly demonstrate to our dysfunctional and immature culture what women’s breasts are really for.

(There’s more about this issue in my essay: “Teaching God's Design for BREASTS - A Message about ‘the Visible Breast’ for Christian Leaders.”)

THE PROBLEM WITH HELL

Christians who think about what they believe have usually thought about the problem of “Hell.” Why does a loving Creator allow such a place? Some try dancing theological circles around the doctrine of Hell revealed in Scripture. But Hell will not go away, and for a very good reason.

In my journey of faith, I’ve many times been helped by the writings of C. S. Lewis. While reading The Problem of Pain, I made a giant step in understanding Hell. Later, in his book The Great Divorce, I found these words that many will recognize:

“There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, ‘Thy will be done,’ and those to whom God says, in the end, ‘Thy will be done.’ All that are in Hell, choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no Hell. No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it. Those who seek find. To those who knock it is opened.”

Before ever seeing that popular quote, I heard a sermon on the “love of God” which downplayed the reality of “hell.” During the message, I thought about how the words of Deuteronomy 4:24, “For the LORD your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God,” related to 1 John 1:5 and 1 John 4:8, where John says, “God is love,” and “God is light.” I got this sudden insight on Hell: God, as Light and Love, reveals the truth and is so passionately jealous of its integrity that He consumes the darkness of lies. Our God of fiery Love is also the God of consuming Light. Hell is not the result of His absence, but an effect of His ongoing presence. Love and Light are omnipresent.

Later, when studying the doctrine of Hell in graduate school, these previous meditations congealed into the following poem that describes God from two opposite perspectives:

HEAVEN AND HELL

“Consuming Fire, Eternal Light,

 Who shines Your grace to heal our sight;

 Life-giving Flame and Loving Blaze,

 Our open hands to You we raise,

 Secure within Your purging gaze,

 With joy we praise: we sing our praise!”

“Unquenching Heat, Infernal Light,

 That fries our souls, disrupts our night;

 Tormenting Blast and Burning Fate,

 Our fists we raise in stern debate,

 Enraged beneath your scorching Weight,

 In pain we hate: we scream our hate!”

 

— David L. Hatton, 3/8/1983

(in Poems Between Heaven & Hell © 1991 by David L. Hatton)

As C. S. Lewis explains, Hell is God’s last mercy to the unrepentant sinner. The perpetual pain of Hell is Love’s endless commitment to teach the truth to free moral agents who forever choose to ignore or deny it. Ignorant skeptics may zealously hate the concept of Hell. But in His own perfect hatred for it, God confronted the realistic results of humanity's misuse of free-will with the only remedy that could maintain human freedom: His personal incarnation, death, and resurrection in Christ. At His own expense, God offers us an escape from the self-made choices which brought Hell into existence and make it such a hellish place.

So, the familiar question stands: “Where will you spend eternity?” The Gospel of Jesus Christ lays the ultimate responsibility on each human soul for individually determining the answer.

[One of the best sermons I've heard on this subject, from a totally Biblical viewpoint, is "Hell Explained" (a bit over 40 minutes long, but well worth listening to). ALSO, see my other blog article: "A HOLY HELL, NO LESS..."]

IS YOUR HUMANITY HUMAN-FRIENDLY?

In human self-understanding, what makes sense philosophically, religiously, or relationally, is always human-friendly. In fact, if it’s not, it’s probably a deception. By human-friendly, I mean in sync with our human nature as created by God. No matter how clever it sounds, any belief that conflicts with our basic humanness, or contradicts our corporate experience of being human, is never of divine origin. It might even be demonic.

Bottom-line, we are creatures of body and spirit. We are not bodies with a spirit or spirits in a body—not two separate dimensions of personal being somehow pasted together. We are body-spirit beings: an intrinsically interpenetrating amalgamation of both. It’s our human nature in this life (Genesis 2:7). It’s our future destiny in resurrection (1 Corinthians 15:51-53).

Some may exalt the materialistic view of humanity preached dogmatically by scientism, but no one really laughs or loves or lives that way. Our minds and souls are spiritual entities, not merely chemical processes of matter. Others may adopt a pantheistic monism, where “all is one,” and try to imagine that any perceived variation in personal choices, emotional feelings, and bodily experiences is nothing more than maya, an illusion. Again, none can conscientiously hold such a belief and at the same time act authentically in satisfying hunger, working a job, creating art, enjoying a friend, seeking comfort, fleeing pain, grieving loss, or crying for justice. Life as maya is definitely not human-friendly. Nor is Gnosticism, that ancient, but lately re-popularized philosophical system that divides body and spirit. Denigrating the material world as evil baggage, and positing ultimate value in spiritual existence alone, creates a Jekyll-Hyde split personality in human self-perception. Such dualistic thinking treats our physical embodiment as a nightmare. But in real life, if we listen to our heart of hearts, all of us feel quite at home in human flesh.

At root, all these beliefs are foreign to what we—as body-spirit beings—know personally. None are friendly to gut-level humanness. None arise from within natural human experience. All are foreign, imposed from without, philosophically, religiously, superstitiously, but often eloquently. To gain greater credibility, modern proponents of these creeds may offer alternative interpretations of the Bible to support their ideas. Don’t be fooled. From Genesis to Revelation, the Scriptures are incarnational.

Christ’s Incarnation is the reason I look to human-friendliness as the ultimate standard for evaluating any belief system about humanity. That our Maker became a true Human is central to the Christian faith. It’s the best news the human race could ever receive.

Let the many prospects of God’s Human Incarnation become your meditation. Contemplate deeply its significance for the fulfillment of humanity’s holiest dreams and highest destiny. One by one, you’ll abandon every human-unfriendly belief you ever held. You’ll find that Truth is a Person, as you embrace Jesus Christ, the resurrected God-Man. You’ll discover the ultimate condition for human self-acceptance, as our loving, personal Creator embraces you.

MY REWARDING DOUBTS ABOUT THE TRINITY

A couple years out of Bible College, for a short time, I questioned the doctrine of the Trinity. My doubts led me into an intense study to see if Jesus and the Holy were ever called Yahweh (Jehovah) in the Bible. If so, then the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit would all three be the great “I AM” of Exodus 3:14, as well as the “US” of the Godhead Who said, “Let us make man in our image...” (Genesis 1:26). It could not logically be otherwise, if Yahweh is God.

My investigation was extremely complicated. Following Jewish tradition, most translations of the Old Testament (OT) substitute “LORD” for Yahweh, but spell it “Lord,” if the Hebrew word adonai, (a lord or ruler) is used as a name for God. However, when the New Testament (NT) quotes the OT, both Yahweh and adonai become only the Greek word kurios (a lord or ruler). To find if Jesus and the Holy Spirit are ever called Yahweh, the NT must attribute the name kurios to them in the context of a quote from the OT, AND the kurios referred to in the quote must, in the original Hebrew text, be God’s name Yahweh, not adonai, which could mean only a ruler.

There were no personal computers at this time, so my research depended on many hours of wading through the pages of Strong’s Concordance. But at last, in Romans 10:9-13, I had my first success! There, Jesus is called kurios (“Lord”), and the significance of that title is directly explained by a quote from Joel 2:32, where the NT translation kurios means Yahweh (“LORD”) in the original language. This proved the deity of Jesus. I was totally thrilled!

But what about the Holy Spirit? It took less time for a similar thrill! In 2 Corinthians 3:12-18, the Holy Spirit is called kurios (“Lord”) not once but twice (vs. 17-18). But which kurios is Paul talking about, Yahweh or adonai, a ruling lord? The passage refers to the OT story about Moses removing his veil upon entering the presence of “the LORD.” In 2 Corinthians, it's kurios; in Exodus 34:34 it's Yahweh. No adonai anywhere in the context. This completed my study and forever confirmed my faith in the Christian doctrine of the Trinitarian nature of God.

I admit, it was a complicated study, and perhaps hard to follow. But after doing this research, I realized I could have saved myself the trouble. In Matthew 28:19, where Jesus instructs the disciples to baptize converts, He says to do so “in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” All three have one name. The Father is fully Yahweh, the Son is fully Yahweh, the Spirit is fully Yahweh. God is a Trinity. I wrote up my findings into a tract called, “WATCH OUT! Are You Truly Jehovah’s Witness?” It was published by Gospel Outreach of Northern California, back in the heyday of the Jesus’ People Movement.

Many years later, I thought of another argument to support a Trinitarian theology. It’s based in logical reasoning, less complicated and easier to explain. In a later blog, I hope to share it and another very interesting one that I’ve thought about recently. I may even mention a third.

ART IS A TEACHER

Art is not just a skill but a teacher. When I began art courses in 2006, I started seeing things differently. I noticed shapes and arrangements, colors and tones, lines and curves, schemes and designs, everywhere around me.

One night in the hospital, I caught myself staring at the typical row of skin creases around one of my patient’s armpits where her pectoralis inserted beneath the deltoid. I was suddenly fascinated and wanted to capture on paper an area of the body I’d seen for decades without noticing or appreciating its uniqueness. The same was true for other parts of the naked anatomy, but especially the structures of the face: eyebrows, noses, lips, jawbone angles, ears, hair; all were more interesting now. Art had given me renewed vision, awakening my eyes to see more of what I'd been looking at without really seeing.

Because my mind is steeped in theology and logic, it was easy to see another dimension where art is a teacher. In meditating on humanity’s bent toward creativity, I saw how artists, even in their most innovative moments, are essentially imitators. All human art is an imitation of the artistry within creation. Even the abstract artist selects and recombines the same lines and forms and colors, even the randomness, which have always been resident in nature. This teaches us something about God and something about ourselves.

After I’d been taking art classes for a few years, I wrote this poem:

ARTIST

Paint clouds that really rain
And noisy, running streams,
Or birds that can take flight
And sing beyond your dreams,
Or sculpt a lovely nude
That wakes to your embrace . . .
If not, then praise the Artist
Who made the human race.

— David L. Hatton, 10-20-2009

Today, in thinking more about the theological lessons of art, I finished another similar poem:

DESIGNERS

We’re designed to be designers
By the Maker of the skies.
When they copy nudes and nature,
Artists often plagiarize.
Praise the Artist of creation,
When you render earthly art.
Our designs are mere reflections
Of the great Designer’s heart.

— David L. Hatton, 12- 27-2012

Human artists and their compositions provide a powerful, extra-biblical proof that we are made in the image of the Original Artist.

INTRODUCING MY BLOG

I like to learn, but I must teach. Discoveries delight the mind, but sharing them fulfills the heart. When I gain new perspectives on God, His Word, creation, or our place in it, I feel compelled to express them. This usually comes through prophetic prose or poetic verse, but occasionally in the form of visual artwork. This blog is my way of passing along those insights and inspirations to those interested.

In introducing my blog, let me first break apart and explain the wording of my name for it: “PastorDavidRN's DANCE with NAKED TRUTH.” Its long title is an important description.

My parents named me “David,” which means “beloved.” I’ve always appreciated that. Knowing my name’s literal Hebrew meaning helped me grow up with gratitude. For as long as I can remember, I’ve always felt thankful for being “beloved,” not just by my parents, but by God.

I really am a pastor, an ordained minister in The Wesleyan Church. Since 1996, I’ve served a small retirement community church sponsored by Faith Legacy Church. Many of the sermons I’ve preached there can be listened to on “My Sermons” webpage. Some of the insights shared on this blog came during this pastoral ministry to seniors.

I’m also really an RN, which now stands for Retired Nurse after I left hospital work in 2015. I got my nursing degree in 1981 and worked the ER for almost a decade. Then, cross-training to OB in 1991, I helped multiple thousands of mothers give birth and breastfeed their babies. Meditation on the physical realities of life—so dynamically obvious in nursing—shaped much of my thinking about the embodied nature of our humanity.

Dance is a meaningful metaphor. Life rarely marches in a straight line. It spins and whirls, jumps and twirls. Also, we rarely dance solo. The dance floor of life is relational. I first used this illustrative term in my talk called, “The Dance of the Sexes.” All humans are in a dance, because we are made in the image of a Trinity Who have danced together forever.

Naked is another term with metaphorically rich meaning. Its reputation today, however, is smothered by prudish fear and sullied with pornographic filth. Hopefully, from time to time, I will offer an array of historical, cultural, theological, and psycho-social insights on nakedness that will help restore its human-friendly significance.

Truth is foundational for true love. Without it, love becomes wishful sentimentality, at best, and addictive fantasy, at worst. Jesus said “the truth” can liberate those enslaved to sin (John 8:31-36). We get the phrase “the naked truth” from an ancient fable that beautifully illustrates the nature of truth: “While Truth was bathing in a river, Falsehood stole her clothes, and rather than wear the rags Falsehood left behind, Truth went about thereafter naked and unadorned.” I wrote a poem about this fable to expand upon its concepts.

Insights are epiphanies, realizations that are usually sudden and unbidden. Since they seem to come more frequently with age, I believe most of them arise from the workings of human reason. But they can also be God-given revelations. If so, they must always be checked against God’s Word, His authoritative revelation to us. Part of the reason I’m starting this blog is that I seem to have so many of them. If they touch on Christian doctrine, I won’t share them unless they can be shown not to contradict Scripture.

Inspirations are much like insights, but to me they serve as ignition points for creative expression. I have been writing poetry since early childhood. My love for proverbs, epigrams, and aphorisms has made me a collector of quotes and lured me into the challenging task of whittling ideas down to short, pithy and catchy sentences. Since 2006, I’ve begun to fulfill my dream doing of artwork. Some of all these areas of inspiration will appear on the blog.

God is my King. My life and my thoughts revolve around Him. If I hear His existence doubted, my reason goes into gear to prove Him real. If I hear Him maligned, my thoughts line up in ranks to defend His character. My goal is to love Him more. So, I can’t help but bring God into this blog, since He is not only its Lord but the motivation behind it.

Creation is everything else—all reality other than God. I have many insights and inspirations both about the handiwork of God and about His creative will in the continuity of human creativity. But there is one place where God and creation personally meet: the Incarnation. If you find my blog heavy on the implications of that doctrine, it’s because it has captivated the bulk of my thinking for years, and I will never tire of its riches in contemplation nor exhaust its depths by writing about the God-Man Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh.

So, welcome to my blog—my dance with “the naked truth”—as it tries to offer my insights and inspirations concerning God and creation.