June 18, 2010
Entrée
My son is allergic to shellfish, my grandson to peanuts and my daughter to wheat. Add to that, at any one time two or more in the family are always dieting…and none of us choose to be on the same diet. It’s a cook’s nightmare because it seems impossible to meet everyone’s needs. I think God had the right idea to put manna on the menu during the 40 years in the wilderness.
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Gail;
-----Allergies are as perplexing as they are interesting. For some fifteen years I was entertained by a severe allergy to any pollinating grasses. In the midst of those years, no one would have been able to convince me of the psycho-somatic nature of allergy. Often my eyes would swell shut and my breathing passages would swell almost closed. I could find relief only by clearing the tan mattering out of my eyes, washing my hands, face, and hair thoroughly, and donning clean clothes. But one day, when I was about nineteen, I found myself to have been working for some fifteen minutes in a tall stand of heavily pollinating Timothy grass. I had neither realized I was surrounded by the grass nor even sneezed once. And my eyes were feeling just fine until they saw all that grass and the little, yellow puffs of pollen it was emitting with every motion I made. Then I went to sneezing and my eyes started itching and swelling. Realizing I had been fine until I actually became aware of the grass, I decided I was finished with my allergy. And for the most part, I did become finished with it.
-----To this day, when I get a little bit sneezy, and my eyes begin itching somewhat, I remember that I once was terribly allergic to grasses, but now I am ok. I might sneeze a couple times. And if I keep my fingers away from my eyes when they itch, even that goes away. I may have to wash well, but now the whole syndrome rises to no more than a low level of brief discomfort. I remember all the anecdotes told about entertainers holding pictures of roses up for their audiences to see, and all the sneezing which followed. And I remember the doctors telling me when I was a child about how fortunate I was to be having my allergy early in life, because it would wear off and leave me free of it as an adult.
-----So I don’t really know how psycho-somatic or real my allergy actually is. But I have pondered allergy most of my life. And I have noticed that, as the years have passed, more and more people are discovering more and more allergies to an ever increasing list of things. It is almost like there is some badge of honor one gets from having an allergy which is being magnetic to people getting them. And when I am almost ready to laugh at the whole affair, I remember a story in the news a few years ago of a man who had choked on his dinner and died because he was given CPR by another man who had been eating peanut butter. Allergy is no joke. It’s just perplexing.
-----I think sin is the same way. We do it because it is our nature. But the more a person dwells upon the fact of sin in order to become righteous, the more righteousness slips through his fingers like water. The Pharisees had not become mean-weenies just for the pleasure of torturing the dirty, little peons around them. They really wanted to be righteous. But the mind becomes what it dwells upon, whether that dwelling is done from a negative or a positive perspective. So, precautionary dwelling upon every possible way of avoiding sin only decreases the amount of the mind which would otherwise have become made of every possible way of doing good by having dwelt upon it and done it. “Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, do; and the God of peace will be with you.” (Phil 4:8-9)
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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