Most mornings as I leave the Y after my swim and shower, I cross paths with a coterie of toddlers entering with their caregivers for a kid-oriented activity. I can’t resist saying hello, requesting a high-five, and wishing them a fun time. I leave the Y grinning from ear to ear, uplifted not just by my own workout but even more so by my interaction with these darling representatives of the next generation.
What a great way to start the day!
.. the extent to which we can generate positive emotions from even everyday activities can determine who flourishes and who doesn’t.
More than a sudden bonanza of good fortune, repeated brief moments of positive feelings can provide a buffer against stress and depression
.. as little as two weeks’ training in compassion and kindness meditation generated changes in brain circuitry linked to an increase in positive social behaviors like generosity.
Evangelicals should be deeply troubled by Donald Trump’s attempt to mainstream heresy
The basic idea of his “gnostic medicine” was that we’re sick only because we think bad thoughts. Illness and death are an illusion.
.. The Word of Faith movement was largely the brainchild of E.W. Kenyon (1867-1948), who blended Quimby’s Emersonian transcendentalism with his more evangelical “Victorious Life” beliefs. “I know that I am healed,” he wrote, “because [God] said that I am healed and it makes no difference what the symptoms may be in my body.”
.. Kenneth Hagin, revered as “granddaddy” in Word of Faith circles, gave the faith-healing movement its theological core. It included odd teachings about us all being “little gods.” Those who are born again, Hagin said, “are as much the incarnation [of God] as Jesus of Nazareth.” “You don’t have a God living in you,” says Hagin’s student Kenneth Copeland. “You are one.” Creflo Dollar adds, “[The] only human part of you is the flesh you’re wearing.”
.. In the 1950s, American theologian Reinhold Niebuhr described Peale’s message as a false gospel: “The basic sin of this cult is its egocentricity,” he said. “It puts ‘self’ instead of the cross at the center of the picture.”
.. the movement teaches that Jesus went to the cross not to bring forgiveness of our sins but to get us out of financial debt, not to reconcile us to God but to give us the power to claim our prosperity, not to remove the curse of death, injustice and bondage to ourselves but to give us our best life now. White says emphatically that Jesus is “not the only begotten Son of God,” just the first. We’re all divine and have the power to speak worlds into existence.
.. God spoke and created the universe; you have creative power to speak life and death! If you believe God, you can create anything in your life.”
.. Of course, to be a “little god,” you have to do your part, often involving a financial commitment. It’s what they call “seed faith.” White even gives her viewers the words to tell themselves: “So I’m going to activate my miracle by my obedience right now. I’m going to get up and go to the phone.” When you do that, she says, and “put a demand on the anointing,” you’re “going to make God get off His ivory throne.” “Don’t you miss this moment! If you miss your moment, you miss your miracle!”
.. In fact, one gets the impression that God isn’t necessary at all in the system. God set up these spiritual laws and if you know the secrets, you’re in charge of your destiny.
.. But it is striking that Trump has surrounded himself with cadre of prosperity evangelists who cheerfully attack basic Christian doctrines. The focus of this unity is a gospel that is about as diametrically opposed to the biblical one as you can imagine.
Negative Emotions Are Key to Well-Being
Feeling sad, mad, critical or otherwise awful? Surprise: negative emotions are essential for mental health
.. when in the midst of describing his painful experiences, he says, “I’m sorry for being so negative.”
A crucial goal of therapy is to learn to acknowledge and express a full range of emotions, and here was a client apologizing for doing just that.
.. In recent years I have noticed an increase in the number of people who also feel guilty or ashamed about what they perceive to be negativity. Such reactions undoubtedly stem from our culture’s overriding bias toward positive thinking. Although positive emotions are worth cultivating, problems arise when people start believing they must be upbeat all the time.
.. Unpleasant feelings are just as crucial as the enjoyable ones in helping you make sense of life’s ups and downs. “Remember, one of the primary reasons we have emotions in the first place is to help us evaluate our experiences,” Adler says.
.. “I feel sad at times because of everything I’ve been through, but I’m also happy and hopeful because I’m working through my issues”—preceded improvements in well-being over the next week or two for subjects, even if the mixed feelings were unpleasant at the time. “Taking the good and the bad together may detoxify the bad experiences, allowing you to make meaning out of them in a way that supports psychological well-being,” the researchers found.
.. Negative emotions also most likely aid in our survival. Bad feelings can be vital clues that a health issue, relationship or other important matter needs attention
.. pushing back negative emotions could spawn more emotional overeating than simply recognizing that you were, say, upset, agitated or blue.
.. Instead of backing away from negative emotions, accept them. Acknowledge how you are feeling without rushing to change your emotional state.
.. If the emotion is overwhelming, you may want to express how you feel in a journal or to another person. The exercise may shift your perspective and bring a sense of closure.
Overlooked Influences on Donald Trump: A Famous Minister and His Church
“They said, ‘We understand this is where Marla Maples met Donald Trump,’” recalled the choir director and organist at the time, Kevin Walters, “‘so we thought we’d come and see if we could hook up with a billionaire, too.’”
.. He describes himself as a Presbyterian, but Marble is not a Presbyterian church — it is part of the Reformed Church in America,
.. the Trumps were prominent parishioners at a church close to their home, First Presbyterian Church in Jamaica, Queens. Like Marble, it is a church with a history: It describes itself as the oldest continuously worshiping Presbyterian congregation in the country.
.. But in the 1960s, the Trumps gravitated to Marble. The lure was Dr. Peale, a household name since the publication of the 1952 best seller that transformed “the power of positive thinking” into a national catchphrase.
.. “Everything he does is about winning,” Gwenda Blair, the author of “The Trumps: Three Generations of Builders and a Presidential Candidate,” a biography of the family, said in a recent New York Times podcast. “It’s only about winning and losing — those two are the only principles that are involved. That’s a very Norman Vincent Peale notion — that notion of success above all.”
.. Richard M. Nixon worshiped at Marble after he lost to Kennedy, and Dr. Peale supported him even as the Watergate scandal doomed his presidency.
.. “I don’t respect Mr. Trump very much,” he was quoted as saying. “I don’t think the image of Norman Vincent Peale that comes through Donald Trump is any connection to the idea I have of him.”
.. Mr. Trump said that contrary to what the two women had told the usher — and contrary to a famous tabloid headline, “They Met in Church” — his first encounter with Ms. Maples was not at Marble. But as the relationship developed, so did the awkwardness for some at the church.
.. This was really embarrassing, that this man was married and having this big-time affair and the church was connected with it.”