May Book Review

Since we are wrapping up May today and I don’t stand a chance of adding another book to my “Books Read in May” list, we will do the review of the two I finished.

Starting at the top, this was a book gifted to me by a friend a number of years ago.

In The Sacrifice of Praise, Lindsay Terry took it upon himself to research fifty of the top praise songs at the time of his writing and share the back story of those who wrote them.

It was published in 2002 and yet there were only a couple of songs I had to refresh myself on. We are still singing many of these songs in church today.

The common thread throughout the book was that no one seemed to work long and hard on the song that ended up being their most well-known. These songs came with a suddenness of the Holy Spirit moving in the mind and heart of the songwriter. Often they were not where they could jot it down and had to remember it later.

Many just played the song at a local church or a fellowship gathering, sometimes long after it was written. They seemed to make a big impact and then later the songwriter might hear it on the radio or at a service in another city or halfway around the world and find out the author was “unknown”.

Apparently they were able to prove authorship. A lot of them have written hundreds of songs. I was kind of surprised at the business behind Christian music labels, but I guess I shouldn’t be. Someone has to produce and maintain that side of it. Not that it is unethical, it just is something I am not aware of with copy write laws and such.

As I read the birth dates of these songwriters and did the math, it was staggering to realize many of them are well past their 70’s now and even older. 2002 doesn’t seem that long ago to me, but truth is…it is.

It was a good read and a faith builder of how God works in our circumstances. The things that led up to the writing of some of these songs was interesting. Short chapters made for a nice read this month. It was inspiring that these songs that we all know and love were just handed to them by God.

The stories in the book did not include anyone striving and struggling to put the words and music down. They were Holy Spirit breathed and explain why they bring us into worship so well.

I plan to pass this copy along to a young friend of the friend who gave this to me. It seemed the right thing to do as I was finishing up the book.

The second book I read was one from my aunt’s library that I inherited.

None of the These Diseases is written by a physician, S. I. McMillen.

I did a google search and it has been updated and is available with the addition of the writings of another physician, David E. Stern.

The basic premise of the book I read, published in 1963, as well as the new version, is that the Bible’s laws, rules and directions actually promote a healthier life. Topics include things like diet, hygiene, anger, tobacco, alcohol, sexual activity, anxiety, spirituality, and exercise, among other things that affect our health in positive and negative ways.

It was interesting, but the style of writing was pretty much in your face and not a lot of grace-laced phrasing that we have come to expect from this type of book. Not saying it’s bad, just saying I can see how our ears have been tempered to hear more grace than firm instruction.

I did mark one page that I want to share because it spoke a lot of wisdom. I hope you will indulge my sharing and I pray if it speaks to you, you will carry the nudging and perhaps revisit these words and ponder them for your better health and wellness.

I am planning to pass the book along. Even though it belonged to my aunt, I don’t feel the need to keep it. If you want to have, let me know…happy to mail it to you if you live in U.S.

Here is the passage with an intro of the background for it:

This is regarding a composite of five young women he had treated in his practice who suffered from a common disease. He developed a model of their situation in a pseudonym of “Arlene Traubel” and her situation was one of a Dean’s List college senior who placed great importance on maintaining the highest level GPA and holding her position on this list.

However, as the stress mounted, she began to slip and actually lost her ability to read. After entering the infirmary, she received treatment and was able to sound out words but could not remember the meaning of them. Her anxiety sky-rocketed, exasperating the condition.

Rest, relaxation and play as an outlet were recommended as nothing was wrong with her physically. She refused to take the doctor’s advice and was sent home where she was admitted to a hospital for extensive testing. After being dismissed with a large medical bill, she was diagnosed with “somatic conversion symptoms” or inability to read due to mental turmoil.

Here is the part I want to share:

“Psychic turmoil, arising out of our desires to go to the moon or to attain superiority over our fellows, is very common. An outstanding psychiatrist, Dr. Alfred Adler, taught that most modern nervous and emotional disorders grow out of a definite striving for power. Because the average man in his mad drive for power is in a daily race with others for earthly goals, his day is full of failures, frustrations, banged-up feelings and, often, fenders. (I am assuming this was the term for “fender-benders”- rough encounters with other people)

The next time you feel unduly fatigued because life’s race has been unusually rough and bumpy, stop and analyze the events and conversation of the foregoing hours. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred you will discover that someone recently let the air out of your ego. We suffer rough going, mental weariness, exhaustion and disease, not because of the work we do, but because we consciously or subconsciously try to prove to ourselves and to our fellows that our ideas are superior, our doctrines are the correct ones, our church is the best, our city is the choicest, our state is the most important, our political concepts and party are necessary to save the world from destruction, our ball team is going to win the world series , and our, our, our — you name it, and we will argue until we are blue in the face that WE are the people and that at our demise wisdom will surely vanish from the earth. It is a wonder that we don’t more often blow a cerebral fuse.”
S.I. McMillen, M.D., None of These Diseases, Fleming H. Revel Company 1963, Page 134

McMillen follows this with numerous Scriptures that are the antidote to this disease.

I want to copy the above passage for my own sake and yours and highlight some of the words that seemed very relevant to me. McMillen wrote this many years before we had the added stress of the internet and social media to fuel some of these disease producing attitudes and behaviors.

I know some will say they do not strive to excel or be better than others, but I challenge you. If seeing what someone else has or does or believes or doesn’t believe stirs anger, discontent, feelings of superiority or inferiority in you, then you also have been bitten by the bug.

Here is the way this jumped out at me:

“Psychic turmoil, arising out of our desires to go to the moon or to attain superiority over our fellows, is very common. An outstanding psychiatrist, Dr. Alfred Adler, taught that most modern nervous and emotional disorders grow out of a definite striving for power. Because the average man in his mad drive for power is in a daily race with others for earthly goals, his day is full of failures, frustrations, banged-up feelings and, often, fenders. (I am assuming this was the term for “fender-benders”- rough encounters with other people)

The next time you feel unduly fatigued because life’s race has been unusually rough and bumpy, stop and analyze the events and conversation of the foregoing hours. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred you will discover that someone recently let the air out of your ego. We suffer rough going, mental weariness, exhaustion and disease, not because of the work we do, but because we consciously or subconsciously try to prove to ourselves and to our fellows that our ideas are superior, our doctrines are the correct ones, our church is the best, our city is the choicest, our state is the most important, our political concepts and party are necessary to save the world from destruction, our ball team is going to win the world series , and our, our, our — you name it, and we will argue until we are blue in the face that WE are the people and that at our demise wisdom will surely vanish from the earth. It is a wonder that we don’t more often blow a cerebral fuse.”

As I read over those, I can recognize a lot of my angst stemming from these very instigators of anxiety, stress, frustration, anger and such that do not promote health in me or healthy relationships with others.

I don’t consciously think of myself as striving to be superior, but I am deeply convicted that on a subconscious level, the cause of much of my banged up feelings started with not wanting to be inferior or let someone else’s ideology win the day over mine. If the opposite is true and your church is better than mine, or your political belief is right and mine is wrong doesn’t stir up some kind of response, then please tell me your secret…it is human nature to pick sides and want to be on the right and winning one.

So how do we live with our convictions and beliefs and yet in harmony, integrity and grace with others?

Near the end of the book, McMillen reminds us that Jesus taught that the meek would inherit the earth.

He gives a prayer written by one of the meek, who still had a sense of humor:

Lord, keep me from becoming talkative and possessed with the idea that I must express myself on every subject.

Release me from the craving to straighten out everyone’s affairs.

Teach me the glorious lesson that occasionally I may be wrong.

Make me helpful but not bossy.

With my vast store of wisdom and experience, it does seem a pity not to use it all – but thou knowest, Lord, that I want a few friends in the end. Amen — anonymous

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