The heart and sex - the positive

How much does the heart play in sex? The physical urge is strong and I spent most of my adult life sex starved. It used to drive me nuts from about age 16 until Sveta came into my life. I could never seem to get to a place of fulfillment until I bonded with Sveta. Sex does create a chemical reaction in the brain. That reaction produces a feeling of pleasure.  It creates a strong bond between two people, yet it can be so fickle. Emotions can help and hinder. In the case of helping, emotions build strong relationships, because the patterns in the brain follow the same patterns. The transmission of chemicals and electrical impulses like the path of least resistance. Sometimes it seems the desire is stronger than the physical urge.
     For those with strong urges, marriage is the best option. That is why the Apostle Paul recommends "But if they cannot control themselves, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion. "But if they cannot control themselves, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion" (1 Cor. 7:9). 
    So, why do we not hear about people who have fantastic sex lives in the Christian world? If it is even talked about it is the negative aspects of adultery and perversion. So we know we need to guard our hearts against those damaging acts, but what does a good sexual relationship look like? How often do hear from the Song of Solomon? Some parts of that book are quite graphic and intimate. My point is that we are usually left to figure it out on our own. And yet the church is being wrecked by sexual sins. In the hundreds of men's meetings that I have attended, rarely is sex discussed and typically it is a warning against the negative side. Why do we not teach the real positive aspects of sex and leave it up to the world or trail and error to figure it out?

The heart 3

I landed on Psalm 62:8. "Trust in him at all times, you people; pour out your hearts to him, for God is our refuge." The psalmist says that we should pour out our hearts to God. You do not read much about speaking your mind to God. Speaking our mind to God is probably because we cannot afford to "lose our minds" in a discussion with God. In my case I do not get anywhere when I try to intellectually engage with God. However, emotions are real and one cannot deny them. Since the preface to pouring out our hearts is "at all times", We can trust God to listen in good times and bad ones. We can pour out our hearts in joy and in sorrow.
     In my own life, I connect with God several times throughout the day. In the morning, I almost always read with audio the Proverb of the day. That is easy because I only have to look up the day of the month and find the corresponding chapter. I planned to do that every month this year. Now that I am on the 4th month and considering I have read the entire bible about 40 times, I am really irritated that I cannot pull up a single Proverb from the day. I mean later on in the day or at night when Sveta and I pray, I cannot recall a single one. I know it is in there, but why am I not able to pull up something on demand? That really bothers me and I let God know. I have no answer, but I continue the practice. I really like reading the Proverbs and processing the wisdom provided.

The heart part 2

     Many scriptures refer to the heart and mind. "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength" Mark12:30. Within our 4 dimensions, height, width, depth, and time, this idea is not hard to figure out. But when you add the spiritual dimensions, the complexity is beyond me. I will look at heart      The heart can influence us differently. So I took an assessment of my heart from a positive aspect. The first emotion I want to experience is to be close to God. I find myself wanting to spend time with the Spirit and forget about the world. A really close second to me is that my heart longs for my Sveta. That relationship is a paradigm shift for me. I have traveled extensively and can honestly say I never missed anyone when I traveled. Last year when she went to Russia for a month, it seemed like a year or more. I wanted to be next to her. In the same way I am sensing that feeling with God. What a tragedy if we do not miss God. I heard a comment last week about a person hearing people who were practicing their rituals and did not feel near to God. Obviously feeling is not the whole picture, but it is also an important part of a relationship.
      After God and Sveta, the jury is out on the rest. I have so many feelings and thoughts, I could neither rank them nor prioritize time. There are professional objectives and tasks to do. I have many relationships in my life. I have a desire to invest in the kingdom of God, yet that is such a "humungolonious" concept. I have an objective to research and write on orphans. I like to read and study. I like to work on the house and yard. As a planner, I have to let it go and move with the Spirit. Planning just does not work right now. I would have to do that at the expense of being open to the moving of the Spirit and also responding to other people who appear to need me right now. Being in the world, but not of the world causes conflicts in our heart.We need to periodically assess our heart to see what we truly love.

The heart

The scripture describes the heart as a place to delight in the Lord. Proverbs 4:23 tells us to guard our heart, for it is the wellspring of life. Also the scripture warns that the heart is deceitful. So where is the heart? We know that surgeons can transplant a heart from one person to another and that person still maintains the same identity. It seems the heart may originate in the brain. Changes in the brain produce the chemicals that give us feeling. That feeling can influence the heart to pump faster; perhaps slower. So we go back to the mind. The mind also is an electrical process. That means the signal from the brain or a temptation from the evil one travels down the brain through the least path of resistance. Electrical signals are lazy and take the most traveled path in the brain. That makes it important to guard the heart so when the signal is triggered, the path leads to a desired outcome.
"A happy heart makes the face cheerful, but heartache crushes the spirit" Proverbs 15:13. I felt that today in a strange set of events. I was in a restaurant and happened to see a place that I had been in the past- the Louisiana Superdome. However, what should be a positive and funny memory turned out to crush my spirit. One of the persons in that memory caused me severe pain and it is no longer something I want to be reminded of. So now I have to let it go and literally think of something else. And I know over time it will fade. If I dwell on the broken relationship, the heartache will continue to crush the spirit. To guard the heart is to deal with it; I cannot change the situation - I tried. I must guard my heart by not allowing the memory to crush my spirit. I remind myself of other positive thoughts such as delighting in the Lord. 

Trauma of violent conflict on children part 2

Continuing on an article from "Russia Today", The title states "87 million children under 7 spent entire lives in conflict - UNICEF.

The trauma of conflict interferes with the normal development of the brain. The constant exposure to violence causes irreversible damage to the brain. Children need safety and a nurturing environment to properly grow up. This disruption to their lives from conflict has long term effects. The article states that 80% of the 8.4 million children in Syria have lived in the civil war. One of three were born since the armed conflict began. This puts fear and loss into their minds. God have mercy on these little ones! I do not know any Syrians and it breaks my heart.

Sometimes I wonder if we spend more time and resources in cleaning up after these conflicts rather than preventative measures. I wish we could outlaw war. As I mentioned in the previous post, we are stuck with wars and rumors of war until Christ returns. That also means were are stuck with the trauma and trying to find ways to clean up after the damage.  There will come a time when war will be outlawed-permanently.

What a challenge and what a stretching of my own faith to try to meet that challenge. There are so many organizations and people trying to help orphans, Their work is quite commendable. As for myself, I am still trying to figure out my role in all this. Keeping focused is something I need to work on. We all get involved in many things as life happens. I know that I am in the center of God's will. And we have to give ourselves grace with jobs, helping people, and our own human limitations. I was so physically weak, I could hardly function the past 4 days. But we pick up again and continue the journey to meet our objectives. I still keep the objective to help orphans in their distress in my mind.

New born baby found after bombing

I am reading a book (in Russian) titled the "Blockade Book". At 550 pages, I understand 95% and only have to look up a word or two a page to understand the content. The book is about the Siege of Leningrad from 1941-1944. In one story, a woman was on her way to work. Bombs fell near the building she just passed by. She turned around and went to look for survivors. She describes how they had to maneuver around obstacles and climb around to look for people. She hears a voice crying from the stairwell but cannot pin point it. With the help of a young man (15-16 years), they are able to break down the door to the apartment. The place is empty but they still hear a voice. The apartment is filled with dust and with a flashlight she makes her way back into the bedroom. The bed was made of iron and underneath she finds a baby all wet with the umbilical cord attached! The child was still alive. The place was so dusty she had to have the young man hold the baby while she cut the cord. They had to take the baby out naked into the street and hold it under the coat until an evacuation truck arrived to take the baby to the hospital. The rest of the story is unknown, but what courage and fortitude on the part of the woman to save a child.

Trauma of violent conflict on children

I stumbled accross an article on the effects of war on chidren. We still estimate the number of Syrian orphans and do not have good figures.  The report states that 87 million children around the world have lived at least 7 years in violent conflict. From the psycologicl side the trauma has quite an effect on the brain's development and the mental health of the child. Worldwide 1 of 11 children spend most of their first six years in a state of violence. How do we mitigate such a horrendous situation?
The first step would be to outlaw war. We play so many games by trying to follow all the rules of what should and should not be done during a violent conflict. For example, what ction is right or wrong. That depends on one's view. Then there is the criticism about how people were killed and who was killed i.e. who can be killed and who shold not be killed. Would not a ban on war|violent conflict reaalt resolve most f the issues? As optimistic as I would like to be, we have to reconcile the words of Jesus. We will always have wars and rumors of wars. Until Christ return, that is the hand we are dealt. So then how do we handle this tragic situation?

https://www.rt.com/news/337054-un-report-children-conflict/