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As ironic as it may seem to some, I want to give a few of my regards to Senator Kennedy. Many of his lines of thinking with regard to politics I did not agree with, but my experience has shown he was a man whose heart was of gold. When a person passes, it is customary to share of an experience or two as a tribute to the goodness of a person, and to ignore the bad (of which I have had no such experience).
While growing up there were a number of individuals who made it known to me how very much they disagreed with Democrat Principles. Senator Kennedy's name was one that somehow usually found its way into the assault on the Democratic Party and their ideals. Coming from a heavily Republican territory, of which I make no statements for or against, my views were somewhat colored concerning this man.
In 2003, I paid a visit to some friends in Baltimore. He was working in Senator Kennedy's office as an intern. I guess Senator Hatch and Senator Kennedy's were good friends and had this sort of 'trade' program where the two offices would swap an intern for the summer. My friend, who like me, tended to find myself in middle ground claiming neither Republican nor Democrat territory, relished the opportunity. It was with him I learned from his first-hand experience with Senator Kennedy. It was during recess so the Senator was not in town, but I was able to meet many of his other interns and see his office. A man's office tends to tell quite a bit about him. My impression then was of a man that didn't necessary come down different than the stories I had heard while younger. All the signed photographs of notable people on the walls seemed to smack more of arrogance than anything. A picture of him and his brother (maybe brothers) sat on the mantle showing the classic Kennedy smiles with deceased family members well enshrined in our country.
Anyhow, those impressions were quickly dismissed when I met the man himself in 2005. My first time meeting him was after having just walked through security in the Russell Senate Office Building I waited for an elevator. A man with a white tuft of hair walked around the corner with his dogs. I instantly recognized him, how can you not. Since it was the Senator elevator that opened, I stepped back to allow him on and watched the doors start to close. He stopped the doors and asked if I wasn't going up. I must have showed my reluctance since staff are to give up their elevator to Senators and let them ride alone. He smiled and said it was okay, he didn't mind. I knew he genuinely meant what indicated and we spent our few seconds riding the same elevator.
Now, you can say he was being a nice guy. But I can tell you that some of the other Senators are not quite as friendly. My next story actually deals with Senator Kennedy and his kindness in contrast with the rudeness of two other Senators.
I was asked to give a tour to a family from Oregon. It wasn't my turn, but for some reason or another they has asked if I could give their tour. Honestly, I don't know why, I had never met them before. The couple had two darling girls, one about 5 or 6 and the other about 8 or 9. It was only the four of them and since it was not a usual time, I knew we would have a degree of solitude in giving them a tour of the Capitol. I had taken my time and given a very leisurely tour of the Capitol. However, as we were about to exit the Capitol we must have caught the flow of traffic from a vote that had just been taken. Quite a few staff and some Senators were coming out of the elevators and heading to the tram to head back to the Senate Offices. We were ahead of the traffic and were waiting for our tram to arrive to take us back to the Russell Senate Building. Just like the elevator, we are to give up our seat on the tram to a Senator. As my family was about to board the tram, I recognized Senator Kennedy heading our way and stopped boarding to let him on. He recognized that I had left him the seat to get on. Rather than getting on the tram, he stopped to shake the hand of both of the little girls. He asked their names, he asked where they were from, introduced himself, and asked if they wanted to ride with them. They agreed and Senator Kennedy helped them on the train, sitting one of them on his lap. The family got on and I told them that I would walk (the tram was full) and meet them on the other end. I saw the tram take off and watched the Senator beaming at these two little girls.
On a side note, as that tram took off, the other one arrived for the Russell Senate Building. It was then I was rudely pushed out of the way so another man could pass. The man beside me responded by saying, "Who is the prick?" To which I saw a tall man turn back and look, and instantly recognized Senator Kerry. I thought to myself what a contrast in the two Senators from Massachusetts.
It is about a 5 minute walk to the other end of the tunnel to where the tram stops and there I saw my family still talking with Senator Kennedy in the hallway that leads to the Russell Building. They were kind enough to wait for me, and Senator Dodd had joined them. Senator Kennedy said he was going to take them up to see his dogs and office. We rode in the elevator to the 3rd floor, left Senator Dodd in the elevator, and went to see his office. He totally treated that family as golden, let them take a couple of pictures, and we were on our way.
My impressions of Senator Kennedy were nothing but respect for a man who obviously treasured people more than prestige. In my personal interactions with him, I have seen nothing but kindness. Now I don't know otherwise, but I was impressed.
We left the office and the family was obviously impressed. The father's comments were along the lines of what I was thinking. "I have been misled about that man." Being a staunch Republican from Oregon, he had a paradigm shift. Too bad as the elevator stopped on the 3rd floor to go up, we were just getting in when another man approached. I recognized him as Senator Specter. He entered the elevator and since we were on the inside, I didn't attempt to get the family with me out of the elevator. He was alone so I thought it would be okay. As the doors closed, he stopped them and made it clear we were to leave. Our little brush with Camelot quickly came to an abrupt close as we realized Kennedy's kindness didn't extend to other Senators.
Back on the 4th floor, I lead them to the office and we parted ways. We were all changed individuals. Just because I am getting long, I will just mention my profound respect for a man who still recognized the common man and was happy to mingle with them despite his busy schedule.
My only other experience with the man was again in an elevator, this time in the Capitol himself. Just the two of us, he turned to me and asked a question. Of course, I was caught completely off guard, and really didn't have much of an opinion or knowledge about what he just asked me. I told him I didn't know enough to answer his question. We were both getting off on the same floor and I let him lead out. It was then he turned as if to ask me another question. The doors closed and I found me face to face with the man. He said he really wanted my first impressions on the subject. As an idiot, I rattled off some answer that was not well thought about and tried to give some justification and reasoning for what I thought. He then asked me a very penetrating question that indicated how very ignorant I was on the subject. I made a slight comment about how he was probably more informed and I really didn't know. To that he patted me on the arm and walked away, but it was with a twinkle in his eye. I don't think he did it to show that he was more knowledgeable, but just to get another opinion on something he was thinking about. Looking back, I made an idiot of myself. But he didn't make me feel that way.
I know he is much maligned for many things. I cannot speak for his morals, his history, or his doctrine. Ultimately, we all answer to God for that. But I saw a man who still knew how to connect with people. Something I saw in very few other Senators. Since I doubt God respects Senators, I wish Edward Kennedy the best in the realm he now finds himself. I love the man, and feign to believe the friend, I had a brief acquaintance with here in mortality.


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By CYRUS LEVESQUE
STARKSBORO — A nonprofit dedicated to preserving and promoting Vermont-made music hopes to revitalize the site of a former creamery that was once the hub of a lot of activity in Starkboro.
By JOHN FLOWERS
MIDDLEBURY — Jericho Democrat Gaye Symington has a special fondness for the word "energy" when she talks about her campaign for governor these days.
The current Vermont House Speaker talks about the energy she would bring to the job as the state's chief executive, and how energy policy is of paramount importance at a time when gasoline is hovering around $4 per gallon.
Symington enters a race that includes incumbent Gov. James Douglas, a Middlebury Republican, and Progressive Anthony Pollina of Middlesex. Now in her second term as speaker, Symington when away from the Legislature is development director for the Intervale Foundation, a nonprofit organization that runs various agriculture-based ventures in Burlington.
It wasn't until recently that she decided to forego a re-election bid for her House seat in order to make her first run for governor. She said she looks forward to the challenge.
Symington said she first considered running for governor last fall, but a busy legislative session and other responsibilities forced her to delay her decision until this spring.
"As the legislative session moved on, more and more people came up to me and said, 'You are the person to do this; we really want you to consider doing this,'" Symington recalled. "It really wasn't until late-March that I realized I really have to allow myself to think this through in a complete way."
She formally announced her gubernatorial bid at the Statehouse earlier this month. Symington said she came to the realization she could bring a lot of energy and enthusiasm to charting a more prosperous course for Vermont.
By MEGAN JAMES
VERGENNES — After a week visiting friends in Addison County, Pam Shelton is headed back to Botswana, where she lives six months of the year, bringing more than her own luggage. During her stay in the Vergennes area, Shelton collected 1,500 books destined for classrooms and libraries in the southern African country.
About 11 years ago when Shelton moved to Botswana, she founded an organization called The Botswana Book Project. Since then the organization has been responsible for distributing about 275,000 new or nearly new books to children and adults throughout Botswana.
The former head librarian at the Shelburne Village School, Shelton returned to Vermont last week to visit friends, but she couldn't quite peel herself from the cause. She asked her friends Carol and Tom Spencer, at whose house in Addison she stayed, if they could donate a few books. They asked their friends if they could donate and those friends asked their friends. The results snowballed. Shelton also held an informal fund-raiser during her time at the Spencers.
"I didn't want textbooks, I wanted the kind of books we all love — Danielle Steele, John Grisham — books kids and adults love," she said of starting the project.
Shelton plans to return to Addison County again next year and will be looking for more books for Botswana.
The organization has also established 60 primary school libraries in the northern region of Ngamiland.
In Maun, where Shelton lives, the secondary school has tripled the size of its library since the project began to accommodate the addition of about 12,000 volumes.
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Brad Paisley has defended his controversial new collaboration with LL Cool J after the song sparked a barrage of criticism following its debut on Monday.
The pair's track, "Accidental Racist," prompted a backlash from fans due to its sensitive subject matter, with Paisley's lyrics detailing the racial tensions of the American south, and LL Cool J documenting his time in New York.
Paisley sings, "I'm proud of where I've come from, but not everything we've done. It ain't like you and me can re-write history. Our generation didn't start this nation, and we're still picking up the pieces, walking on eggshells, fighting over yesterday. Caught between southern pride and southern blame… Cause I'm a white man, living in the South land."
LL Cool J raps, "I try to put myself in your shoes and that's a good place to begin. Now my chains are gold but I'm still misunderstood. I want you to get paid but be a slave I never could… I'd love to buy you a beer, conversate and clear the air but I see that red flag and I think you wish I wasn't here. … Dear Mr. White Man, I wish you understood what the world is really like when you're living in the hood. Just because my pants are sagging doesn't mean I'm up to no good."
After the song garnered a mainly negative reaction, Paisley explained his work to Entertainment Weekly, saying, "I think that (the song) comes from an honest place in both cases, and that's why it's on there and why I'm so proud of it. This isn't a stunt. This isn't something that I just came up with just to be sort of shocking or anything like that. I knew it would be, but I'm sort of doing it in spite of that, really."
He also took to Twitter.com to warn fans his upcoming album is similarly complex, writing, "So, as you buy this album, I hope it triggers emotions. I hope you feel joy, heartache, triumph, surprise; you laugh, cry, nudge someone beside you…
"Cause I wouldn't change a thing. This is a record meant to be far from easy listening. But fun. Like life. Have a ball, ya'll."
And now, something from the Twitterverse:
Just heard the "Accidental Racist" man that Weird Al is amazing.
— Questo of The Roots (@questlove) April 8, 2013


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Do You Know Who My Father Is?
Mathew Rodriguez Talks About His Father, Who Passed Away From HIV
Before I was 22, I rarely talked about HIV. After the summer of 2012, I began working at APICHA Community Health Center. I now work for TheBody.com, I am on the HIV Prevention Planning Group at the NYC Dept. of Health and Mental Hygiene, and I am an active member of ACT UP. This is probably solely due to my dad.
The summer of 2011, my father, Alfredo Rodriguez, moved back to New York City after having lived in Cleveland, Ohio, for about 12 years following his separation and eventual divorce from my mother. After a short stint at a small apartment on the Lower East Side, he quickly entered into hospice care at Rivington House, a facility that provides an array of services for those living with HIV/AIDS.
It wasn't until I was 22 that I learned that my father was HIV positive. I found that out over a phone call with my sister. A few minutes later, my mother called to say that she and my sister hadn't been aware that I didn't know my father had HIV. He had moved away when I was only 10, and I had only seen him a few select times since then. I guess, there had never been a good time to tell the baby of the family that his father had HIV.
That doesn't mean that I didn't know about the many other ailments that my father was facing. His was a body that had to struggle to survive. He had asthma, he had hepatitis C, he had cirrhosis, he had neuropathy, and he was a diabetic. And yet, my father had always been the kind of man who just really fucking loved life. Anyone and everyone you meet will tell you that about him. He was always dancing, always laughing. I could try to draw some correlation between how under siege his body was and how much he enjoyed life, but there would be no point. My dad had always enjoyed life, since he started dating my mother at the age of 14, up until his death at age 55.
One of the final times I saw my dad, he was sitting in a wheelchair, having just told my sister and me that he had been declared incontinent by the nurses. He then asked us to get him two things: orange soda and Mike & Ikes. My sister and I told him that we wouldn't get him either of those things, so he asked if we could get him a diet orange soda, to which we had said that we had never even heard of such a thing. As he walked us out of Rivington House that day, he stopped at the vending machine for M&Ms.
My father was the youngest of four brothers -- Angel, Raymond and Jerry -- and he has one younger sister, who everyone calls "Chavi." Being the youngest of four brothers earned him the nickname "Tuffy" (said in Spanish, it sounds like you're saying the word "toffee" with a soft "t"). Anyone who knew him called him Tuffy.
When he was about 10 or 11, his parents, my grandparents, divorced. They each moved out of their apartment in the Smith Housing Projects near the Brooklyn Bridge on the Lower East Side, but neither of them took the boys. My father and his brothers (I'm not sure about Chavi), were left in the late '60s without any supervision or guidance in the middle of the Lower East Side. It wasn't until my father started dating my mother that he started to have a better family support system. I don't know when, but somewhere in that time, he started using injection drugs. My mother told me that he and all of his friends would use the same needle and tools to inject, which they kept behind a loose brick in the staircase of their building.
My father's journey with drug use led him in and out of rehabilitation programs several times in his life. It was a journey that finally ended on Oct. 13, 2011, at Beth Israel on 14th Street. On the day of his death, he had been hospitalized for about two days and all the doctors had prepared us for the possibility that this might be his final stint in the hospital. That day, I got a call at about 10 a.m. from my mother that the doctors had told her to come and see him. I arrived at Beth Israel at about 10:30 a.m. (I was working at APICHA Community Health Center only a few stops away on the 6 train) and was the first of my family to arrive.
When I entered the "room" -- I use that term loosely, it was just a bed behind a curtain -- I saw a body there that used to belong to my father. The body was on a respirator and its chest was making inhuman, swift breathing movements, and its eyes were rolled back. However, the heart monitor was still beeping, though I was sure that my father had long since checked out. I grabbed his hand and told him I love him, and at that moment, I heard that long beep that you really only ever hear on TV shows and movies. The nurse a few feet away said to me, "He waited for you." A friend later told me that the ears are often the last thing to go, and that even if a person is on the brink of death, they can often hear what is happening around them. She also told me that it was my love that finally allowed him to pass -- projected him into a better place.
After a short period of zombification, I called my sister who was on her way to the hospital from New Jersey. I told her he had passed and I still feel bad about it to this day, because I forced her to continue driving through tears. At the funeral, which was held on a Saturday (he had passed away on a Thursday), when he was lowered into the ground, my sister's body became all gelatinous -- just like when she was a kid, and she would make her whole body go limp when she was upset and didn't want to move -- and she had to be held up.
Here I am, an HIV-negative young man, only 24 years old, and people often ask me why I do what I do. Perhaps my love for my father spurred him into the afterlife, but it's the love of my father that has started me on my path. I want to fight so that people like him who are struggling with drug use and are HIV positive might have a better life and not die and leave behind other fatherless children like me. I also am a part of the HIV prevention field because I find myself in a unique situation: I am navigating the waters of the epidemic as a young gay man 30 years after my father had to navigate the epidemic as a drug user -- both of us in New York City. Though I look almost daily for ways that my father tries to speak to me, I consider my activism a way that I can speak to my father.
The first time I remember him talking to me was when, at the gathering of family after his funeral, somehow, on the table, next to all the food, there was a bottle of Diet Sunkist Orange Soda waiting for our refreshment. To this day, I don't know who bought it and brought it to the repast. His sense of humor never ceases to amaze me.
Mathew Rodriguez is the editorial project manager for TheBody.com and TheBodyPRO.com.
Follow Mathew on Twitter: @mathewrodriguez.
Read TheBody.com's blog, The Viral Truth.


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The Center for Science in the Public Interest is such a buzz kill.
We're more than willing to go about our day not knowing exactly how many calories are in our favorite meals from The Cheesecake Factory and Johnny Rockets. If we don't know the calorie information, it means it doesn't have that many, right?
That's what we want to believe, but the CSPI just released its annual "Xtreme Eating Awards," a list of gut-busting foods that contain more than a day's worth of calories, sugar, and sodium.
The biggest surprise on this year's list? A delicious drink from The Smoothie King. According to the CSPI, a 40-ounce peanut plus power grape smoothie contains a whopping 42 teaspoons of sugar, along with 1,460 calories.
Yikes. Not exactly the healthy drink we envision when we think of smoothies. Smoothies joints typically add a ton of sugar to their creations to make them taste like heaven (although, to be fair, 40 ounces is a lot of liquid).
Good for taste, bad for our waistlines.
Don't get too upset, though: Not all smoothies are bad. In fact, they're a great way to get in the fruits and veggies we need in a healthy diet.
The key, though, is to make them at home.
Want more from Meagan? Follow her on Twitter.


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WOWFest Wells Orchestral W/E
What's On > Events
Thursday 12th - Sunday 15th July 2018
Cedars Hall and Wells Cathedral
International Festival for Young Musicians
A brand new festival for international youth and student choirs, orchestras and bands in England's smallest city
The first edition of WOWFest will take place from 12-15th July 2018, featuring youth and student choirs, bands and orchestras from across the UK & beyond. The Festival will open with a free concert by the National Schools Symphony Orchestra and Violinissimo Chamber Orchestra in Wells Cathedral on 12th July and will continue with a series of free concerts across Wells and the surrounding area. Concerts, workshops and social activities will be held in Wells Cathedral, Cedars Hall, Bishops Palace and the Bishops Barn.
Full schedule to be announced Jan 2018


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WHAT IS NAMI-Champlain Valley?
NAMI-Champlain Valley is an affiliate of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, the nation's largest grassroots organization for people with mental illness and their families. Founded in 1979, NAMI has affiliates in every state and in more than 1,100 local communities across the country.
Located in Northern New York, NAMI-Champlain Valley provides services to individuals and families in Clinton, Essex and Franklin Counties.
WHAT IS NAMI-Champlain Valley's Mission?
NAMI:CV provides free education, advocacy, and support services to all those affected (individuals and families) by brain disorders – including serious mental illnesses and/or emotional/behavioral disorders – in Clinton, Franklin, and Essex Counties.
- Support, advance, and defend the rights, interests, and welfare of persons of all ages with mental illnesses and ensure that they are protected from abuse, possible harm, or exploitation.
- Advocate for and support neurobiological research to improve treatments, discover the causes, and promote recovery from mental illnesses.
- Educate the public and government officials about mental illness, especially about the urgency of meeting the personal, health, social, vocational and housing needs of people with mental illnesses.


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By Tommie Kendall
Sports editor
While the University of Kentucky men's basketball team was opening its SEC tournament against the Georgia Bulldogs, Mike and Sandy Appleman were trying to get reception on an old radio sitting beside them in their hotel room. For the Henry County couple, along with family members Jim and Jeanie Appleman of Ohio, it wasn't what they had envisioned just a few days earlier.
If you currently subscribe or have subscribed in the past to the Henry County Local, then simply find your account number on your mailing label and enter it below.
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Fads in medicine come and go. In lucky cases, the field at large will benefit from the fad, taking from it what was good and what worked and leaving behind that which proved to be wrong. In the grand scheme of things, when there is a fad in medicine the entire population is used as test subjects. When the fad is over, it is quickly forgotten and people move on to the next movement.
Not much was known about women's health before the 19th century. Really. And much of what was known, wasn't really known but was assumed based on cultural expectations. In the 19th century, medicine became more specialized. Treatments for female ailments beyond the old, tradition laudinum and port, became more varied and one could shop around. The fields of gynecology and psychology were in their nascent stage, though the borders between the two remained very murky. Early specialists in both fields fought passionately over contested territory, and women's medicine may as well have been Alsace-Lorraine.
It was commonly assumed throughout much of medical history, that the female reproduction system and the female neurological systems were one and the same, or just so intertwined that there wasn't much difference. For example, in the medieval period, it was believed that a woman's womb could wander throughout her body, causing a myriad of afflictions: irregular cycles, sores arms, nervousness, stiff necks, cramped feet, and so forth. The only relief for the "wandering womb" was regular sexual intercourse (with husband of course), a prescribed diet, and prayer.
Though this may sound comic to you or I, one must remember that it wasn't until the early 20th century that irregular menstration was studied in any kind of scientific manner. Even Freud, who revolutionized the field of psychology, adamantly believed that morning sickness came from a woman's hated of her husband and a desire to abort his baby, not as an evolutionary survival mechanism to protect a new mother from rotten food. The mind and body of a woman could not be separated, for that was a culturally assumed male power.
Prior to the 1870s, the medical fad known as "alienism" reigned over treatments and diagnoses. The treatment was simple: the "ill" woman would be seperated from the rest of society, where she could recover in a healthful, removed environment. Illness was defined very broadly, with symptoms ranging from bodily sores, to aches and pains, eye strain, numbness or paralysis, to nervous collapses.
Eventually, the Alienism was replaced with Somatic medicine, where a diagnosis could only be made on specific criteria. It was a step in the right direction, yes, but it still had some major flaws. For example, there weren't that many diagnoses to chose from, and most diagnoses had such a broad range of symptoms that to categorize someone in one of the few choices was not hard. If one didn't fit into a category, you were basically screwed.
Starting in the 1860s, Alienists fought the Somatic types in heated medical discussions and pamphlets. Somatic Medicine was to win, and in court. At the trial of the political assassin Lewis Payne the legal definition of insanity was addressed publicly for the first time in history. It was an momentous decision in American history, as well as medical, when specialist doctors from the varying camps were called in to give testimony as to the moral and mental health of the accused. Traditional doctors argued that from a moral perspective, Payne must be insane. More modern doctors argued that he couldn't be, because he didn't meet the rather primitive three criteria. Payne was found guilt and sentenced to hang, an event that demonstrated a clear legal need on the part of the medical industry to define precisely the ailments of their patients. Psychological diagnoses had legally been taken away from the realm of morality, and were governable instead by a necessary set of criteria and a clear definition.
Their first attempts to legitimately diagnose psychological conditions (remember, most 'women's' conditions were 'psychological') were laughable, as they needed to be made without all the knowledge of biology and bichemistry, and the mountains of data the medical industry has today. Proto-psychologists (including Freud) called themselves neuresthenics, and their primary purpose was the study of what they called neuresthenia.
Neuresthenia can basically be described as, well, anything. But it was the first step in the developing field of psychology to diagnose of functioning though 'ill' patient, and prescribe a treatment other than a long vacation or incarceration. Financially, it was a boon. Proto-psychologists were given a blank check for treating respectable, financially well-endowed patients, enriching their pockets and attracting others to the field.
Neuresthenia, unlike other previous diagnoses of the sort, was respectable, a disease of fashion, afflicting members of the well-to-do classes. The doctors declared that it was the price the affluent "paid for American progress," that the complexity of modern life, dense population and competition lead to a "great variety of and severity of nervous disorders of this class."
What was this disease? The list of symptoms was two pages long, and could include everything from sweaty hands, fears, fear of fears, dryness of the skin, exhaustion, convulsions, numbness of the limbs, eye strain, female ailments or lack of decision. So, basically anything. What treatment did they use? Usually it was dependent on cultural association, based on class, gender, and age. So, vague and subjective. It remained a popular diagnosis until the end of the 19th century.
Neuresthenia was a huge step in the right direction for psychology. But, it turned every woman's reproductive cycle into a battleground, and the fighting was fierce. Gynecologists would diagnose a woman's ailments such as cysts or irregular cycles to a woman's nervousness that had compromised her organs. She would usually be put under a knife, as surgery was the most common treatment.
Proto-psychologists would diagnose her problem was simply being her nerves, and the threat of a progressive civilization. They criticized gynecologists as frauds, claimed that if a doctor were to "manipulate the uterus" of a woman "her mind is polluted, she is unfit for marriage." Furthermore (Bremer), "all her thinking becomes concentrated on her womb, her egotism… assumes immense proportions" leading to divorce, failed marriages, and scores of unhappy, wronged men.
Gynecologists retorted by claiming that "women… are more nearly neutral than men, and the deprivation of their sexual glands is less felt by them… [feminine] castration has been followed by a marked change in disposition and temper, and always for the better." (Gilliam, 1896) A woman was either sterilized or left to suffer as a sacrifice to progress.
Obviously, it was best for a woman to have as little to do as possible with the medical industry. Though I have no statistics on the successes or failures of these operations (and most of them that are available are suspect), it would be a safe guess, I think, to assume that they were not all successful. If a woman went to an aspiring and ambitious gynecologist specialist (specialist doctors could make upwards of $50,000/year in the 1890s!), he would seek to use her as an example to further his career. He may leave her alive, but missing more than she needed to lose. If she consulted a psychologist, he might tell her that her pain is from nervous exhaustion and hysteria, not from an ovarian cancer or cyst. Even worse, some doctors were notoriously lazy. Though all symptoms may point to, say, a dead fetus, there were reports of doctors intently choosing not to examine the womb out of laziness, and the subsequent bleeding from the birth killed the mother. The risks were there, indeed.
By 1890, the first fetal heart beat was heard. By 1920, neuresthenia was completely forgotten, as disorders began to get their own specific names and causes. And the cleaned-up field of gynecology had successfully made its split from that of psychology and relied on tactics other than surgical removal. On the other front the territory of Psychology had opened up with books of disorders to study and treat, leaving women's plumbing to the specialists it had previously denounced as butchers. I think we are all much happier with the way things are today.


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The Ministers of Indigenous Relations and Reconciliation, Health and Long-Term Care and Children and Youth Services issued the following statement regarding the province's response to First Nation youth suicides in Northern Ontario:
"The youth suicide crisis in northern First Nations communities is nothing short of a health and social emergency that requires the immediate and unwavering attention of all levels of government and the public. To the families and loved ones of those who have lost their lives, and to all Indigenous communities grappling with youth suicides, intergenerational trauma and other legacies of colonization including residential schools, we offer our deepest condolences.
Over the last several months, Ontario has worked with Indigenous partners across Northern Ontario, as well as the federal government, to implement a new Interim Social Emergencies Response Protocol with the goal of delivering faster, more efficient assistance when crises occur.
Additional actions being provided in coordination with First Nations communities include:
Today, Ontario is also establishing a new Indigenous Youth and Community Wellness Secretariat to work closely with Indigenous partners, including Nishnawbe Aski Nation, and the federal government to ensure efficient and effective coordination of efforts and resources to address this crisis.
The Secretariat will also work with partners to ensure Indigenous students who attend school away from their home communities this September feel safe. In recent months, young people have been the victims of racism and violence. Parents need assurances that their children will be safe while attending school away from their home communities. This work will also include the development of alternatives for parents and students to receive their education closer to home.
We can and must do more.
Ontario is committed to providing immediate support to First Nations in crisis. However, we feel strongly that emergencies will continue to occur and intensify unless meaningful and dramatic realignment and transformation happens to change the status quo and address the systemic disparities facing Indigenous communities, particularly in northern First Nations. It is not up to First Nations to right the wrongs of colonization. Governments must invest in meaningful and lasting Indigenous-led solutions so communities can heal and young people can have hope for a brighter future.
We look forward to meeting with the federal government and Nishnawbe Aski Nation this afternoon to discuss how we can take action, together, towards the transformation of our healthcare system and beyond into an Indigenous-led, culturally appropriate, outcomes-centered system."
This website is provided for your convenience. If you'd prefer to call or email, my staff and I would be happy to hear from you.
The Ford government's attack on Francophonie in OntarioNovember 21, 2018
Delivering a Plan for Care and OpportunityMarch 28, 2018
Helping Families Save Money and Fight Climate Change At HomeDecember 13, 2017
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By DOUG MARTIN, Religion Columnist
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This morning's message is going to be a message, I trust, that will be suited to our whole congregation as we worship the Lord together on this day, but beyond that in particular a message that can bring to its conclusion in a fitting way our wonderful shepherd's conference.
One of the things that is steeply distressing about ministry is the existence of jealousy and envy and competition among those who intend to serve Christ. There is frequently the expression of carnality that causes those in ministry to be driven by ambition to achieve something more than someone else, a better reputation, a bigger church, or whatever. And sometimes, sometimes even in a conference like this people can come and go away determined to do something bigger and better and then on the other hand sometimes some would come to a conference like this and go away discouraged thinking their ministry is in comparison to this one, a meager one. All of that is wrong and it's helpful for us to remember that it is God who makes the final assessment of the value of ministry and the worth of the servants in that ministry. God has built into human life the element of effort and reward. That's the way things are. You work with your hands, the sweat of your brow, you earn your bread, effort and reward. There's a payoff. We're used to that, we live our lives that way. And in Christian ministry sometimes we are driven by the immediate payoff, size, money, complexity, diversity, reputation, influence and when that payoff doesn't come we get discouraged. Well we need to remind ourselves of what the word of God has to say about a true evaluation of a minister. In order to help us with that I want you to open your Bible, if you will, to the 19th Chapter of the gospel of Matthew. One of the things that Jesus had to deal with with the disciples was carnal competitiveness. The disciples were wrangling all the time about which of them was going to be the most honored, which of them was going to receive the highest accolades, which of them was going to be given the greatest position when the Messiah brought his kingdom. In their minds they were making supreme sacrifices, having abandoned their families, abandoned their livelihood and their career to follow Jesus in this itinerant ministry, which was sustained by charity, having put themselves in a position to leave it all behind and be dependent upon the little meager amount that was given to them to follow someone who didn't have a place to live who actually said, "the foxes have holes, birds the birds of the air have nests, the Son of man has no where to lay his head." This seemed to them a great sacrifice, but the sacrifice was worth it because in the end they assumed that there would be a major payoff and they were always among themselves wrangling about who's payoff would be the biggest.
Certainly those in group one of the twelve, those who were the closest to Jesus, Peter, James, John, and Andrew probably felt like they were in the lead in the race for prominence. And Phillip who sort of anchors group two, the second four in all the four lists of the apostles, probably felt that although he wasn't in group one, at least he wasn't in group three, the sort of non-descripts that included Judas. They were always quibbling about this even the night that Jesus was betrayed and was going to be taken to be executed they were fussing about which of them was going to be the greatest in the kingdom.
This is not some kind of abnormal thing. This is pretty standard stuff for fallen people, even those who are called to the highest levels of Christian service. Now we see this rather pointedly in verse 27 of Matthew 19. "Then Peter speaking on behalf of all of them, as he did as the leader, answered and said to him, said, 'Jesus, behold we have left everything and followed you. What then will there be for us?'" This comes right off the incident of the rich young ruler. The rich young ruler was a ruler of a synagogue. And that is to say he was a highly respected man in the community who was made the chairman of the synagogue board, if you will. Young and that's unusual that a young man would attain that kind of status in a highly religious community of Israel, but he was a ruler of a synagogue. He came to Jesus, in just the prior passage, and he said, "What do I do to have eternal life?" And essentially Jesus said to him just two things, "Recognize that you have violated my law, you are sinful and unrighteous, and two sell everything you have and give your money away." Now what Jesus was endeavoring to establish was not just the specifics of confessing that he had broken certain laws nor the specific of giving away his money, but what Jesus attempted to establish was whether the man was willing to acknowledge himself as a sinner and to submit to the lordship of Christ no matter what he asked. You remember the story. He responded that he had kept the law all his life and never broken any of it so he wouldn't acknowledge his sin and then he loved his money so much when Jesus told him to sell all and follow him he turned around and went away. With this fresh in their mind Peter says, "We're not like him." What you asked him to do and he didn't do we did. One day you came along the shore and you said drop your nets and follow me and we did. And you went by the tax table where Matthew was and said stop doing what you're doing, drop it, follow me, and all the thieves and thugs who worked for Matthew scrambled to take his seat. So he was leaving permanently. We, unlike that man, acknowledged our sins, and we dropped everything and we followed you so when do we cash in? We admitted our spiritual bankruptcy. We admitted that we were the poor, prisoners, blind, and oppressed as Jesus identified those who were the ones to receive the gospel quoting from the 61st Chapter of Isaiah. We are the poor in spirit, meek, and hungering and thirsting after righteousness. We came and here we are living our lives of deprivation and dependence on charity along with you. We are bearing the reproach of Christ and considering it greater riches than the riches of Egypt as Moses did. We, along with you, have become poor. And motivating that in their hearts was this intense messianic concept that the Messiah would come and bring the glorious kingdom and everything promised to Abraham in the Abrahamic Covenant and everything promised to David in the Davidic Covenant was going to come in all its glory and magnificence and they were going to cash in on all of that because they were the frontrunners by being the chosen disciples. But the way things were going it didn't appear to be what they expected. The Jewish leaders were continuing to mount animosity and hatred against Jesus. The people, who once were attracted to him and drawn to him drifting away. Things were going just the opposite of the way they assumed they should. Jesus is doing nothing to overthrow the yoke of Rome, the Gentile pagan oppressors. And so Peter asks on behalf of the disciples when's the payoff on all of this?
Instant gratification, by the way, isn't something isolated to our generation. Well Jesus and grace, verse 28, said to them, Peter asked the question but he said to them because he knew Peter was articulating what they all felt, "Truly I say to you that you who have followed me in the regeneration," the times of restitution are also called that's the millennial kingdom, the thousand year earthly reign of Jesus Christ when all the Davidic and Abrahamic Covenant promises are fulfilled, when that comes in that regeneration, that is the regeneration of this earth in the glories of the kingdom, when the Son of man will sit on his glorious throne, which he will, "You also shall sit upon twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel." Now, of course, they'd all be dead by then, most of the martyred and they would have all then been resurrected in the resurrection to come, so in the kingdom they would be in glorified perfection, but they would come back with Christ and they would reign over the twelve tribes of Israel in the glories of the kingdom. That's what I can tell you is coming for you. It's not right now. He could have said to them that's way in the future. For the moment you're going to be martyred, you're going to be hated, you're going to be resented, you're going to be imprisoned and the payoff is way down the road. But nonetheless that is a promise that he did give to the twelve.
And then in verse 29 Jesus adds this: "And everyone," and then he encompasses there all of us; everybody other than the apostles, who has left houses or brothers or sisters, or father or mother, or children, or farms for my name's sake, that is you've embraced him as Savior and there has been a leaving, there's been a disconnect from family and life, society, to whatever degree. Anybody who has come to me in that forsaking will receive many times as much as they gave up, and then this, and shall inherit eternal life. If you're looking gratification here in this life that's not what he promised you. What Jesus says that if you leave all and follow me, if you abandon everything, and that certainly is true of all believers in one sense, but those of us who minister live that out in a greater sense because literally we are, as far as our whole life is concerned, consumed with this ministry, and he says what you're going to get in the end is eternal life. And they were looking at the immediate payoff and Jesus was promising them something far greater than earthly notoriety, earthly fame, earthly influence, earthly honor. Everybody else he says, verse 29, is going to get eternal life. Folk's eternal life is the big reward. That's the big reward. And to illustrate this Jesus gives a proverb at the end of Chapter 19. This is it: "But many who are first will be last and the last first." And then down in Chapter 20 look at verse 16. "Thus the last shall be first and the first last." And he repeats it with just a variation in the words. Here is a maxim or a proverb, which is a short popular saying of ancient or unknown origin expressing wisdom. This is coined by Jesus, no doubt. It's a very simple statement. The first will be last and the last will be first. Now there's been a lot of discussion about this. It appears on the surface to be a riddle and for that reason it has baffled some Bible students through the years, I think really without cause. I remember when I was riding one time with my youngest son, Mark. I think he was in junior high at the time and I was thinking about that statement and I wanted to kind of give him a little quiz about it. We'd never discussed it and I said to him as we were riding along. I said, "Mark, there's a statement in the Bible that says that the first shall be last and the last shall be first. What do you think that means?" He said, "Oh that's easy, Dad." I said, "Really?" He said, "That's easy." He said, "That means everybody ends us the same. The only way the first can be last and the last can be first is if everybody's equal. It's got to be a dead heat," he said. And I said, "You know you're exactly right. It's just that simple." It's just that simple. The only way that the last can be first and the first can be last is if they all cross the finish line together. And that is exactly what Jesus wanted to convey. In the end we're not going into the kingdom in ranks. There's not a first and a second, there's not a gold medal, a silver medal and a bronze medal. It's a dead heat. We all win and the prize is eternal life. And then in order to illustrate that Jesus tells a riveting and unforgettable parable in Chapter 20. It's like this, he said, "The kingdom of heaven," this sphere of salvation where God rules over those who are his through faith and by the work of his Son, "The kingdom of heaven is like a landowner," an oicobdespotes, ruler of the house, somebody who possessed an estate and "he went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard." This particular owner of an estate, it's his own, verse 15 he says, "My own," in referring to that which he gave as pay. It's my own, it was his estate; it was his money, his enterprise. "He went out to hire laborers for his vineyard." I'll just give you a little bit of the agrarian background for this. In the fertile plain areas of Israel, it's even true today, such as the Plain of Esdralan, the Valley of Megiddo, the Sharon Valley, the Jordan Valley, places like that the grain is the major farm product. But on the mountain slopes, which there are many in the land of Israel, vineyards have been through history the most popular crop. To put a vineyard on the steep slopes of Israel is not an easy thing to do. First of all the mountains are just literally filled with rocks. The Rabbi's used to say that when God dumped the rocks on the earth he dumped most of them in Israel and in order to make the land fertile and to allow the plants to go down and to receive the water and the nutrient out of the soil you have to get the rocks out and that worked to the benefit of those who were building the vineyard because all of the rocks then were used to make walls, terraced walls, which they built by hand. The steepness of the slopes on which the vines grew made the toil immense to produce a vineyard. Once they were terraced, then they were planted, and there grew the grapes. In Spring they prepared the soil, typically, because that's when the growing of the plant really began and then in the summer they went back and they pruned it and they tied the branches to produce the greatest amount of grapes and when September came it was time to harvest because it was October when the rains came and would destroy an unharvested crop. So harvest in September was a very very important and a hasty time. And at that time the farmer would go into town, into the marketplace, and there would always be there a large number of day workers, day laborers, the lowest people on the socio-economic ladder and he would hire them to do the harvest for the time that it took to get it in. And so that's what you see depicted here, very very familiar to the Jewish people.
Now the workday went from 6 a. m. to 6 p.m. It was a 12-hour workday and September in Israel is hot, very very hot. It's a rigorous thing to work a 12-hour day outside in the sun climbing up and down the terraces of the vineyard to harvest and haul grapes down and go back up again. But these day laborers desperately needed to work. Day laborers were the lowest class of workers in Israel, as they are even today. Unskilled, unemployed, except for a day at a time, as some workers even now loiter on corners in various parts of our area hoping somebody will come along and hire them. That's what they did in the marketplace in Jesus' day. Life for them was, to put it mildly, desperate and precarious. If they didn't work, they didn't eat and neither did their children. Slaves and employees who had a permanent relationship had steady jobs even if the pay was slight, but they were cared for and they could depend upon it day in and day out, but day laborers were never certain of a meal. They were the poor of the poor. Pay was low and even when they did work they got minimum for their efforts. Way way back in the Old Testament, way back in the Pentateuch, the books of Moses, God expressed his concern for day laborers. In Deuteronomy it says, "You shall give him his hire on the day he earns it before the sun goes down because he is poor and sets his heart on it lest he cry against you to the Lord and it been sin in you." And God says that day laborer is to be paid the day he works because if you don't give him the money that day he can't buy food for his family for the day to follow. And in Leviticus 19:13, "The wages of the hired servant shall not remain for you all night until the morning. It is a sin not to pay a man at the end of the day that he works." This choice of parable that Jesus uses here is very vivid and very familiar to the Jewish people. That sets the stage so the landowner goes into town and in verse 2 he agreed with the laborers a certain number of them, this is interesting, for a denarius for the day. He sent them into his vineyard. They were thrilled. They didn't normally get a denarius. That was a full day's wage for a noble employee in some enterprise. That was a full day's wage for a Roman soldier. That was not minimum wage. That was not what day laborers usually received. Very fair, even generous. They were so happy that he was willing to pay them a denarius that they went immediately into the vineyard at 6 a. m. to work their 12 long hours in the heat.
Well as the hours passed by early in the morning it became apparent to the landowner that there weren't enough workers to get the harvest in and so in verse 3 it says, "He went out about the third hour," that would be three hours added to 6 a. m., 9 a.m. "He saw others standing idle in the marketplace." They weren't idle in the market because they were lazy, they were idle in the market because no one had hired them, but they were still waiting hoping against hope that maybe, even though the workday had begun, somebody would come and need extra help and so they were still there. And so the third hour he saw some more and he said to those, verse 4, "You too go into the vineyard and whatever is right I will give you." There was no discussion; there was no negotiation. The day is escaping them. They aren't in a position to negotiate. Whatever he wants to give they'll take. And believe me they knew that this was an honest and a fair and even a generous man because they would have been there when the original negotiations with group one went on, the word would have buzzed around that a certain landowner had hired these people for a denarius. And he said, "I'll do what's right by you."
And then in verse 5, "He went out about the sixth hour," that's noon, half the day is gone, "And then he went out again three hours later," and it's 3:00 in the afternoon and there are only three hours left in the workday, "And he did the same thing." And then amazingly he doesn't feel like he's able to accomplish what he wants to for the full day and it gets very late in the day and "At the 11th hour," verse 6 says, or about then "he goes out," it's 5 o'clock, "and he found others standing." Now you can imagine it's a sad day for that group. They're still there. It's 5 o'clock, hope is well nigh gone, they waited all day, no one has hired them. He said to them, "Why have you been standing idle all day long?" They say to him in verse 7, "Because no one hired us." He said to them, "You too, or you also, you go into the vineyard." 5 o'clock? Guys have been working eleven hours, nine hours, six hours, and here come some guys swinging in at 5:00. They're going to work an hour. By then it's cool. It's like Southern California over there, hot in the daytime, breezes off the Mediterranean cool it in the evening, just as the coastal breezes cool our area in the evenings, and they come in at 5 o'clock. They aren't in a position to negotiate either. They're just glad to work and they know it's completely at the discretion of the man, but they know he has a reputation for being fair. Well, evening comes in verse 8. 6 o'clock arrives. The owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, "Call the laborers, pay time." He's going to do what Leviticus and Deuteronomy said, what God told him to do. Pay them at the end of the day. And he says, "Pay them their wages. Begin with the last group." The group that came at 5 o'clock get in line. I guess they figured they'd get 1/12 of a denarius. Well amazingly verse 9 says, "When those hired about the eleventh hour came each one received a denarius." Amazing that is a whole day's wage and more than a day laborer could expect. And you can image the guys who worked twelve hours at the end of the line are saying, "This is a denarius an hour." Such a deal, right? They're getting cranked up about this. This could be like two-weeks pay. Well when those hired first in verse 10 came they thought that they would receive more and they each received a denarius. They're standing in line buzzing around cherishing through this process a silent expectation that they're going to get more than anybody else and they got the same. So in verse 11, "When they received it they grumbled at the land owner." Murmured. It's an onomodipaetic Greek word egogudso. And then they get really dramatic and they say in verse 12, "These men have worked only one hour and you have made them equal to us who have born the burden in this scorching heat of the day." Really laying it on thick! The literal Greek here is we've endured the scorcher. It is a scorcher today. It is a burner. Often applied to what we know as Santa Anna winds, which is very much a similar phenomena. It's called a sirocco. It comes out of the east and blows hot wind across that is made even hotter by coming across the desert scorching the flesh, parching the lips, drying the throat. How can you pay these guys who came out here in the cool of the evening the same as us who endured the scorcher? The reply is marvelous. Verse 13, "He answered and said to one of them," whoever their spokesman was, "Friend," actually in the Greek it's sort of a slangish work that means fella, "I'm doing you no wrong." I'm doing you no wrong. "Didn't you agree with me for a denarius?" Didn't we say that's what's going to come? "Take what is yours, go your way." But I wish to give to this last man the same as you. "Is it not lawful for me to do what I wish with what is my own?'" And here's the problem. "Or is your eye envious because I'm generous?" I'm telling you talk about a rebuke to the disciples. This is really a rebuke to the disciples. If I gave all of you eternal would you begrudge that eternal life to somebody that you don't perceive in your mind was as worthy as you? That's not my problem, that's yours. The only issue here was jealousy, envy and that's exactly what was going on. That is the only issue and Jesus is exposing even among the apostles and, of course, beyond that to the general carnality that invades the kingdom the reality that there can be envy and jealously that makes us discontent with the fact that we are all going to the same end to receive the same glorious eternal life.
Somebody says, "Well, I want what's fair." I don't think so. Fair goes that way. Fair is hell, eternal judgment. And are you going to be jealous and envious because God is equally gracious to another undeserving sinner in the same way he is to you? Does it bother you that you spend your whole life in a hard place serving the Lord ministering in the scorcher and somebody receives Christ on their deathbed and you both get the same eternal life? Does it bother you? Look, Jesus said they all have the same need. They all have the same need. And so I gave them because it's my prerogative what they needed. Is it my compassion that bothers you? Is it my kindness that bothers you? Look, we're not apostles. In the end we're all going to wind up, no matter what kind of ministry or what kind of enterprise or how hot the sun was or how cool the evening was during our labor, how short the time, long the time, hard the task, easy the task, we're all going to end up receiving the same eternal life. It's a dead heat.
That's pretty clear. In effect he says to the disciples and to all of us, what are you hassling about? Your eternal life is not dependent upon how hard you work or how long you work or how tough the job was. You're going to receive eternal life at the end so enjoy what it is that you've been given to do for the time you've been given to do it and the temperature in which you've had to do your work. This is God here in his kingdom. The laborers are those who belong to him. Their hours of work is the time and the conditions of their service. The evening is eternity. The final pay is eternal life. And the steward really, the landowner is God and the steward is Jesus Christ who in his grace gives us that eternal reward. And the bottom line is that everybody who comes into Christ's kingdom, whether you're preaching the sermon or sitting in the pew, everybody in Christ's kingdom, no matter what their service is like, is going to end up with eternal life. There's no place for competition. You say, "What about my crowns? I've been told I have some crowns." Well so do I. So do all of us. And the Bible talks about crowns. It talks about the crown of life, the crown of righteousness, the crown of rejoicing, the incorruptible crown, but I want you to understand what that means. The crown, which is life, we all get. That is eternal life. The crown, which is righteousness we all get, we're made like Christ in his perfect righteousness. The crown, which is incorruptible we all get. The crown of rejoicing, the crown, which is rejoicing, in the Greek, we all get because we'll all rejoice forever about our life and our righteousness and the incorruptibility of it. Well, you mean that we're just all going to get the same thing? Yeah, that's right. Now, I need to just take you to one other passage because it is true that even though we all enter into the same eternal life, and what else could you want? What does eternal life bring to you? We'll all be in the Father's house. Right? You grew up singing songs about mansions in heaven. Yeah, there's no mansions in heaven. There's only one house. It's the Father's house and we have rooms in it. I'm not four blocks down to the right and two blocks to the left. I'm in the Father's house. In my Father's house are many rooms. One house! We'll all be in the Father's house. We will all be the bride of the bridegroom. We will all inherit the whole inheritance as joint heirs in Christ, Romans 8:17. And here's the real shocker. We'll all be like Christ, I John 3:1-2. What else do you want? Well you say, "Do we get like stripes on the robe or a small tiara wouldn't be bad. I mean is there any recognition for anything that we've done that's unique?" Yes there is and I want to encourage you about that, I really do. So turn to I Corinthians Chapter 4 and we'll just finish up there. I Corinthians 4: Paul says, now look, let me address this question of evaluating a ministry, evaluating a man, particularly a person in ministry. That's the context here. How are we to understand our personal rewards? How are we to understand the true evaluation of our ministry? Well here's how. Verse 1: "Let a man, let any human regard us like this:" If you're going to look at me, Paul says, and you're going to look at the apostles whether it's Peter, or whether even including Apollos that he's been talking about, you're going to look at any of us, here's how we want you to view us, "as servants of Christ." View us in a low manner not a high one. There's a lot of words in the New Testament for servant. This is my favorite. Hoopeirataes. Hoopeir meaning under, ataes having to do with a word to row. View us as an under rower and the imagery here is very vivid. In some of the big wooden ships of those days they had rowers who moved the ships along. Some of you have seen them in ancient depictions and read about them in history. The larger ones had rowers and under rowers and under rowers. Three levels of galley slaves down in the hole of the ship who never saw the light of day but in the stinking, smelly, sultry, burning, humid, heat of those ships in the Mediterranean area did nothing but pull their oar hour after hour after hour in utter and absolute anonymity. And the last thing anybody would think to do would be to exalt and honor an under rower, a third level galley slave. So Paul says when you assess us from the human view would you just put down that he pulled his oar? That's all. In anonymity a non-descript nobody in a stinking hole of a ship that never saw the light of day and had nothing to do with the direction of where it was going, he just pulled his oar. Please, he's saying, don't name a city in Minnesota after me or a cathedral, for that matter, in London. Just say he pulled his oar. Somebody might say, "Well I pulled my oar but I was novel at it." The Lord doesn't even want your inventiveness Nexpray says. You can also regard us not only as galley slaves of Christ, but you can regard us as stewards of the mysteries of God. We didn't invent any of this. The steward is one, recanamas, who manages something for someone else. What we said wasn't ours, what we did wasn't of our own invention, when it comes to a human evaluation just remember this: I pulled my oar faithfully and I took good care of the mysteries. Do you know what those are? New Testament truths, the doctrines hidden in the Old Testament revealed in the New. I took care of the truth that was given to me. I pulled my oar and I cared for the truth. That's all. And what is it that the Lord wants? That's our identity. But what's our duty? Verse 2: So in this kind of setting, in this kind of case he says, "It's required of stewards that one be found faithful, trustworthy." Just do what you're told. Just pull the oar and take care of what has been entrusted to you. In the end of the day when you've done that you've done only what you ought to have done. Right? That's why Paul says, "Look don't honor me," I Corinthians 9, "for preaching the gospel. Woe is unto me if I preach not the gospel." I'm under orders. Pull your oar. Be a steward. And then Paul says, "That's how to view us, no more than that." The question of honor cannot be decided here.
So in verse 3. This is so insightful to Paul. "To me it's a very small thing that I should be examined by you." Another way to say that, I really could care less what you think of me. It doesn't matter to me. I don't need to be the preacher of the year. I don't need to be honored. It doesn't matter to me what you think of me. You say, "Well that's not polite." Well, if you understand the heart of Paul you understand this is true humility. It doesn't matter what you think of me. In fact, not only does it not matter what you think of me, talking to the Corinthians, "It doesn't matter what any human court thinks of me." I really don't care. I don't care what you think of me, I don't care what anybody thinks of me at any human level making any evaluation and I'll go further than that, I don't care what I think of me. "I don't even examine myself." I don't care what you think of me because you don't know my heart and you could be, and this is true of the Corinthians, you could be jealous of me, envious of me, and so you're biased by your attitudes and you can't make a pure evaluation of me, 'cause you don't know what's in me. Nobody does. You want to know something? I don't even examine myself. Why? This is interesting. Verse 4. Because even when I'm conscious of nothing against myself, even when I look in there and say, "Hey, you're doing pretty well, your conscience is clear, as it says in I Corinthians 1:12, "I can't find anything in myself that I could be against, yet I am not by this acquitted." You can't judge me. Nobody else can judge me, and I can't judge myself. You tend to be biased against me. I tend to be biased for me. Neither of us has objectivity. So why should I be looking for you to give me honors and all that and why in my own heart should I be seeking them as if I was something unique?
End of verse 4 is the key. "The one who examines me is" whom? "The Lord." Verse 5 puts it simply. "Therefore stop passing judgment." Stop being the evaluator of ministry. Stop being the evaluator of ministers. Stop that. Back in Chapter 3:4 he says, "Some of you say I am of Paul." Paul is my hero. "Others of you say I am of Apollos." And then he says are you not mere men? You can't evaluate them. Who are you to pick the better of the two? And then he goes to saying, Verse 5, "Who is Apollos? Who is Paul? Servants." And then in verse 6 he says, "I planted Apollos watered, but God gave the increase." I pulled my oar, he pulled his oar, we dispensed the mysteries of God and God did what God can do and only God can do. So verse 7, "So then neither the one who plants, Apollos, nor the one who waters, or Paul the one who waters, Apollos is anything." Just remember we're nothing, we're nothing. Third level galley slave pulls your oar, steward of the mysteries of God with the discharge of a responsibility that is immense and we need to be faithful and trustworthy with that, there is no human court that can render a true decision as to the honor of our service. Of course, "every way of a man is right in his own eyes," the proverb says, I think it's Chapter 21, but God weighs his heart. So Paul says this: "Stop passing judgment," verse 5. Just wait 'til the Lord comes who will both bring to light the things hidden in the darkness. The true evaluation, listen to this; the true evaluation of a man is what is now in the darkness. Can't see it. You don't know it and even he isn't discerning enough to know it. It doesn't mean you don't know when you're sinning, but you don't know the true purity of your own heart, or impurity. And the final analysis only one knows it and he alone will pass that judgment. He will bring to light the things that are hidden in the darkness that nobody sees and nobody knows and here comes the key. He will disclose the, what's the next word? Motives or intents. And then each man's praise, that's your personal reward. We all get the same eternal life, but in that eternal life each man will receive specific unique individual praise. That's the individual reward. Some capacity for or some element of service that is unique for us and each man will receive that praise from God based upon not the size of his ministry, not the influence of his ministry, not his popularity, but based upon his motives. What was in his heart? Not how many people were in his church. What was in his heart. Then Paul says in verse 6, "Now these things brethren I have figuratively applied to myself and Apollos for your sakes." And he did. He said Apollos, I planted and Apollos watered. He had figuratively applied these things to them and said in one who plants is nothing and one who waters is nothing and that's the way it is. "And the reason I did that," he said, "is so that you might learn what not to exceed what is written" that is not to exceed Scripture teaching on humility, "in order that no one of you might become arrogant in behalf of one against the other." Not arrogant on his own, but arrogant in behalf of someone else. Don't become a Macarthurite and certainly don't elevate yourself. You're not in a position to know how the true evaluation before God is going. Verse 7, "For who has the right regards you as superior. And what do you have that you didn't receive? And if you received it then what are you boasting for as if you didn't receive it?" Whatever happened in your ministry was given to you by God, right? The Corinthians were into this. I am of Paul, I am of Apollos, I am of Cephas, well I am of Jesus, pitting each other against each other and elevating one another and carnality all over the place. Divisiveness. Paul gets sarcastic in verse 8. "You are already filled," he says. "You have already become rich. You have become kings without us." I remember hearing a pastor say, "In my church I am the king." Well this passage was written for him. And he says in verse 9 to show his own example of humility, "I think God has exhibited us apostles last of all. God made us last, as men condemned to death. We have become a spectacle to the world, both to angels and to men. We are fools for Christ's sake, but you are wise." Just dripping sarcasm. "We are weak but you are strong. You are distinguished; we are without honor. To this present hour we are both hungry and thirsty," we're not getting any awards, folks. We're not winning any plaques. "We're poorly clothed, roughly treated, homeless, we work, toil and working with our hands. We get reviled and we bless, we get persecuted and we endure, we're slandered and we try to conciliate. We become as the scum of the world. The dregs of all things even until now." No popularity there. Absolutely none. The lowest of the low. That's okay, Paul says, because I don't care what people think. I'm a third level galley slave, an under rower of Christ, and I'm just going to pull the oar that he put in my hands. I'm a steward of God, I'm going to dispense what God gave me to dispense. I'm going to teach and preach what God gave me to teach and preach. I'm going to be faithful to that. That's how it is. Whatever you might think, whatever what some other human court might think, and whatever I might think, in the final analysis is only one person who knows enough to make the right evaluation of my ministry and that is the Lord who examines the heart and someday when I come into his presence he will reveal what no one else has ever known and based upon what my motives were I will receive whatever praise from God is to come.
So we're not in a position to evaluate a ministry. We're only in a position to be faithful, right? And we're all going across the finish line together into eternal life and whatever each man's praise is will be tied not to the size or the popularity of his ministry, but to his motives. So make it your ambition, Paul says, to always be pleasing to him. And to do all that you do, not for your own promotion, but do whatever you do to the glory of the Lord.
Our Father, the testimony of Paul so helpful, so instructive, not just his words but that he lived what he said. Such integrity. And we thank you Lord for his example and the example of Jesus and we even condescended to be hated and vilified and despised and wrongly judged by every human court and then exalted to your right hand by the one judge that matters. We leave the final assessment to you. It doesn't matter to us what people think. What does matter to us is what you think. We want to be faithful and to receive someday for motives as pure as we in the Spirit are capable of having a special praise from you to enrich our eternal service and praise. Thank you in Christ's name. Amen.
This article is also available and sold as a booklet.
This sermon series includes the following messages:
Please contact the publisher to obtain copies of this resource.Publisher Information


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A letter in the May 15 Tomahawk Leader:
Letter to the Editor:
I had a great opportunity at Treehaven this week to teach outdoor skills to fourth graders from Tomahawk. The kids had a wonderful time while learning about nature. They were all well behaved and very happy to learn in a great outdoor classroom.
This day of learning about nature was the last of three educational events at Treehaven, all sponsored by PCA. I think it is a very generous gesture that PCA sponsors three day-long adventures for Tomahawk's young people. I want to thank PCA for this gift to our youth.
The kids enjoyed all the staff at Treehaven, John Heusinkveld, assistant director of Treehaven, who organized the day, Bart Kotarba and Jamie Healy from Northwoods Wildlife Center, Maggie Moesch, Bev Engstrom and Ashley Kleich. A special thanks to all of you for making this such a memorable day, and to the entire staff at Treehaven who work so hard behind the scenes to make it all happen.
Laurie Groskopf
Big thank you to PCA …
Letters to the Editor from the Tomahawk Leader.
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Feb. 14, 2011
2011 Hall of Fame Reunion Photo Gallery!!!
Cal State Northridge Hall of Fame Archive
2010 Cal State Northridge Athletics Hall of Fame Ceremony and Photo Gallery
Northridge, Calif. - A standing-room only crowd of nearly 1,800 Matador fans not only witnessed an exciting men's basketball game between first place Long Beach State and second place Cal State Northridge last Saturday night, but they also had a chance to honor more than 200 members of the CSUN Hall of Fame.
Northridge fans gave the many Hall of Famers who attended the "Matadors Reunion of Champions" a loud round of applause when they were announced and escorted to center court during halftime of the men's basketball game.
The list of honorees included Doug Billingsley (football), Steve Brody (track & field), Mark Cooley (basketball), Patricia De La Riva (basketball), Michele Hampton (swimming), Mike Kane (football), Jacqueline Hansen (track & field), Mike Jacobs (football), Bruce Lemmerman (football), Bob Lopresti (baseball), Scia Maumausolo (softball), Doug McKenzie (baseball), Jerry Peters (football), Rosemarie Finnigan Rahn (volleyball), George Robnett, Joel Schaeffer (football) and Sam Winningham (football).
Every other year, Cal State Northridge will have a "Matadors Reunion of Champions" honoring the Hall of Fame members who have distinguished themselves on the playing field.
The festivity of events on Saturday included a Hall of Fame Reunion reception. The reception offered a chance for the Hall of Famers to renew old friendships and to meet other members of the Hall of Fame from other sports.
The Hall of Famers who attended also got a chance to watch both the men's and women's basketball teams compete at The Matadome. The Cal State Northridge women beat Cal State Fullerton, 71-65, while the Matador men played a strong game until near the end when Long Beach State recorded a 79-62 decision.
Many of the Hall of Famers also were introduced at halftime of the Matador women's basketball game.
In the alternating years, Cal State Northridge will have its Hall of Fame banquet to induct new members to the Matador Hall of Fame.
"There is a great tradition of Matador Athletics and this event was a great opportunity to bring back a great group of men and women who proudly wore the colors of Cal State Northridge - Red & Black," said Tom Ford, Associate Athletic Director (External Relations) and event organizer.


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At the Law Office of Michael H. Joseph, PLLC, our attorneys are committed to representing the Westchester community with their litigation needs. We regularly handle personal injury and accident cases, criminal defense as well as commercial and business litigation. Often people need a lawyer at the lowest and most difficult times in their lives. Whether you are injured and unable to work or whether you are facing criminal charges our Westchester County criminal lawyers and personal injury attorneys have the experience to bring a favorable end to your unfortunate situation.
With our office located in downtown White Plains, we are within walking distance of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, the Westchester Supreme Court, the Westchester County Criminal Court and the White Plains City Court. With our decades of experience of practicing law in Westchester County, we have represented people from every walk of life from the day laborer to the hedge fund guys to architects, doctors, small business owners, and even police officers. With our cutting edge technology, our office has also have represented numerous out of state residents with business interests in New York or who have been injured in Westchester or are charged with crimes in New York. Our email capabilities allow us to correspond regularly and render effective legal representation to out of state residents.
If you were involved in an accident, the insurance companies are already taking steps to protect their interests and to undermine the validity of your case and keep you from receiving the recovery that you deserve.
Our Westchester personal injury lawyers stand up to these insurance companies and are committed to making sure you get the compensation you deserve. Our commitment to accident victims has been proven time and time again in trial and even on appeal, where we have fought to make sure the little guy gets a fair shake from the legal system. We are no strangers to playing into a stacked deck and for decades we have taken on the big lawfirms, City attorneys and corporate defense firms. We know their tactics, we have successfully cross examined their experts and we know how to beat them.
On behalf of our personal injury clients, our White Plains accident lawyers have recovered millions of dollars for victims of car accidents, truck accidents, bus accidents and construction accidents, civil rights cases, products liability and wrongful death. Our legal team is no stranger to high profile cases and our cases have been covered by the Daily News, the New York Post, the New York Law Journal, the Huffington Post, the New York Post, the Journal News, the Jury Verdict Reporter, Eyewitness News and Westchester Channel 12 News among others. Mr. Joseph has also been interviewed in the New York newspapers including the Daily News and the Huffington Post as an expert on accident cases and trial practice.
There are time limits for virtually every time of lawsuit and time matters. Whenever you have been injured. We work to quickly investigate our cases, get witness statements, and coordinate with experts and do scene inspections before conditions change.
There is never a fee unless we get you a financial recovery.
In the industrial or workplace accident context, our office has both attorneys that file lawsuits and workers compensation lawyers, which allows us to coordinate your legal representation and make sure that you have professionals who take a team approach to representing your interests.
We are not your typical law firm. When we look at our clients whose lives have been affected by an accident or fatality, we always think, but for the grace of God, go I. At our office, you are more than just a file, you are a person with real problems and it is our job to move heaven and earth to improve your situation. We value family and that allows us to bring a personal touch to wrongful death cases and we understand that the loss of a wife, husband and child leaves a hole that can never be filled, so our wrongful death attorneys do all that can be done within the bounds of the law to make sure anyone who was negligent and causes a wrongful death pay for their actions. As parents, we understand the impact of an injury to a child and have handled numerous cases where children have broken bones or fractures because of unsafe playground equipment.
Our White Plains criminal defense lawyers have won numerous stunning dismissals and not guilty charges on behalf of the falsely accused.
Whether you have been contacted by the police to "just give a statement" or whether a friend or family member was just arrested, you need legal representation to protect you. Our Westchester County criminal lawyers can appear in bail hearings in any of the local Criminal Courts in Westchester County. We fight to get our clients out of jail and to keep them out of jail. We share office space with a bail bondsman and can facilitate getting bail posted day or night even on the weekends.
In driving while intoxicated cases, we regularly appear at D.W.I. refusal hearings in Yonkers and will aggressively fight for you to keep your license. We also have extensive experience in hardship hearings after DWI suspensions pending prosecution.
Our criminal defense and civil rights attorneys stand up for our clients and regularly fight the case. We aggressively fight civil rights violations, whether they be illegal searches or misidentifications. We regularly hire experts to fight the people's case and we do not simply accept the version of the facts which the police and prosecutors put forward. Whether you are facing misdemeanor or felony charges, a good criminal defense lawyer is all that stands between you and the power of the State.
Not only do we defend these cases, when baseless claims are brought by the police, we regularly file civil rights law suits and our legal team has one of the highest reported jury verdicts for a malicious prosecution case. We understand the anguish that a false arrest, a baseless prosecution and police brutality can have on a person's life. When the police fabricate charges or manufacture or slant evidence, we go after them. We sue the police in spite of the political ramifications because we believe in one simple principal, Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice anywhere.
We are not only attorneys, but we are parents. So all of us have a soft spot for youthful offenders and go the extra mile to prevent a criminal charge from ruing a young person's life. Our Westchester County criminal lawyers have represented numerous teenagers who are charged as adults with crimes and we fight to keep them from going to jail or getting criminal records by either obtaining violation reductions or youthful offender treatment. We have successfully represented numerous teenagers in cases involving sex crimes such as rape, forcible touching, sexual assault and sexual misconduct. We have also represented numerous teenagers who were charged with shoplifting, petit larceny, robbery, unauthorized use of a vehicle, possession and sale of drugs including marijuana, cocaine, LSD, acid, Crystal Meth, PCP, oxycotin and many others. We can help your child or loved one get into a program, get the help they need and avoid jail.
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Our attorneys have extensive experience in the Westchester Criminal Courts including White Plains, Yonkers, New Rochelle, Mt. Kisco, Greenburgh, Elmsford, Mamaroneck, Scarsdale, Hartsdale, Bronxville, Sleepy Hollow, Irvington, Armonk, Port Chester, Rye, and Mount Vernon.
Our rates are affordable and we have flexible payment plans.
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Wednesday, Dec. 3, 2008
by Tyler Peck, sports information graduate assistant
MILLEDGEVILLE, Ga. - Even after the season, the Georgia College & State University women's soccer team is making the headlines. The National Soccer Coaches Association of America (NSCAA) revealed its NSCAA College Team Academic Award Winners for 2008. The team must have a GPA of 3.0 or higher in order to receive the award.
Georgia College (3.52 GPA) was tied for 14th out of 262 schools; it was also first among Peach Belt Conference (PBC) schools.
"I have been so impressed with this group of ladies and the commitment to excellence they have shown in every area of their lives," Head Coach Juan Pablo Favero said "This recognition for their commitment to academics is a direct reflection on the effort and time our student-athletes have invested into their studies, so we are very proud for them. For us to have such a high team GPA with the high academic standards and requirements at Georgia College, only adds value to this achievement."
The Bobcats finished the season with a 13-3-4, 5-1-2 PBC record. The 13 wins ties for most wins in a season. The Bobcats finished third in the PBC, fifth in the NSCAA Southeast Region Poll, and fourth in the NCAA Southeast Region Poll. Georgia College also made their first NCAA Tournament appearance in school history this past season.
The GCSU Department of Athletics sponsors 10 varsity athletic programs at the NCAA Division II level. As a Division II program, GCSU prides itself on balancing the life of the student-athlete, evidenced by the Bobcats' multiple appearances in post-season competition as well as documented academic success and community-service involvement. Follow the Bobcats and their positive impact on the Milledgeville community at www.gcsu.edu/bobcats.


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The Stig is one of the most prevalent parts of Top Gear, but he hasn't really made an appearance on the US version of the show since the first season. Well, he's back on Top Gear USA, and he knows how to make an entrance.
Here, Tanner, Rut, and Adam are out screwing around with some classic American iron when a helicopter flies overhead. Then something falls out of said helicopter.
It's a pretty cool stunt, and should make for a great episode of Top Gear USA tonight.


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IPO may force Twitter to drop character limit: Analyst
Twitter will almost certainly increase its trademark 140-character limit to accommodate advertising once it goes public, a United States-based financial analyst says.
The microblogging company has revealed plans to raise $US1 billion through an initial public offering (IPO) and is expected to be the most sought-after new listing since Facebook's market debut in May last year.
Documents filed with US Securities and Exchange Commission show Twitter had 218 million active users as of June 30, and lost nearly $US80 million on nearly $US317 million in revenue in 2012.
The company generates 65 per cent of its revenue from mobile advertising and has 100 million daily active users.
The chief executive of financial information provider PrivCo Sam Hamadeh believes Twitter will need to be flexible to satisfy its shareholders.
Both Google and Facebook have increased advertising on their sites to justify their market valuation, he says.
"Once it's a public company, it has very demanding stockholders to meet and missing earnings or growth slowing - Wall Street has no mercy," Mr Hamadeh said.
"And so you can bet they will punish Twitter for any misses and I think it's inevitable they will loosen that 140-character limit. It's not a sacred cow."
Mr Hamadeh says while the 140-character limit on tweets is central to Twitter's success so far, the messages are too short.
"They're very short messages, very concise but for an advertising vehicle it doesn't allow advertisers much room to really sell their wares," he says.
Advanced Human Technologies chairman Ross Dawson says Twitter must avoid the mistakes of Facebook as it prepares for its market debut.
Facebook's listing on the Nasdaq exchange faced numerous glitches and the share price slumped before recovering this year.
Its business model has been harshly criticised by analysts and investors for its reliance on advertising revenue.
But Mr Dawson says Twitter could be used as a business tool in the media sector.
"For example, television networks where Twitter can facilitate both the information and the engagement with other forms of media and other forms of advertising," he said.
"So once they extend beyond being able to extend the right messages to the right people as Facebook are doing, they could continue to generate revenue - although that will be a challenge."
Once Twitter is answerable to shareholders, Mr Dawson says the company will have to focus on innovation to engage new users.
Topics: internet-technology, computers-and-technology, business-economics-and-finance, company-news, united-states
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