Vol. III, # 47, July 1, 2005

The Catacombs Start in One Week

The Catacombs begin on Sunday, July 10 and hopefully we may have many guests from other classes as we have in the past. PH is sure that all Shepsons will make all of our guests feel welcome in the manner in which Pastor Mike preached last Sunday for the congregation at large.

The Catacombs schedule of speakers is as follows:

Chris Lindbloom will begin the lectures this year on July 10. Chris is a section leader in our Chancel Choir and an organist. He spoke to us last year and this year will continue with three lectures. His topics are as follows:

July 10th: Hymnology 101 - Everything on the page.
July 17th: Why We Do What We Do - Part II - The historical / theological / liturgical roots of worship at RRCB.
July 24th: The Counter-Cultural Church, Since that is what some think we are now

Rob James will give two lectures this year beginning on July 31 and continuing on August 7. His topic is:

Where Jesus Sounds Like the Book of Revelation: The Synoptic Apocalypse, Mark 13=Matt 24=Luke 21

Brenda and PH will have one presentation on August 14. The topic will be the HBO film “Warm Springs” or:

Warm Springs - What's Fact and What's Fiction

We will have a new lecturer on August 21. Retired University of Richmond professor Lynn Dickerson will speak to us on the topic:

Religion in American Literature.

BTSR President Tom Graves will complete the Catacombs this year with two lectures

August 28 - "The End Is Near: The Christian and End Of Life Issues"
September 4 - "The End Is Near: The Christian and a Philosophy of History"

This seems like an outstanding group of lectures. We have a very qualified musician, a retired religion professor, a retired English professor, a leading seminary president and a village shrink with his lady for all seasons. Spread the word and may we fill all the seats in the Elizabeth B. Wilson Multipurpose Municipal Auditorium on Sunday, July 10.

One Year Ago

On Sunday, July 4, 2004, the Pastor Search Committee reported in a congregational meeting following the worship service that Mike Clingenpeel would become River Road Church, Baptist's next pastor. The congregation voted unanimously on the next Sunday to joyously accept Pastor Mike and Vivian and we met them in a reception following the meeting. On Sunday, September 12, 2004, Pastor Mike preached his first sermon as our pastor. Our church with Pastor Mike and all of the church staff has excellent shepherds.

During Cecil Sherman's last weeks as our interim pastor, he preached a sermon on keeping the Sabbath. As a veteran preacher who had walked the faith many years he said some words that the younger generation may need to hear over and over. Cecil said:

" A lady talking to me since I've taken this job, having visited this church two or three times in the period of my assignment said, "Once you break the church habit, it's hard to recreate it." It may be second tier, but it matters. It's like a lot of things that are not the most important thing, but they matter. Does punctuality matter? Is it the most important thing on the job? No. But if the help come in 20 minutes late and leave 10 minutes early and cheat a little on the front and back end of lunch and extend time at the water fountain and the coffee break and the restroom, you better be running a profitable enterprise, or you can go broke on punctuality. Do study habits matter? They're not the most important thing, but unless you're pretty smart, study habits matter. Does what you eat make any difference when you're fifteen? When I was fifteen I could treat my stomach like a garbage can and function pretty well, but I understand that inside somewhere, somewhere, something's keeping score. It rose up and bit me last month! Those nickel and dime hamburgers I ate a long time ago and a few other habits, does it make any difference? It's second line, but it has a whole lot to do with the kind of person you are way down the road, it's just a little thing; it's one of those little things that matter. Being a Christian means you set apart a day. It's D-D-D in Christian history. You need it, the generations who come after need to see it in you. Fifty years from now they need to imitate you. It helps church, but far more important, it matters who you are. It identifies you, ultimately. Dedicating a day – it strengthens the church. But far more important, it strengthens you".

Prayer Rounds

Remember in your prayers: Elmer West, Wyatt Heisler and her family, Chester Phelps and his family, Sandra Sizemore's Great Aunt Myrtle Kurz and the family of Myrtle Kurz, John Curtis, the family of Deborah Marsh, Philip and Shanna Davis, Kathy Wade's Missionary friend John Seale, Arlene and Cecil Perry, Audrey Thomson's sister Sharon Ruben and Sharon's family, Jared Oliver, Charlotte Ladd, Kirk Dadisman, B. J. Seymour, the VCU BSU, Cecil and Dot Sherman, Julia Tyler and her parents, Kay and Bob Culpeper, Linda and Rick Mears, the Church clergy and the church staff. Prayers should also be offered for our military and civilians in harm's way and for those only known to you.

Donald Deer and His Knowledge of Words

Donald Deer sent PH the following E-mail. PH does not know the exact source of these words, but Donald sent them.

Twenty-one reasons why the English language is so hard to learn:

1) The bandage was wound around the wound.
2) The farm was used to produce produce.
3) The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.
4) We must polish the Polish furniture.
5) He could lead if he would get the lead out.
6) The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.
7) Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present.
8) A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.
9) When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.
10) I did not object to the object.
11) The insurance was invalid for the invalid.
12) There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.
13) They were too close to the door to close it.
14) The buck does funny things when the does are present.
15) A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.
16) To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.
17) The wind was too strong to wind the sail.
18) After a number of injections my jaw got number.
19) Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear.
20) I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.
21) How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?

Let's face it - English is a crazy language. There is no egg in eggplant nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple. English muffins weren't invented in England or French fries in France. Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren't sweet, are meat.

We take English for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig. And why is it that writers write but fingers don't fing, grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham?

If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn't the plural of booth beeth? One goose, 2 geese. So one moose, 2 meese?

Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend. If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it? If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?

Sometimes I think all the English speakers should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane. In what other language do people: Recite at a play and play at a recital? Ship by truck and send cargo by ship? Have noses that run and feet that smell? How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites?

You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by filling it out and in which, an alarm goes off by going on.

English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the creativity of the human race, which, of course, is not a race at all. That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible. And finally, why doesn't "Buick" rhyme with "quick"?

Read Chapter Three of Second Samuel.

Teacher Bob will probably start with chapter three of Second Samuel this Sunday. Be ready for more violence.

Bob Tyler Was Born on the Fourth of July

Shepson Bob Tyler was born on the Fourth of July twenty-nine years ago. Shepson Ann Sledge will celebrate her twenty-ninth birthday on next Friday, July 8.

Does Bailey Thomson Want to Be a Midshipwoman?

PH really does not know, but PH received the following E-mail from Bailey's mother:

Henry,

It seems that the Hollands and Thomsons were all at the Naval Academy in the same weekend! Bailey just completed Summer Seminar, an opportunity for those students interested in attending the Academy to have a "taste" of midshipman life. They crammed a lot into a few days--everything from academics to physical endurance to military leadership. Bailey was one of 600 students from all across the country attending this week's Seminar, pushing herself beyond her perceived limitations. You'll recall that Gordon is an '82 USNA grad.

Audrey

Have You Heard About Crusie Control?

The talk of the town and nation this past week has been the confrontative interview between Actor Tom Cruise and Matt Lauer of the Today Show. The psychiatric community has been cautious in reacting to this apparent rant. One of the best responses follows:

Psychiatrists Defend Psychiatric Drug Use
Wednesday, June 29, 2005
By Daniel J. DeNoon

Are psychiatric drugs as bad as Tom Cruise says they are?

In an unusually candid interview on last Friday's Today Show, Cruise called psychiatry a false science. Cruise's religion, Scientology, has long opposed the use of psychiatric drugs.

In keeping with these beliefs, the Hollywood star spoke out against the use of drugs to treat depression, childhood ADHD, and psychosis. What do doctors say?

A Life or Death Decision

Last weekend, psychoanalyst Mark I. Levy, MD, got an email from a former patient. The patient said her 20-something daughter — on medication for bipolar disorder — saw the Cruise interview. Levy is a psychoanalyst, a forensic psychiatrist, and an assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco.

" This was tremendously destructive. All the daughter needed to hear was that her medicines are poisoning her brain; that this is part of a psychiatrist conspiracy — and she went off her medications," Levy tells WebMD. "Some 15 percent of people with untreated bipolar depression die of suicide. It is a medical condition with a high risk of death. And, in addition to suicide, bipolar patients who launch into mania can act in very self-destructive ways. This is one specific application where psychiatric medication is critically important."

Yes, Levy says, psychiatric medications — as do all drugs — carry risks as well as benefits. But there can be very serious consequences to not taking them, too.

Nada Stotland, MD, MPH, professor of psychiatry at Chicago's Rush University, notes that there is a great deal of scientific debate over the merits of certain psychiatric drugs — but no more debate than seen over drugs used in many other fields of medicine.

" Tom Cruise said there is no scientific basis for psychiatric drugs. But there is an increasing scientific basis," Stotland tells WebMD. "For example, we can see differences between brain images of someone who is depressed and someone who is not depressed. And if we give medications, the brain of the depressed person goes back to looking like a person not depressed."

Such experiments don't prove that psychiatric medications are the only way to treat depression. But they do show a positive effect.

" There are good studies that psychotherapy can produce similar imaging results as seen with antidepressants," Levy says. "I do not prescribe drugs willy-nilly. But for most psychiatric disorders, the best treatment is medication plus psychotherapy. One or the other, alone, is not as effective."

Special Problems for Psychiatric Drugs

Stotland does not ignore the fact that there are some very real problems with psychiatric drugs. One is that they may be prescribed by doctors who do not fully understand the subtleties of psychiatric diagnosis.

" Psychiatric medications should be prescribed after an accurate psychiatric diagnosis is made," Stotland says. "They should be prescribed by someone who knows what they are doing. Patients should be closely followed up. And the drugs should be prescribed in the context of continuing medical care."

Psychiatric medications, Stotland says, are not the answer to all the problems posed by mental illness. Unfortunately, she says, private insurers often pay only for drugs — and not for psychotherapy.

" Our health insurance discriminates against care for mental illness, and it especially discriminates against psychotherapy," she says. "Some insurers say you have to give a psychiatric medicine before they will pay for psychotherapy — that is wrong."

Stotland says psychiatric drugs are just as useful — and have just as much medical justification — as cancer drugs. It upsets her that there is not as much outrage over Cruise's remarks as there would be if he attacked cancer chemotherapy.

" If a movie star was to say cancer treatment has no scientific basis and hurts people, everyone would be outraged," Stotland says. "We should be similarly outraged by Mr. Cruise. Every time we pick out psychiatry to discredit, we are really hearkening back to the dark ages and before. We all need to be more scientific and more up to date. There are many sources for good information, including our own National Institutes of Health, universities from coast to coast, advocacy associations composed of people with mental illness and their family members — all of whom have credentials. It is a terrible disservice for a person without such credentials to rant and rave and to tell other people to stop taking their medicine."

By Daniel J. DeNoon, reviewed by Michael W. Smith, MD

SOURCES: Nada Stotland, MD, MPH, board member, American Psychiatric Association; and board member, National Mental Health Association; professor of psychiatry, Rush University, Chicago. Mark I. Levy, MD, assistant clinical professor of psychiatry, University of California, San Francisco. American Psychiatric Association. Church of Scientology.

Sent to PH regarding a recent bumper sticker: Don't Be Born Again, Just Grow Up!

Lacrosse Fever

Last week PH reported that Brenda and PH had been to a lacrosse tournament in Annapolis, Maryland. Attached is a photo of PH surrounded by lacrosse players and supporters. This photo was taken by Shepson Brenda. Left to right are Will, Liza, Kathy, PH, Nick and Davis. Kathy is the mother of the four kids and Brenda and PH are the parental unit for Kathy.

PH

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