Note from Pastor Andy

According to a new study by the World Health Organization and the Harvard Medical School, Americans are the unhappiest people on Earth. Because you drive on rush-hour freeways in Dallas, you already knew this. But now there's statistical proof.

Researchers found that 9.6 percent of Americans suffer from depression or bipolar disorder. That's the highest rate of the 14 nations surveyed. No longer is the old USA solely the land of opportunity; we're now the land of therapy as well.

Get this: America has a greater percentage of depressed people than war-torn Lebanon (6.6%); unemployed Mexico (4.8%); hedonistic Italy (3.8%); and overworked Japan (3.1%). If that's not enough to astound you, get this: Nigeria, an impoverished, conflicted, and corrupted land, had the lowest depression rate of all-just 0.8%.

How can this be? The theory is that when your life is a struggle to survive, you're too busy to contemplate despair. Existentialism truly is a luxury of affluence. Also, in poorer societies, relationships tend to be tighter-knit and faith stronger. When you have nothing, family and faith is everything. I myself have observed this in Nigeria, as a matter of fact.

It's not that we don't have faith and family in America. Obviously, we do. It's just that there's so much else as well. Being continually distracted from experiencing and investing in what truly matters is little different from not having what truly matters at all. I just have one word to say about that: Less-is-more...

Do you think maybe Jesus was right when He said, "Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God" (Luke 6.20)?

Cortisone

So I have tendonitis, due to excessive typing! Can you believe that? Curse of the IT guy! So I go to my Orthopedic surgeon right? He walks in checks the symptoms and diagnoses it almost immediately as tendonitis and decides to give me a cortisone shot! So I was like..'OK'..thats sounds cool! So he numbs my wrist and punctures it. A sharp pain but its all good, we are chatting away! Then he says, I am all done! So I am waiting on him to come back and slowly the I get the feeling back on my wrist! And dude, that's when the pain hits me, excruciating pain! So he comes back and dismisses me! And then I decide to drive to work. I could'nt. Here I am in the car with this agonizing pain yelling my hind side off! Then automatically I drive towards home, pull my wife from the church and go home, still yelling and doze off. When I get up after 4 hours, I feel tons better! So now I am on braces and hoping the evil cortisone shot fixes me for good.

So there you are! You have been warned about 'Cortisone'. So the next time your doc says 'Cortisone', you know what it is and don't act naive like I did, like a lamb to the slaughter house! :)

Peace.

Unbelievable

March 19, 2007

Indian fans turn on their idols

Furious Indian cricket fans stormed the home of national wicketkeeper Mahendra Singh Dhoni on Sunday after the five-wicket defeat by Bangladesh. Some 200 fans brought down walls and pillars of Dhoni's house, which is under construction, in the eastern city of Ranchi to protest against his performance. State authorities deployed paramilitary units to prevent further possible attacks.

Similar protests were reported in Ahmedabad, where irate fans were out on the streets. They burned effigies of Rahul Dravid and screamed slogans against out-of-form batsman Virender Sehwag. "They have betrayed the faith of the entire nation," the fans chanted.

Can you believe that?