By Rick Nauert, PhD, Senior News Editor, PsychCentral.com

First we learn about sex addiction, now researchers are studying work addiction and how better to measure the disorder.

In a new study, Spanish researchers have developed a new scale for measuring addiction to work.

According to background information, around 12 percent of all working people in Spain suffer from the disorder. The experts say that 8 percent of the working population in Spain devotes more than 12 hours per day to their job.

“Addiction to work is a kind of psychosocial problem that is characterized by two primary features – working excessively and working compulsively,” Mario Del Líbano, lead author of the paper, said.

The results, published in the Spanish journal Psicothema, not only confirm the two dimensions of workaholism, but also relate the results with psychosocial well-being (perceived health and happiness), in order to highlight the negative features of addiction to work in Spain.

“People are only workaholics if, on top of working excessively, they work compulsively in order to reduce anxiety and the feelings of guilt that they get when they’e not working,” Del Líbano explains. “This study helps to evaluate addiction along with other phenomena that affect the psychosocial health of workers, without the time taken to fill in the questionnaire having any impact on their motivation,” he adds.

The new scale, called DUWAS (Dutch Work Addiction Scale), has been validated as a result of the criticisms about its validity and reliability made by two evaluation tools that have been most used to date – the WorkBAT (Workaholism Battery) and the WART (Work Addiction Risk Test).

Data on the worldwide prevalence of addiction to work vary from one study to another. It is placed at around 20 percent in countries such as Japan, while in Spain the figures are between 11.3 percent and 12 percent, according to research carried out in 2004 by Sánchez Pardo, Navarro Botella and Valderrama Zurián, and Del Líbano’s group in 2006, respectively.

The International Labour Organisation (ILO) says that 8 percent of the working population devotes more than 12 hours per day to their profession in order to escape from personal problems. According to the experts, spending more than 50 hours per week working could be a determining factor in addiction.

Addiction to work is characterized by extreme activity in and devotion to work (with people even working outside working hours, at weekends and on holidays), compulsion to work (inability to delegate), disproportionate involvement with work (people relating their self-esteem to their work), and focusing on work to the detriment of their daily lives (poor interpersonal communication).

Some risk factors that can lead to such addiction include financial, family and social pressures; fear of losing one’s job; competition in the labor market; the need to achieve a desired level of success; fear of overbearing, demanding or threatening bosses; high levels of personal work efficiency; and lack of personal affection, with the person trying to make up for this with their work.

In addition, workaholic people can also end up taking illegal substances to help them work harder, enabling them to increase their workplace performance and overcome tiredness and the need for sleep.

Source: “Work Addiction Measured With New Scale”, LiveScience

Vitamin D deficiency has been linked to a rapidly expanding inventory of ailments–including heart disease , cancer and the common cold . A new discovery demonstrates how the vitamin plays a major role in keeping the body healthy in the first place, by allowing the immune system's T cells to start doing their jobs.  [More]

Source: “Another reason vitamin D is important: it gets T cells going”, Scientific American

This homily was first delivered during a Sabbath Sunrise Service at the Ellen G. White Project conference on October 24, 2009 in Portland, Maine, Ellen White’s birthplace.

Advent believers Reuben & Belinda Loveland buried their 17-year old daughter, Mary, shortly after her death on December 12, 1857. It was their third daughter to die in two years. Her obituary in The Review & Herald began this way:

“It becomes our painful duty to announce the death of another daughter of brother and sister Loveland, of Johnson, Vermont. Yes, Mary too has gone” (Albert Stone, The Review & Herald, Jan 7, 1858).

Three young women, sisters, lost to death in two years.
A decade and a half earlier, Reuben & Belinda Loveland had accepted the Advent message after hearing the preaching of William Miller. They had given up their farm for the cause; and experienced the Great Disappointment. Later, listening to Joseph Bates, they had accepted the sanctuary & Sabbath messages. For a decade and a half, the Lovelands had studied the law and the apocalyptic writings.

But at Mary’s funeral, the homily focused on a passage found in the poetry of the Hebrew prophet Jeremiah, which begins…

“A voice is heard in Ramah,
lamentation and bitter weeping.
Rachel is weeping for her children;
she refuses to be comforted for her children
because they are no more…” (31:15).

The funeral homily also used a phrase two verses later…

“There is hope for your future, says the Lord:
Your children shall come back to their own country” (31:17).

Reflecting on the Babylonian Exile, Jeremiah’s poetry captured the lamentation of loss and the hope for a future. These particular words of Scripture acknowledged both the Lovelands’ unspeakable tragedy and their Advent hope.

They missed their daughters terribly. Belinda would write in a letter to Uriah Smith, editor of The Review & Herald:
“Their places are vacant around the family altar; no more I hear their shouts of victory and songs of praise” (Review & Herald, June 11, 1857).

They missed their daughters terribly.

But the Lovelands also believed they would see their daughters at the Second Advent. Again, from Belinda’s pen in that letter to Smith:
“They will sleep but a little while; for in bright hope they died. Yes, I believe with all my heart in a little time from this, all will be over” (Review & Herald, June 11, 1857).
Weeping & Hope, side-by-side in Hebrew poetry;
and side-by-side in the experience of an early Adventist family.

Decades later, Ellen White, while living in Australia, would watch another Adventist family deal with the loss of a child.
John & Charlotte Pocock had no steady income after John accepted the Sabbath in 1892. Living 30 miles north of Sydney, John struggled to find odd jobs in order to keep his growing family fed. Sometimes he did not succeed.

One daughter always remembered the times when her mother had only a cracker to give each child for supper. Then she would say: “Now children, don’t tell Dad that this is all you had… He would feel too sad” (Joan Minchin-Neall, Adventist Heritage; Spring 1992, p 23).

When Ellen White heard of this family’s situation and struggles, she offered John a job helping to build “Sunnyside,” her home near Avondale College.

Suddenly the Pocock family’s future contained new possibilities! There was hope for a new start! Steady work and income. A community in which to raise their children.

Eventually John moved his family near Avondale. But within a week of their move, they had buried their 4-year old son, Albert.

“A voice is heard in Ramah,
lamentation and bitter weeping.
Rachel is weeping for her children;
she refuses to be comforted for her children
because they are no more…” (31:15).

“There is hope for your future, says the Lord:
Your children shall come back to their own country” (31:17).

Weeping & Hope…
Terrible loss mixed with the hope of a new life.
A new start, forever linked to the death of a child…
A place of new possibilities…and now, also, a place of loss.

How did Reuben & Belinda Loveland, John & Charlotte Pocock get through the nights that followed the death of their children?
How do any of us get through the long nights of weeping?

I was interested to learn while reading Gil Valentine’s latest manuscript on Ellen White and the General Conference Presidents, that many things kept her up at nights; unable to sleep…
Not only concerns for people—her children and her church. But also finances—how to pay the bills; how to meet those responsibilities? Health issues kept her up at nights, and church leaders who disappointed her.

Several weeks ago, I read a pamphlet in my doctor’s office. Over 70% of adults suffer from some sort of insomnia; some experience of not being able to rest for all the fears and anxieties. How did Reuben & Belinda Loveland get through the nights that followed the deaths of their daughters? Was it easier decades later? Or, did the delay of the Advent make their loss even more difficult?

How did John & Charlotte Pocock deal with the death of their little boy? How do any of us get through the long nights of weeping?

A voice is heard in…Ramah, and in…
Johnson, Vermont
Cooranbong
Elmshaven
Takoma Park
Berrien Springs
& Portland, Maine…

Rachel is weeping for her children…

How do any of us get through the long nights of weeping?

And what does the Palmist mean when he says:
“Weeping may linger for the night,
but joy comes with the morning”?

Hebrew Bible scholar, Walter Brueggemann, has suggested three categories in which to place the poetry of the Psalter. (Brueggemann, The Message of the Psalms)

While not wanting to dismiss their variety, nor to force them into a rigid grid, Brueggemann suggests that most psalms can be seen as either psalms of:
orientation
disorientation
new orientation

Psalms of orientation are those that express a season of well being, joy, delight. Those prayers and poetry that express the speaker’s sense of being blessed by God; surrounded by the things that bring contentment. When one has an overwhelming sense of satisfaction, ease, the good life.

Psalms of disorientation are those that express the seasons of anguish, suffering, death, rage, resentment Those prayers and poetry created by speakers who know deep loss, discontinuity, alienation, lament. Since in much of Jewish theology all things find their beginning in God, one must direct such experiences of anger and loss to God; even to an absent God.

Psalms of new orientation are those that surprise.
Right before disorientation is loss.
Right before new orientation is gift…
The inexplicable gift that brings an overwhelming sense of gratitude, wonder, awe, thanksgiving.
The gift that moves humans to respond with doxology.

Of course, humans know all three… we know orientation, disorientation, new orientation. We know the tension found in cries against God’s absence… and we know doxology at new beginnings.

For Brueggemann, the Psalms are the seasons of life brought to speech. I am intrigued by those seasons of life where agony meets newness… loss experiences new gift…

Where “My God, my God…why have you forsaken me?”
Becomes… “Praise God from whom all blessings flow…”

I am intrigued by the early Advent believers who went through the Great Disappointment but then experienced a new orientation… somehow finding even greater commitment and conviction possible.

Were such individuals deluded? Psychologically unhealthy? In denial? Or, did they understand, at some level that I long to, the Psalms? Did they get the Psalms? Did they experience, as Brueggemann states: “that hope [which] is rooted precisely in the midst of loss and darkness, where God is surprisingly present” (11-12)?

I guess I’m drawn to theology that takes seriously the experience of weeping at night… And doesn’t let an absence God off the hook. But in the anger and agony of experiences of disorientation, keeps talking with God, even if it is to raise a fist and voice in protest… Somehow in that action… that action of refusing to give up on a God who seems to have given up on us… somehow… There is a new experience of the presence of God; a rushing in of new wonder, gift, gratitude.

Brueggemann says that it’s “Because this One has promised to be in the darkness with us, we find the darkness strangely transformed, not by the power of easy light, but by the power of relentless solidarity. Out of the ‘fear not’ of that One spoken in the darkness, we are marvelously given new life, we know not how” (12).

This idea has been captured in a powerful way by the musical group, “Sweet Honey in the Rock.” In 1973, Dr. Bernice Johnson Reagon, of the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C. began an a capella vocal group made up of five African American women musicians. Their songs challenge acts of oppression while embracing the courage of faith and justice. One of their songs is an interpretation of Psalm 137.

They start out slow…and very low…
“By the waters of Babylon…where we sat down…and where we wept…when we remembered Zion…”
This part of the Psalm is repeated–
“By the waters of Babylon…where we sat down…and where we wept…when we remembered Zion…”
One can almost see people in chains, walking to Babylon…weeping… being allowed to rest, to sit down beside the Babylonian river Chebar, and then weeping some more…

And then there is a reminder of the next part of the psalm…
“Those who carried us away to captivity…required of us a song…
How can we sing our holy songs in a strange land?”
This part of the Psalm is also repeated…
“Those who carried us away to captivity…required of us a song…
How can we sing our holy songs in a strange land?”
The song increases in volume…and in intensity…and in hope as one realizes…
Even as they ask, “how can we sing a sacred song in a strange land?” they are, indeed, doing just that!
These women, representing all who weep through the night…all who experience an absent God are walking to Babylon in chains and asked by their oppressors to sing/perform/entertain us they respond: How can we sing our sacred songs in a strange land?
Yet, at that very moment, they are singing a sacred song in a strange land…a new psalm is created! The psalms/songs of disorientation are a bold act of faith.

It is a bold act of faith to say you can’t sing in a strange land even as you create a new song.

It is a bold act of faith to shake a fist to the heavens on October 23 & say “Where are you?” because more than anything you wanted to be in the presence of God & shaking a first is at least aimed somewhere.

It is a bold act of faith to attend a conference and to ask tough questions of Adventist history, and then to participate in an Adventist worship service early in the morning on a Sabbath morning.

The Psalms of disorientation are a bold act of faith.

And they are an act of new creation; a new song.
The voices, in their state of alienation, bondage, disorientation, the loss of all that is familiar,
those very voices…
…will testify
…will create new sacred songs
…will sing once again.

How does it happen?
What moves the poetry from weeping…to hope?
What transforms the weeping itself into song?
How is it possible to sing our holy songs in a strange land?

How to sing when our children’s voices are no longer with us around the family altar?
When we stand at a grave site?
When nights seem endless and sleep doesn’t come?
When there is no easy forgiveness…of our enemies, our plight, of our God…?

The Psalms take seriously the experience of disorientation.
Disorientation means real loss…
* of a companion, of a child
* of a church we no longer recognize
* of an imagined future
* of a heritage that must be re-evaluated, re-considered

Disorientation means real loss… and the Psalms take disorientation seriously… are honest about tragedy; tragedy that makes it difficult to breathe, to move, to put one foot in front of another…
but then, sometimes with just a pause in the poetry, in a break between stanzas, there is a shift in the poetry from weeping…to hope

From Psalm 30:5 -
“Weeping may linger for the night,
but joy comes with the morning.”

So how does one move from the poetry of night … to the joy of morning?
How does one move from “My God, My God, why has thou forsaken me?”… to a new song?

As Brueggemann works through these Psalms, he observes:

“… the speaker and the community of faith are often surprised by grace, when there emerges in present life a new possibility that is inexplicable, neither desired nor extrapolated, but wrought by the inscrutable power and goodness of God. That newness cannot be explained, predicted or programmed…” (124).

The believing community responds in amazement and gratitude through song because “new life requires doxology” (127).

At their best, communities of faith do what the Psalms do…
They take the seasons of life and bring them to speech.
Seasons of orientation…and disorientation…and new orientation.

Communities of faith know great disappointments where they “weep and weep until the day dawns.” But then there is a brand new day. And those same communities of faith sing their Advent hymns once again.

On April 25 of this year, the grandson of John & Charlotte Pocock, Arthur Patrick, along with his wife, Joan, took the great great great granddaughter of Reuben & Belinda Loveland to a dawn service in celebration of ANZAC (Australia – NZ – Army Corp) Day.

It is a day each year remembering those who have sacrificed during times of war. It begins before six in the morning; before dawn.

Arthur, Joan and I went to the service held in Morisset, a small town not far from Ellen White’s “Sunnyside” home in Cooranbong.

As we stood in the darkness, the memories and scenes of war brought tears. Those of us gathered in the dark considered the loss of so many young men and women. We imagined the soldiers riding the train nearby, headed to Gallipoli and the Kakoda Trail and Kabul and Bagdad. All the Rachels weeping for their children.

But then the dawn came; the sun began to rise…and the local college band, the Avondale College band, played…
And we sang songs of freedom and hope.
And I don’t know exactly how it happened,

but there was joy in the morning.

Kendra Haloviak is assistant professor of New Testament Studies at La Sierra University.

Source: “Sabbath Sermon: Joy in the Morning”, Spectrum Blog

What you eat affects more than physical health. Two new studies have added to the growing evidence linking the stomach and the brain.

In a report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences , researchers studied how junk food can trigger addiction behaviors. The brain chemical corticotropin-releasing-factor, CRF, is linked to motivation, and plays a role in drug and alcohol withdrawal and relapse. Researchers had rats eat normal food, then binge on sugar and chocolate-flavored snacks. When the rats went off the junk, they expressed CRF, just as do rats going through withdrawal. The rodents also had more anxiety and were less interested in normal food.

[More]

Source: “Diet and the Brain”, Scientific American

The push to prevent skin cancer may have come with unintended consequences–impaired brain function because of a deficiency of vitamin D. The “sunshine vitamin” is synthesized in our skin when we are exposed to direct sunlight, but sunblock impedes this process. And although vitamin D is well known for promoting bone health and regulating vital calcium levels–hence its addition to milk–it does more than that. Scientists have now linked this fat-soluble nutrient’s hormonelike activity to a number of functions throughout the body, including the workings of the brain.

“We know there are receptors for vitamin D throughout the central nervous system and in the hippocampus,” said Robert J. Przybelski, a doctor and research scientist at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. “We also know vitamin D activates and deactivates enzymes in the brain and the cerebrospinal fluid that are involved in neurotransmitter synthesis and nerve growth.” In addition, animal and laboratory studies suggest vitamin D protects neurons and reduces inflammation.

[More]

Source: “Does Vitamin D Improve Brain Function?”, Scientific American

We are planning a new start to this site. I hope you enjoy and find some useful information in the posts that will follow.

As always we will post items that we find as we research the Internet. We do not necessarily subscribe to the views of the quoted material, but we hope that it provides “food for thought”.

If you have any thoughts on how to improve this site, please let us know. If you have any questions, we are more than happy to dialog with you.

May God bless you in your ministry

I place this before you in awareness of an ongoing discussion in some quarters between faith and science, particularly as it relates to origins and creation.

For us as a community it has always been of utmost importance to stay close to the Scripture. Faith has that as its final point of reference. We must not allow ourselves to come adrift from the Bible in defining our values and in stating what we hold.

Our position as a church in the matter of origins is clearly although somewhat broadly stated in our Fundamental Beliefs. This position is further amplified in a statement voted by the General Conference Executive Committee at the 2004 Annual Council. To remind ourselves of the details of that action, I have included the wording in this appeal:

    “We strongly endorse the document‘s affirmation of our historic, biblical position of belief in a literal, recent, six-day Creation.

    We urge that the document, accompanied by this response, be disseminated widely throughout the world Seventh-day Adventist Church, using all available communication channels and in the major languages of world membership.

    We reaffirm the Seventh-day Adventist understanding of the historicity of Genesis 1-11: that the seven days of the Creation account were literal 24-hour days forming a week identical in time to what we now experience as a week; and that the Flood was global in nature.

    We call on all boards and educators at Seventh-day Adventist institutions at all levels to continue upholding and advocating the church’s position on origins.  We, along with Seventh-day Adventist parents, expect students to receive a thorough, balanced, and scientifically rigorous exposure to and affirmation of our historic belief in a literal, recent six-day creation, even as they are educated to understand and assess competing philosophies of origins that dominate scientific discussion in the contemporary world.

    We urge church leaders throughout the world to seek ways to educate members, especially young people attending non-Seventh-day Adventist schools, in the issues involved in the doctrine of creation.

    We call on all members of the worldwide Seventh-day Adventist family to proclaim and teach the church’s understanding of the biblical doctrine of Creation, living in its light, rejoicing in our status as sons and daughters of God, and praising our Lord Jesus Christ–our Creator and Redeemer.”

I appeal to all engaged by our church in the ministries of administration, preaching, teaching, and writing to articulate and reflect our stand as a community on Creation. We are a faith-community, and the world of faith is the world in which God’s creative powers are on constant display. Sometimes the findings of science may reflect some of this, but often not. Faith is certainly not subject to findings of science.

To those who teach at our colleges and universities, let me say that you have a demanding, often difficult, but sacred assignment. It is a ministry you hold in trust. It is understood that to care for your ministry responsibly you have to take your students on many a journey of findings into various disciplines of study. They need to know what they will meet in their profession and in life. As part of that exercise you will also expose them to the elements and concepts of evolution. That is understood.

As your pastor, however, I appeal to you that when you take your students out on the journey, you bring them safely back home before the day is over. And their home must always be in the world of faith. You owe it to the students, you owe it to God, you owe it to their parents, you owe it to the church, and you owe it to yourself as a believer to safely guide them through difficult moments on their journey.

This appeal comes with the greatest respect for your integrity and your professional skills. But you are also my sister and brother in faith, and we share a common commitment to God to whom we shall ultimately bring the fruits of our labor. I pray that he will give to each of us the strength that accompanies faithfulness.

Jan Paulsen

Source: “An Appeal”, Adventist News Network

Study indicates marijuana damages genetic material in ways that could increase the risk of cancer.

Source: “Marijuana Damages DNA and May Cause Cancer”, LiveScience.com

Derek Paravicini has absolute pitch, which is better than perfect pitch. When he hears a chord with ten notes in it, he can identify them all. And, he can play the piano like crazy.

“He can master any melody on earth, has a databank of thousands of songs in his head and can play any one of them at will, improvising as he goes,” The Daily Mail reports.

Interestingly, Paravicini (now in his 30s) was born 14 weeks premature and not expected to survive. He is blind and severely disabled. But man, can he play.

via Blind Pianist Can Play Anything | LiveScience Etc..

The Adventist Development and Relief Agency is passing out food and supplies to survivors of a cyclone that hit the southwestern coast of Bangladesh late last month.

The Adventist Development and Relief Agency is providing food and supplies to survivors of Cyclone Aila that hit the southwestern coast of Bangladesh late last month. The cyclone killed nearly 200 people and left hundreds of thousands homeless, relief workers in the region said. [photo: ADRA]

Cyclone Aila killed nearly 200 people and left hundreds of thousands homeless, relief workers in the region said. Aila also destroyed homes, businesses and thousands of acres of cropland, officials from ADRA said.

“Many villages are still underwater, and because of the rainfall we are afraid that the situation of survivors will continue to deteriorate,” said Elidon Bardhi, country director for ADRA Bangladesh. “Currently, people are in desperate need for basic necessities, including medical assistance, food, and clean water.”

ADRA, the aid organization for the Seventh-day Adventist Church, is distributing emergency supplies to survivors throughout the severely affected area near the Bangladesh and India border. Workers are providing food and water purification tablets to 1,200 affected families.

In some low-lying areas, seawater has contaminated water supplies, leaving communities with little or no access to drinking water, ADRA officials said.

“People were very happy to receive the emergency supplies,” Bardhi said. “At least for now they will be able to forget their hunger and focus on the recovery process.”

Local officials said ADRA was the first aid organization to distribute relief supplies in the region after the cyclone hit.

In neighboring eastern India, Cyclone Aila also killed a least 150 people and left more than 150,000 homeless. The heavy rain caused numerous landslides and damaged large agricultural areas.

About 80 percent of Bangladesh’s rain accumulation occurs during the annual monsoon season, which lasts from June to October. Bangladesh is particularly vulnerable due to its general low elevation and high population density.

For more information, visit adra.org

Source: “ADRA aids survivors of cyclone in Bangladesh, India”, Adventist News Network