Email: The examined life [SD]

People always ask the question "What is normal? Normal for one person is abnormal for another." But it depends on what specific examples you have in mind. We all need oxygen -- that is normal! Other things are simply tastes or preferences; classical music may be acceptable to many, though some will weep tears of boredom at it. "Goth" teens may carry predilections that are at odds with more emotionally well-adjusted or middle-of-the-road people (though some nice kids hide beneath a goth wardrobe). Trust me, it is normal for me to be this diligent, and I do make time to re-create my inner self (more on this later).

Read Martin E. Seligman's What You Can Change and What You Can't (or also his Authentic Happiness). He notes that the Bible is only concerned with crediting God as the originator of all cause and effect, but by the Renaissance, we learned that through art and science, human actions can also change our world and our selves. So you have the theology right -- God is sovereign -- but that is only half of reality -- humans have gifts and free will as well. Fundamentalists (and some evangelicals) diminish or dismiss the part of people, probably in the belief that God is all in all, and that in promoting him, everything else will take care of itself. And that's true, in a way: Give a body nutrition and, in general, it will heal itself when ill. (In this metaphor, the closer to God a person genuinely -- not just circumstantially -- comes, the more likely he or she will remain emotionally and spiritually healthy.) However, medicine definitely also speeds recovery. (In this metaphor, it helps to be practical too.)

You would really be blown away to see the movie What the Bleep Do We Know? It sounds like a lot of New Age woo-woo speculation, but actually 95% of it presents the very latest discoveries in how quantum physics interact with the physical, intellectual and spiritual world we live in.