Is Yoga Heathen?

 Greek Orthodox Church (and some others) think so: 

Downward dog, sun salutations and all other yoga practices are "absolutely incompatible" with the Christian faith, the powerful Greek Orthodox Church has said.

Yoga has no place "in the life of Christians," the governing body of the Church has ruled.

It said it intervened after Greek media recommended yoga as a way to combat stress during coronavirus quarantine.

Other religions have also advised against the practice in the past.

I would agree about spiritual stuff and meditations, but I also heard one preacher explain that most of what passes for "yoga" nowadays in the West are actually physical exercises developed by Lutheran missionaries in India in the 19th century for the soldiers to keep fit and they have very little to do with Hinduism thus we are free to practice them.

What do you think?

Of All The Weird Things...

 I've seen lately, this one takes the cake:

Wine for dogs:)))

But not allowed for puppies under 3 months, lol!

The Undomestic Goddess

 A book review.

The Undomestic Goddess is a  book by Sophie Kinsella, a British author famous for her Shopacolic series. It first came out in 2005 but I only read it last week. 

It tells us a story of an ambitious young career woman, a lawyer working for one of the most prestigious City firms Carter Spink whose only dream is to become a full partner there (I think that's how it's called in English since I only read a Dutch translation). On the first sight, Samantha Sweeting should be an object of everyone's envy. She's only 29 but is already well know for her talents, earns huge salary etc etc. 

Yet, the author shows her as entirely miserable. She lives in a trashed up apartment, eats alternatively a Chinese takeaway or pizza and doesn't even have time to visit a beauty parlour. She has to work overtime, never takes a vacation, has no hobbies and only one old school friend. Her family don't care for her, either. They don't even bother to come to her birthday party. Her mother is a typical bitter divorced career woman who hates men and have pushed Samantha to "make something out of herself"  since she was a little kid.

It's hardly surprising then that she's close to a nervous breakdown which promptly happens when she discovers that she made a mistake which will cost her company lots of money, and that on the day of her promotion, too! While the colleagues are popping champagne, Samantha literally runs away, catches a train to the middle of nowhere, gets drunk and ends up in the house of a wealthy but not very bright middle-aged Geiger family who think her to be their new housekeeper and are delighted she isn't at least, a foreigner and speaks their language.

When Samantha gets sober, she somehow decides to take up the challenge and stay, though she hardly even knows how to cook an egg, or start a washing machine. Luckily, the Geigers have a very handsome muscular gardener working for them whose mother is an experienced cook. This is only the beginning of a romance, as you well understand, but then Samantha finds a chance to clear her name and get her old life back. Will she do it or not?

The book doesn't pretend to be serious, but the message is quite clear. Housekeeping IS a real job which takes commitment, running the house can be more satisfying than having a high powered career, having friends who really care for you is more important than making lots of money, etc. 

I was pleasantly surprised that we still have modern fashionable authors defending more or less traditional values. However, there is one serious drawback, that is rather typical for modern literature which isn't explicitly Christian: a casual and flippant attitude to s*x with some rather graphic descriptions, too. While the characters are talking of love, the word "marriage" isn't even mentioned, though probably hinted at. 

So would I recommend it? Yes and no. Read it at your own discretion!

Men VS Women

 About half of the women (49%) don't trust Covid vaccine vs only 1/3 (31%) of the men. Source. 

Please meninists tell me again how all women are compliant Karens and rule enforcers while men are rugged individuals and free spirited rebels? Who is the captain now???

Something about the beam and the mote comes to mind:)

Everything What's Wrong With Modern Women

 In one picture.

How To Have A Chaste Courtship

This book was written specially for young Catholics, but would probably be of interest to other Christians as well. It's quite vintage (I think 1930s-40s, judging by the fact that movie theaters and driving around for fun are mentioned, but TV is not) but I heard it's still recommended in more trad Catholic circles even though some parts of it could possibly offend modern sensibilities.

It goes into great detail about dangers of s*xual sin, while the last chapter is all about choosing a mate. I guess the idea of never marrying outside the Catholic faith could be offensive to some, but if you extrapolate it to never marrying unbelievers, you'll realise that the author isn't really that far from the truth.

This is an interesting piece of advice: 

Refrain from  beginning to keep regular company too soon. If you begin to do so at sixteen or seventeen years, you expose yourself either to the danger of a premature marriage with its frequent mistake of poor choice or you court the hardly lesser evil of an immoderately long courtship with the attendant disadvantages. You tie yourself down to one person and thus lose the social advantages and contacts that will have a great influence upon your later life. You expose yourself in a special way to temptations against chastity, because this love affair may be a very prolonged one, and the danger of violating chastity increases as the affection is prolonged.

 If you begin “to go steady” while you are a student, you will find it almost impossible to do justice to your studies. Since courtship limits your interest to a single person, it should not be undertaken until you are in a  position seriously to consider marriage in the not too distant future. This presupposes that you have attained the age to understand the great responsibilities of marriage and that you have enough financial resources to establish and maintain a home.

It goes contrary to what some Christians online teach about every young girl needing to marry at 18, doesn't it? 

 Marrying in haste nearly always means repenting bitterly at leisure. Do not prefer to be sorry to being certain. 

(emphasis mine)

 

What The Heck???

 You learn something new every day:) Apparently, gladiators ate a high-carb diet which was predominantly vegetarian and also consumed a sort of vitamin drink to assist with healing of injuries. This news made all the proponents of paleo and keto very nervous, while vegetarians and even militant vegans right away started claiming gladiators were part of the club (the 2nd link has a really cool video and great discussion in the comments section).

If you look at the original study called Stable Isotope and Trace Element Studies on Gladiators and Contemporary Romans from Ephesus (Turkey, 2nd and 3rd Ct. AD) - Implications for Differences in Diet (which by some reason I couldn't link to, so that you have to search for it on your own) right there on page 13 it says: In this study, the isotopic data suggest a mixed diet with a high share of vegetables.

  I think it's quite obvious that they weren't really vegans or vegetarians in the modern sense of the word, and their eating patterns are actually quite typical for an average Roman, though they consumed more barley than wheat. Like it or not, meat was a luxury back then, but fish sauce, for instance was put on absolutely anything. 

Mediterranean diet is more or less a continuation of the trend, and its Greek variety which encourages periodic fasting excluding all animal products except some seafood (the kind which doesn't bleed red like squid) is probably the closest to the ancient pattern.

Has anyone tried it? Feel free to share!

Thanksgiving 2020

Happy Thanksgiving to my American readers!

 

Image courtesy of this website.

Are You Ready For America's First Dictator?

 This is funny: