For two, maybe three days now, I have had this hacking cough. I’m not sick, but there is this crazy tickling in my throat that won’t go away! I’m pretty sure it sounds like I have TB, but rest assured that I do not…in fact I was recently tested…not because I thought I had it but because it was required for my master’s program, which is totally strange because all of those courses are online! So anyway I have spent my days hacking at iinappropriate times: late at night when hubby is or was sound asleep, during step aerobics class and now everyone probably thinks I am a smoker, and the most inappropriate time was at church last night. Not only was I at church , but I was at the prayer meeting before the class actually began. It’s hard to focus during times of prayer anyway even when the room is silent so I know I was a huge distraction and annoying. Coughing is annoying, and last night I was annoying.
I felt the tickle and held my breathe, drank water, and even chewed on gum, but the tickle persisted. My face was turning bright red from straining to keep in the cough and my eyes were even watering…in the end my hacking escaped my mouth sounding like a honking goose being tortured. I’m pretty sure they added me to the prayer list. I tried to be cordial and escaped as quietly as possible out the side door into the foyer area where I continued to my hacking episode and only when it ended did I notice that the front foyer doors leading into the sanctuary where prayer group was in session. Seriously embarrassing! What’s even more embarrassing was that I was one of the youngest ones in there…everyone else was like 70 and older! They should have been the ones hacking , not me!
So, our class was on Eastern Religions…I didn’t hear much of it because I had to dart towards the restroom to hack way too often…but what I did learn was interesting. The New Age Movement is just an American version of Eastern Religions…I did not know this. Truth is relative, and right is wrong is relative…you can be your own God…these are common beliefs in the New Age Movement and quite frankly they seem to be beliefs that have been adopted by our society. So…if right and wrong is relative then hurting someone could be justified because to someone else, hurting others is not wrong. Where is the justice?Who creates standards to live by? It seems to me these new age beliefs are selfish, self-seeking and include no consideration for others, which is no way to live. Jesus gave us two good rules to live by, love God and love others…those standards are solid, stable, worth living for…anyone living for themselves is in for a disappointment.