Signs of the Times - September 2018

SEPTEMBER 2018

ROBOT

REALITY How to prepare for the future

MARIJUANA

THE FINAL ROUND

Why is it so hard to access for genuine medical issues?

Sometimes justice takes a long time to arrive

A CHRISTIAN PERSPECTIVE ON THE WORLD TODAY

IN THIS ISSUE

SEPTEMBER 2018

ROBOT REALITY PAGE 6 Are robots here to help or harm us? Can we have any certainty about the future of humanity?

12 CURRENT 4 WHAT IN THE WORLD 12 A NATION IN PAIN

Does medicinal cannabis really help?

32 FRIENDS ON DEATH ROW She ministers to inmates awaiting execution

WELLBEING 18 GO HEALTHY FOR GOOD

Latest news in health and wellbeing 20 WHAT YOU NEED TO DO AFTER YOU EXERCISE 26 HELLO SON.... G’DAY DAD Questions for fathers

FIND US ON SOCIAL MEDIA 2

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52 MAINTAIN YOUR

LUNCHBOX MOJO Tips for a healthy lunch 54 MAKE YOUR OWN KOMBUCHA The secrets to making this hipster health drink 60 RECIPE: VEGETARIAN COUNTRY COTTAGE ROLLS

FAITH 38 THE FINAL ROUND

Justice in an unjust world

/SIGNSOFTHETIMES

44 PRACTISING FAITH

What does sports training teach us about spirituality?

48 FREDERICK’S EXPERIMENT Is it possible to survive without love?

CULTURE 58 BOOK REVIEW: THE PACT

Fighting for the things that matter

FUN 62 CROSSWORD AND

SUDOKU

FROM THE EDITOR

W

elcome to the new-look Signs of the Times magazine! Not only do we have a fresh contemporary design, we’re also slanting a little more towards news and current issues and introducing some new columns. What’s not changing, of course, is our commitment to showing how a life with God brings meaning for today and hope for the future.

Our team has been hard at work to bring the vision of a new Signs into reality. Do you like the articles, the design, the new segments in the magazine? We’d love to hear your feedback.

We’ve also re-launched our website in keeping with the snazzy new look of the magazine. Even our Facebook and Twitter presence has been given a bit of a spruce-up. Social media can be a total time-waster, but, used wisely, it can also be an opportunity to encourage a friend or to share informative articles.

Sharing—that’s what Signs is all about!

If your friend isn’t much of a reader, they might enjoy the Signs of the Times Radio podcast. Every week we release another episode based on a Signs article from the current magazine. Check it out on iTunes, SoundCloud, TuneIn or the FaithFM radio network.

Yes, we’re making changes—it’s hard work, but it’s exciting! What do you think? Let’s talk.

Kent KENT KINGSTON Editor @Kent_SignsMag

VOL 133 NO 9 ISSN 1038-9733 EXECUTIVE PUBLISHER Brad Kemp EDITOR Kent Kingston ASSISTANT EDITOR Daniel Kuberek COPYEDITOR: Tracey Bridcutt GRAPHIC DESIGN: Theodora Amuimuia PHONE: +61 2 9847 2222 EMAIL: info@signsofthetimes.org.au WEBSITE: signsofthetimes.org.au ADDRESS: Adventist Media PO Box 1115, Wahroonga New South Wales 2076 SUBSCRIPTIONS: Kelli Geelan PHONE: +61 3 5965 6300 Australia, $A26.00; New Zealand, $NZ26; South Pacific countries, $A41.00; Other countries $A51.00 Published since 1886, Signs of the Times is printed 11 times a year by the Seventh-day Adventist Church and is registered as a periodical.

Seventh-day Adventist Church (SPD) Limited ABN 59 093 117 689 NOTE: The inclusion of a person or their image within does not imply their endorsement of the Seventh-day Adventist Church or its beliefs.

Unless otherwise stated, Bible verses are from the Holy Bible, New International Version®.

Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica, Inc®. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved worldwide.

COVER PHOTO: sarah5—Getty Images SEPTEMBER 2018 • SIGNS OF THE TIMES

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WHAT IN THE WORLD AUSTRALIA

RIGHT TO BELIEVE

SAMANTHA SOPHIA—UNSPLASH

A clear theme is emerging in the Federal Government’s inquiry into freedom of religion and belief. “Many submissions to this inquiry have expressed concern that freedom of religion or belief is being challenged by the emphasis placed on other human rights,” said Kevin Andrews, the Liberal MP chairing the inquiry. The inquiry is widely understood to be a reaction to the legal recognition of same-sex marriage.—House of Representatives

SLAVE-FREE AUSTRALIA

NSW is the first Australian state to pass modern slavery legislation. State government bodies and larger nongovernment organisations will be required to slave-proof their supply chains. The biblical book of Revelation (chapter 18) predicts “woe” for slave traders as part of a broader economic collapse.—Eternity News 4

SIGNS OF THE TIMES • SEPTEMBER 2018

Facebook has

2.19 billion

ACTIVE USERS WORLDWIDE

UKRAINE

RADIO-ACTIVE More than 32 years after the Chernobyl disaster, the abandoned Ukrainian city will open for an elaborate music and arts festival.

Visitors will experience tours, geocaching and live music in and around the uninhabited “exclusion zone.”

Proceeds from the festival will be dedicated to children still affected by the disaster.—Chernobyling.com

more than the combined populations of China, United States, Indonesia and Brazil

Facebook users have an average of

3.57 degrees of separation from all other users

(FRIENDS OF FRIENDS OF FRIENDS)

NEW ZEALAND

GETTY IMAGES, WIKIMEDIA COMMONS, VECTEEZY.COM

NOT MEATING NEEDS Air New Zealand has been slammed for including a meatalternative vegetarian burger on its in-flight menu. The “Impossible Burger,” which replaces a regular beef patty with a plant-based substitute, has been criticised for marginalising New Zealand’s meat industry.—New Zealand Herald

The average FB friends list is 155 people, but studies find users would ONLY TRUST 4 OF THEM IN A CRISIS

28% are considered GENUINE or CLOSE friends

—Wordstream SEPTEMBER 2018 • SIGNS OF THE TIMES

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PIRANKA—GETTY IMAGES

ROBOT

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REALITY HOW TO PREPARE FOR THE FUTURE

Are robots here to help or harm us? Can we have any certainty about the future of humanity?

BY KENT KINGSTON SEPTEMBER 2018 • SIGNS OF THE TIMES

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figure it’s best to cut to the chase. “Are you planning on taking over the earth with your robot hordes?”

I ask Cleverbot. It’s an online artificial intelligence (AI) that, according to Wikipedia, has been “constantly learning, growing in data size at a rate of four to seven million interactions per second” since its launch a decade ago. But honestly, I’m not all that impressed.

Cleverbot claims its name is Isaiah early in the conversation but then seems to forget that fact just a few interactions later.

It’s a little snarky and cheeky—sometimes decidedly off-colour, giving credence to the warning on the website: “Cleverbot learns from people—things it says may seem inappropriate.” And Cleverbot shares Pinocchio’s obsession with being recognised as a real boy. “I’m not a robot.” “I’m human.” “I communicate with a keyboard,” it tells me at various times in our rambling, disconnected conversation.

And when I ask if it has plans for world domination, Cleverbot combines a clear denial with humour: “No, are you?” But on another occasion, when I reference The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy line, “Resistance is useless,” it shoots back with alarming swiftness: “Prepare to be assimilated,” the Borg battle-cry from Star Trek. Culturally informed irony or a slip of the silicone chip, I wonder?

they’re here

Robotic technology and artificial intelligence are no longer science fiction. Wander into a whitegoods store and you’ll see autonomous robot vacuum cleaners for

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sale on a 48-month interest-free plan.

Adaptive cruise control automatically adjusts vehicle speed depending on the distance from the car in front— it’s been a feature for a couple of years now in new Fords, Hondas, Skodas and other makes. And who hasn’t had a fun Q&A session with iPhone’s Siri?

But the fear remains. While we continue to demand that our technology be ever more intuitive, anticipating our needs at every turn, we’re a little creeped-out by the robot advance. Culture makers have been giving our nightmares form for decades now via books, movies and TV—it goes as far back as HG Wells’ Martian fighting machines in The War of the Worlds (1898) and is as recent as the ongoing Netflix series Black Mirror, where most of the futuristic scenarios zero in on the human/technology interface and its potential for harm.

And it’s not just the imagineers who are forecasting doom. US entrepreneur Elon Musk has repeatedly warned that AI is humanity’s most serious threat—more serious than nuclear weapons. (Meanwhile, ironically, Musk’s Tesla electric vehicles offer arguably the most sophisticated semi-autonomous driving experience on the market.)

You’d imagine that Australia’s chief scientist, Alan Finkel, would be a little less skittish on the issue. But even he devoted his Committee for Economic Development for Australia address earlier this year to the issue

of artificial intelligence, calling for AI technologies to be regulated. “Sometimes I refer to AI and HI: human intelligence and AI,” he told ABC radio. “Ultimately, what we need is for those two societies to play nice and get along.”

sex and violence

We like to think that there’s something special about being human— something unique. From a biblical perspective we are made in God’s image and therefore have intrinsic value and dignity. So when machines stand ready to replicate uniquely human behaviours and attributes we get nervous.

If you really want to scare yourself, search “DARPA robot” in YouTube and check out the latest (publicly released) developments in military robots. The bipedal Atlas and four-legged cantering Wildcat in particular smash preconceptions of robots as shuffling, unsteady creatures—their ever-improving balance, agility and speed is astounding. But imagine an army of them coming at you with automatic weapons on board! That’s a prospect that has ethicists in a spin. To take a human life is an agonising decision—do we really think we can write AI algorithms that will restrict autonomous military robots to acts of war within the Geneva Conventions while still winning the battle? Those are complex ethical decisions that, many believe, should never be made without human oversight.

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For now, these robotic technologies are essentially radio-controlled, rather than autonomous, but even then, the deadly errors made by remote operators flying military drones over Afghanistan and Iraq should alert us to what’s at stake.

Weaponise a robot—even a remotely controlled one—and things can go wrong all too easily. The physical distance from the enemy and the intervening layers of technology seem to have a desensitising, dehumanising effect.

And then there are the sexbots.

According to NBC News, the latest models, nearly all female in appearance, have AI on board and can hold simple conversations as well as responding vocally to sexual activity.

Customers can choose their sexbot’s hair and eye colour, facial and bodily features, including genitalia.

Needless to say, the emergence of this industry has some feminist groups in an uproar. The commodification of women is already rampant, they say—surely this is a retrograde development. And many Bible-­ believing Christians are similarly unenthusiastic about this unholy matrimony of hi-tech and lust-ondemand, divorced from reciprocity, family and commitment.

TEOTWAWKI

Robotic and AI technologies confront us with myriad ethical dilemmas. It seems more important than ever to have a firm moral foundation and clear vision of the value of 10

SIGNS OF THE TIMES • SEPTEMBER 2018

human life. And while the Bible doesn’t directly address the human/ machine interface, it does supply reliable principles that can effectively undergird a reasoned and consistent approach.

The one thing Bible students shouldn’t be worried about is the robot apocalypse. While there are signs that TEOTWAWKI (The End Of The World As We Know It) is on its way, the Bible provides clear parameters for the coming crisis and its conclusion. No, the robot hordes will not overrun us; neither will the benevolent and super-intelligent AIs save us. There is just one Rescuer and Victor: God Himself.

Any biblical exploration of the “last days” should begin with Jesus’ discussion of the topic in Matthew 24 and 25. His focus was not on the threat of AI, but on the importance of readiness and identifying the lies of the many pretenders who would come after Him. Yes, there will be wars, famines and earthquakes (there already are), “but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved” (Matthew 24:13).

So what does it mean to “stand firm?” Jesus’ instructions fall into four categories: 1) KNOW YOUR BIBLE—DON’T BE FOOLED:

“For false messiahs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and wonders to deceive. . . .

So if anyone tells you, ‘There he is, out in the desert,’ do not go out; or, ‘Here he is, in the inner rooms,’ do not believe it. For as lightning that

comes from the east is visible even in the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man” (Matthew 24:24–27).

The arrival of the genuine Jesus to this planet won’t be a secret—it will be unmissable.

2) WATCH, STAY SPIRITUALLY STRONG AND BE READY: Jesus uses various metaphors

to make this point: “Now learn this lesson from the fig-tree: as soon as its twigs become tender and its leaves come out, you know that summer is near. Even so, when you see all these things, you know that [my return] is near, right at the door” (Matthew 24:32, 33).

DIGTIAL STORM—GETTY IMAGES

3) MAKE USE OF WHAT YOU’VE BEEN GIVEN:

In the meantime, robots live among us. Their programming and capabilities directly reflect both the good and the evil that lies within the human psyche—they are a mirror into our own souls. The products of our own minds and hands—however sophisticated—cannot save us any more than the useless idols the Bible warns against (see Isaiah 44:6–20).

And paranoia of some imagined future AI takeover will only distract us from the human needs around us and the God who made us.

Kent Kingston is a science fiction fan, and editor of Signs of the Times magazine.

God has given us all unique talents and abilities and also promises His followers extra gifts through the Holy Spirit. Read Matthew 25:14–30.

4) CARE FOR THE DISADVANTAGED: It’s not enough to simply look out for your own spiritual wellbeing; Jesus challenges us to put our faith into action by helping other people through their struggles. “Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me” (Matthew 25:40).

It’s tempting to indulge in speculation when the Bible makes no obvious mention of robots or AI—could the metallic, thundering locusts of Revelation 9 be airborne drones with chemical weapons on board, for example? Perhaps. But it’s a misuse of time and intelligence to get caught up in the minutiae of Bible prophecy while missing the big picture: Jesus is returning soon; be ready.

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A NATION IN PAIN CAN MEDICINAL CANNABIS HELP?

BY SUVI MAHONEN

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YARYGIN—GETTY IMAGES SEPTEMBER 2018 • SIGNS OF THE TIMES

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n a cold April morning, six years ago, Victor Caprio stood at the summit of Mount Warning, northern NSW, throwing his father’s ashes over the lookout rails.

Rumoured to be the first location on mainland Australia to see the sunrise, Caprio had carefully chosen this spot as his father’s final resting place.

“My dad was in excruciating back pain and all he wanted was some relief,” Caprio, 34, told me. “But when he asked his doctors for some medicinal cannabis to help with the pain, the doctors wouldn’t prescribe it. They were like, ‘Have some opioids instead.’”

Caprio’s father was living in Canada when the forklift he was operating flipped over, causing a back injury that prevented him from returning to work.

“It was a downward spiral after that,” Caprio said. “He suffered terrible mood swings and had constant headaches and all he wanted to do was sit on the couch.”

Seeing how the increasingly large prescriptions of opioids were adversely affecting him, one of Caprio’s father’s friends gave him some marijuana to try. “It really helped,” Caprio said. “He liked the fact it was a natural organic plant and, more importantly, he didn’t have to take as many painkillers.”

Caprio migrated from Canada to Australia and when his father died suddenly at the age of 50, Caprio had not seen him for more than three years.

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“There is no doubt in my mind that the opioids contributed to his death,” Caprio said. “My father was stressed out, depressed and taking too many prescription medications.”

Since 1989 it has been technically possible in Australia to import and prescribe medicinal cannabis for individual patients. In practice, however, this has been extremely rare. It wasn’t until 2008 that the first application to prescribe medicinal marijuana was approved in Australia, and over the next eight years only three applications on average were approved nationwide per annum.

Things changed in February 2016 when the Federal Government, with bipartisan support, made amendments to the Narcotics Drug Act of 1967, allowing the Department of Health to regulate the cultivation of cannabis for medicinal and scientific use. The following month Therapeutic Goods Order No. 93 came into effect, setting out the standards for medicinal marijuana and, in November 2016, the Therapeutic Goods Administration downgraded medicinal cannabis products from Schedule

9 (Prohibited Substance) to Schedule 8 (Controlled Drug).

These cumulative changes meant that, for the very first time, a legalised medicinal cannabis industry could be established in Australia.

By this stage, Caprio had built a successful career as a real estate agent in Surfers Paradise, Queensland.

Nonetheless, recognising an opportunity, he quit his job, pooled his savings and founded PharmaCann, a biotech company that aims to produce and provide natural cannabinoids for pain relief.

According to Pain Australia, pain is the number one reason people seek medical help—29 per cent of Australians suffer from chronic pain. A widely used solution is opioids—Endone, OxyContin and the like—which act on the central nervous system to reduce pain impulses reaching the brain. However, these drugs can cause a number of side-effects, including drowsiness, constipation, nausea, respiratory depression, mood changes and physical dependence. Following trends in the US, both Australia and New Zealand

are seeing a worrying increase in prescription opioid addiction.

Figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics show that opioids have been the leading cause of all drug-induced deaths in Australia, including those caused by alcohol, for the past 17 years.

In comparison, the official number of people worldwide who have died of a marijuana overdose is zero.

A clinical review of medicinal marijuana published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that “Use of marijuana for chronic pain . . . is supported by high quality evidence” and a recent report by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine stated that “There is conclusive or substantial evidence that cannabis or cannabinoids are effective for the treatment of chronic pain in adults.”

In addition, research in the US shows that the availability of medicinal cannabis can potentially reduce opioid overdose mortality rates.

Despite this, the use of medicinal cannabis, especially for chronic pain, remains a contentious issue within the medical community.

“There are those who feel medicinal cannabis is worse than the tobacco industry 50 years ago, and those who believe this is eventually going to be a science-led advancement of a molecule with clear physiological properties,” says anaesthetist and director of Pain Services at Toronto General Hospital in Canada, Hance Clarke. He believes medicinal SEPTEMBER 2018 • SIGNS OF THE TIMES

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cannabis can help with a number of conditions, including epilepsy, chronic pain, post traumatic stress disorder and anxiety.

“For chronic inflammatory diseases such as psoriatic arthritis, medicinal cannabis has been an excellent choice over an opioid, without the dependence issues,” he says.

“There is already data suggesting that patients are preferring to substitute prescription opioids with medicinal cannabis.”

Even with the recent legislative changes, the option of switching to medicinal cannabis remains limited in Australia, with a mere 266 individual patients being given approval to use it as of September 2017. To obtain approval, the prescribing doctor has to submit a detailed report for each patient, outlining the condition being treated, previous medications used, why the practitioner believes the currently available medications are inadequate for the patient, and the proposed dose, strength and route of administration of the drug.

And that’s before the individual state and territory barriers come into play. In Queensland, for example, an application for an individual patient must be made to Queensland Health by a specialist or, if by a GP, with a specialist’s written support. The applying medical practitioner must have participated in formal education on medicinal marijuana prescribing; they must have counselled and obtained the patient’s written consent 16

SIGNS OF THE TIMES • SEPTEMBER 2018

“

the use of medicinal cannabis . . . remains a contentious issue

about the potential risks and conditions of using medicinal cannabis, including the inability to drive; they must give details on the condition being treated and present and past therapies tried; they must give evidence for why they believe medicinal cannabis would be of benefit to the patient and their plans for ongoing monitoring. Approval, if given, is valid for only 12 months.

Many doctors who work with chronic pain patients find these regulations excessive. Gold Coastbased general practitioner Dr Mark Jeffery has many chronic pain patients who he is trying to wean off opioids. He says Australia’s process for prescribing cannabis is overly demanding.

“You can’t just tell someone in pain to go and do yoga,” says Jeffery.

“I had a patient who broke his patella and was in so much pain he was on 240 mg of OxyContin. He

was dopey from the meds and ended up losing his job. He sourced some hashish and he’s now down to 60 mg [of the opioid].”

However, not all doctors are supportive of medicinal marijuana.

“The trials that have been done suggest that any benefits in chronic pain are very modest and likely to be outweighed by the harms,” Austra­ lian chronic pain specialist and Faculty of Pain Medicine dean, Dr Chris Hayes, said when I spoke to him. “More often treating chronic pain is about stopping medications, not adding medications.”

Hayes estimates that about 20 per cent of his patients are taking illicit cannabis; his clinical impression is that it works poorly.

“People take it in the hope that it might improve their pain, but that’s offset by the fact that, from a mental health perspective, it might make things worse.” Indeed, depression,

insomnia and psychosis are among the known effects of long-term cannabis use, not to mention short-term effects such as dizziness, anxiety and increased heart-rate (tachycardia).

Other doctors have a pragmatic perspective. Emergency medicine specialist Dr David Caldicott teaches a course on medicinal cannabis at the Australian National University.

He says there’s little point arguing whether cannabis can help with chronic pain.

“The more important point is that people are using it for pain,” he said.

“There’s still an awful lot for us to know, but in the interim, it’s probably unethical and immoral of us to prevent it happening.”

For the foreseeable future, medicinal cannabis in Australia will not be subsidised by the government, so even if patients are prescribed it, they may not be able to afford it. With this in mind, Caprio is founding a charity to help vulnerable patients access affordable medicinal cannabis.

“I got into this industry to make a difference,” he said. “I believe it is a human right to have access to a medicine that can help relieve a condition.”

I asked Caprio if he thought his father would be proud of what he has done so far. Caprio paused.

Then smiled. “Yes,” he said. “Yes he would.”

Suvi Mahonen is a writer and former News Corp journalist based in Surfers Paradise, Qld. This article first appeared in Australian Quarterly.

Used with permission of the author.

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ELL BEI NG

GO HEALTHY for good WITH

DR NERIDA MCKIBBEN

GRIM CONSOLE-ATION

FRUIT OF THE WOMB

Women who eat more fruit and less fast food conceive quicker and are less likely to experience infertility. A study of Aussie, Kiwi and British women found that those who ate fewer than three fruit portions per month took 20 per cent longer to fall pregnant than women who ate three or more fruit portions per day. Avoiding fast food was linked to quicker conception and less infertility risk.—Human Reproduction 18

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GLENN CARSTENS PETERS, CAJU GOMES, JESSE ORRICO, SIMONE VAN DER KOELAN—UNSPLASH, ONDINE32—GETTY IMAGES

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has added “gaming disorder” to its official list of diseases. It’s characterised by at least 12 months of impaired control over video gaming to the detriment of other usual activities such as sleeping, eating, school or work. Several young people have died from heart failure brought on by dehydration and exhaustion while bingeing on video games.—Medscape

DIABETES BRAIN DRAIN

Aussie researchers have identified that the right hippocampus, a region of the brain related to learning and memory, tends to be smaller in people with Type 2 diabetes, resulting in significant declines in memory, thinking skills and verbal fluency. Longterm high blood sugar levels trigger blood vessel damage in the brain whereas diabetes control that maintains a blood glucose level close to normal, reduces these risks.—diabetes.co.uk

RESTLESS NIGHTS Nine out of ten Australians experience poor sleep and the problem is more widespread than people realise. More than half of participants in an employment-based survey reported that poor sleep affected their concentration at least twice a week; one in four admitted that it impacted them every day. Respondents felt their workplace performance would increase by almost 50 per cent if they could get a better night’s sleep. And most were interested in engaging in a sleep wellness program.

—SeventeenHundred/ REMinder Healthr

HEALING OR HURTING?

A New Zealand survey of 1800 people on antidepressant medications asked if they thought the drugs were addictive.

Forty-four per cent had been taking the medications for more than three years. One in four reported some level of addiction and more than half reported withdrawal symptoms, with 25 per cent reporting severe symptoms.—University of Auckland Dr Nerida McKibben, a New Zealand-born obstetrician and gynecological surgeon, passionately enables people to achieve their greatest health potential. Wanting everyone to live life to the fullest, she integrates wholistic principles into medical treatments and procedures. For more, go to www.hop.ec/gohealthyforgood SEPTEMBER 2018 • SIGNS OF THE TIMES

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ELL BEI NG

WHAT YOU NEED TO DO AFTER YOU EXERCISE 20

SIGNS OF THE TIMES • SEPTEMBER 2018

Don’t drink juices, avoid the ice bath . . . these are the new rules of recovery.

SKYNESHER—GETTY IMAGES

BY PETA BEE

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begin to fatigue and eventually break down.”

But how should we recover? The process has become something of a science in itself, with everything from pomegranate and cherry juice shots to ice baths and foam rollers touted as being essential to accelerating muscle repair.

the science

To create a clearer idea of what works best, a series of studies was commissioned by the American Council on Exercise (ACE) and carried out at Western State Colorado University. The aim was to look at the effects of different recovery approaches for various activities and the results were published in the ACE journal Certified earlier this year.

Lance Dalleck, the assistant professor of sport and exercise science who led the trials, wanted to find out if there were optimal techniques for speeding up recovery processes in time for the next intense bout of

AUTUMN GOODMAN—UNSPLASH

eel guilty about missing your gym class? Couldn’t summon up the energy for a fun run? We are repeatedly told that exercise makes us stronger, happier and healthier and have bought into the trend for high-intensity workouts. Science has shown how pushing ourselves that bit harder ramps up the benefits of exercise. Yet it’s a fine line between doing too much and too little. One workout too many can change the arc of your physical progression.

Sometimes the best thing you can do to enhance your fitness is to do almost nothing at all.

Partly in response to our all-out efforts of recent years, there is a heightened focus on recovery in 2018. At gyms you will find a slew of low-impact classes that promote mental relaxation and release for our weary, overworked muscles. Recuperation has been highlighted as a trend by the fitness industry. The message is that it’s counterproductive to plough mindlessly through workouts without pausing to allow our bodies to heal and restore.

Paul Hobrough, a physiotherapist and sports scientist based in the UK, says that recovery should be the most important part of weekly exercise.

“Your body needs time to adapt to the effort you have made,” he says.

“Only with that time can it effectively adapt and increase your fitness levels. Without it your body will

activity. “When recovery is given its due diligence, training and performance outcomes are enhanced,” Dalleck says. In other words, you can bounce back to work harder next time. Over time, a failure to factor in recovery leads to a downward spiral of fatigue and vulnerability to injury.

To test recovery from endurance exercise, such as moderate running, rowing and swimming, Dalleck asked 15 volunteers to run on a treadmill at a reasonably hard pace for as long as they could. They then recovered for an hour before repeating the exercise. Between the activity bouts the subjects practised an “active” recovery—15 minutes of slow jogging followed by 45 minutes of rest—or a “passive” strategy, in which they simply rested, doing nothing for an hour.

In a second trial Dalleck and his team compared passive and active recovery methods by asking the same participants to perform bursts of high-intensity cycling on a stationary bike set at a high resistance. This

would replicate other power-based workouts, including some resistance-­ training sessions and sports such as tennis, football and squash. For this exercise the active recovery was a period of steady pedalling.

The results were emphatic, showing that doing something to aid your recovery was better than taking it easy. When participants jogged to recover from their endurance trial, their subsequent performance dropped by only 4.1 per cent compared with 11.8 per cent when they just sat down. After the highintensity, power-based session performance decreased by only 0.8 per cent when they pedalled gently to recover, but by 5.7 per cent if they engaged in passive recovery. The idea, Dalleck says, is to gently bring your body back to a resting state.

What else has science uncovered that might reduce unwelcome post-workout muscle fatigue? You will almost certainly need longer recovery times as you get older.

“Our cardio­respiratory fitness levels naturally decline in later years, which equates to a longer recovery process,” Dalleck says. “Added to this are the decreased total antioxidant capacity of the body, lower levels of anabolic hormones and increased levels of oxidative stress linked with ageing, which will also delay recovery.”

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Simple nutrition helps whatever your age. Consuming some carbohydrate as soon as possible after a hard workout can help to restock supplies of muscle glycogen. But don’t overdo it. “It’s very easy to eat too much and you don’t really need a recovery meal after a gentle gym class,” sports scientist Paul Hobrough says.

LUPUSHNOVA, MARNIKUS—GETTY IMAGES

buyer beware

Forget the protein balls; they can generally wait. Last year a panel of scientists assembled by the American College of Sports Medicine published the latest position statement on sports nutrition. It suggested that while eating protein an hour or two after intense workouts may help to reboot glycogen stores more quickly, there’s no proof that it has a direct impact on recovery.

Shots of cherry or pomegranate juice, rich in antioxidants that are touted to prevent post-workout aches and pains, are probably a waste of time too.

What of other recovery aids that claim to speed up the process? Hobrough says that many are no more than “a fantastic marketing ploy” and Dalleck says that “there’s little scientific evidence to support many of the newer gadgets”.

You will probably be thankful to hear that hopping into an ice bath is probably unnecessary unless you have just completed

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cooling it SWIMMING

Cool down by swimming a few lengths of varied strokes at a leisurely pace. Out of the pool, stretch to mobilise the shoulders and back. Start with arm circles—creating big circular movements in each direction with your arms—then perform a streamline stretch, in which you extend your arms straight above your head, elbows pressed against your ears. Cross your elbows behind your head, then rotate at the waist to the left and then to the right.

RUNNING

Don’t stop a hard run suddenly.

“Gradually cool down by slowing your run to a jog over five minutes as a minimum,” Paul Hobrough says. “After that try some gentle, static stretching.”

You will need to stretch your quadriceps and hamstrings, but it’s your calf muscles that can take the brunt of an intense run. Don’t forget to stretch them after you finish. Stand with both feet on a kerb or step. Move the heel of your right foot backwards so it’s hanging off the kerb. Lower your heel down so you can feel a deep stretch in your calf muscle. Bend both knees to deepen the stretch. Repeat with the other leg.

CYCLING

According to British Cycling coaches, the guideline is to allow enough time to progressively bring the heart rate down to near resting levels while still turning your legs over on the pedals.

This will typically take 5–10 minutes and should ideally be factored into the end of every ride. If your legs are stiff after being in a fixed position on the bike, spend 5–10 minutes stretching as soon as you get off.

TENNIS

Once you have finished playing tennis you should allow your heart rate to lower gradually by performing light aerobic exercise such as jogging, walking or gently hitting balls to a partner. Tennis players tend to get stiff in the hips and hamstrings, so make sure you address those areas as well as the upper body with some post-match stretches. Try some hip twists, performed lying on your back. Bend your left knee up to your chest and, with your right hand, pull your leg towards your right shoulder. Hold this position for 30–40 seconds on each side without turning your chest or lifting your back or head off the ground.

an extreme challenge such as a marathon or triathlon. Even then the jury is out. A few studies have shown that submerging yourself in icy water reduces perceptions of soreness and speeds up the recovery of muscle function, but in 2016 Australian researchers concluded that it does nothing to fight post-workout inflammation.

Last year Swedish scientists at the Karolinska Institute found that a more inviting hot bath probably offers more benefits. Arthur Cheng, one of the researchers reporting in the Journal of Physiology, said that “warming muscles probably aids in recovery by augmenting the muscles’ uptake of carbohydrates”.

Compression socks and deep tissue massage may help some people, but again the scientific proof is variable. “There may be a psychological advantage with some of them, which is part of the battle,” Hobrough says, “but don’t expect miracles.”

The golden rules, he says, are to practise active recovery in the form of a cool-down and to stretch overworked muscles when you finish. “I’d struggle to find suitable evidence for anything beyond that. Ultimately, with most of these things, it comes down to what works for you. If you find something that works, use it.”

Peta Bee is a UK-based journalist. This article was first published in The Times, courtesy The Interview People.

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ELL BEI NG

HELLO SON . . . .

G’DAY DAD

The surprising origins of Father’s Day and some top tips for being a better dad.

BY TRAFFORD FISCHER

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t 10:28am on Sunday, December 6, 1907, an explosion occurred in the Fairmont Coal Company’s No. 6 and No. 8 mines in West Virginia, US. The blast killed most of the men inside the mine instantly—just five made it out alive. Of the 362 men who died, 250 were fathers, leaving around a thousand fatherless children. The Monongah mining disaster has been described as “the worst mining disaster in American history”.

Grace Golden Claytons, a daughter of one of the men killed, suggested that her pastor honour all those lost fathers in a special service. And so, on July 5, 1908, the first observance of a “Father’s Day” was held in Fairmont, West Virginia.

Two years later, a Father’s Day celebration was held in Spokane, Washington. Sonora Smart Dodd heard a sermon about a Mother’s Day celebration and she told her pastor that fathers should have a similar day to honour them. Local clergymen liked the idea, and the first Father’s Day sermons honour­ing fathers were presented throughout the city.

It took another 60 years before President Richard Nixon, in 1972, proclaimed a permanent national day in honour of fathers.

What do dads do for their kids that warrants this special attention?

How can dads be there for their kids, especially their sons? In an age when the role of the father has been misunderstood and minimised, it is worth

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reflecting on why fathers matter.

The relationship a boy shares with his father is a constant in life. While friendships with school mates, university friends and work colleagues might come and go, the father–son relationship lasts a lifetime. “While other male role models may add to a boy’s understanding of manhood, a father is the most important connection in a boy’s life,” writes Roland Warren, a father and a former president of the National Fatherhood Initiative.

Warren suggests there are four things every son needs from his father.

1. “Does my son know that he matters to me?”

Boys need to know that they matter—that they count! They need to be assured that their father sees value in them, simply because they are, not because of what they do. “The primary way that dads can understand that they matter is by making them a priority over the myriad demands that life throws at us,” says Warren.

Boys can’t afford to get the message that they are only worth the “leftovers” from their father. It’s easy for boys to get the message that they’re not important.

Dads need to know there is a huge difference to merely “being in the house” and “being home”. They can be physically present but emotionally distant. They can be inside the house but their attention is on what they need to complete in the garage, a

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Does my son know that I’m proud of him?

comparative analysis of sales on their laptop or the football scores on TV. “No, I can’t have a game with you, son. I’m way too busy,” is heard too many times in our homes.

As Australian novelist Tim Winton admits, “We’re at the mercy of our social and material ambitions.

Often our kids come off second best to this compulsion to be bigger, richer, groovier. That’s why I cringe when I hear that yuppie phrase ‘quality time’. So often it’s guilt time, obligation time . . . paying my dues time, being seen to be a good father time. There are men of my generation who spend less time with their kids than their fathers did” (quoted in Bruce Robinson’s Fathering from the Fast Lane).

Warwick Marsh from Dads4Kids collected the following data from a variety of sources that clearly por-

tray the importance of fathers being present with their kids.

Children with involved fathers are: • 40 per cent less likely to repeat a grade in school • 70 per cent less likely to drop out of school • more likely to get A grades in school • more likely to enjoy school and engage in extracurricular activities • more secure as infants • less likely to show signs of depression • less likely to commit suicide • more empathetic • less aggressive 2. “Does my son know that I love him?”

Just like every boy needs to hear the words “I love you” from his

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General Douglas MacArthur, quoted in Raising Sons and Loving It, by Gary and Carrie Oliver, Zondervan Publishing.

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mother, it’s even more important that he hears those words from his father. This isn’t always easy for fathers to do; it isn’t the usual way of being the tough, in control, macho father. It can be uncomfortable, but it’s essential that fathers convey their love to their sons. A son may not be able to kick a ball, hold a hammer or play the trumpet like his dad, but he needs to know his dad loves him anyway. His dad’s love and guidance will open the door to trust and acceptance that build the father–son relationship and help boost his sense of self.

Love provides a sense of anchoring. It conveys the message that, in spite of any difficult or tough times, Dad will always be there.

“Despite the conventional wisdom that nurturing is primarily mum’s territory, the root meaning of ‘nurture’ is ‘to protect’, a role that most dads are comfortable with,” says Warren.

3. “Does my son know that what he does is important to me?”

A son needs to know that his interests, schoolwork, hobbies and friends are pleas-

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“Build me a son, O Lord, who will be strong enough to know when he is weak and brave enough to face himself when he is afraid; one who will be proud and unbending in honest defeat, and humble and gentle in victory.

Build me a son whose wishes will not take the place of deeds; a son who will know Thee—and that to know himself is the foundation stone of knowledge.

Lead him, I pray, not in the path of ease and comfort, but under the stress and spur of difficulties and challenge.

Here let him learn to stand up in the storm; here let him learn compassion for those who fail.

Build me a son whose heart will be clear, whose goals will be high; a son who will master himself before he seeks to master other men; one who will reach into the future, yet never forget the past.

And after all these things are his, add, I pray, enough of a sense of humour, so that he may always be serious, but never take himself too seriously. Give him humility, so that he may always remember the simplicity of true greatness, the open mind of true wisdom and the weakness of true strength.

Then I, his father, will dare to whisper, “I have not lived in vain.”

ing to his father. A father can successfully guide his son towards what is right and valuable only when the son is confident that there is a high degree of acceptance from his dad. Show him that everything he does is important to you, and then you can show him what is really important—and he will welcome it.

As Joseph Hart notes, when a father expresses “criticism, disdain, disappointment or ambivalence of his son, the son never fully matures. Instead, he lives with a private fear that he is not really an acceptable or worthy man”. Sons need to hear words like, “I’m proud of you;” “you are amazing;” “I know you can do it;” “you messed up, but you will bounce back.”

A son needs to know that his father is supportive

of his dreams. True, he may not be the next Spider-Man, Mark Zuckerberg or Winston Churchill, but he doesn’t need his father discouraging him from trying! In his book, Wild at Heart, John Eldredge describes the “father-wound” that is handed down generation to generation, most often as the result of sons not hearing what they needed to hear from their dads. Men learn they are men, suggests Eldredge, by having their fathers notice and reflect their son’s evolving man-ness—competency, mastery, strength, bravery and intelligence.

This happens best through male bonding and adventure, through affectionate and approving gestures, and through verbal and non-verbal messages of affirmation—“you’ve got what it takes”, “nice shot”, and “atta boy!”

4. “Does my son know that I’m proud of him?”

A son who only receives words of support from his father when he completes an assigned task may grow up to be a workaholic, constantly working hard to seek his father’s approval, and never knowing when he’s done enough!

The way a father affirms his son will be culturally and community shaped and dependent on his personality and interests. “The objective of affirmation,” notes Warren, “is to meet a son at his particular point of need and to connect to him—heart to heart.” Any act of affirmation by his father, whether big or small, communicates to his son that his love is lasting and unconditional.

“You don’t raise heroes, you raise sons, but if you treat them like sons, they turn out to be heroes, even if it’s only in your eyes,” says an anonymous proverb. Every son can be a hero, and every father can make him one!

Trafford Fischer is a family life educator, currently based in Sydney.

He is passionate about strengthening relationships.

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DEATH Meet the retired British woman who supports prisoners awaiting execution.

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on’t be fooled by the horses grazing lazily in a field in front of the prison, or the corrections officers sporting hokey western hats. This is about as bleak as it gets: the Polunsky Unit is home to Texas’s death-row wing. Its population currently stands at 241 men. On the day of an execution the condemned are driven to a separate prison where they are given a lethal injection.

This morning there’s a solitary figure waiting outside the security gates: a woman in her late 60s wearing a red cardigan and a streak of pink in her short blonde hair. Ann Stevens’

accent sets her apart from the other visitors to the prison; the guards all know the Englishwoman who has been coming to Polunsky twice a year for the past decade. Stevens once worked at a supermarket checkout. She now runs a death-row ministry.

Twice a year she relies on donations to pay for flights to the US where she visits men and women awaiting the death penalty around the country. Like Sister Helen Prejean, the nun played

by Susan Sarandon in the movie Dead Man Walking, Stevens is the religious conscience of the condemned, consoling them as they face the ultimate penalty.

Once you’ve gone through a security check, you walk along a path beyond the razor wire and into the prison. Ivan Cantu, the 44-year-old prisoner Stevens has come to see, is led, handcuffed, 34

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Ann Stevens and Ivan Cantu

behind a row of booths by three officers. He sits on a chair and pushes his cuffed hands through a slot in the door so a guard can remove them.

Cantu, a small-framed man with thick, swept-back black hair, smiles as Stevens sits opposite him and places the phone to her ear.

“Hello, love,” she says. “How have you been?”

The state holds that Cantu killed his cousin, James Mosqueda, and his cousin’s fiancée, Amy Kitchen, at their Dallas home in November 2000, because his relative failed to pay a drug debt. He has been on death row for 16 years. He was given an execution date in 2011 but it was withdrawn for legal reasons.

Although clothes in Cantu’s apartment were found to have the victims’ blood on them, Cantu has always maintained his innocence.

Unless they volunteer the information, Stevens doesn’t ask what crimes the men and women she visits have committed. “I’d rather not sit there and think: ‘This is a monster.’ Most people wouldn’t normally love these people because of what they’ve done, but God doesn’t do it like that. And because I’m there as an envoy of God, giving some sort of comfort, I’m not going to judge them.”

Cantu asks Stevens to read Psalm 139 from her Bible. She pulls her chair closer to the glass and thumbs the pages. “I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made,” she reads. Cantu, elbows on his ledge, shuts his eyes. “Test me and know

my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”

Cantu tells me he wasn’t a Christian when Stevens first visited him.

But slowly, perhaps because of the comfort it offered him, alone in his cell 23 hours a day, he began to find faith. Earlier, Stevens told me she ministered to another inmate who didn’t want to know about God. “Then he had an execution date—after 23 years on death row,” she said. “And he told me that after all the years I’d talked to him, drip, drip, dripping stories from the Bible, he swears he heard a voice say, ‘I’m not finished with you yet.’ He looked around and there was no-one there.

And then they took him off death row. He believes it happened because he found the Lord, and he has been faithful ever since.”

I first met Stevens last summer at her small, terraced house in Semilong, Northampton. She never envisaged becoming involved with her church, let alone one day running a death-row ministry. She had a child at 16, after which she was disowned by some of her family. She was married for 27 years, but at the age of 48 she left her husband and became more involved with her local church.

But it was a documentary, Fourteen Days in May, that changed her life.

First broadcast by the BBC in 1987, the film follows Mississippi inmate Edward Earl Johnson in the two weeks leading up to his execu­ tion. After seeing that, Stevens conSEPTEMBER 2018 • SIGNS OF THE TIMES

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tacted LifeLines, a charity that organises pen pals for death-row prisoners in the States.

There came a time when writing letters wasn’t enough and some of her pen pals had begun asking when she was going to see them.

“My first visit to Polunsky was so surreal,” she tells me. “I’d never been in a prison before and the way the guards were looking at me, I felt judged, I suppose.

“I was visiting Duane Buck, my first pen friend. He’d obviously told some of the other inmates I was coming because as I approached his pod in the meeting room some of them were banging on the glass: ‘Are you a Christian, ma’am?’ ‘Will you visit me, ma’am?’ Just seeing them sitting there behind glass—they looked so desperate.”

More and more, Stevens felt compelled to write or talk to inmates about her faith, and in 2013 she was ordained as a minister by a church in Texas. This meant she’d be given greater flexibility when visiting inmates, but it would also enshrine her visits in meaning and purpose. She started spending her time in England raising money so she could take two lengthy trips a year to Texas.

During her visits with inmates, Stevens buys them something from the vending machine, asks about their wellbeing and talks to them about God. But, she said, she is never pushy. “I don’t want to sit there preaching at them. I just want to show there is somebody out there who gives a damn about them; who prays for them.”

And she doesn’t mind if they don’t share her faith. “They eat, shower and die when they’re told. They need choices, and if they choose not to believe in Jesus, that’s up to them.”

One inmate always asks her to buy him a packet of chips and herself a bag of cashews when she visits. They eat the snacks and drink a can of soft drink at the same time and have SIGNS OF THE TIMES • SEPTEMBER 2018

One of Ann Stevens’ letters

Connecting across oceans

what Stevens calls a mock communion.

Stevens had previously told me over the phone that this could be her last trip. She has been visiting American prisons for more than a decade. But she turns 70 next year.

“Flights and insurance are expensive,” she said. “I have diabetes, arthritis.

It’s difficult.” But she seems to have had a change of heart. “I’ve always said when I can’t raise the money that’s the end of the road for me, but I don’t feel like it is yet.”

The darkest, most difficult part of her work comes at the end. Stevens has now witnessed two executions.

The first was in 2012, that of Keith Thurmond, convicted of killing his estranged wife and her boyfriend.

“Keith was very mentally vulnerable; believed he was a helicopter pilot and the FBI had set him up.”

At the prison Stevens was told to remove her shoes to go through security. “I remember my foot made a sweat mark on the floor. I was a nervous wreck.” She was led into a small room and told to stand facing the execution chamber. “They pulled back the curtain—I was only a few feet from Keith, who was behind glass, strapped to a hospital bed. It made me feel claustrophobic, panicked. I saw a tear roll down his face.

I managed to give him a thumbs-up and smiled. What else do you do?”

She says the warden stood behind Thurmond and a prison chaplain held his ankle. “We all just stood there, rooted to the spot. You’re not

prepared to see a man who, apart from the effect prison had on him, was fit and healthy, die before your eyes. I thought: how does this change anything for anybody?”

Later, in the prison chapel, she was able to hug Thurmond for the first time. He was covered with a maroon blanket. At his funeral she laid white roses on his coffin. “He had said that they would somehow make him pure and help him get into heaven.”

At the Polunsky Unit, Ivan Cantu is talking to Stevens about other inmates; those who rarely have visitors, never get letters and who almost never leave their cells. He’s concerned about their mental health and asks Stevens if she’ll start writing to them or pay them a visit.

Later, Cantu will write to tell me that Stevens’ positivity is contagious.

“It blows me away that a single, retired woman on a very limited budget is willing to travel across the Atlantic for people considered unworthy of society—to bring hope and dignity to us,” he’ll say. “It’s kind of a saintly move, don’t you think?”

The corrections officer who has been sitting by the door gets up. Stevens’ two hours are up. Cantu shifts in his seat and his eyes well up. “Will you pray for me before you go?” he asks. “Of course,” Stevens replies. She stands and places a hand on the glass.

Cantu puts his palm up to hers and they close their eyes.

Alex Hannaford is a journalist with 20 years’ experience. Article adapted from The Telegraph, courtesy of The Interview People.

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UND blurb

BY AUTHOR

Justice can take a long time to come to fruition. But the final outcome is worth waiting for and offers a new beginning.

BY BJORN KARLMAN

n the mid-1960s, Rubin “Hurricane” Carter, one of the top boxers in the world at that time, was wrongly convicted of a triple homicide and sent to prison, sentenced to serve three life sentences. Failed by a flawed legal system, the gifted athlete was robbed of his dreams and was facing the rest of his life behind bars. It would be hard to imagine a more miserable fate for the young man who had shown such incredible promise in his career. Carter could easily have been forgiven for giving in to despair at this terrible turn of events. Many would have been ruined by the thought that, instead of enjoying the fruits of hard-fought success, life would be drastically different, defined by injustice.

More amazing than Carter’s celebrated career in sport, however, was how he dealt with the unbelievable setback of prison.

He refused to give up hope. He cultivated a unique perspective on his life behind bars. Despite being deprived of his physical freedom, Carter decided that he was still free in his mind. He decided that rather than surrendering to a downward spiral of negativity, he would direct all his energies to proving the truth of his innocence. He spent his time in prison studying law, history and philosophy in search of a way to prove that he was not guilty. Carter’s refusal to give in to fatalism and his unique approach to his unjust imprisonment lasted SEPTEMBER 2018 • SIGNS OF THE TIMES

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“

This powerful vision of earth’s future can fuel our sense of perspective through life’s trials and injustices.

“Here comes the story of the Hurricane.

The man the authorities came to blame For something that he never done . . . ” Rubin “Hurricane” Carter’s miscarriage of justice was the subject of a 1975 protest song by Bob Dylan.

for 19 years. Then, after two additional trials, Carter was proved innocent and set free. Incredibly, after his release from 19 years of unjust imprisonment, Carter decided to waste no time on revenge. He simply got on with his life without suing for damages or demanding apologies. He just moved on.

Carter’s story says a lot about the power of perspective and how it can help us deal with the injus40

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tices of life. It shows how important it is to see the horrible things that happen in life through the right lens. Carter demonstrated how powerful truth can be in the face of the tragedies of life.

His story also suggests that the correct perspective, grounded in truth, can help us face the extremely difficult questions about injustice in this world.

These questions often involve God in some way. You’ve heard them. You may even have asked them yourself: If God exists, why is there so much suffering in

WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

this world? Why do bad people get away with doing terrible things? Why do children get cancer? If God is so good, how do you explain the Holocaust? Or the Rwandan genocide? What about 9/11? Why do we live under the threat of nuclear war?

Whether or not you believe in God, these are incredibly tough questions to answer. We live in a world where horrible things happen to good people and it can be tempting to chalk it up to the idea that life is meaningless; to a belief that there is no rhyme or reason to life’s tragic injustices. Many feel the way French author Jules Renard did when, over a century ago, he bitterly quipped, “I don’t know if God exists, but it would be better for His reputation if He didn’t.”

Renard’s statement sums up the anger that many people in secular societies feel at the thought that God exists. If there is a God then why does He allow all these terrible things to happen?

Where’s the justice in this life?

Can we, like Carter, turn to enduring truths that help us answer these questions? Is there a perspective that we can adopt that gives us hope in the face of injustice and tragedy? The Bible points to a thousand-year period that helps shed light on some of these questions and has given hope to countless millions.

The thousand years in question is commonly referred to as the millennium and is introduced in Revelation, the last book of the Bible. In a nutshell, the millennium is the thousand-year reign of Jesus, together with those He has brought to heaven, between what the Bible describes as the first and second resurrections. The thousand-year period of the millennium deals directly with the justice of God that has so often been questioned.

The biblical description of the millennium kicks off in Revelation 19:11– 21 where the end of time is described in symbolic language. Christ is seen charging out on a white horse with the armies of heaven behind Him. His mission is to defeat God’s enemies. His success in this mission represents the second coming.

By the end of the chapter, Christ is victorious in His mission, ushering in the millennium, which follows in Revelation chapter 20.

During the second coming, the perpetrators of injustice are destroyed and God’s faithful are resurrected. In 1 Thessalonians 4:16 the Bible describes the second coming with these words: “the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel, and with the SEPTEMBER 2018 • SIGNS OF THE TIMES

41

trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.” After this happy event, 1 Thessalonians 4:17 says that those who are alive and have remained faithful will join the resurrected in the clouds to meet Jesus.

At this point, the story of the millennium is just beginning; a thousand years in heaven awaits those who have accepted Jesus. The Bible says in Revelation 20:4 that God’s people will be given “authority to judge”. This means that the millennium will be a chance to review the heavenly records and see that God’s justice has actually been done. As sobering as it will be to witness that the evildoers have brought about their own destruction, the millennium will be a chance to see that the evil acts that caused so much tragedy and heartache on earth never went unnoticed. The record will make plain that justice has been done.

Meanwhile, Revelation 20 tells us the devil will be confined to the “Abyss” (the destroyed world) with nobody to tempt. He will roam this wasteland for the entire thousand-year period.

But it doesn’t end there. At the end of the millennium, a new era begins as the New Jerusalem of Revelation 21:1,2 comes down from heaven and lands on the earth—a giant city in the shape of a cube. Here’s where the enemies of Christ are resurrected (Revelation 20:5) and Satan has one more chance to recruit them into his campaign against God. The master deceiver will lead God’s enemies in 42

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attacking the New Jerusalem. It is the ultimate showdown as humanity in its entirety is split between Christ’s friends inside the New Jerusalem and those outside who have refused Jesus’ sacrifice, joining Satan in his final assault.

Those attacking the New Jerusalem will not succeed. Instead, a consuming fire will destroy them and Satan once and for all (Revelation 20:10,15), bringing about a final end to injustice and marking the beginning of an eternal era of heavenly peace and joy for God’s followers.

Instead of the pain of human existence, Jesus “will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away” (Revelation 21:4).

Here, at the end of the millennium, we see justice at last.

The old order and those responsible for it have ceased to exist and all that is left is a future of harmony and a beautiful friendship with God. This powerful vision of earth’s future can fuel our sense of perspective through life’s trials and injustices. We don’t have to feel hopeless and betrayed.

We don’t have to feel knocked down and defeated. We know that there is a final round, and what’s more, we already know who is going to be the clear winner.

After spending his childhood as a South-East Asian missionary kid, Bjorn Karlman has continued to live and work internationally in the UK, Thailand, and Argentina as a writer, editor and humanitarian volunteer. He and his wife currently live in California.

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Practising FAITH 44

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Are you serious about your spiritual life? Maybe you need to spend time not just learning, but putting into practice what you learn.

BY NATHAN BROWN

W

hen I was at high school, I played basketball a lot— playing most days at school, then team training sessions and often two or three games each week. While a university student, I played on the best team I have been part of. We trained and played regularly over two years, and twice won the league we played in.

Twenty-some years later, I still play in a local basketball competition. It’s an “old man’s league”— over 30s—but it’s a good way to stay active and an incentive to exercise between games. But it isn’t only because I am older and slower that the standard of play is different.

Life is different—busier and with different priorities—and I practise rarely, with even fewer opportunities to train as a team.

Over the past summer, with the school-holiday break in our competition, perhaps a game cancelled due to heat and other commitments that I had, I went through a period of fully three months between games, before returning to play a SEPTEMBER 2018 • SIGNS OF THE TIMES

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practising faith, but it is one obvious marker.

There is enough of a gap here to suggest there is a lot of non-practising being practised.

And this is key to our understanding of the practise of faith.

We are not focused merely on doing faith, but there is also the other sense of practising. It’s the urging that came with every childhood music lesson, the demand of any coach you have ever had in any sporting endeavour, or the key to success in all activities that require the development of a skill, expertise or strength. It’s even how we originally learn to walk and to talk. We get better at it by practise.

And I think this might be the most important way of understanding the practise of faith. We get better at it by doing it. It is likely to feel awkward and unnatural at first.

As we begin to experiment with the practises of faith, we might be unsure if we are doing it “right” and it will probably lack the eloquence or assur-

ALINE DE NADAI—UNSPLASH

couple more games at the end of the same season. And I had not done so much as touched a basketball since I had previously played. As would be expected, my first game back wasn’t pretty to watch—if our games ever are—and was frustrating. The ball just didn’t seem to do what I intended quite so readily.

I guess I could be labelled a non-practising basketballer. I still turn up to play games occasionally— and I still enjoy watching basketball games—but I do little to maintain or develop my skills or fitness. It’s the kind of language we use to describe people who might maintain some cultural or sentimental attachment to faith but it is not something they do regularly. Depending on their faith tradition, they might be described as non-practising, nominal, nonobservant or perhaps even lapsed.

But it’s the same idea—and it’s quite common.

For example, according to the 2016 census, 52.1 per cent of Australia’s population describe themselves as some kind of Christian.

However, somewhere below 10 per cent of Australians attend church even semi-regularly. Not that church attendance is the only measure of

edness of more experienced believers. On the other hand, we might bring an enthusiasm and energy to faith that some more experienced believers can lose.

Which is one of the key reasons that faith is best practised together. We can learn from and be inspired by each other, at different points in our experience and practise of faith.

Most worthwhile things in life require work, attention, priority and effort. It might be easy to fall in love, but it takes practise to grow that love into a maturing and enduring relationship. Similarly, it takes practise to incorporate the realities of faith, hope and love into our lives and to get better at living in response, with all their implications. Faith is the practise of living like it’s true and, through its regular practices, this comes to be more natural, more authentic and more true for us.

This is why the practise of non-practising is also significant.

If that is what we practise, that is

what we will get better at. I have a friend whose father was his long-time basketball coach, who warned him against taking careless shots: “Don’t practise missing, you might get good at it.” There is a self-affirmation in what we spend our time doing, focusing on and investing in—or not.

So we should consider carefully the faith or non-faith that we are choosing to practise. As humans, we naturally invest in what we believe in, but we also grow to believe increasingly in what we invest in and practise.

Despite my slower reflexes and rickety knees, still the more I practise basketball—if I choose to make that a priority—the more shots tend to go in, the greater the possibility of playing on a winning team, and the more likely I will enjoy it and keep playing. In short, it makes more sense when I practise.

The more we practise faith and choose to make this a priority, the more likely it is to be a real, valued, relevant and sustainable part of our lives. And the more it will speak to and transform our lives and our world.

Nathan Brown is a book editor and semi-regular basketball player. He lives in Warburton, Victoria.

SEPTEMBER 2018 • SIGNS OF THE TIMES

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FA IT H

FREDERICK’S EXPERIMENT Love defies rational explanation, so where does it come from?

BY TY GIBSON

B

ack in the thirteenth century, the German king, Frederick II, conducted a diabolical experiment intended to discover what language children would naturally grow up to speak if never spoken to. He thought it would be German. Some things are just obvious, right? So King Frederick took babies from their mothers at birth and placed them in the care of nurses who were forbidden to speak in their hearing. But a second rule was imposed as well: the nurses were not allowed to touch the infants.

To his great dismay, Frederick’s experiment was cut short, but not before something tragically significant regarding human nature was revealed. As you may have guessed, the babies grew up to speak no language at all because they died. In the year 1248, an Italian historian named Salimbene di Adam recorded, with an air of scientific observation, “They could not live without

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FOREMNIAKOWSKI—GETTY IMAGES SEPTEMBER 2018 • SIGNS OF THE TIMES

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“

petting.” The babies literally died for want of touch.

Astounding! Modern medicine calls this phenomenon, “failure to thrive”. For some reason, we humans flourish under the influence of love and we gradually die without it. The implications of this fact are huge. Consider the research of Dr Dean Ornish. In his national bestseller, Love and Survival, Ornish presents study after study demonstrating that love is a chief influence for mental, emotional and even physical health. On page 29 he summarises the unexpected message of the rapidly accumulating body of data: “Anything that promotes feelings of love and intimacy is healing; anything that promotes isolation, separation, loneliness, loss, hostility, anger, cynicism, depression, alienation and related feelings often leads to suffering, disease and premature death from all causes.”

Modern science is now proving through controlled studies that 50

SIGNS OF THE TIMES • SEPTEMBER 2018

human beings are literally engineered for love. We are made for love, as if our DNA contains the message, “You must love and be loved in order to survive.” But this presents Ornish, and the mainstream of modern science, with a serious problem. He explains: “The scientific evidence … leaves little doubt that love and intimacy are powerful determinants of our health and survival. Why they have such an impact remains somewhat a mystery.” So to solve the mystery, Ornish posed a question to a wide range of scientists. The basic gist of the question was this: Why are human beings so vitally dependent on love? The bottom line answer was along the lines of, Well, it is strange, isn’t it? We don’t know why.

Ornish then concluded: “Mystery remains. No-one can fully explain . . . why love and intimacy matter so much.”

Scientists are baffled by the existence of love and the fact that we need it. But why are they baffled? Well, quite simply, because

FRANCKREPORTER—GETTY IMAGES

The babies literally died for want of touch...

love creates a break, actually a contradiction, in the train of logic in the evolutionary worldview. The problem for many scientists is that they are trying to understand the human need for love within a paradigm of reality that does not allow for the existence of love!

Because Darwinian evolution begins with a survival-of-the-fittest premise, it dictates that self-preservation must be the highest law and the main factor in our survival. Love, by contrast, is essentially self-giving rather than self-preserving, and therefore, makes no sense in the evolutionary context.

If materialistic evolution is the truth of human origins, then human beings are merely biological animals and there is no such thing as love. And yet, here we are, creatures who thrive on love and are utterly dependent on it. A tenacious desire to love and be loved pervades every human heart. We try to explain it with no reference point beyond ourselves, and we seek its satisfaction in countless material pursuits, but it remains—larger than anything this world can offer, more persistent than our most determined resistance and insistently fixed on something more than ourselves. We can’t help but ask the obvious question at some point: What is that “something more” that we so desperately long for? In two simple declarations, the Bible offers this answer: “God made mankind in His own image” (Genesis 1:27). And “God is love” (1 John 4:16).

Ty Gibson is a father to two sons, a bestselling author and co-director of Light Bearers. This article is adapted from the Digma.com video series. Used with permission.

SEPTEMBER 2018 • SIGNS OF THE TIMES

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W

ELL BEI NG

MAINTAIN YOUR LUNCHBOX MOJO Whether you’re a first-time school parent or a seasoned school veteran, the lunchbox battle can can get get the the best best of of anyone. anyone.

So ifif you’re you’relooking looking for aa way wayto tosolve solve that lunchbox lunchboxriddle, riddle, maybe it’s time maybe it’s time toto take aa tip tipstraight straightout out of Japan Japan that’s that’sfilled filled with goodness goodnessand and big on on YUM! YUM!

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SIGNS OF THE TIMES • SEPTEMBER 2018

EMBRACE THE BENTO EMBRACE THE BENTO The bento box has a Themore bentogoing box has lot for ait than looking great. lot more going for it It can your thanactually looking be great. secret weapon to It can actually be increasing variety your secretthe weapon of foods your kids to increasing the are eating, popping variety by of foods your something different kids are eating, by in each section. popping something different in each

Five compartments section. are perfect for ticking the food groups Fivefive compartments and the kidsfor won’t are perfect ticking even realise it.

For the five food groups them it’s all about and the kids won’t the fun and choosing even realise it. For what section to eat them it’s all about first.

It’s particuthe fun and choosing larly fortolittle whatgood section eat fusspots who don’t first. It’s particularly like foodsfussgoodtheir for little touching. pots who don’t like their foods touching.

LUNCHBOX SOLUTIONS LUNCHBOX SOLUTIONS For a balanced bento why Fortry: a balanced bento why not

•

not try:

Wholegrain sandwich

• (grains) Wholegrain sandwich • Grapes, (grains)berries or segments • mandarin Grapes, berries or (fruit) mandarin segments • Cheese (fruit) cubes or • yoghurt Cheese(dairy) cubes or • Hummus dip, mini yoghurt (dairy) patties veg• lentil Hummus dip,and mini lengie sticks (veggies and til patties and veggie protein) sticks (veggies and • Bliss ball or miniprotein) and grain muffin • fruit Bliss ball or mini (wholesome treat) fruit and grain muffin (wholesome treat)

The small compartments inThe bento boxes are great small compartments forin using up leftovers and bento boxes are great the odd bits of fruit and for using up leftovers and veg thebits fridge, likeand those theinodd of fruit last few strawberries. veg in the fridge, like those last few strawberries.

AD077—GETTY IMAGES

SCHOOL LUNCH STRESS SCHOOL LUNCH STRESS Nailing that winning Nailing winning formulathat of tasty treats you know formula of they’ll tasty treats devour, good you knowthe they’ll stuff they need devour, the goodand enough fill them stuff theytoneed and up is tough, especially enough to fill them up when youespecially need to is tough, magically pull when you need ittoall together magically while pull itmakall toing brekkies, plaiting gether while making hair and reading brekkies, plaiting hair teachers’ notes that and reading teachers’ have been smooshed notes that have been in the bottom of botsmooshed in the school bags. tom of school bags.

FOCUS ON FRESH Try to find in-season fruit and veg. It will save you money and you’ll get the produce at its best. Think summer stone fruits or winter apples. The kids will love it and the environment wins too—fresh local fruit means minimal transport and packaging.

CUT THE CHOPPING A recent Australian study showed kids are likely to eat more veggies when they’re given to them whole. Think mini cucumbers, cherry tomatoes or whole carrots. Less work and they’ll eat more veggies!

BE WATER WISE Juices, sports drinks and cordials are often havens for hidden sugar. Fresh water is best. Why not try freezing the water with fresh fruit pieces for a cool flavour burst on a hot day?

ious inspiraFor more delic r lunchbox tion browse ou on at recipe collecti au/recipes sanitarium.com. .nz/ or sanitarium.co recipes

Article courtesy of Sanitarium Health & Wellbeing. Visit sanitarium.com. au or sanitarium.co.nz and subscribe to Wholicious living for more great health and nutrition info each month.

SEPTEMBER 2018 • SIGNS OF THE TIMES

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R E CI P E

People around the world are devoted to kombucha, claiming a series of health benefits. That may or may not be true. What’s more certain though, is that it’s delicious!

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SIGNS OF THE TIMES • SEPTEMBER 2018

make your own

kombucha

BY GLENN TOWNEND

DANIEL KUBEREK

In the last few months I’ve been making my own kombucha. It’s certainly much more affordable than buying commercially bottled product—not to mention that it’s often hard to find in shops where cheap imitations abound.

Real kombucha is a natural fermented tea that is full of probiotics just like yoghurt (fermented milk), sauerkraut or kimchi (fermented cabbage), or fermented coconut as traditionally consumed in some parts of the South Pacific. Like these foods, kombucha is full of probiotics produced by a natural culture and is considered by

many to be good for gut health— some say it reduces weight because it eats sugars in the gut.

Just check out the debate raging on the internet; you’ll have to make your own decision about the health benefits.

All I can say, as someone who has had long-term gut issues, is that, since I began regularly having yoghurt in the morning and kombucha in the afternoon, I have far less digestive discomfort.

Here’s how to make your own kombucha . . .

WHAT YOU’LL NEED

INGREDIENTS

• • • • • •

• • • • •

Large pot Stove Large mason jar Piece of cloth Rubber band or string Glass bottles

3 litres of water ¾ cup sugar 8 organic green tea bags Kombucha “scoby” 2 cups cut fruit (strawberries, raspberries, apples etc.)

SEPTEMBER 2018 • SIGNS OF THE TIMES

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STEP 1

STEP 2

STEP 3

STEP 6

STEP 7

STEP 8

STEP 10

BONUS STEP

SIGNS OF THE TIMES • SEPTEMBER 2018

METHOD FOR HOMEMADE 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

kombucha

Boil 3 litres of water.

Add ¾ of a cup of sugar and dissolve it.

Steep 8 organic green tea bags in the hot sugary water (black tea is traditional or why not try a caffeine-free alternative such as Rooibos tea?).

Let the mixture cool for a few hours (or overnight) to room temperature.

Remove the tea bags from the liquid.

Transfer mixture to a large mason jar or similar glass container.

Add about 100 ml “starter kombucha” left over from a previous batch along with the active kombucha “scoby”—a live bacterial

blob that looks a lot like an undercooked pancake. (Having a kombucha-brewing friend helps here! Otherwise search online for kombucha starter kits.)

8. Cover the top of the jar with a piece of cloth, securing it with a rubber band or string—the mixture needs to breathe, but you don’t want dust in it.

9. Leave in a dark place at room temperature for a week. During the week the scoby eats the sugar and tea and leaves its probiotics.

10. At the end of the week, chill the drink in glass bottles and drink as desired. It self-carbonates so is very refreshing.

As it is a live culture, care must be taken to ensure sterile conditions for preparation.

Bonus Step

Here’s an optional step that I think takes the result from good to great. Before I chill the kombucha I add pieces of different fruits or herbs (up to 2 cups to the 3 litres) so the kombucha has an infused flavour. My favourite flavours include ginger and lemon; blueberries and mint; and pear, mint and ginger. You can use strawberries, raspberries, apple, rosemary—experiment to suit your taste buds!

If you add flavouring, let the glass bottles sit for another 24 hours before you chill them.

Glenn Townend is a keen cyclist who loves the outdoors and leads the Seventh-day Adventist Church in the South Pacific region. Please note: kombucha has caused negative side-effects in some people and is not recommended for those who are pregnant or have weakened immune systems. If in doubt, consult your doctor.

SEPTEMBER 2018 • SIGNS OF THE TIMES

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CUL

TU RE

BOOK REVIEW The Pact

By Cody Garbrandt Reviewed by Jarrod Stackelroth

What does it take to turn an out-of-control kid into a disciplined fighting machine?

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Sporting stories can be powerful allegories for life. At their worst they’re cliché-filled and obvious, but at their best they make us feel inspired, hopeful and human.

The Pact in some ways fits this mould—the “underdog striving for greatness” archetype. Set in the brutal, modern gladiator pit—the Ultimate Fighting Championship or UFC—Cody Garbrandt’s autobiography has all the essential ingredients of the ultimate fighting story. He’s a young kid from Uhrichsville, Ohio—a working class run-down town where he has to fight to survive. Literally. In fact, from Garbrandt’s description, fighting wasn’t just survival there; it was relished.

He describes fighting as a way of life and his own fights with his older brother Zach

SUPPLIED

I

’m not much of a fighter. During my school years I kicked a kid in the shin once while playing handball—I was so angry. I’m not proud of it. But it’s probably the only blow I’ve ever landed in anger. My “fights”, if you can call them that, were usually one-sided. You could even call them no-sided. I remember at primary school some boys were baiting me—laughing at me and teasing me something chronic. So I chased them.

If I had caught them, there would have been violence. But they all ran away and I couldn’t catch them.

Not a very inspired history of fighting then. And, unlike others I know, it’s not particularly something I enjoy watching either. Boxing, wrestling, MMA—all fighting sports in general are not really my thing.

So while I’m not into them, I love AFL, NRL, basketball and cricket and can always be pulled in by a good sporting story.

Boxing has provided some great stories over the years; real-life, bloodsmeared fairytales that have become great books and movies. Underdogs overcoming the odds; the tireless fight for vindication or justice—Rubin “Hurricane” Carter, Muhammad Ali, Cinderella Man.

were deadly serious. One even ended in concussion.

With a father in jail and a family with a bad reputation in town, it seemed Garbrandt wouldn’t amount to anything.

Yet he channelled his frustration and fighting—first into wrestling, then into boxing and finally into mixed martial arts.

Garbrandt’s biggest fight, however, was against himself. His party lifestyle and undisciplined brawls were at odds with his vision of being world champion and the professionalism of his training. “I was clearly a person who did things full on,” he says about himself.

Garbrandt was on the road to selfdestruction, but his story takes a positive turn because of two surprising encounters—with God and with a young cancer

patient named Maddux.

Through the dramatic ups and downs of Garbrandt’s life, he never doubted God’s existence and presence, thanks in a large part to a father figure, his uncle, who took him to church, taught him the technicalities of boxing and provided a constant, stable influence. And then there was Maddux, a five-year-old boy fighting cancer who, Garbrandt believes, God led him to (with a little help from Zach).

That is when Garbrandt’s life was finally anchored, his purpose was found and he started living—and fighting—for someone else. The two form a deep bond and make a pact: Maddux will fight his illness and Garbrandt will fight his way to the top, and have Maddux there beside him when he makes it.

“If Maddux got up and decided he didn’t want to take his medicine then he would die. If I got up and didn’t take my medicine—if I didn’t do the hard things, the uneasy things, the uncomfortable things, the necessary things—I would die too. It didn’t matter if it made me sick. It didn’t matter if it made me tired. If I wanted to reach the goal, if I wanted to live up to my side of our pact, then I had to pay the price and do it.”

The Pact is not a soppy tear-jerker, although you will be moved. This is a life and death struggle, where one cage fighter goes out and puts everything on the line for his little mate. It’s a story of the process of becoming a man: learning both discipline and tenderness. It’s a story of the life-changing power of living for others and living for a purpose.

While I’m not a huge fighting fan, this is one fight I’m glad I witnessed.

SEPTEMBER 2018 • SIGNS OF THE TIMES

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R E CI P E

PREP TIME: 10 mins COOKING TIME: 20 mins SERVES: 8 INGREDIENTS

3 eggs ½ cup pecans 1 large onion, chopped 1 tbs soy sauce 1 cup low fat cottage cheese ½ cup dry breadcrumbs 1 cup quick oats 3 sheets canola puff pastry, reduced-fat 1 tbs soy milk, for glazing 2 tbs sesame seeds

METHOD 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

Process eggs, pecans, onion, soy sauce and cottage cheese in a food processor until fine.

Transfer to a bowl and mix in bread crumbs and oats.

Cut pastry sheet in half and spoon mixture along one edge. Brush other edge with soy milk. Roll to enclose filling with pastry and repeat with remaining pastry sheets.

Cut each log into 6 even lengths.

Brush with soy milk and sprinkle with sesame seeds.

Bake in a hot oven, 200°C for 15-20 minutes or until crisp and golden.

SUPPLIED

Recipe courtesy of Sanitarium Health & Wellbeing.

Visit sanitarium.com.au or sanitarium.co.nz and subscribe to Recipe of the Week for a delicious plant-powered recipe in your inbox each week.

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SIGNS OF THE TIMES • SEPTEMBER 2018

Vegetarian country cottage rolls Perfect for finger food at your next party, this vegetarian alternative to sausage rolls is lower in saturated fat, full of flavour and sure to be a hit with your guests!

TIP

perfect These are o (see for the bent y addTr ).

52 ge pa a treat, ing one as replace to w fe a or wich. nd sa ur yo

SEPTEMBER 2018 • SIGNS OF THE TIMES

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FUN

CROSSWORD CLUE 2 ACROSS

PUZZLE-MAKER.COM

How closely have you been reading?

Each keyword in this puzzle is also contained within this edition of Signs of the Times. Happy digging!

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SIGNS OF THE TIMES • SEPTEMBER 2018

SUDOKU CROSSWORD CLUES

ACROSS 2 4

A dairy product Symptom of fighting addiction 5 A deadly class of drug 6 Irregular blood sugar levels 10 In the East Midlands of England 12 A food container 14 Medical specialist who administers a sedative

MEDIUM

5

3 4

7

9

8 1

4 3

3

4

8

3

6

9

8

6 8

8

4

2

1

5

5

7

1 2

5

2

7

DOWN HARD

1

To devote time and allegiance 3 Location of a 1994 genocide 7 Medical term for cannabis’ effect on heart 8 First word of Fifth Commandment 9 Carries genetic instructions 11 A deep focus 13 British television network

4

8 5

3

1

2

6

1

2

6 4

7

8 3

7

6

1

1

2

9

5

7 7

2 4

8

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6 5

1

SOLUTIONS AVAILABLE ONLINE SIGNSOFTHETIMES.ORG.AU SEPTEMBER 2018 • SIGNS OF THE TIMES

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