Keeping Daylight Savings Time

Good stuff from the week:

Denison: According to a recent survey, only 28% of us are pleased with the status quo, while 31% would like to be on Daylight Saving Time (DST) all year long and 40% would prefer staying with standard time. Add health experts to those who want time change to end. They say the annual shift disrupts our circadian rhythms and sleep and leads to a higher immediate risk of heart attacks, strokes, atrial fibrillation, and potentially car accidents as well.

 This week Will dug up the huge bush in front of this house.

Denison: When Vice President Pence and the coronavirus task force began a meeting last month at the White House with prayer, one website complained that they were “wallowing in ignorant superstition and willful ignorance.” To the contrary, they were doing what even secular science reveals to be proactive and positive. 

Numerous studies show that prayer improves psychological wellbeing and mental health, lessens depression among cancer patients, enables greater cognitive focus, increases self-control and lessens unhealthy behavior, promotes sacrifice for others, and strengthens relationships. But the power of prayer, of course, lies not in the one who prays but in the One who listens.

Denison: One way Christianity is different from other religions and worldviews centers in Jesus’ redemptive response to fear. Consider three lessons he offers his followers. 

1. We should live in the present and trust the future to God. Jesus: “Do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble” (Matthew 6:34). Someday there will be a global crisis that seems frightening and unmanageable, but before it accelerates, Jesus will return for us or you or I will go to him. This could be that crisis. That’s why “now is the day of salvation” (2 Corinthians 6:2).

2. Worry is fruitless. Jesus asks us, “Which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? If you then are not able to do as small a thing as that, why are you anxious about the rest?” (Luke 12:25–26). Rather than worry about the future, we should prepare by doing what we can do and trust God with what we cannot.

3. Our Father is Lord of the universe. He asks: “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not, therefore” (Matthew 10:29–31). 

The virus is one nine-hundredth the width of a human hair. Our Father measures the universe with the palm of his hand (Isaiah 40:12). He is on the throne of the world. Let’s be sure he is on the throne of our hearts today.

Denison: Jesus said, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me” (Luke 9:23). It’s why our Lord calls us to submit to him “as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God” (Romans 12:1). It’s because God can do so much more with us and for us than we can do with and for ourselves. In Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis assures us: “Give up your self, and you will find your real self. Lose your life and you will save it.

Joel C Rosenberg: This is a real threat to our health and safety. We have to act hard and fast to get ahead of real devastation. The White House is acting prudently. Before December, the coronavirus had never been known to exist before. It wasn't even named until January. Now it is fundamentally re-shaping the world in ways we've never seen before. The President's address to the nation tonight was thoughtful, reassuring, and right on point. I've been critical of him at times, but these were the most presidential remarks he has ever made. He has acted fast and smart to protect the American people and economy, thank God. And I was encouraged by the new steps he announced. What is the President trying to head off? What should we all be trying to avoid? Anything remotely on the scale of the Spanish Flu outbreak of 1918. Consider what the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has to say about that horrific pandemic: "It is estimated that about 500 million people or one-third of the world’s population became infected with this virus. The number of deaths was estimated to be at least 50 million worldwide with about 675,000 occurring in the United States."