Adding a layer to our Bible Reading

Cove of the Sower North side of Galilee

Pictured here is a possibility of a location Matthew 13 of the Sower. Luke 8 appears to be a different location. Note he was going from town to town. Below is the website that you can go to see photos with a recording of what it would sound like if Jesus taught there.

There is a little tree by the shore where one of these fellows recited the parable. The recording was made from where these fellows are sitting. You can check out what people here would have heard. 

http://www.bibleplaces.com/coveofsower.htm

There would've been a path there where he would've thrown seed down, and good soil,

Looking in from the shore

rocky soil and thorns. He probably had everything that he used in the parable that is audience would've saw. His classroom would've been on location and he could've repeated the lesson in other similar locations. The sermon on the Mount was his early curriculum and here we see a shift in this subject matter.

You can use your phone with Bible gate way app and listen to the Bible when you go for a walk in a park. Seeing the blue sky and green plants, wind, ponds can add to the experience. keep walking

Photos from BiblePlaces.com

Beyond Special Olympics

Studies have shown that people who are fit in their 30’s do better in their health as they age. For many that fitness comes from playing sports they learned in their youth. In sports you may have to train with conditioning or strength training to improve performance. These practices develop life time habits that are good for us.

It is hard to mess with special olympics where every kid is a winner. There are team sports for special needs atheletes where kids can experience the sport. But is there a place for these kids to excel in the sport? Here they learn the how to (skills to play) and get the feeling of striving to do the best they can. Most kids will not develop skills in the olympic games. It is a fun day. I’m OK with that.

There are kids who have a talent. They can actually run. There may be something in their disability that hinders them from gettting all the steps needed to compete. 

If they love to play a sport can they learn how to train for that sport and work at the skills, endurance or strength it takes to make progress in the game. Can they get a coach who will know the game and how to make them better at it.

In a sport it is the training that is learned that can set up a life time behavior that can effect health. A special needs athelete who particapates in the sport to their late thirties may develop the practice and training habits that will translate into better health as they age.

As they transition into older life they could learn other sports like frisbee golf that can keep them on the move into their 50’s and 60’s. Being on a swim team or a cycling club could teach them how to do these things into their senior years. 

Can their be teams develop to do 5K’s or half marathon runs or walks? Can they learn to weight train, circut train for life? To learn these habits would take months to learn and not just a few days. With others they will have to take time to compensate to experience the activity. 

There is something to said for working at a goal and actually making progress towards it.

Consider for the moment the aging special needs person? Can bird watching activities be put in place where there is walking to do with the activity? 

Daily walking can be training to hike special places on vacation. Add learning to take pictures or movings fro a travel log can add extra motivation. Daily walking can also be good for the adult care givers as well.

Live by a zoo? Get a membership where you can make safaris to different exibits three times a week to take pictures of a particular animal. Walking skills and packed meal for a picnic, learning how to frame a shot can create a life time interest and improve health. Targeting the animal will keep the trip focused on the hunt and walk and keep the time small enough to repeat. They can look up the animal on line and learn one thing about the animal.

Bike trails can offer opportunities through out the year. Adding a camera can help give a focus. See if the pictures improve over time. 

A special needs student can assist a senior citizen pushing a chair to a site on a walk. Exercise is gained for the student and service to others to boot. Linking the activity with skills to be improved and reaching goals gives experiences of accomplishment and particapation in this wonderful thing we call life. Keep walking

Kids can actually learn a sport - http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/04/16/a-swim-team-for-teens-with-autism/?hpw&rref=health&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well

Walk the dog

I was listening to the boats going down the river is a made their late night sounds. I was listening to an audiobook after I walk to my house and did my old man exercises. It is amazing to see how it improves the circulation from sitting at the computer. Dr. Cooper used to call it Walking the dog. It's a nice way to relax and stretch the muscles. Listening to my book A mystery set in London. Listening to a book it's a lot like the old radio programs where you're more free to interact with the story. 

Walking the dog s doing a mile walk, what the used to call a constitutional stroll. If we haven't Warncke it is a great activity to do before you go to bed. And with indoor walking you can do it safely in your house.Leslie Sansone has some 1 mile walks online that you can get on your computer. Keep walking

What does “text neck” looks like?

Read an article by Lily Dayton from the LA Times that talk about Teen Compulsive Texting Can Cause Neck Injury. Her source is Dean Fishman a chiropractor who sites a study in the General Surgical Technology our heads weighs 10 to 12 lbs. with good poster. I bet my big head is more? Leaning the head forward increases the weight on our spine. You've see them, teenagers texting, they can be texting two to four hours a day or more. And very often the normal angle they use is a 60° angle which put 60 pounds of pressure on the spine. 

Over time teenagers develop headaches and develop a condition call “text neck”. “Text neck” can also develop “pinched nerves, arthritis, bone spurs, and muscular deformations”, Fishman says.

How many kids as they get older are going to have to painful experiences because of texting? 

Think how it's going to look as one ages? How many people will always seem bent over in a permanent poster caused by texting. It won’t look very good.

There are things you can do the article says that might prevent some of these things. The most obvious to me is to limit your time texting. I see a lot of young people at events where they are not experiencing the event because they are looking down and texting. There are a lot of times we need to put the phones away and just experience life around us. It is possible that you may not agree with me about putting the phones away. You will when you get older.

One simple thing that you can do is that when you text hold your phone out in front of you which forces your head up and having your head up decreases the amount of weight your spine is trying to support from 60 pounds  to 10 to 12 pounds. Your neck is in a good position and you can avoid headaches, pinched nerves, arthritis and look a whole lot better when you get old gray.

I think phones are great. We can use them for information and entertainment. We can actually talk to people and many have the ability to do face-to-face communication. Texting can be a good way to communicate and stay in touch. But texting will never replace friends experiencing life together. Use the phone but don't let the phone use you. What does “text neck” looks like? 

By the way it's good to walk with your head up for the same reason. As we get older looking down actually makes us more likely to fall. With our head up we are better suited to keep our balance and prevent falls. Keep walking

Check out the article for more ideas what you can do if you are having pain or headaches from too much texting. It would be a good idea to see a doctor if you have symptoms of "text neck".

health@latimes.com

We may not control health but we can make a new habit of exercise

Since the article brought up the subject of death; there is the possibility that our bodies are not healthy, we may find yourselves in decline earlier in our 60’s or 70’s. Medicine is invaluable in helping us when we are fighting diabetes, heart disease, and cancer. I take a little issue with the idea early decline is an issue of lifestyle. Some of these things are lifestyle problems but there are people with good lifestyles who are fighting these things. It's still remains that we can do the right things and bad things happen. 

It seems as if we develop the habit of exercise where we include 30 minutes of aerobics, a couple days of strength training, we increase our chances of living longer. And if we lived longer into our late 80s or 90s we tend to wear out and die with a brief decline to let us know to make a piece. According to Chicago Tribune article, An Active Lifestyle Makes Life and Death Better, by James Fell reports to us what Dr. Mike Joiner Mayo clinic and Dr. Jim Fries of Stanford University. Also weighing in is Dr. Spencer Nadolsky.

I have written similar data from Dr. Cooper from Dallas from his research. Regaining The Power Of Youth and Start Strong, Finish Strong.There is no doubt in my mind that exercise can be a habit that is good for us. Lifestyle dynamics in health give us something positive that we can participate in, in what is a very unpredictable aging process that we have little control of. 

I think their advise is sound “the quicker or earlier we start exercising the better as far as longevity is concerned. If we start exercising at 50 or later we definitely can help our quality-of-life.”

Both Dr. Cooper and Dr. Joyner believes aerobic exercise benefits younger people more and seniors who have more limitations “by musculoskeletal frailty”, need strength training to improve bone and strength health. Dr. Nadolsky adds, “My older patients who lift weights do a lot better at being independent.”

Exercise is good for our brain. Exercise increases oxygen to the brain and our brain is one of the biggest users of oxygen in our body. As we get older I believe that exercises are the best investments we can do for our selves and we know exercise improves the immune system which fights things that can hurt us. 

When we strength train as we get older we have to pay attention to proper form and safety. We may be starting at a point our life when we are weaker or we are battling some injury or disease. We also have to weigh in on what our Doctor advises. Recently I wrote about research that informs us it takes twice as long for us to see the benefits of exercise and we are younger. The positive side of that is we can see the positive effects.

Walking with the fat man excepts the inevitable problems with aging. Exercise can still be an option regardless of our limitations but we have to be realistic in our expectations and need patience if we are dealing with slow progress.

I think of two ideas we need to hold on to. One is our independence and the ability to carry-on our life. The other is exercise helps us to have the ability to help in our eventual care that we will need when we get older. Some walking and resistant training can go a long way in improving how we deal with getting older.

One more thought I like to share about strength training, If you're going to do it have a goal in mind to get stronger. Make a goal that eventually you will be lifting a little more weight or you are using a heavier band then when you started. Select fitness goals that you can get off the floor without holding on to something. That you can carry a bag of groceries or open jar. If you're more fit set a goal that she will do push-ups at a lower step. Push-ups can be done off-the-wall, leaning away from the wall, moving to counter doing the push-ups, moving to the stairs doing push-ups off to forced air, Then the third stair, then the second stair, etc. all away to the ground. Along the way you are getting stronger at each level resistance. 

No matter where you're at, your health as long as you have breath that there something that you can do. Keep walking