Never Underestimate What Goes On Behind Closed Doors At Your Neighbor’s Place

The Painting and the Piano: An Improbable Story of Survival and Love

Authors: John Lipscomb and Adrienne Lugo

Publisher:Health Communications Inc., Deerfield Beach, FL., 2017

I’m writing this review on Father’s Day weekend. I suppose that is having an impact on my thoughts. With many wonderful memories of this special day with my own father and now with my children, I can’t help but think that this is not the way so many think of their father, or their mother for that matter. I can’t help but be amazed at just how dysfunctional many families are today. This is a real story of just two of them.  My guess, based on what I read these days, is that there are millions more out there just like them.

This book is gut-wrenching from start to finish. But it opens your eyes wide.

The two authors alternate writing chapters – each telling their own story until the very end, when they’ve joined forces in more ways than one.

First, we meet Adrienne, a happy young lady living with her very loving foster parents. She couldn’t be happier.  Then we meet John growing up in an upper-class home with all its benefits. But it isn’t long before we discover a major problem in each.

In Adrienne’s case, disaster strikes when her birth-parents decide it’s time to reconnect with their daughter. In John’s case, we find out his otherwise beautiful mother has a deep blotch hidden behind her façade – she’s a hopeless alcoholic.

The rest of the story you’ll need to read for yourself, but I assure you that you will not be disappointed. In fact, you may very well be shocked.  But let me share with you some of my observations.

Both Lipscomb and Lugo write very well.  So much so, that reading this book on a flight home from Boston, I was pleased to have my flight delayed because it gave me time to let me finish it.

The book includes some wonderful quotes and truths.  One of my favorites was from a psychiatrist, “If I know the relationship a child has with his or her mother, then I can help that person.” Relationships with our mothers, and fathers, matter.  I’ve also confirmed from the book that it’s the parents that usually (but not always) screw up such relationships, partly because they were screwed up by their parents in their own relationships.

In John’s case, we learn that when a mother is not capable or willing to fill the role she should be filling, that role is often filled by some other, much more loving individual. And thank God for that.

In this book, we observe at close hand, both the failures of our child protection agencies and their limited powers to do what is right. We also watch a lame family court judicial system follow the letter of the law when by doing so, they condemn innocent children to a life of misery.

We see the effects that both alcohol and drug abuse can have on children’s lives – even from within the womb. We learn that what these children deal with constantly in their mind’s images, as a result of their parents’ conditions, is something they seldom wish to talk about even when the events are from decades past. We understand why it is that our children’s friends often wish to spend as much time at our place, avoiding theirs like a plague. The value of wise and loving parents of one’s friends to make a positive impact on a life is brought to the forefront in this book.  I know that from personal experience and I also know it from the wonderful kids that were at our house so often after school spending time with my children and my wife – some of which we are still in contact with.

This is also a book of hope for those that have fallen into the vicious cycle of abuse, now risking the chance of being the abusers themselves. But make no mistake about it, getting off the cycle requires hard work and extreme pain. Another great quote from the book is – “I got the monkey off my back, but the circus is still in town.” (There is some disagreement as to who originated that idea.) Nevertheless, it fits well with the long process of being “clean” (either from alcohol or from drugs), only to have to find yourself in a place full of drinkers or users.

Adrienne and John both end up where their dysfunctional parents were – but with one difference. They both wanted to stop the spinning cycle and get off.  Adrienne committed herself to doing so because of the love she had for her children. John because of the respect he had for people outside his family that really loved him.

Finally, and perhaps a little tongue in cheek – it’s worth buying the book just to find out what the title is all about.

I strongly recommend the book for any parent, any abuser, anyone being abused, any counsellor, pastor, or just anyone who has no idea whatsoever is going at their neighbor’s place.

Ken B. Godevenos, President, Accord Resolutions Services Inc., Toronto, Ontario, June 16, 2018, www.accordconsulting.com

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A Medical Doctor Wants To Sleep With A Clear Conscience

Medicines That Kill: The Truth About The Hidden Epidemic

James L. Marcum, MD, Tyndale House Publishers Inc., USA, 2013

A Medical Doctor Wants To Sleep With A Clear Conscience

Becoming a doctor was my first choice as a career. I didn’t make it. Still, anything medical grabs my attention and I eat it up. I am also one of those growing millions who are on prescribed medications daily. What more reason did I need to review this book when given the opportunity?

Here is the bottom line: We get sick; we see medical professionals; they prescribe medicines; and we take them. But do our doctors and us really know what we’re taking and what these little pills can really do? Marcum says “no” and he has dozens of illustrations to prove it. His book is full of very alarming statistics that if nothing else should cause every reader to read everything they can and ask their medical caregivers every conceivable question with respect to their prescriptions.

Marcum divides his well-researched dissident account into two parts: The Problem and The Solution. In the former he outlines his credentials (very impressive) and then explains why “death by medicine” could happen to you. He identifies many actual medical mistakes, talks about adverse reactions and what research knows and does not know about them.  Then he turns the camera on us, the “users” and writes about both willful and unintentional misuse of medications. An excellent chapter covers the “slow” death that can occur from some deadly combinations of medicine that many take.  And if you thought “OTC” (over-the-counter) drugs are immune from guilt in this whole affair, you’re very mistaken as this board-certified behavioral cardiologist who cohosts a radio program and hosts two television programs, all about health, while running a thriving practice at the prestigious Chattanooga Heart Institute, clearly shows us. Check out your medicines.

In part two of the book, Dr. Marcum, continues his observations and recommendations based on his personal experience over years of practicing medicine and observing life and death. He pulls no punches.  He is not against medicine; he still prescribes them daily. But he believes there are numerous specific things you can do to prevent being killed by them and he shares these with his readers through chapters entitled, Sometimes You Need To Think; Let’s Get Practical part 1; and Let’s Get Practical part 2.

It is at this point that Marcum then takes his biggest risk with his audience. He says there is more to this story of survival (the “if life won’t kill you, medicines might” struggle) and introduces the role that he has found for faith in an Almighty God, a topic that has become very politically incorrect these days. But Marcum handles it with the sensitivity of a skilled practitioner who also has excellent bedside manners (a rare commodity these days). He lays out the facts clearly and shares from his scientific background as well as his heart.

Finally, let me state clearly as the author makes the point several times in his book – he is not at all recommending that we just stop taking our prescriptions – not at all. We need the right medicines in the right dosages and in un-opposing combinations.  But he introduces a spiritual law that is as strong as any scientific law you can name – it’s the law that says being loved and loving in return is the most potent medicine that the human body can have.  With that, he lets us, the patients, make up our own mind on to what our ‘reaction’ will be to his advice.

In the book’s appendices, the reader gets additional insight into the various Medication Classifications of the Food and Drug Administration; how a medication gets to market; and a listing of the most prescribed medications.  All of which is most interesting and informative.

The book helped me understand the complexities of prescribing, administering and taking drugs – even those that are meant to help us.  The variables and players are just too many to control easily. This reader has already checked all the written material on his medications, developed a series of questions for his next visit to the doctor, and decided on actively pursuing a lifestyle that hopefully will enable him to reduce, if not eliminate, some of those miniature pucks or tiny gelatin-like footballs that just innocently dissolve in his mouth or stomach. A good read and highly recommended. Dr. Marcum can, on my account at least, sleep with a clear conscience having done his job to warn me about medicines that kill.

    -- Ken B. Godevenos, Accord Resolution Services Inc., Toronto, Ontario. 15/11/04

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Obama's Pardons & Commutation of Drug Pushers and Dealers -- Happy Thanksgiving to American druggies from the President.

Take a look at the Department of Justice's site for November 21 on who Obama pardoned today and what they were in for.   Is the pot-US giving a message on drugs?   My, he's a magnificent statesman, isn't he?  That's exactly what the country needed.  Please help me, I'm choking.  This is totally ridiculous.  I must admit, however, all of these individuals range in age from 18 to 21.  There's something to be said for this -- and yes, some will consider their ways and change.   But, hey that was what the short enough prison sentences were supposed to do for them, wasn't it.  Sure makes a mockery out of the justice system.  It seems to be saying don't bother going after these type of criminals.  Really now.

Welcome to the United States Department of Justice

[Are you looking for a speaker at your church, your club, school, or organization? Ken is available to preach, teach, challenge, and/or motivate. Please contact us.]

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A Monumental Example of How Drugs Can Affect a Nation's Mind

As I read this account from the BBC this morning, I realized how trapped the world has become by its own making.  Here was a large protest against, of all things -- "the government's war on drugs" -- something that you would think all would welcome.  But not if you are a parent of teenagers getting killed because the military sent in by the government keeps killing the country's youth involved in drugs.  So what is a national leader to do?  It seems one cannot win.

We have failed as a society when we've allowed our freedoms to become our worst prisons; when we have allowed the devaluation of the family and God to be replaced by the pursuit of pleasure and the dollar; and when we step in, we find it is far too late for a solution that doesn't cost even more lives, if a solution can be found at all outside of the very things we discarded in the first place.


BBC News - Protest march in Mexico City against drug war

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Noon Time (EST) Musings - January 15, 2011

Has Vladimir Putin been rather quiet lately, or is it just my imagination.  I wonder what the old boy (and further head of his country's secret service) has been up to lately?  Well, for starters, I just noted that BP and Russia have signed an arctic oil deal recently and there's some global concerns about that.

And you want to go to Mexico for a vacation because????  Even though there were 15,000 killings there in 2010 because of the drug wars going on.  Now the locals are thinking of trying new approaches like 'negotiating with the drug gangs".  That's comforting.

Chief Justice Roberts Jr. on the intention of what the Constitution authors intended for the Supreme Court: "The Framers were not the sort of people, having fought a revolution to get the right of self-government, to sit down an say, 'Let's take all the difficult issues before us and let's have the judges decide them.'  That would have been the farthest thing from their mind."  Amen to that.  Yet today liberals want the Supreme Court (when it is weighted with liberals) to do just that.  And for years they did just that knocking down every law they disagreed with.  And of course, the conservatives want the opposite.  Now with the conservatives in the majority, or so it seems, the liberals are crying foul.  I think Roberts is bang on.  Let's see what happens as he now oversees a conservative court.

Conservatives should be 'ogres'.  Writing in Fortune magazine recently, Roger Parloff says that Chief Justice Robert's humor and charm fooled liberals on his confirmation committee to support him and think he was really a moderate.  He quotes one Supreme Court advocate to say, "In Washington, people expect very conservative people to be ogres."  And Roberts wasn't coming across as one.  So he got confirmed.  My thoughts: a) hog wash  b) it's too sad that we conservatives are perceived that way.  And since most of us may happen to be Christians, it is even sadder.  So, one word of advice to us all: "Lighten Up!  But Don't Compromise."  In fact, somebody should make that a motto. 

Just musing.

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