Real Life Superhero

Thai 'Spider-Man' Saves Boy in Peril
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(March 24) - An everyday hero became a superhero to save a boy in distress Monday.
Rescue workers got the call when an 8-year-old autistic boy had crawled out onto a third-floor ledge at a Bangkok special needs school, AFP reported. The boy was scared because it was his first day at the school, police said.

After the boy's mother mentioned that the child loved superheroes, firefighter Somchai Yoosabai hustled to his fire station and donned a Spider-Man costume that he kept to wear during school fire drills.
"I told him Spider-Man is here to rescue you, no monsters are going to attack you and I told him to walk slowly towards me as running could be dangerous," Somchai said. The boy then stood and let Sonchai carry him in, AFP reported.

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2009-03-24 11:07:42

Also on the same page under a Java Widget on Survival Stories was the story of:

A 93-year-old Japanese man has been certified as a survivor of the U.S. atomic bombings in both Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Tsutomu Yamaguchi, here in an undated photo, was in Hiroshima where the first bomb was dropped in 1945. He suffered serious burns, but returned to Nagasaki where a second bomb was dropped days later.

It is amazing and a miracle that humanity has survived this long after all our inhumanities to each-other and natural disasters.

--- Tsutomu Yamaguchi gazes at the booklet which fails to mention his exposure to two atomic bomb attacks, in Nagasaki on Oct. 31. (Mainichi)

Here are some other news stories about Tsutomu Yamaguchi:

Japan Confirms First Double A-Bomb Survivor

1:08pm UK, Tuesday March 24, 2009

A Japanese man has been confirmed as the first person to have survived both US atomic bombings at the end of World War II. Tsutomu Yamaguchi was already recognised as having survived the Nagasaki bombing, on August 9, 1945. And now he has been confirmed as a surivor of the attack on Hiroshima three days earlier. The "hibakusha", or radiation survivor, was three kilometres from ground zero in Hiroshima on a business trip when the bomb hit. He was seriously burnt on the left-side of his upper body and spent the evening in the city. He then returned to his home city of Nagasaki, just a day before the second atomic bomb attack. Four days after the bombing he was exposed to residual radation while searching for his relatives. Nagasaki city official Toshiro Myamoto said: "As far as we know, he is the first one to be officially recognised as a survivor of atomic bombings in both Hiroshima and Nagasaki." "It's such an unfortunate case, but it is possible there are more people like him." (Read On: Here).

Japanese Man Certified as Double A-Bomb Victim
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
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TOKYO — A 93-year-old Japanese man has become the first person certified as a survivor of both U.S. atomic bombings at the end of World War II, officials said Tuesday.

Tsutomu Yamaguchi had already been a certified "hibakusha," or radiation survivor, of the Aug. 9, 1945, atomic bombing in Nagasaki, but has now been confirmed as surviving the attack on Hiroshima three days earlier as well, city officials said.

Yamaguchi was in Hiroshima on a business trip on Aug. 6, 1945, when a U.S. B-29 dropped an atomic bomb on the city. He suffered serious burns to his upper body and spent the night in the city. He then returned to his hometown of Nagasaki just in time for the second attack, city officials said.

"As far as we know, he is the first one to be officially recognized as a survivor of atomic bombings in both Hiroshima and Nagasaki," Nagasaki city official Toshiro Miyamoto said. "It's such an unfortunate case, but it is possible that there are more people like him."

Certification qualifies survivors for government compensation — including monthly allowances, free medical checkups and funeral costs — but Yamaguchi's compensation will not increase, Miyamoto said.

Japan is the only country to have suffered atomic bomb attacks. About 140,000 people were killed in Hiroshima and 70,000 in Nagasaki.

Yamaguchi is one of about 260,000 people who survived the attacks. Bombing survivors have developed various illnesses from radiation exposure, including cancer and liver illnesses.

Details of Yamaguchi's health problems were not released.

Thousands survivors continue to seek official recognition after the government rejected their eligibility for compensation. The government last year eased the requirements for being certified as a survivor, following criticism the rules were too strict and neglected many who had developed illnesses that doctors have linked to radiation.

See also: Tsutomu Yamaguchi.

The Sloppy Theology Of Henry Poole Is Here: Part 2

"On ne voit bien qu'avec le cœur, l'essentiel est invisible pour les yeux." (It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye).
— Les hommes ont oublié cette vérité, dit le renard. Mais tu ne dois pas l’oublier. Tu deviens responsable pour toujours de ce que tu as apprivoisé. Tu es responsable de ta rose…
Men have forgotten this truth," said the fox. "But you must not forget it. You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed. You are responsible for your rose..."
— C’est le temps que tu as perdu pour ta rose qui fait ta rose si importante.
"It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important." ----Antoine de Saint Exupéry, The Little Prince

Sorry for the week long wait, but last week I got a stomach bug that has been going around our church so that wasn't fun. Anyways, continuing from where I left off---I believe like Fosdick that miracles still happen, but we must be careful how we approach miracles---because sometimes our approaches to miracles lead to dangerous theology such as in these ways:

1- Sometimes how we approach miracles leads to spiritual materialism---turning our walk with God into one of sight and proofs rather than belief/faith in the unseen Risen Lord (John 20:28-30).

2- Sometimes our approaches lead to spiritual arrogance and pride---in that those who have experienced miracles sometimes feel spiritual more superior than those that haven't or feel that God specially chose them and not others such as: how Adolf Hitler believed God chose him to rule the world after he escaped death several times in WWI.

3- Some of our approaches downgrade theodicy (the problem of evil and suffering in the world)---which poses the question of why God would choose to heal some people and not others whom have just as much faith or more than those whom did get healed?

4-

Do you ever wonder just what God requires?
You think He's just an errand boy to satisfy your wandering desires.

--- Bob Dylan, When You Gonna Wake Up? This thought by Bob Dylan which echoes something Fosdick said is another problematic approach to miracles.



Tying miracles back to my quote from The Little Prince---a modern day view of miracles is finding God and beauty in all things. No one exemplified this more than Mister Rogers did:

No matter the weather, Mr. Rogers would still come in his house and say it’s a
beautiful day. Why do we think sunny, bright days are beautiful but if it’s raining it’s a dreary
day? I don’t think Mr. Rogers was talking about the weather when he said it’s a
beautiful day in the neighborhood. Mr. Rogers looked for the beauty in every
day things, every day life. Sitting down with a neighbor, drinking tea, taking time to play,
pretend, paint, and be creative. One day of breathing normally is a beautiful day for
someone with Asthma, Bronchitis or Emphysema. One more day to enjoy the
color of the sky is a beautiful day for someone loosing his or her eyesight.
One more day with your son or daughter before they report to boot camp is a beautify day!
Think like Mr. Rogers and enjoy the beauty of this life, this day! Yes we’ve got problems,
yes there is a war going on, sure we’ve got poverty and political unrest but there are still
miracles every day if you take the time to look. Find something today to make you say
“It truly is a beautiful day in this neighborhood”!

In conclusion, despite it's sloppy theology, Henry Poole Is Here was an interesting movie that in the end showed that love is the truest miracle of all.

The Sloppy Theology Of Henry Poole Is Here: Part 1

For we walk by faith, not by sight. (II Corinthians 5:7 RSV)



Two weeks before last we watched Henry Poole Is Here in our Wed. night group, but since I had a cold I had to rent the movie the week before last in order to finish it for last week's discussion. Anyways, the main theme of the movie is miracles and in that regard I felt the theology was rather sloppy. It seemed the whole of the movie was focused on having faith in this "supposed miracle" rather than the Risen Lord whom we've never seen yet believe. Don't get me wrong---God was a pervasive presence throughout the film, but God seemed overshadowed by the "supposed miracle." Anyways, Vick brought up the Eucharistic Miracle of Lanciano which is interesting in that it's mysterious. Also, the Shroud of Turin was mentioned (which has been proven to be a hoax over and over again) in our discussion. The problem with these sorts of things are the reason Luther wanted to reform the Roman Catholic Church. Indulgences, anyone? In Luther's time the abuse of indulgences included the sell of religious relics with supposedly miraculous properties. A lot of these so-called "relics" were forged.

A second problem with the film is people see what they want to see. Take these supposed "Islamic miracles" for example: Allah Written in Arabic on Tsunami Wave — Miracles of ALLAH !, A Miracle: The Splitting of the Moon, Islam’s “Miracles”, Miracle of Islam, In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful or
Miracles can be subjective and relative to the individual.

Next I would like to say an individual's definition of miracles shapes their view. Here is a detailed definition of miracles by Harry Emerson Fosdick which has help shaped my view of miracles:

You are right, however, in feeling, as your letter reveals, that the prescientific world view which is the matrix in which the Bible’s treasures are set, does pose some difficult problems -- miracles, for example. A letter offers no adequate space for the treatment of that problem, but I venture some homely advice.

First, remember that the ancient world took what we would call miracles for granted. Not having even the idea of natural law in their heads, "signs and wonders," as the New Testament calls them, did not bother the ancients intellectually at all. Almost anything could happen. The records of Buddhism and Islam are full of miracle stories. A contemporary of Jesus, a man named Apollonius, had his biography written, and the miracles ascribed to him are so like those attributed to Jesus that some at first supposed the biography to be a deliberate attempt to discredit the Gospels. No! That whole ancient world thought in terms of miracles, and one often feels that they represent real events, looked at and thought about in a way utterly different from ours. Mohammed, for example, was credited with having made the sun stand still, with having obtained water from a flinty rock, with having fed thousands with a little food.

Second, consider the fact that some miracle stories in the Bible are more easy to believe now than they were a generation ago. This is especially true about miracles of healing. How many bodily ills, which in my youth were supposed to be physically caused, are now known to be caused or complicated by mental and emotional disorders! If you know anything about the development of psychosomatic medicine, you will understand this. When one considers that over half the beds in all the hospitals in the United States are filled with mental patients, and that many more are filled with patients whose physical ills are emotionally caused, so that cure must come rather from the spiritual than from the bodily end, Jesus’ healings become much more credible than they used to be.

Third, don’t suppose that a miracle means the breaking of natural law. I do not think that natural laws are ever broken. Ask nature the same question in the same way and it will always give you the same answer. But our knowledge of nature’s laws is limited. When I consider how many new regularities in nature have been discovered in my lifetime, I am sure that there are infinitely more yet to be discovered. Indeed, if we are tempted to look back two thousand years and condescend to the writers of the Bible because our science is so superior to theirs, we had better watch our step. Imagine the science of two thousand years ahead! How will men then think about us? They will be doing many things then that are absolutely incredible now. So a marvelous occurrence, then or now or in the ancient world, could conceivably be not a rupture of nature’s laws but a fulfillment of laws beyond our ken. Every time we learn a new law we get our hands on a new law-abiding force and can do a new thing. Cannot God do at least that?

Fourth, don’t suppose that you have to believe every miracle story just because it is in the Bible. Dr. W. E. Orchard was orthodox enough -- he ended in the Roman Catholic priesthood -- but he said once, "If I saw someone walking on the sea, I would not say, ‘This man is Divine’: I would say, ‘Excuse me, do you mind doing that again? I didn’t see how you did it.’" That is the typical modern-minded attitude, and you are in good Christian company if you feel the same way about some miracle stories in the Bible. Moses is said to have cast a stick on the ground and it became a snake, and to have seized the snake by its tail and it became a stick. Well, I wonder! Certainly my Christian faith does not depend on believing things like that.

Fifth, don’t complicate your problem by being a wooden headed literalist. The way many Western Christians think about the Book of Jonah, for example, is a tragedy. That book is one of the most magnificent affirmations of God’s universal care for all mankind, across all boundaries of race and nation, that ever was written in the ancient world. Some scholars call the book fiction with an ethical purpose, others call it a parable or an allegory, but no competent scholar that I know of thinks that the book was intended to be taken as historical fact. Of course it wasn’t. At the time the book was written -- probably somewhere around 300 B.C.-- there was developing in Israel an embittered hatred of the Gentiles. Israel was God’s chosen people, and he would destroy the others, who so often had mistreated Israel. Well, Jonah is Israel, refusing God’s commission to be a missionary to Nineveh, the Gentile city, and fleeing across the Mediterranean to escape. But God proves himself omnipresent: he sends a deadly storm; Jonah, spotted by lot as the guilty man, is thrown overboard; a great fish swallows him and three days later disgorges him. I wonder whether that is not an allegory of the exile in Babylon and the return. At any rate postexilic Israel still begrudged any help from God to Nineveh, and when, in response to Jonah’s reluctant preaching, the city repented, "it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry." Read the book and see how it ends, with God rebuking the surly Jonah and saying, "Should not I pity Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also much cattle?" How utterly ridiculous to interpret this moving and prophetic affirmation of God’s universal care for all mankind as a literal miracle story about a whale swallowing a man!

Sixth, don’t be afraid to doubt certain miracles which some Christians consider essential to their faith. If, for example, you doubt the virgin birth of Jesus, you have plenty of good Christian company. I am not trying to tell you what you should think about the virgin birth; I am simply indicating that personally I cannot believe it. Paul apparently never heard of it; Mark, the earliest Gospel, does not mention it; John in his first chapter seems deliberately to bypass it. Only twice in the New Testament is it mentioned -- in Matthew and Luke -- and even there it seems to be a late addition, because the two genealogies of Jesus both come down to Joseph, not to Mary. In the monastery of St. Catherine on Mount Sinai I have myself seen a Syriac translation of Matthew --evidently from an earlier Greek version than the one we now have -- in which the genealogy of our Lord ends as it must logically have ended: "Joseph begat Jesus." Moreover, so many Christians seem to think that the story of the virgin birth confers uniqueness on Jesus, whereas the fact is that miraculous birth, without human fatherhood, was a familiar explanation of distinguished persons in all the ancient world. Such miraculous birth, in one form or another, was ascribed to Buddha, Zoroaster, Lao-tse, and Mahavira in the religious realm, and to personalities like Persius and Augustus Caesar in the secular realm. A familiar argument among early Christian apologists was that, if the Romans and Greeks believed that so many other people were born of a virgin, why could they not believe that Jesus was so born. Anyway, whatever conclusion you come to, don’t treat that kind of miracle story as basic to your Christian faith. Jesus’ divinity surely was not physical -- what could that mean? His divinity lay in his spiritual quality.

Finally, never forget that, despite modern science, this is still a miraculous world. As Walt Whitman said,

Why, who makes much of a miracle?
As to me I know of nothing else but miracles. . . .
To me every hour of light and dark is a miracle,
Every cubic inch of space is a miracle.

Imagine yourself back millions of years ago, when earthquakes and volcanoes ruled the uninhabited earth, and along the ocean’s edge the first microscopic forms of cellular life were emerging --on which would you have placed your bet, volcanoes or cells? How utterly unpredictable the future of life on earth then was! So modern science has not reduced this universe and us within it to dull, monotonous, predictable uniformity. Something marvelously creative and unforeseeable is going on here. And, as for the New Testament, think as honestly and intelligently as you can about miracles attributed to Christ, but don’t forget the major fact: he is the miracle. Who ever could have foreseen a life like that?

See also: Harry Emerson Fosdick, What Keeps Religion Going and Miracles, Mormons, and Harry Emerson Fosdick: the challenge of inoculation. I shall continue my analysis of Henry Poole Is Here in my next post.

Christmas Tragedies And Christmas Miracles

Girl Dies in Christmas Parade Accident AP
posted: 14 DAYS 8 HOURS AGOcomments: 348filed under: National News

BEAUMONT, Texas (Dec. 7) - A trailer carrying children in a Christmas parade struck and killed a 10-year-old girl who had jumped out of a pickup truck driving among the floats Saturday, police said.
The girl had been jumping on and off during the parade route and was told to stop before falling and hitting her head, said Monica Smith, a Beaumont police dispatcher. The girl was then struck by the trailer behind her.
A number of parade watchers saw the accident unfold, Beaumont police officer Crystal Holmes told Beaumont television station KBMT.
Authorities said the girl was taken to a hospital with severe head injuries and pronounced dead.
Smith did not have any details about what group the girl was with in the parade.
Stephanie Molina, who attended the parade but didn't see the accident, said the city had considered canceling the Christmas parade this year because of the destruction wrought to the area by Hurricane Ike. Molina works for the city's convention and visitor's bureau.
"We decided to do this for the community because we needed something positive," she said.
Hundreds attended the parade in downtown Beaumont. The grand marshall was former Buffalo Bills tight end Kevin Everett, a native of nearby Port Arthur who was temporarily paralyzed from the neck down while attempting to make a tackle in a game last season.
The Christmas parade accident was the second this week in Texas. Ten members of a Cub Scout troop in Overton were injured Monday when they were struck by a pickup truck. The 82-year-old driver was charged with reckless driving.
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press. Active hyperlinks have been inserted by AOL.
2008-12-07 01:18:19

Ernest Coleman, The Enquirer / AP
A sign outside the Crossroads Community Church in Cincinnati advertises the Christmas show that turned fatal for one young actress.

Christmas Show Actress Falls to Her Death
By TERRY KINNEY, AP
posted: 2 DAYS 5 HOURS AGOcomments: 407filed under: National News

CINCINNATI (Dec. 18) - An actress in a Christmas pageant who was suspended 25 feet in the air by an overhead rope fell headfirst onto a concrete church floor and died, authorities said Thursday.
Keri Shryock, 23, and two other performers were playing wise men on their way to Bethlehem before about 2,000 spectators during Wednesday night's opening performance at Crossroads Community Church.The three were approaching a star when Shryock fell into an aisle in the audience portion of the theater, witnesses told The Cincinnati Enquirer.
"Toward the ending of the song she came loose," Daniel Doepke, 55, of Middletown, told the newspaper. "I can't describe how heart-wrenching it was, her fall to a hard concrete surface."
Shryock was taken to University Hospital, where she died Thursday morning. A hospital spokesman declined to describe her injuries.
Cincinnati police were assisting the Hamilton County coroner in an investigation, a police spokeswoman said.
There was no immediate explanation of how the accident occurred, or if there was an equipment failure.
"Our prayers and heartfelt sympathies go out to her family during this incredibly difficult time," the church said in a statement. "We are shocked and deeply grieved by this tragic accident."
Shryock, from Sylvania, Ohio, near Toledo, graduated from Bowling Green State University this year.
Melissa Davish, a friend and former gymnastics club teammate at Bowling Green, said Shryock had become a surprisingly good gymnast since taking up the sport only two years ago and was excited about performing the rope act.
"She wasn't scared of anything," Davish said. "It's a strange coincidence. I can see her saying, `I'm a gymnast, I can do that.' She was really excited about doing something that unique."
No one involved with the production would be available to talk about the staging, which the church characterized as a contemporary Nativity story, said church spokesman Matt Chandler.
"It was a figurative and artistic version of the Christmas story found in the book of Luke," he said.
Ten remaining performances of the show "Awaited" were canceled. The nondenominational church held an evening of prayer, reflection and worship Thursday night.
About 1,100 people attended the prayer session, said church spokeswoamn Natalie Hastings.
"There was a sense of grief in our community and a need to gather," Hastings told The Enquirer. "This was a way for people to come together and be reminded what God has done for us, even as we are dealing with something that we're having trouble processing."
The church also planned to provide grief counseling for those who witnessed the fall.
The mega-church was founded in 1996 and has grown to a membership of about 10,000, Chandler said. It is known for dramatic and musical presentations at weekend services.
The church's Web site said "Awaited" was seen by more than 20,000 people when it first was presented last year.
Shryock was employed as an assistant in the Office of Commuter Services and Off Campus Living at Xavier University in Cincinnati.
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2008-12-19 00:03:14

The families involved in both of these tragedies definitely need our thoughts and prayers during this season for families---but on a somewhat better note though still prayer-worthy---here are some Christmas miracles:

Girl's Santa Letter Leads to Man's Arrest AP
posted: 5 DAYS 5 HOURS AGOcomments: 0filed under: Crime News, National NewsPrintShareText SizeAAAPHARR, Texas (Dec. 15) - A Texas man has been arrested after a 9-year-old girl wrote to Santa Claus asking that a relative stop touching her and her sister.
The Monitor of McAllen reports that Andres Enrique Cantu, from the town of Pharr, was arrested Friday and is in the Hidalgo County jail.
A criminal complaint says the girl turned the letter in at Cesar Chavez Elementary School. Authorities interviewed the girl after a school counselor reported the letter.
The complaint says investigators believe the molestation occurred over a period of four years.
Cantu is charged with continuous sexual abuse of a young child and could face as many as 99 years in prison if convicted.
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2008-12-15 22:27:02

Texas Boy Survives Near Decapitation
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posted: 3 HOURS 46 MINUTES AGOcomments: 144filed under: National News, Weird NewsPrintShareText SizeAAA(Dec. 21) - A Hillsboro, Texas, boy who suffered an "orthopedic decapitation" when he was involved in a car accident three months ago has staged an amazing recovery, according to cbs11tv.com.
Nine-year-old Jordan Taylor's head was almost completely detached from his body after a dump truck ran through a stop sign and hit a car he was riding in. "There was no connection between the bones of the neck and the head," said Cook Children Medical Center's Dr. Richard Roberts.
Fortunately, Roberts was able to reconnect Jordan's head to his neck with a metal plate, screws and titanium rods. Now it appears Jordan, who had been given a one to two percent chance of survival, has defied the odds and recovered from an injury that by all accounts should have killed him.
"He's beyond all expectations. He's a rock star. He's doing great," Roberts said.
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2008-12-21 13:25:49