Class 18 – Free Will

Elementary + Junior’s Class 7-12yrsFebruary 7th, 2016

Agenda• Feb 7th – Free Will – Law of Cause and Effect - CN• Feb 14th – Spiritual Evolution – Plurality of Worlds - RS• Feb 21st – Self-knowledge and self acceptance - RS• Feb 28th – SSS BM Family Day Celebration III• Mar 6th – The Good Spiritist - RS• Mar 13th – The Meaning of Family Ties - CN• Mar 20th – Freedom and Limits - CN• Mar 27th – Easter in the Park

Opening Prayer

Dear God!Thank you for this marvelous day!

Where we can pray together.Forgive our tardiness.

And protect us when we are on our way here

Amen

Despite the Limits• When Dr Marlin was a young medical student, he had pretty

strong convictions in the stupidity of cluttering up the world with people who are hopelessly ill and handicapped. He was a strong advocate of euthanasia. He used to argue about it with other students in his class.

• What is euthanasia? • It refers to the practice of ending a life of someone who has an

incurable disease and is suffering in the terminal stage. • What did he think about people who were disabled and had no

cure? • He thought they don’t deserve to live.

Despite the Limits (cont)• His colleagues replied to him: • • “But that’s what we’re for,” they protested, “to take

care of the lame, the deaf, and the blind.”• • “Doctors are here to make sick people well,” Marlin

always countered, “and if nothing can make them well, they’re better off dead.”

Despite the Limits (cont)• What is disabled person? • Disabilities are an umbrella term, covering impairments, activity

limitations, and participation restrictions. Impairment is a problem in body function or structure; an activity limitation is a difficulty encountered by an individual in executing a task or action; while a participation restriction is a problem experienced by an individual in involvement in life situations.

• • What do you think about the opinion of Dr. Marlin’s colleagues? • • What about Marlin’s views?

Despite the Limits (cont)• On his hospital duty one night in Marlin’s senior year, he delivered

a baby to a German immigrant woman in the slum section of the town. It was born with one leg a good deal shorter than the other.

• • Force of habit made Doc blow into the baby’s mouth to get him to

breathe, but after a moment, he thought, “What nonsense! All his life, he’ll have to go around with the awful game leg. The other kids will call him “Limpy.” Why coax him to live?

• • “The world will never miss him.”

Despite the Limits (cont)• Do you agree with the doctor’s opinion? • • Will he be different from others because he is

disabled? • • How do you think he will feel when people call him

disabled? • • What did the doctor do?

Despite the Limits (cont)• But, the doctor in him was strong, and somehow he couldn’t stop

trying to make that small pair of lungs begin working, so he started again. Finally, there was the gasp he’d been waiting for, the rush of red to the baby’s face, and then a feebly protesting walk.

• • Doc picked up his bag and left, kicking himself all the way across

town. “I don’t know why I did it,” he grumbled. “Too many children already in that poverty-stricken home. Why did I save this defective one? The world would be better off without such cripples.”

• • Years passed by...

Despite the Limits (cont)• Doc moved to a small manufacturing city and built up a large

practice there. His youthful radicalism was now gone and Doc was just another plodding, always tired physician, working like a dog to keep people alive no manner how much better off they’d be dead. Old Hippocrates had won.

• • Why has he changed?

• He has matured, reflected, has lived with many people who had disabilities and were happy; they had families who loved them, they worked and studied.

Despite the Limits (cont)• Doc had his share of troubles. His only son and his son’s wife were

killed in a car accident, and Doc took their baby girl to look after her. Doc adored her. The summer she was 10, Barbara woke one morning complaining of a stiff neck and in her arms and legs.

• • At first it was thought to be polio, but it turned out to be a rare virus

infection that occurs so seldom it rates only a brief reference in medical textbooks. In all his long practice, Dr. Marlin himself had never run across a single case of it. He called in neurologists, who shook their heads. They said there was no known cure for the disease, which always progresses slowly to a greater or lesser degree of paralysis.

Despite the Limits (cont)• What is a neurologist? This is a doctor who treats diseases like

paralysis. • “There’s a young doctor, however, who wrote an article recently

about his success in handling some of these cases,” one of the specialists told Doc. “The name is T J Miller. I’d get in touch with him if I were you.”

• What do you think Dr. Marlin has done? • Dr. Marlin had no doubts. Doc took Barbara to the small private

hospital where Dr Miller had instituted crippling diseases. Doc noticed that he walked with a decided limp.

Despite the Limits (cont)• “This lame leg makes me one of them,” Dr Miller said, as he

noticed Doc’s glance. “I let the children call me Limpy and they love it. In fact, I like that better than my real name—Thaddeus—which always seemed to me rather stuffy. You see, like a lot of kids, I was named after a young medical student who brought me into the world.

• Dr. Thaddeus Marlin paled and swallowed hard. • Why does Dr. Thaddeus Marlin felt this way? Because he

realized that the only person able to cure his beloved granddaughter was the baby that one day he thought was not worth helping to live.

Despite the Limits (cont)• He remembered how, when he was a young medical

student he had said to himself. “The world will never miss him.” How blind he had been in those days!

• “It’s better to go through life crippled than blind,” he said.

• He then shakes his colleague’s hand; thanks to this devoted doctor his granddaughter would be able to walk again. He thanked God for having made the right decision that night when he delivered that baby with a shorter leg, helping him to start a new life.

What do we think about this?• All actions have consequences. • We have free will to make choices. • The consequences of the acts may be positive, if the acts

are positive. If the acts are negative, they may be negative. The acts may be from this or from a previous existence.

• This is called the Law of Cause and Effect. • Hence pain and suffering are not God's punishments but

just consequences of our thoughts, words and attitudes.

What will happen if?• We eat too much? • We studied a lot for a test? • We don’t take a shower? • We spend too much time in the sun? • We go to sleep late and wake up early? • We played video games for a long time? • The examples above refer to us.

• And when we cause others to suffer? • How do we harm others? – Gossiping, – chatting a lot in class, – lying, – picking up something borrowed and not returning,– ruining other people's things, – disturbing others with words or actions, – putting a fellow colleague against another one.

• What are the consequences of those actions?

Activity: Do unto Others• Distribute small paper cards to write an action – (say hi, stepping on the foot, grimacing, a hug, a smile ...)

What ever was written in the paper should be done by the person sitting on their right hand side.

• After each one puts his name on the back of the paper received, this should be returned to a box. The spiritist teacher should collect all cards from the children.

• Each child will then draw a card from the box, read the colleague’s name from the card and search for him. This child will then do for him what he wanted done to the other (what is written on the paper).

What is the big secret to being happy?

FLUIDIC THERAPY (PASS)

AgendaFeb 7th – Free Will – Law of Cause and Effect - CN• Feb 14th – Spiritual Evolution – Plurality of Worlds - RS• Feb 21st – Self-knowledge and self acceptance - RS• Feb 28th – SSS BM Family Day Celebration III• Mar 6th – The Good Spiritist - RS• Mar 13th – The Meaning of Family Ties - CN• Mar 20th – Freedom and Limits - CN• Mar 27th – Easter in the Park

COMMUNITY PRAYER