Dave of the Thousand Days

With apologies to "Casablanca" producer Hal Wallis and those others who
helped make the 1969 film "Ann of the Thousand Days," (Richard Burton,
Genevieve Bujold, etc.) you're about to hear the story of "Dave of the
Thousand Days."

Many of you know the life-changing situation I encountered in the late 90s and
early 2000s with a sleep disorder. For the uneducated, I'll briefly recount what
happened, and how it relates to the "Thousand Days."

All my life, I never had one bit of trouble sleeping. I could practically take a nap
on demand anytime of the day. At night, I was asleep as soon as my head hit
the pillow and woke up after 8 hours or so of dreamless sleep, thinking I had
just laid down a moment earlier.

In 1990, I changed jobs and had to be at work at 4:30 in the morning. This
meant going to bed around 8:30 the previous night. Claudia was working long
hours and usually didn't get home until my bedtime. It's hard to keep a
marriage going when a couple is not on the same schedule and never see
each other, so I decided to try something new. I would get home from work
around one o'clock in the afternoon, eat lunch and lay down for a 3 hour nap.
This gave me time to be with Claudia as I would stay up until about 11 o'clock
or so. I went to bed at night whenever I felt sleepy, which varied anywhere
from 10 o'clock to 11:30. I continued sleeping in "two shifts" for the next nine
years. No problem.

Then in June of 1999, one Monday afternoon afternoon, I lay down for my nap
and only slept 90 minutes. I was puzzled, but it didn't worry me. But the rest of
the week, I began to sleep less and less, and by Friday I couldn't nap at all,
and had trouble sleeping at night. I was getting less than 4 hours sleep in a
24-hour period, and by this time I was panicking! I felt like garbage each day.
Some people just feel tired the next day after losing sleep. I was experiencing
almost flu-like symptoms!

After a visit to my doctor, he put me in the hospital and ran three days of tests.
Nothing was wrong. If he had told me that even healthy people get insomnia
occasionally, I would have simply said, "Okay," and the whole thing would have
been over soon. But that didn't happen. But the continued panic did.

The next week, sleep returned and I slept like a rock for the next 8 days. Then
the insomnia hit again. This went on for the next 21 months -- periods of heavy
sleep and periods where I only got 3 hours or so of sleep each night. One
night I only slept 30 minutes!

I was beside myself! I went to a bazillion doctors who tried every type of
anti-depressant medication and seditive you could name (this was in the days
before Sonata, Lunesta and Ambien -- excellent meds!). Life was really
getting tough to handle. I didn't know whether to throw up, wet my pants or
jump out a window! Yes, I'm a Christian. And I prayed and prayed to God for
help, but it felt my prayers were getting no higher than the ceiling. This is
where I learned the lesson God was trying to teach me. It is: He has his
timing, and it's not mine. Isaiah 40 says to wait upon the Lord. It was tough,
and I was learning the hard way. The Supremes, in the summer of 1966, told
us we can't hurry love. And I had to learn you can't hurry God either.

Finally, the Lord led me to an excellent doctor (a former NASA flight surgeon) who had
seen my symptoms before and knew what to do. He diagnosed me as a
"cycling insominiac," a condition distantly related to bipolar disorder. The
prescription he got me on has worked well up to this day. It wasn't just the
medication, though. I had to literally "retrain" myself to sleep. I had to get out
of the panic. It had created a vicious cycle that was fueling most of my
problem. I began to spend a couple of 20-minute periods a day in relaxation
excercises. Not a bodily excercise, but a mental one. Long periods of
good-sleep nights began to return, starting in late March of 2001.

However, I still had occasional "semi-sleepless night," when I would feel like
trash the next day. First, a couple per month, then about 12 a year...then 8 a
year...then 5 a year...3 a year, ect. I kept a sleep log to indicate how many
nights in a row I slept well. First 30 nights in a row was great, then 100 nights in
a row, and it number kept growing. Finally in 2007 I had only two
semi-sleepless nights for the whole year! Then I went the WHOLE YEAR in
2008 sleeping well. Then 2009 (even though a new job had me working
irregular hours). Now it's 2010 and I'm still going strong.

Is there something special about "a thousand days"? I don't know. John F.
Kennedy's presidency is often called "the Thousand Days of Camelot" (even
though he was actually president 1,036 days). Maybe there's something of a
"completeness" to a period of 1,000 days. I usually look to the Bible for such
ideas, but the Scriptures are silent on this one (although Jesus' earthly ministry
was probably about this period of time).

All I know is that as of Thursday morning of this week, I had gone 1,000 days
without a semi-sleepless night. The last one was May 29, 2007.

Will my sleep disorder return? I can't say. I'm still on my medication, but it's
working great. Although I occasionally have a little trouble falling asleep, I
wake up each day fully refreshed, My doctor says at 62-years-old, my immune
system is rock-solid (sleep restores the immune system, you know).

I feel like a million bucks, and I am active and enjoying life. Not bad for an old
man.

Just call me "Dave of the Thousand Days."

Let this be a warning to you:

While on Facebook recently I clicked on something that looked interesting. It was called "restoringtheoriginalbible.com" and since the Bible is one of my top interests, I had to check it out.

The Web site offered what was claimed to be "the Bible in the original order that it was written in." The volume has over 280 pages of commentaries and appendices and claims to have restore the books of the Bible to their orginal order. Immediately, I smelled a rat. How would anyone know (unless they've been alive for 3,400 years) the exact order of the writings of the Bible, especially the New Testament. Even our best Biblical scholars are not sure.

So, my "investigative reporter" mode kicked into high gear. Doing a "whois" search on G E E K T O O L S.com I found the domain "restoringtheoriginalbible.com" was registered to the Christian Biblical Church of God of Hollister, California about 80 miles southeast of San Francisco. It wasn't long before I was on the church's Web page, checking out their beliefs.

I soon discovered the following: First, the CBCOG teaches a doctrine called "Baptismal Regeneration." This simply means that no matter how hard you believe in Jesus to forgive you of your sins, you have no justification whatsoever until you submit to their baptism. What you have in your heart for Christ is worth nothing until you crawl in the tank and get dunked.
This is not a unique doctrine with the CBCOG. There are many groups that believe this, including the Roman Catholics, the Jehovah's Witnesses, the Church of Christ and many more. I once had a Church of Christ preacher tell me that if someone suffered a fatal heart attack on the way to the baptismal font, they would go to Hell because they were not baptized. Sorry for you, buddy. Tough Luck!

Regardless of how many believe Baptismal Regeneration, the Bible does not teach it. Nowhere in the Bible will you find the phrase "he who is not baptized will be damned." Those words nor such a concept just do not exist. Our salvation is by the grace of God and is connected to NOTHING that we can do (Eph. 2: 8,9; Tit. 3:5).

Secondly, the CBCOG doesn't even know who God IS!!! Their believe statement says that God is a "family" which currently includes two members, the Father and Jesus. What about the Holy Spirit? Oh, they say that's just an "force" of God and not a person. This is identical to Russellian (Jehovah's Witnesses) theology. Funny, though, Jesus referred to the Holy Spirit as "He," "Him" or "His" over and over again. Eight times in John 16 alone. Peter said in Acts 5 that the Holy Spirit could be lied to. You can only lie to a person. You can't lie to a table, a tree, a kangaroo or any other impersonal thing. The Bible clearly teaches the Holy Spirit is a person, and is God. Sorry about the CBCOG.

There are many other points of doctrine where the CBCOG deviates strongly from true Biblical theology, but time doesn't permit an exhaustive study. Perhaps I'll hit some more of these point later...as the (personal) Holy Spirit leads me.

The point is, however, just because a religious group packages a nice looking leather bound "bible" (at the ridiculously low price of a mere $119.50 plus $9.00 shipping and handling), it doesn't mean they have any orthodoxy in their doctrine. STAY AWAY FROM THEM!!! Jesus warned us in Matthew 7: 15 that these false prophets come to us in sheep's clothing, but inside they are ravening wolves!!

Caio for now,

Dave

Welcome (back) to Dave Mitchell's Blog...

Welcome (back) to Dave Mitchell's Blog. The reason I put the word "back" in parentheses is because my loving wife made me take my last blog site down a couple of years ago when I was a radio "personality" in the Dallas-Fort Worth market. I guess she thought that since I was in the public eye (sorta), I might get sued for exercising my first amendment rights. Well, in today's world, I guess it's possible. Lots of folks are "litigation-happy."

But now, even though I'm still in the radio biz, I'm not on the air regularly (however, I do a lot of voice-over work for two of the Salem Communications stations here in South Florida). That makes me a "common" person and I guess she believes there's no thrill in suing a common person -- and I suppose that's probably right.

So...

Here I am blogging again. Since I have a very large array of interests -- and I have an opinion on just about everything -- just about any subject could come up on this blog site. And one blog will most likely not relate to the next one, and so on. Call it cyber stream-of-conscienceness.

I am realist enough to know that actually nobody really cares what I think about anything, and since I'm not in much of a position to change the world (being a Member of Congress might help), I'm basically using this sight to vent. It is, of course possible that someone out there might like to add his or her two cents to the discussion, so feel free to comment, agree, disagree or simply "take me to the woodshed."

I suppose this is what blogging is all about anyway.

Most of my blogs will proceed from my personal interests which include: The Bible and theology (especially in the areas of religions that are in opposition to mainstream Christianity), radio broadcasting (my 44-year (so far) career), baseball (my actual religion -- Christianity is merely my lifestyle), Ham radio (my callsign is AJ5F), Science Fiction (especially Star Trek and time travel movies). My musical tastes include Top 40 hits from 1955-1979 (mostly) and Country music pre-1985. Movie tastes include older stuff (well, not REAL old). I'm very selective about what movies I see and lately, there hasn't been (IMHO) much worth seeing -- although the 90s were a great decade for film.

I'm also a history buff (which may explain the interest in time-travel). Politically, I'm all over the board -- ultra right wing conservative on some issues and flaming liberal on others, and everything in between. As I add new posts to this blog, you'll probably get a good idea of where I'm going with much of what I believe. And, to tell you the truth (have I been lying up to now?), I'm not so dogmatic as to think my mind can't be changed on a political argument if I get some new information or can re-think the issue. The only time you can be dogmatic is when you know you're right (there's a joke in there somewhere).

Most posts won't be nearly as long as this one, but this time I wanted to get some background established before I move on.

Many people, expecially bloggers, believe that what they say is so darned important that everyone will automatically be interested. What egos blogging has inflated! I hope this isn't the case with me. Most of what I blog will probably bring the response, "who cares?" And my reaction to that is "who cares?"

When I hit a subject that's really important to me, I'll drop a link in my Facebook status. Until then,

May the farce be with you...

Dave