A more beautiful tune

"In Greek mythology the spirits of the sea were called the Sirens. They had the bodies of birds and the heads of beautiful women. These sirens lived on stretches of rocky coast and reefs and sang a beautiful song to entice sailors to them, and so the sailors were drawn to their death. However, two famous sailors managed to sail past safely.

One was Odysseus, who filled his sailors' ears with wax so that they could not hear the beautiful song,, and had himself tied to the mast, so that although he could hear it he could not steer the ship towards them. He got past safely enough, but spent all his time wishing he could have gone closer. that, I think, is a picture of how some of us live the Christian life... purely prevention by constraint.

[Instead] we need to look to the other sailor who managed to get past the temptations of the Sirens. He was called Orpheus. and his tactic was different. He was a musician and so he played a tune himself - a more beautiful tune than the song of the Sirens, so his sailors weren't drawn to them."

(pp.73-74, Graham Beynon, Experiencing the Spirit)

Self-help doesn't help

Canadian researchers found those with low self-esteem actually felt worse after repeating positive statements about themselves.

They said phrases such as "I am a lovable person" only helped people with high self-esteem.

(BBC, HT: Phil Walker)

I would like to say that this shouldn't surprise Christians, but I think it would surprise some. A helpful corrective would be Graham Beynon's Mirror, Mirror.