David:         Do you recall what we talked about on last week’s podcast, Karen?

Karen:         Oh, I think it was about a word to the elderly.

David:         You got it right. Good for you. Do you remember the name of the minister we mentioned who was still preaching in his nineties and how impressed we were by him?

Karen:         I sure do.

Intro:            Welcome to the Before We Go Podcast featuring Dr. David Mains and his wife, noted author Karen Mains. Here’s David and Karen Mains.

Karen:         The minister was Norman Vincent Peale. He was well known, wasn’t he?

David:         Oh, yeah, he’s a huge figure. He’s with the Lord now. Anyway, Karen, after we did the podcast, I went and looked in my library for a book I thought was there and it was, it was his autobiography, but I had never read it. I read Power of Positive Thinking.

Karen:         What is the title of the autobiography?

David:         Well, it’s called The True Joy of Positive Living and Autobiography by Norman Vincent Peale. Anyway, I came to this part in his book, and it was quite interesting to me. I want to read again some of what he wrote.

“The most difficult period of my life, one that lasted several years midway in my ministry in New York, was occasioned by the publication of The Power of Positive Thinking. It was my second book with Prentice Hall, according to my contract. The Power of Positive Thinking was published on October 13th, 1952, and it was selling reasonably well when I found myself being honored by This Is Your Life. The book was mentioned by Ralph Edwards so enthusiastically on this national TV show that sales immediately skyrocketed. And overnight, The Power of Positive Thinking had wide exposure.” You remember that program at all?

Karen:         This is your life. We’ve watched it quite a bit.

David:         Yeah. Soon, another extremely popular television show gave the book added publicity. This was Edward R. Murrow’s famous TV program called Person to Person, in which he went into the home of a subject for an interview with him or her and members of the family.

Ed Murrow was a friend and neighbor on Quaker Hill at Pauling, and I admired him as one of the outstanding newsmen of the era. These two exposures, plus the timeliness of the book, caused it to hit the bestseller list and to zoom to the top position, which it held steadily for a lengthy period. The book was on the bestseller list of The New York Times, constantly for a period of 186 weeks, which was then a record.

Karen:         It’s a lot of time.

David:         Yeah. When the book attained this amazing popularity, the trouble began. A few highly vocal ministers condemned it as a success, get ahead, become vice president of the company sort of book. They declared it was not in any sense a Christian book. That it was over simplistic. That it was, in short, no good at all.

Then the attacks by this miniscule group of sophisticated left-wing clergymen became personal in the extreme and in some cases highly vindictive. I was castigated as an arch conservative, a tool of capitalistic interest who was turning Christianity in a way to get rich. And then one wailed about what I was doing to our religion.

The reaction of the book was not merely an objective analysis of a work with which they did not agree. It mounted into an uncontrolled hate vendetta which was most astonishing. They even preached against some terrible thing which they labeled Pealism.

In time, I discovered that some of these critics had not even read the book but were simply repeating phrases and ideas from critic to critic. One minister who surprised me by his violent attacks was the then Methodist Bishop of New York, a scholarly and gifted man, usually dispassionate and objective. He became quite intemperate in his attacks on the book and upon me. He wrote a scathing article in Red Book Magazine that was short on accuracy and long on violent diatribes. Were you getting the feeling that this was a painful time for him, even though this amazing success had come to him?

How did Ruth, that’s his wife, and I reacted this clamor into the violence of the attack, not only against the book, but also against me personally? In Ruth’s case, it was simply to act like the in-depth Christian she is. She sat on boards in committees of the National Council of Churches, where the Methodist Bishop also served. Her method was simply to pray that she would remain quiet, calm, and unemotional. Indeed, that she would be sincerely friendly. She knew she must pray that when she next met the bishop, her attitude would be one of love and not of hate.

Ruth well knew that others were watching her reactions. And of course, she understood that some of them shared the bishop’s antagonism. Through it all, though deeply wounded, she conducted herself with dignity, forbearance, and love, like the great Christian soul she has always been. And I was immensely proud of her. And of course, she was a tower of strength for me. I must admit that Ruth had greater control as a Christian than I. But I, too, believed that the Christian way to confront hatred is love and to turn the other cheek, certainly not to fight back or even answer in kind.

So, I sat down and reread the power of positive thinking, word for word. I found nothing but plain traditional fundamental Christianity. The kind taught me from childhood. True, it was written in a simple, direct, perhaps newspaper style. In this I had also been trained. It was written for the purpose of showing how our savior, Jesus Christ, could help people live better lives. It told how Christ had helped me and how he would help any needy person.

The best thing to do about criticism is to control anger. Study yourself and ask, is it valid? If you decide that it is, then correct yourself. If it isn’t valid, then the best possible procedure is to rise above the criticism and not stoop to the recrimination.

Now I read one more thing. This is a little bit funny. His father is old. His father was a very gentle minister, originally a doctor, and then turned to the ministry, never said anything that was out of line at all. He said, during this time of all the controversy, he was living in Pennsylvania and he was very ill. There was word from the family that he should come to see him.

Even though I was about as low in spirit as I have ever been, I boarded an overnight train to the old Erie Railroad. I did not attend a burden my father with my personal problems. And on the train, I wrote out my resignation from the ministry and put it in my jacket pocket. I did not intend to show it to my father.

Well, that shows you how difficult and painful this was for Peale.

However, always sharp in his insights, father read my troubled thoughts. Besides, even in that quiet and remote countryside, some word of the attack on me had come to his attention. He went straight to the point. “Norman, you have always been true and loyal to Jesus Christ. You believe in and preach Bible truths. You have always been in the mainstream of Christianity, never following any temporary fatism. You have united the pastoral office with the best in the scientific and healing arts. You have blazed new pathways of positive thinking to counter the old destructive negatives. You are my son and your old father, who has known good men and not so good men for 80 years and more, both in and out of the church. You are a good and loyal minister of Jesus Christ.”

He was silent and thoughtful for a long minute.

“Besides and remember this, the Peales never quit. It would break my heart if one of my sons was a quitter, afraid to stand up and face any situation.”

My father was a gentle, spirited man in all my life. I had never heard him use an expression that included a swear word. Imagine my shock when he said, “And Norman, there’s just one more thing.”  “What is it, Dad?” I ask. “Tell him to go to ‘H’ and actually the word is spelled out.”

Anyways, it’s funny. At the same time, I’m very aware, having read this, that this was an incredibly painful time for Norman Vincent Peale. Well, it turned out to be an interesting time for me just reading it and realizing that he could understand some of what we went through.

Karen:         At that time, he was the pastor of Marble Collegiate Church in New York City, which had grown from just a handful of people, really.

David:         It was like hearing everything he touched just turned to gold.

Karen:         He was gifted.

David:         Yeah.

Karen:         That church had just flourished under his ministry was renowned all over the country, had a broadcast internationally. So, for him to have to face some of these lessons that those of us of lesser renown often find ourselves facing is just a great model. So, let’s give the title of the autobiography.

David:         This is obviously dated, but the title is being basically The True Joy Of Positive Living. I found the Lord speaking to me in all of that, partly because we experienced criticism and outright lies and such during some of the limited success that we knew. And it was very painful. I took a different route. I think I went to self-pity. I went to try and defend myself. I went into almost a how in the world…

Karen:         Where are you God? How are you allowing this to happen?

David:         I looked at my life compared to his and he just basically said, “We’re going to move and be above all of this.” Which was a very big thing to me because just at the time when these people came to California and we’re talking about a film as we’ve mentioned in the last …

Karen:         You talked about this in the last podcast.

David:         Yeah, they thanked us for writing these books. And I said to them, “Are you aware that these books brought us a lot of pain?” They said, “No,” I went into the self-pity thing again. And I said, “Holly, why did I do this?” I just need to have learned more. I need to say thank you for your comments. I’m glad they’ve touched a lot of people’s lives and going on and that thing was still in me. Somehow, I had to get over that. And this was a good week for me because I was saying, “Lord, help me to learn from what I read in terms of this autobiography by Norman.” That was a good thing and I’m grateful for it. I’m not going to be the same anymore.

Karen:         So, I think that what we understand about this is that it’s not just the power of positive thinking, sitting down and tritely thinking good thoughts. It is something that hooks into a spiritual principle, which I’ve always called the power of the positive opposite.

David:         You know Karen, there are a lot of people who are not in ministry like we are who are in the business world. And when they see success, they’re going to get people who come at them and try to saw their legs off, but they don’t stand quite so tall.

Karen:         We have so much teaching in scripture and particularly from Christ that tells us how to go into the power of the positive opposite. This is from Luke.

“But I tell you, who hear me, Love your enemies. Do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you. Pray for those who mistreat you. If someone strikes you on one cheek, turn to him the other also. If someone takes your cloak, do not stop him from taking your tunic.” And some scriptures just read, “…give him your tunic also.” “Give to everyone who asks you and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. Do to others as you would have them do to you. If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? “

David:         This is really going too far, Jesus.

Karen:         “Even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that, but love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expectations of getting anything back, then your reward will be in heaven.” Wow.

David:         It’s just very convicting, is it?

Karen:         Yes.

David:         And we know that Jesus is experiencing all this vitriol from other people.

Karen:         The religious leaders,

David:         Yes. The most unlikely of people. I wrote out a sentence.

Karen:         Okay.

David:         Then I’m going to say, you know, that was too specific. I’m going to try it in a more general sense.

When success in ministry results in criticism from various “religious leaders,” with Christ help rise above it. Now that was kind of the statement from me and saying, “Yeah, I want that to be more a part of my life. I don’t want to move into the oh poor me category, licking wounds.” And it’s not that you’re not experienced something that’s surprising and difficult and wrong.

It’s just that you’re taking it to the level of saying, “You know, Jesus, I’m understanding what you faced in a very small way.” So, I’ve tried to say, okay, there aren’t that many people who are in the ministry who are listening to us, some but not the majority. I tried to rewrite it for anyone because I think this is just a part of life.              If you’re in the church and you’re elected chair, there are going to be people very likely who say, “Yeah, you know, but he’s not really such and such.” You get the undercut, the scuttlebutt that goes on. It’s just normal because when people do well and are given a claim, there are going to be others who are jealous and so on.

When success results in attacks from various competitors with Christ help rise above it. That’s probably, Karen, a word for someone listening to us right now. So, I’m going to say it again. And that person is probably saying, “Talk about something else, okay.”

When success results in attacks from various competitors, in quotes, with Christ help rise above it. It’s difficult to do, but I think it’s the Christian thing to do. You agree with me, or you disagree?

Karen:         I do agree. Now, one of the interesting things I’ve learned in life in my human relationships, I think the Holy Spirit has had to really apply this in my life is that very often when I criticize someone else, it’s because I have the same problem in myself that I have not handled. So, when I see someone who’s talking badly about a friend and I say, “Oh, it’s a terrible thing for that person to do, why are they doing that?” Sometimes then I have to look within myself, particularly if I fixate on that area in another person. So, then I need to say, “Well, what is it in me that why this bothers me so much?” And then I have discovered time and time again that I have the same flaw.

I could have been a gossip or passed on bad news that I was sort of cuddling over about someone who I’d been in competition with or whatever it is. And so, what I need to do is to look within myself and to go before the Holy Spirit and say, “What is it about me that I am not recognizing about myself that needs to be healed, but I am projecting this or focusing my own ungrown up area on the person who has that problem as well. And I focus on them, and I criticize them for it, but I don’t look within myself and say, okay, I’m tender about this because I have the same problem and that’s the only person I should be concerned about right now, I should be taking that to the Lord and asking for his forgiveness and asking him to help me grow up.”

David:         I have done a lot of praying this week. I’ve done a lot of thinking back on my life. And I think I’ve come a long way, but I also think I had a long way to come, if that makes sense. These are very powerful scriptures. They go right inside and stir things up and say congratulations where you have learned to walk the Christ way. There’s a lot that you had to learn, wasn’t there? At the same time, there has come this absolutely amazing admiration for our leader, our king, our savior. He was incredible, absolutely incredible. And these little picky guys who must have driven him nuts. They just could not accept who he was and the beauty of his life and so on. I have to say, I was that way.

Karen:         You were critical, is that what you mean?

David:         Yeah, I was critical. I thought I knew everything. I act like a little child. I wish we could live to be about 200.

Karen:         No, I’m happy with.

David:         I think by 200.

Karen:         You’d get it right?

David:         People would like me a whole lot more because I would have changed even more. We don’t get to live to 200. I’m learning. It’s very unexpected. You pick up a book and you don’t think that book’s interesting to read, then all of a sudden, bang on.

Karen:         Yeah, really, it’s speaking to your soul.

David:         Yes.

Karen:         Well, I think that this is a lesson we all have to learn, David, in all of our lives. But I love the examples of Christ. The power-positive thinking is so much of what scripture is about. Think of these things. Think on what’s holy, good, and true. Well, you can go through scripture and see how much that is a part of what resonates with us in our Christian faith. Training yourself to act in the positive opposite way that Christ demonstrated. So, we’re talking about that today because this is a lesson that has come out of our lives. And we’ve been reminded that it’s one that doesn’t need to stop.

David:         I’m not reading any new books this week. I’m going to beat the stairs like you wanted me to. Just say, I’ve got enough. I’m working with this week. This is going to be a manual labor week for me.

Karen:         Oh, hurrah!

Outro:         You’ve been listening to the Before We Go podcast. And if you would like to write to us, please send us an email at the following address, hosts@beforewego.show. That’s all-lower-case letters. hosts@beforewego.show.

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