MSI Press Blog

  REBIRTH “Unless you change and become like little children, you will not enter the kingdom of God.” --Matthew 18: 3   I reached a milestone with my seventy-fifth birthday. I have now lived three-quarters of a century. My father died at the age of 46 of cancer. My four brothers and I held our breath when we reached that age. We did not exhale peacefully until that year passed. Our mother died in 2006 at age 84 of the exact same illness that claimed our father’s life—throat cancer. Cancer took my younger brother at age 57 years. My brothers and I talk about one day being victims of the “big C.” Destiny follows biology. As I am attaining elder status, I am acutely aware of my vulnerability. Recent research indicates that 46% of Americans 75 and older report having a disability. They have a significant medical problem or cognitive deficit, have difficulty hearing, seeing, walking, living independently, and so forth (Pew Research Center: July 24, 2023). Fortunately, I experien

    Excerpt from The Pandemic and Hope by Dr. Dennis Ortman -- PROLOGUE “There is no fear in love, for perfect love casts out fear.” I John 4:18 The Coronavirus has swept across the earth, not respecting national borders. It is truly a universal, global event. No social class is immune: the old and the young, the rich and the poor. The death toll rises each day. Its numbers are in the tens of thousands. Government leaders around the world are mobilizing their forces to fight this invisible enemy. COVID-19 has become a common enemy, surprisingly uniting countries with hostile relationships. Indeed, the media mantra rings true:”We are all in this together.” It appears to me that we are facing two invisible enemies: the Coronavirus and the fear virus. Both are equally pernicious and contagious in their own ways. The Coronavirus can kill the body. Fear can destroy our mental/emotional and spiritual wellbeing. It can lead to despair, and even suicide. We are witnessing today a worl

  EMOTIONAL INATTENTION “He who looks outside dreams. He who looks insides awakens.” --Carl Jung   “It seems like almost everyone has ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) these days!” We live on overload, constantly bombarded by information and driven by the fast pace of life. Adult Americans on average spend ten and a half hours a day watching TV, listening to the radio, or using their smart phones and other electronic devices (Nielsen’s Total Audience Report, 2018). We are driven to succeed and push ourselves to keep busy and productive. To survive, we learn to multitask. We strain to keep all the balls we are juggling in the air. We want more and more, yet never seem satisfied. While technically only a few of us, about 6 percent, can be diagnosed with ADD, our culture keeps us distracted, impulse-driven, restless, and running in circles. So preoccupied, we never learn to listen to ourselves. I propose that the high-stress and instability of the American family contribute to another kind

  From Dennis Ortman PAIN PATIENCE “We rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces character, and character produces hope, and hope will not leave us disappointed.” Romans 5: 3-4   What is more natural than to seek pleasure and avoid pain? We Americans entertain high ideals. We aspire to greatness, to being the best, number one. These aspirations, however, may at times shade into excess.    Our remarkable advances in technology promise to fulfill our dreams. So we seek lives of the most pleasure with the least pain. The pharmaceutical industry invests billions of dollars to help us attain this goal. Their medications promise wellbeing and the possibility of killing all pain. This mentality and the easy availability of drugs spawned the opioid epidemic. We sought a better life, a pain-free life, through chemistry. Soon, the dream of wellbeing turned into a nightmare. The more pills we consumed to escape the pain, the more we needed to take, until we reached a limit. The p

  Today's Publisher's Pride is Anger Anonymous by Dr. Dennis Ortman , which reached #116 on Amazon's bestseller ranking for anger management self-help. Book of the Year finalist Kops-Fetherling International Book Award Competition: Legacy Award in Psychology For more posts about Dr. Ortman and his books, click HERE . For more publisher pride posts, click  HERE . Sign up for the MSI Press LLC newsletter Follow MSI Press on  Twitter ,  Face Book , and  Instagram .   Interested in publishing with MSI Press LLC? Check out information on  how to submit a proposal . Interested in receiving a free copy of this or any MSI Press LLC book  in exchange for  reviewing  a current or forthcoming MSI Press LLC book? Contact editor@msipress.com. Want an  author-signed copy  of this book? Purchase the book at 25% discount (use coupon code FF25) and concurrently send a written request to orders@msipress.com. Want to communicate with one of our authors? You can! Find their contact informatio

  Life, Liberty, and Covid-19 (Ortrman) will be available for free through Kindle promotions Sep 22-Sep 26. For more posts by and about Dennis Ortman, click HERE . Sign up for the MSI Press LLC newsletter Follow MSI Press on  Twitter ,  Face Book , and  Instagram .   Interested in publishing with MSI Press LLC? Check out information on  how to submit a proposal . Interested in receiving a free copy of this or any MSI Press LLC book  in exchange for  reviewing  a current or forthcoming MSI Press LLC book? Contact editor@msipress.com. Want an  author-signed copy  of this book? Purchase the book at 25% discount (use coupon code FF25) and concurrently send a written request to orders@msipress.com. Want to communicate with one of our authors? You can! Find their contact information on our  Authors' Pages .