Bringing Faith to Life
Archive for May, 2013
The Sensation of Prayer
012 years
I’ve learned a new word: synesthesia. By definition, it’s a “union of the senses.” Wikipedia calls it “a neurological condition in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway.” Synesthetes have a common brain pathway for more than one sensation. They see sounds, hear a movement or colorize numbers. They may attach spacial perception to time frames. By some estimates, one in 23 people may experience this kind of sensation. It’s just the way they/we’re wired.
I used to be fascinated by studies of the regions of the brain – in the old days we could only look from the outside – where they’d stick an electrode into a portion of the brain and the patient would experience sensation from that region. They would hear sounds if the auditory area was stimulation. They would remember things if a memory region was tapped. It’s how we “mapped” the brain.
Now we can look inside the brain and actually see the pathways and what activates them. What lights up when you move, think, pray. And what doesn’t. It takes out the guesswork. Until you’ve got pathways that run together and get things mixed up. The synesthetes.
Full confession: I see things when I pray. I see a complete picture, but there’s no sound. I don’t think there is color – though now I’ll have to pay more attention. I see the critically injured young woman standing before the throne. I see the prideful woman, trying to scale the castle wall.
On occasion I feel things when I pray. Emotions, yes, but also tactile sensations. warmth. softness. compression. falling.
I used to think I was weird, but maybe it’s just that my visual and kinesthetic tracks are running together with my prayer tracks. This may be my native anatomy. When I pray for another, I see and feel their “circumstance” in the presence of the one who attends to my prayers.
This also animates my own prayers. I see myself in the midst of these shenanigans. Yesterday, faced with an endless row of teeter totters all lined up across my path one after another, I was leaping from one to the next, attempting to land exactly in the center to keep from being thrown off balance.
The day before I hovered before an infinite number of chess games, God playing a human on each board. I wondered whether there could be a split second in any game that His attention might waver allowing one human to falter or fall out of God’s will. I guess true omnipresence prevents this, but still, one wonders.
True. All of this sounds like dreaming. All of it appears as imagining. But could it be that God has designed my sensory pathways to accommodate prayer?
It’s probably just a matter of time until we invent a device to track prayers in the brain. I’ll be interested to know their origin and their destination. Do they begin with me and end with God? Do they begin with God and end with me? Or is there a rapid relay race being run back and forth along the track?
For now I am content to see them and feel them. It’s the sensation of prayer for me. Seeing hurt, hurts me. I have to turn away. Imagine how our hurting one another must hurt the One to whom we pray.
Death gives life, science says so
012 years
I have added a new “category” to the blog called cool science. I am, after all, a scientist and very often there is a bit of science in the natural order of things that speaks of God to me. Technically, this is not kinesthetic – unless I pick it up and turn it over in my mind, in which case anything goes I suppose.
But this week I am at a sports medicine conference and everyone is speaking science. Very quickly and much of the time somewhat illegibly. Whoa. Can you say that about speaking? Slow your talking down; I can’t read your handwriting!!
Anyway, today’s cool science doesn’t come directly from the conference (That will go on my Fit2Finish business blog.) but instead from research done at UVA School of Medicine and published in the magazine Nature. In studies of muscle cells, they have found that dying cells (which have long been considered debris that must be removed from the body to avoid causing tissue inflammation) are necessary in the process of muscle cell formation. “A small number of myoblasts – precursor cells that develop into muscle tissue – must die to allow muscle formation.”
I am prone to think of death as a terrible thing. Such a waste. Such a mistake. So ill-conceived. Why in the world must we die? And then on the tiniest of scales, the most intricate of platforms, in the cells themselves, we literally can see that death is necessary for new life.
A cell must die so that others can live.
Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. ~ John 12:24
So Scientific. So Scriptural. Almost like we were made this way.
Breathe in You – Breathe out Me
012 years
Breathe in – breathe out. So automatic. So natural. So necessary. If you stop, you’re done.
I’m indebted to Ciona Rouse (The Upper Room Magazine May-June 2013, pg. 40-42) who suggests using “breathe in-breathe out” as a prayer during her running. The extra exertion tuned her into her breathing, which she adapted in praying John 3:30. She breathes in “more of You, Lord” on the inhale and breathes out “less of me” on the exhale. A natural rhythm.
What’s more natural than breathing? I thought.
What’s more natural than praying? I thought.
It sounded like a simple way to invite prayer into my active life. But when I tried it, it spoke way more than simple. Here’s what I have learned so far:
- The natural rhythm begins with breathe in, but if you first breathe out “less of me,” you make room to breathe in the “more of you, Lord.” Emphasize the less-of-you. Yup!
- As your effort increases, perhaps as you trudge up an incline, you emphasize the exhale and shorten the inhale….less of me…less of me…Time is short to draw in the quick breath of God. Your inspirations change with the terrain. Go figure!
- As you crest the hill or cruise into the finish, your inspirations deepen. Your body intuitively recovers from the oxygen debt it’s been in by breathing in deeply. The view from the top or the finish line invokes inspiration. Of course!
- Patterned breathing as a prayer isn’t just limited to running. You can walk it, climb it, cycle it, swim it.
- It also comes in handy moment to moment. Say, in a tense moment. Breeeaaaattthhhhhe Me in. And breathe out you. I can do this when someone else exercises my patience. A weapon to be wielded in my own self defense. Don’t hold your breath. Breathe.
Isn’t it cool that God designed us with a mechanism to adapt our breath to our needs? Even our need of Him? That a stretch sensor in our lungs and a carbon dioxide monitor in our brains are part of our blueprint. Fully engaged we can adapt the rhythm and depth of our breath to the needs of our life – moment by moment.
Oh, we can override this system, for sure.
- We can hold our breath till we’re “blue in the face” just to make our point.
- We can hyperventilate in preparation for a longer beath-holding session, tricking the self-monitoring system into delaying our “need to breathe.”
- We can blow into a paper bag, re-breathing carbon dioxide, to calm our anxious hyperventilation.
Yes, for our own ends, we can recalibrate our design. Even our internal reflexes are subject to our free will. Sounds very familiar. But what an amazingly simple system. Inspiration, supplying our needs. Expiration, expelling our waste.
Less of me. More of you, Lord. Repeat. Amen.
Strengthened in Prayer: multi-tasking is Biblical
212 years
by wlebolt
in Body, Call to Action, Deeper Sensation, faith, imagination, In Action, Life, Made to Move
First Thessalonians (5:17) says it clearly: “Pray continually.”
I assume that means 24-7, 365. So, if I understand that correctly, that means my life should be one continuous prayer. Praising. Confessing. Thanking. Asking. But, wait, God wants me to be going about His business here on earth, too. So, if God expects me to pray without ceasing, He must have designed me to be both doing life and praying at the same time. Multi-tasking must be Biblical!
That’s good news because we’re good at multi-tasking these days. Texting while driving. Shopping while chatting. Pretending to listen while we’re thinking of 100 other things. Actually I don’t think any of those are truly multi-tasking, that is, doing both at the same time. I think we ping between things to accomplish both: Text, then check traffic, then text. Peruse shelves, then “say that again?” then select our salad dressing. Hmm, uh-huh, when our mind scans our mental to-do list, then uh-huh… Yes?
So I guess it’s natural to approach prayer in the same way. Pray, then do. Pray, then go. Pray, then speak. (or the other way around as may be more often the case) But if God actually intends for us to pray continuously — without stopping — that means we must have been made for this. In fact, it may be the one thing that can truly be multi-tasked with live. And is meant to be.
Except we don’t. We treat it as we do all the things we’ve been assigned. We add it to the list and then, if we’re dutiful, we check it off. Or, perhaps we’re a bit better about it and weave it throughout our days’ doings. But let’s not kid ourselves; that’s not praying continually.
Just for the sake of argument, if I could pray AND do at the same time, what would that look like?
- The prayer form would have to keep changing along with whatever I was doing.
- If I was talking, prayer would be in the words.
- If I was listening, prayer would be in the listening.
- If I was moving, prayer would be in the motion.
- If I was writing, prayer would be in the lettering.
That would be life lived completely God’s way.
What about if I exercising? Just to see, I pulled out my resistance band yesterday (a stretchy band that I use for exercise and in fitness activities) and choreographed motions to the hymn, Spirit of the Living God. I pull it. It resists. I pull harder. It moves. The give and take of exert and respond is the rhythm and movement of words and song. The song ends…”Spirit of the living God, fall afresh on me” and I bring the band, taut between my hands, down to rest. In that moment I can feel the residual effects of the resistance and the stretch I’ve just performed. I can literally feel the prayer I have just prayed and I am stronger.
I have been strengthened in prayer. That is multi-tasking, and I think God is okay with it.
**Thank you to the folks at the Upper Room and the Global Board of Ministries who invited me to participate among them at SOULfeast 2013 this year. This inspiration is the fruit of that invitation.
Godly Osmosis: golden melding
012 years
Isn’t osmosis amazing? Grapes swell. Roots absorb. Skin rehydrates. You know everything in the textbook that you slept with under your pillow last night…Well, all but the last one.
Who thought up water? Something so simple. Two H’s and an O. Specialized bonds that share charges in a way that attracts or repels. It designs its own environment. Goes where it pleases and in fact heads into the areas where it’s under-supplied. Where it’s needed most. Thirst is quenched, by chemical design, when water flows.
He satisfies the thirsty, and the hungry he fills with good things.
~ Psalm 107
Not to say he makes everything lush and green…
He turns rivers into a desert,springs of water into thirsty ground,
34 a fruitful land into a salty waste,because of the wickedness of its inhabitants.
But just add water and voila!
He turns a desert into pools of water,a parched land into springs of water.
36 And there he lets the hungry live,and they establish a town to live in;
37 they sow fields, and plant vineyards,and get a fruitful yield.
Wrinkles fixed. Cracks filled in. Hunger satisfied.
Whole again. Useful again. Beautiful again. Fruitful again.
Humanity is thirsty. We hunger and eat but are not satisfied. We are cracked and broken. Leaking in our disrepair. We thirst for a drink that will fill us to overflowing.
But look:
What a beautiful image. Our cracks filled with precious gold, more beautiful in their repair.
Godly osmosis.
Quenched and overflowing with water for a parched land. A thirsty humanity.
Just a drink of water.
Holy.
Stop the ready and start the go
0Ready-Set-Go!
I love hearing that. Especially the “Go!” That’s my signal to jump into action, begin the race, dash into the scavenger hunt.
Actually I like it when someone else says Go. Otherwise I would spend all my time in the ready-set. Preparing for action. Settling into the start position, re-tying my shoes, adjusting my waist band, etc. etc. But when someone holds the start gun aloft or raises the whistle to his lips, I know the Go! is coming. That’s when I must stop the ready and start the go.
This is just easier when someone else says Go! Maybe that’s why I like playing in games so much. I completely delegate the Go.
For sure, there are Go moments in life not just in games. These are a bit more tense. The “I do” moment. The “It’s a girl” moment. The “turn the ignition” moment. Where a switch is flipped and going back is not an option. I prefer the automatic go. Choosing the go is a whole lot tougher.
But choosing not to go has its consequences. When you’re forever preparing and never going, things get backed up. Just like being stuck in traffic, cars are coming behind you, making it more and more difficult – perhaps impossible – to turn around.
Now conscientious is good. Studying your options is important. But at some point in the back-up just heading out must take precedence over map-reading.
Much of life – though to commuters I know this may not ring true – we are not stuck in traffic or readying and setting before the go. Most of life we are just in the ebb and flow of our day. All well and good ~ unless it’s not. What if how things are going is not good? What if the other team is kicking our butts and they’re the last place team and we’re so much better than this?
It’s always easier to keep on doing what we’re doing and just hope it gets better. That’s the hazard of ‘ready-setting’ while you’re in-the-game. No whistle is gonna sound telling us it’s time to get started. In fact the only whistle we’re likely to hear is the one signaling the end of the game.
That’s when we’re got to stop for just a moment so we can start again differently. When we can reassess what’s working and what isn’t. That’s when we find our own go. And commit to it. Because waiting on the halftime pep talk to re-orient us may be too late. The deficit from the first half may be too big to dig out of. The traffic behind us is backing up. There is more work coming down the pike. The pressure is mounting.
So much of life may just be discovering our own “Go!” point. Or perhaps realizing that each time I’ve readied and then gotten set with God, whatever Go I have chosen He has somehow made right. True, some of the legs of those races have been very short before He’s stopped me to head me in a slightly different direction.
I think God may not be the one holding the start gun or blowing the kick off whistle. That may be me. I say Go. God says …ahead. See if there’s anything I can’t do with someone willing to go.
Trespassers will be forgiven
012 years
When I google “trespassers will be,” I get these hits:
Trespassers will be …
- shot
- violated
- eaten
- prosecuted
They mean to say, this is private property. We don’t want you here.
Gone are the days when cutting through your neighbor’s yard to get to your friend’s house is okay. We know not to trespass; there will be consequences.
I was delighted when a friend shared seeing this sign in front of a church she walked past:
“Trespassers will be forgiven”
It gets you because you expect to see ‘shot’ or ‘prosecuted’, or worse: certainly not forgiven. So it draws you to the word, “forgiven.” That if you come on this property, it’s okay. You’re safe. You’re welcome. We’re friendly here. We’re the kind of folks that welcome strangers.
It’s amazing what our signs say about us.
The people who put up this sign knew this prayer and the power behind it.
“Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”
They are forgiven… as they forgive their trespassers. First one, then the other follows. Whoever trespasses against me, I will forgive not so I can earn my forgiveness but because that’s how God has already dealt with me. I am a participant in my own forgiveness and it involves the stranger. the wanderer. the seeker. the lost. God’s is a “pre-forgiveness” economy.
I think I would like to visit this church. To find out whether what’s inside matches what’s on the outside. A good reminder to double check if the same is true with me: do my insides match my outsides? After all, God’s always checking that — except to Him there’s no inside separate from the outside to Him. It’s all in plain view. When they’re not matching, God knows it.
I’d like to think I am consistent. That I’ve put down my “I’m Right and You’re Wrong” sign and left that completely to God. But secretly I know that if today both I and the unbelievers I love strolled through the pearly gates, me smiling and them dumb-founded, I could not resist the urge to say, “I told you so.” Still holding that sign.
It’s amazing what our signs say about us.
Perhaps that’s what God is working to complete in me. Helping me become a person that would not even consider saying “I told you so” to the one for whom this is new. And simply gush, “This is what I have been waiting so long to show you.”
Then we’ll both know what forgiveness looks like.
How does a run settle everything?
1Now I know why weight-bearing exercise is good for you. It settles everything into it’s place.
I can’t believe how going for a run puts all my thoughts in their proper category. I can almost hear the coins falling into their slots. Clear. Concise. Ordered.
How does that happen?!
How would Jesus drive?
0Just move. Be still. Just move. Be still. I feel like I’m stuck in city traffic. Life is not very fuel efficient these days.
I began this thought yesterday when I saw a late model 4-door idling at the light after our lane of traffic was well on its way. His license plate read “Gewgle.” Funny. I didn’t have to look to know the driver was texting or checking email while waiting for the light. His stillness when the rest of us were moving confirmed it.
But then, as we all proceed …a smidge above the speed limit, here comes Gewgle in the right hand lane, zipping along, passing the line of cars to dive in ahead just before the 2 lanes merge. From stopped to 60 in 30 seconds. So he can be first in line.
I was in no hurry, so instead of feeling irritated, I pondered instead. (another lesson right there!) How ironic that we live life this way. Stopped and then speeding to the stop again. We ping between extremes. Life’s version of interval training. On the one hand, we’re to “Just move” because we’re too sedentary for our own good. On the other, we’re to “Just be still” so we can rest and restore. Our answer: the gewgle life.
It’s not very fuel efficient. And that’s destroying the Ozone layer.
God is not about destruction. Not for us and not for the rest of his creation. I don’t think 0-60-0-60 is his game plan. I do think He attends the gas pump. My grandmother called it the filling station. And perhaps that is the better name. He’s the one who comes to our window and asks if we’d like high test or regular. And we say, “fill it up with regular.” And He does. Along with washing our windows and bringing us the sales receipt. He fills us with fuel and serves us with a friendly smile. In our neighborhood He even knew us by name.
Mr. Gewgle is too young to remember this, I’m quite sure. Have we really left those days behind? Can we remember that what fills us is meant to be used conscientiously and not haphazardly? It’s meant to take us a good long way before we need a refill.
Oh, for sure, God meant for us to hit the road once He’d filled up our tank. God gives us strength, and we’re meant to go out and use it. Sometimes we need to hit the gas. Sometimes we need to brake. Most the time we’re meant to travel the speed limit, along with the other cars to the destination He has in mind. We’ve got plenty of fuel for that trip. But if we floor it we’ll likely be walking to the next filling station.
Which isn’t a bad thing. Just a reminder that He’s filled our tank, too. Of course, it’s so embarrassing to walk past all those other motorists who are stifling a laugh or, around here, perhaps shaking a fist. Kind of a tortoise and the hare moment.
Yesterday, Mr. Gewgle sprinted into first position only to be stopped at the red light at the top of the hill. Behind him sat 3 motorists blinking to turn right. Mr. Gewgle’s intention was straight ahead. His failure to yield prevented the others from proceeding on their way.
I wonder if our mad dashes do this to the prescribed order of God. Both impede traffic and waste gas.
I expect that some of us need to slow down and some of us need to speed up to reach our God-speed. The pace that maximizes our fuel efficiency and gets us to our destination safely. This sounds very much more like how Jesus would drive.
Don’t let them leave without saying goodbye
2My dear old Rosy is nearing the end. I can tell. She hardly eats or drinks. She can stand with help. She teeters when she walks, those decrepit hips barely balanced, as she lists to one side. Once she gets going she can still navigate the wonderful ramp my husband built for her. But the time we have with her is growing short. I can tell.
Now, she lies on the bed as is her custom. Content to rest. She has lived an incredible life. Taught us amazing lessons about perseverance and dedication and making everything you can out of what you’ve been given. She is a miracle of modification. A tail that swirls for balance, hips the have created their own new socket, feet (they look a bit hobbit, really) and toes that have literally angled themselves in to give her a central place to stand.
Hi Ro
She is a living, breathing, wagging example of Living Creation. God made her up as she went along.
Today and in the days she has left she is giving us one more gift. She is letting us say goodbye.
I would like to pretend there is no death. No dying. No separation from here to there. But I know better. I’ve lost pets I’ve loved. I’ve lost people I’ve loved. Death is real. What I have learned from those I have lost is to take time to say goodbye before they go. Rosy is offering us this, and I am claiming every minute.
Patting her. Petting her. Bringing her bits of food and water. Walking beside her out in the yard, tapping her every so often so she knows I am there. Because she can’t hear me. These moments are just a small token of my gratitude for her life so very well lived.
Do you pray that their time is not up? Do you pray for one more miracle for this dog who lives them daily? Today, I don’t think so.
Do you imagine they will romp and play in heaven? Do you wonder how they will get along with all those other golden retrievers chasing balls up there? I’m not sure. Rosy has never really romped or chased balls. I wonder if she would know how, even in heaven.
And what about heaven? Is it reserved for humans? Do dogs really get to go?
So I sit with Rosy this morning, stroking the soft, curly fur of her ears. She sighs and settles her head between her paws. Not resigned, just content. And I ask God, where will she be on her next stop? It can’t just be humans that have the divine invitation. For this creature has taught me more than perhaps anyone I have ever known about the love of God lived out, without uttering a single word.
And God said, “She is as surely mine as you are.” That, I believe. And I feel certain that whatever God has in store for Rosy it will be more than I can ask or imagine.
Dear sweet Rosy. How I love you. How I thank you. Somehow I hope God can convey this to you, properly. Today I only have words and pats. Let it be enough.