This week we were fortunate that Kelsey Kapauff was able to be with us and share what she has learned and experienced in her spiritual journey.
Contemplation
Set an Intent: Welcoming Prayer
Thank you for the honor of being here with you today.
I am going to be talking with you about contemplation! The funny thing about me sitting up here is that to be honest I wouldn’t call myself a contemplative. I have been on a path that has led me to the contemplative tradition the past couple years, but I am very much still a student of the tradition.
When I started learning about the idea of contemplation I was captivated.
I almost immediately took a class to learn more and the thing I loved about this class was that we weren’t only learning about contemplation intellectually but we were encouraged to explore the contemplative practices as well.. Meditation being one of them.
Now I have two kids… and trying to meditate in the mornings is almost impossible with them around.
I would sit to meditate, and the kids would come rushing in, interrupt me. And I would be left with a feeling of frustration that I didn’t get what I needed, and then I would react to my kids often in a short and frustrated way.
Until one day I was listening to an interview one of my teachers did with a young mom. She was having the same issue as me. She was so excited about her contemplative journey, and she would wake up with this longing to connect with God, but inevitably her kids would come in and interrupt her, leaving her left with a sense of frustration.
My teacher responded to her like this- “I want you to imagine for a moment that I am God, and then talk to me about what been going on….”
Talking to the professor as “God” she then explained her predicament. He then said now I want you to imagine I am God talking to you…
As “God”, he responded with something like, “I see your longing for me, your love for me… and it so delights me. The thing is…. I love you so much that I want to hold and be held by you, so I jump into the bodies of you kids and run out to you so that we can simply embrace each other.”
As I heard this story I wept.
It made me realize in that moment that my pursuit and my “trying” to connect with God can become the very thing that get in the way of me seeing that we are connected…..
What if the very thing that is interrupting, or distracting us, is in itself a part of how we can connect with God, instead of a thing getting in the way of our connection to God?
God comes to us disguised as our very lives.- Paula D’Arcy
So…
Next morning I tried seeing differently but I just ended up:
• Responding “better” on the outside
• Rejecting and suppressing my feelings and thoughts…
• Praying it away- note: sometimes prayer can distract us from the present…
Eventually I could do nothing but
Surrender- let go of everything I was holding onto. I simply stopped trying to change myself and the situation. In doing so I just chose to be present to what was.
In the letting go, in my relinquishing of control I experienced something I couldn’t describe. My kids ran out and its as if a layer was lifted from my eyes and I saw God in them. I felt this deep connection to God in their presence.
I was overwhelmed with love, my eyes welled with tears, and I breathed in deep this indescribable moment.
Its as if I saw love living and moving within and around me…
In the letting go, I realized what I was looking for, striving for, was simply there all along. On the outside nothing had changed, but internally I experienced a shift in how I saw, a shift in my awareness.
I had been learning about contemplation, but this was one of my first moments experiencing it. _______________________________________________________________________ Contemplation is something that story can describe a lot better than hard definitions can…
Its hard to define because much of it is truly beyond our understanding, and therefore beyond our descriptions. So as we talk about contemplation today I want to start off by saying that no explanation of contemplation can touch the depth of what it is.
Its like talking about an orgasm- you can explain the crap out of it, but experiencing it is a whole other thing.
In Philipians 2:5, Paul says, “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus”
I love this.
Paul isn’t saying
May you know the same things as Jesus knew He isn’t saying
May you have a mind that is similar to Jesus mind He is talking about
A merging of minds
May the “same” mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus… He is talking about acquiring the consciousness of Christ.
This is contemplation.
It is a mode of perception that is in tune with the divine…
An encounter with pure awareness itself, an encounter with the greater truth. Thomas Merton describes Contemplation like this:
“It is life itself, fully awake, fully active, and fully aware it is alive. It is spiritual wonder. It is spontaneous awe at the sacredness of life, of being.”
It is this way of seeing that goes beyond our normal observable realities.
Most of us function from a lens of object awareness most of the time.
We are focused on something. A person, a place, an emotion, a though, and we spend our conscious energy on the thing that is the object of our attention.
Right now the object of your attention can either be me, or a daydream you are going with in your mind, or maybe its something else your looking at in this room…
Our “normal” conscious state splits and focuses, splits and focuses…
But when it comes to God there is no splitting.
He is omnipresent with all.
God doesn’t function with object awareness, and if he did that would really suck for all of us if he could only focus on us one at a time…
But what we know and believe to be true about God is that he is simultaneously with us all, present to us all. And not only us, he is present to all of creation…
This kind of consciousness is objectless.
Its a whole other kind of perceiving, and seeing…
Another phrase to describe this mode of awareness is: _________________________
Non-Dual Seeing.
Which is a mode of seeing that doesn’t separate.
As we know dual thinking is thinking that splits. good and bad
Us and them
Weak and strong
Conservative liberal Beautiful ugly
Dual thinking is important as we are first forming concepts.
For example when my daughter was learning about temperature, she learned it in the context of its opposite.
She knew something was hot because she had felt something cold. But now that she is getting older she’s realizing that those two opposing extremes cannot hold the breadth of the various temperatures.
So although dual thinking serves a purpose for all of us, it can only take us so far… Especially with religion.
If we view God as being out there, then we wont spend time learning to pay attention to what he is saying in here, we will simply be waiting and looking out.
If we only expect to feel near to God at church, or at the beach, or wherever it is we seem to look for God, then our eyes can be blind to Gods movement in other spaces.
Non dual consciousness takes away the lines, God is no longer out there, or in here, or over there.
God is in all. Immanent in you and I, yet simultaneously transcendent and above you and I… This way of seeing opens us up to so much more than our categories allow.
Non-dualistic thinking allows us to get outside of the mind that wants us to split and categorize and allows us to simply hold what is.
Its a wider more expansive view that is awake to deeper realties… __
I do want to make clear that the purpose of non-dual consciousness isn’t to diminish our differences… or to be blind to them…
That line of thought can be unhelpful and even destructive…
Being color-blind is a good example of this. When we are “color blind” we fail to recognize both the beauty in a person of color and the pain that has been caused by systemic systems of oppression… which then can keep us from doing what we can to build a more loving world.
Non-dual consciousness, simply expands our view and takes the attention off of what separates.
In this sense we can more fully celebrate the unique beauty of our differences when they are not all that we see, when they are not the objects of our attention…
This state of awareness that taps into the deeper streams of truth that our categories can blind us to…
As humans most of us have experienced what it is like to see with these non-dual eyes… even if we have just had small glimpses…
We often experience these non-dual moments when we experience great pain, or great love because these experiences often have the ability to shatter our comfortable categories…
For example:
When you fall in love with someone of a different race than you, that you once looked down upon.
Category of us and them shattered.
When you do something that really hurt someone else, that you never though you would do. Category of good and bad shattered.
When your baby is born with special needs, and your previous perceptions are shattered because that baby is the most beautiful person you have ever laid eyes on…
When you go through something that is beyond painful, yet it ends up being one the most beautiful inner experiences…
When we experience something that simple categories simply cant describe… It often encourages us towards a more non-dual mindset…
I experienced this when I was with my dear friend who recently lost her husband to suicide.
We were packing up her home, putting in boxes her memories, he life that was permeated with her husband Andrews presence. It was a painfully sacred experience. We packed, and cried. Packed and cried. At the end of the day, after packing all of their things, it was time for her three beautiful boys to go to bed. The thing about life is that even in midst the greatest pain, it doesn’t stop. I wanted to help, but they understandably wanted their mom. I waited in the other room as my exhausted (on every level) friend, then put her boys to sleep. After some time, she walked out of their bedroom.
I watched as she walked over to where I was sitting and simply collapsed to the ground. I had never experienced anything like this before. I watched as the pain in her heart manifested in her body, and all she could do was fall to the floor.
We sat there on the floor together weeping, holding each other. I can’t come close to imagining all that was happening within her in that moment. The pain that I was feeling was deep, but nothing close to what she was sitting in. It was just too much. We started to ask God Why? Confused, angry, and utterly broken. Simultaneously bewildered by God, His presence permeated that moment. Love was alive. Love was alive in the questions, in the pain, in the embracing of each other, in every confusing piece, love was there. It was one of the most raw and real moments of my life.
In the brokenness the thing that was so apparent to me was the sacredness of it all. To be with her in that moment, will always be one of my most dear memories. Which sounds odd… How could one fo the most painful moments of my life be one of the most beautiful?
There is no explanation that could make sense of it all, it simply was.
It was this moment of expansive embrace of the whole.
A moment of intense oneness with each other, and with God.
The difficult thing is that this way of seeing cant be forced. We cant just put on these new eyes whenever we want…
But we can offer up a posture of least resistance, so that we may be overcome- as James Finley describes…
Paul goes on in Phil 2 to describe that what that posture of least resistance looks like…
5 Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,
6 who, though he was in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God
as something he should cling to,
7 instead He emptied himself,
So in order to enter into the consciousness of Christ, Jesus emptied himself…
The greek word for this emptying being (kenosis)- the act of self- emptying, this beautiful act of Surender..
And he says the opposite of self emptying is clinging.. I mean visually think about the difference…
Cling- crouch over, protective stance, holding tightly, often holding of breath Emptying- a release, openness, vulnerable, exhale
This is why breathing exercises are so powerful in our path of surrender, when we pay attention to our breath we recognize were again and again, releasing…
This process of kenosis.. can often bring up some scary things within us that can make us pull back into clinging…
We all have things that we are currently clinging to… things that are not easy to release…
Things that our Ego does not want to let go of, things we cling to our of our desire to protect ourselves, things we cling to that make us feel comfortable…
- It’s interesting because in my own process of surrender, one of the hardest thing for me to let go of was my certainty about God.
- I was taught to read the Bible in a certain way.
- I was taught that God moved in specific ways.
- And I was taught that if you had deep faith, you surely wouldn’t doubt the doctrines that my
specific tradition taught… - I studied theology and I came out of bible school pretty confident.
- I quickly became a pastor and I watched as people clung to my confidence about what I
believed and made it their own.. I not only felt truly confident that I held many truths, My ego loved, I mean loveddd feeling important.
Little by little as time went on I realized that I spent a lot of time being spoon-fed what to believe, and I was taught very little about how to believe. - I was asked one time about my thoughts on heaven and hell and as I confidently answered I listened to myself speaking so confidently, and my inner voice was saying “you don’t really know!!!”
I was clinging more to what I knew about God than to God himself…. That was and still is a very humbling realization….
How comical that I had to let go and surrender some of my certainty about God, in order to “put on this mind of Christ” Paul is talking about.
This was a surrendering of a large part of what I thought was my identity too.
The process of letting go for me felt scary because I felt like I was losing myself. I was the one with wisdom (for my very small group of people mind you)
Who would I be if I wasn’t that person?
What I continue to learn and re-learn is that even thought at times surrender feels like a losing of self, the opposite happens. I find my true self in the process…
A self that is free.
The self that simply is, the self that is loved, the self that no longer has to prove anything.
This is our true selves. The self that cannot be offended. The self that is loved by God for simply being.
But none of us live out of this self all of the time, and probably never will while we’re alive.
This is why Self emptying isn’t this one time thing, its an every day thing…
Which I find very encouraging in my own contemplative path…
Im not going backwards when I start to cling, it’s simply another opportunity for me to return to the ever present God.
Contemplative practices are super helpful tools that can help us grow these muscles of surrender, so that we may tune into this divine awareness…
But before I jump into what some of those practices are I want to make clear that contemplative seeing is not simply about intellectual understanding.
It’s about integrated awareness. Full being awareness…
This attunement to Gods resonance is not simply in tune through our
Mind- that thinks about God
or our heart- that lovingly embraces God or body,- that senses God
because in this non-dual state of consciousness there is no separation of self.
Which is what Jesus is speaking to when he says, “Love the lord you’re God with all your heart soul and mind.”
It’s this whole being connectedness to the whole…
This was super helpful for me to recognize when I started doing more contemplative practices…
We can think our way to God,
But we can be our way to God, because it’s in our whole undivided being where God Himself dwells.
This is the point of many of the practices. To show up, and simply be present. Without expectation of what we desire God to do….
If we are trying to enter into practices with specific goals and hopes, those things can become the very things that keep us from truly entering in.
Even if they are good things!!! Again Kenosis, Kenosis, Kenosis
The practices are helpful because they help us enter into the present moment, and offer up that position of least resistance:
Contemplative practices are not contemplation in themselves, they simply work our muscles of consent, and can help us enter into that contemplative divine seeing.
Some of those practices being:
Stillness practices: Centering prayer Meditation
Creative Practices: Painting, journaling, singing Relational Practices: Deep listening, storytelling Movement Practices: dance, yoga, labyrinth walking
Truly Contemplation can be found anywhere though, because as we talked about its a way of being and seeing.
Sometimes ill sit and try and surrender and enter in and I just feel more and more distant from God even if mentally I believe thats impossible…
But then other times in my surrender to the moment I am simply overcome by this contemplative mind.
I had a contemplative moment gazing at a bell pepper once! Finley describes contemplative moment like this:
In the quietness of the attentive gaze, one comes upon a certain presciousness, an immediate worth, that which no words can be found….”
Contemplation does not simply stop at conscious awareness.
Some people think that the opposite of contemplation is action, but that’s just not true…
The opposite of contemplation is reaction… an acting out of our small self..
True contemplation will always result in active and dynamic love.
Which makes sense right?
If God is the source of love could entering into the consciousness of Christ result in anything less than love?
I want to end with this picture of The Trinity.
This is Perichorseis. Which is the greek word for the relationship between father son and spirit, whom are continually in relationship with each other both pouring out and receiving love from the other.
And our lives are a part of this sacred dance.
Every day, every moment we are participating in the sacred dance of love.
In
Our waking Our being
Our seeing
Our connecting Our trying
Our failing
Our longing Our searching
All of it, all of life, is steeped in the love of God…
Contemplation is simply a waking up to this reality that is already true.
Guest Speaker: Esther Dewitt
Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.
Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is admirable – if anything is excellent or praiseworthy – think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me – put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you. Philippians 4: 4-9
This summer we have been exploring the physiology connected to the psychology that creates the mental, emotional and behavioral patterns that lead us in the wrong direction. Chuck has been educating us, connecting the science with the spiritual, as we have considered the prospect of re-writing the owner’s and operations manual for our Brain. The impact this series has had on me has been significant as we have considered how our personal history has been imprinted on our brain and nervous system, forming the habits of our lifetime. How these, over time, through trauma, hurt, and wounding developed into pathways, the ones that make us feel like we are stuck or heading in the wrong direction, the ones that lead us away from the God of peace and the peace of God, to anxiety, depression, frustration, discouragement, conflict, anger and a host of other harmful and hurtful spaces.
Fortunately, we have not studied this just to discover a hard reality, to be left knowing how we got to the places we don’t want to be. Our study has been to empower us, to understand that simply because we have been heading in one direction, does not mean we have to stay heading there. All that we have been learning has been to draw us towards repentance, towards changing our direction.
Repentance is more than quitting a list of clearly articulated biblically wrong behaviors. We repent not just from a traditionally accepted list of sins.
Repentance is a changing of direction. It is more than a change too.
It is an intentional change of direction. It is a choosing of a specific direction. It doesn’t occur automatically or instinctively. It isn’t the simple exchange of one behavior, pattern, way of thinking or doing for another. Repentance involves the recognition that the well-worn path we have been on is not getting us where we want to go. In repentance we make the conscious, intentional choice to change direction to move towards God, the God of Peace, away from the paths and patterns that have gotten us stuck, that have caused damage to us and our relationships, and towards healing and in the direction of wholeness and restoration, towards the peace of God.
Romans 2 tells us that it is God’s kindness that leads us to repentance. We are not led to repentance out of punishment or condemnation.
But that doesn’t make it easy. Repentance causes us to forge an unfamiliar course. It can feel uncomfortable. It challenges us. The change of repentance is not easy.
We do not have make these changes on our own, in our power. In John chapter 14 verses 26 and 27 Jesus tells us that the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. Peace, I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.
We have help, we have a teacher, to help us turn from our fear and troubled hearts, but it’s a learning process. We will need to be reminded. The Holy Spirit will teach us, will remind us. As we develop new habits, new patterns, we will need that help, those reminders. That is not failure, it is a part of the process.
Is it worth it? If we know going in that making changes, heading in a new direction will be hard and uncomfortable, why we would do it?
Why bother?
We do it because we recognize and acknowledge that our current paths are not getting us where we want to be. They are leading in the wrong direction, possibly in circles, exhausting us without offering real progress, causing damage to our relationships, creating conflict internally and externally. So even though these thought and behavior patterns seem natural and comfortable, and we follow them instinctively, we know at our core that they can never get us where we want to be, they will never lead us to Spiritual or emotional healing.
And we are all wounded. We have all been hurt. Our stories are different, but we are all in need of healing.
In fact, many of the paths we want to turn from were created as we consciously or unconsciously fled or tried protect ourselves after we were hurt, or when were in search of healing and safety, but they took us in the wrong direction. Whatever the motive or circumstances that led us there, we don’t have to stay, we are not committed to those paths. Through the work of the Holy Spirit we have the power, the strength to make the change, to repent and change direction.
The challenge then, is to find strategies to resist returning to the old patterns and paths, to find the tools we need to forge the new path.
We find these strategies in Philippians 4, although because many of us have heard this passage many, many times, we can miss the practical tools it offers.
Several years ago when I was in my training to become a Certified Anger Management Specialist, I found myself in awe that the emotional strategies of our training, although dressed up in psychological terms and labels have at their root these same recommendation of Paul to the church in Philippi.
Does it make you feel any better to know that you are not alone in this process? It does me. I am comforted when we are honest together as a community, as followers of Christ, about our need for repentance, our need to change our old patterns. I am also encouraged by the goal set forward in it, the reward: to experience the peace of God, and the nearness of the presence of the God of peace. Yes, I want less harshness and more gentleness, less anxiety and more thankfulness, I want those things, but I feel a great need to experience more peace, the peace of God, and a great need to experience the presence of the God of peace, and that for me is a reason to step out my comfort zone, away from the natural, instinctive patterns, and towards repentance and new a path that will lead me closer to God.
A biblical strategy to break the cycle
The Living Bible Paraphrased translates Philippians 4:8, fix your thoughts on what is true and good and right. Think about things that are pure and lovely, dwell on the fine, good things in others. Think about all you can praise God for and be glad about it.
Our thoughts trigger emotions, which form moods. In our current culture we are bombarded with bad news. Bad news sells, it spreads, and it can sink in. We can easily develop thought patterns of negativity. We get stuck in the problems, and the worst case scenarios, what is wrong and what might go wrong, in addition to dwelling on what has gone wrong in the past. These negative thoughts breed fear, worry, anxiety, depression, anger, frustration and a sense of being overwhelmed. The negative spins around, catching us up in its loop.
If we view verse 8 as a strategy to break this cycle, we can see the sign posts for the new path in front of us. We are encouraged to think on the things that are noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent and praiseworthy. The Message translation says that we will do our best by filling our minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious – the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse.
I’m not suggesting we stick our heads in the sand over the evil in the world, that we become Polly Anna’s pretending that everything is rosy when it is not. It is intentionally deciding to spend time thinking about the good, the praiseworthy things. Especially when you notice that anxiety, anger, depression, and other distressing emotions have settled in.
So how do we do this? With intentionality. We seek out the positive things, we go looking for them. We capture them, write them down and keep them close to us when we find them, so we can return to them, intentionally and meditate on them. It may be a photo of nature that reminds you of God’s creativity and beauty, it may be a story of someone doing something heroic, that reminds you of the admirable, or remembering and writing so you can re-visit the kindness that someone showed you. As you sense the negative input dragging you down the wrong thought and emotional path, your reminders of what is lovely, true, noble, praiseworthy are there and ready for you turn your focus to. And as we are thinking of these better things, these things to praise, we take the time to thank God for them, remembering that all truly good things come from Him, and this brings us into His peace. It reminds us that He is good.
Do you find there is a time of day where your thoughts go heavy or dark? Where your memories return to hurts or disappointments, failures or rejections? In some quiet space where the memory pattern of your mind naturally returns, triggering sadness, discouragement, fear, or disappointment? As our notes from the message last week suggested, being aware of these experiences is important if we are to break the patterns. Again, intentionally being prepared is a key strategy to forming a new habit.
I have a couple of practices I suggest. Take a notebook, a journal, a pad of paper, and across the top of multiple blank pages write the title of a list. Maybe the list is things or people I am thankful for, or the Names of God, or the qualities of God. Maybe the list is beautiful and amazing things in God’s creation. Don’t fill out the list, just title it. Maybe on each page is a different list, maybe the same list for multiple pages. Then place that journal or notebook or pad, in close proximity to where you frequently are when those repetitive heavy dark thoughts come. Do you wake up with them many mornings? Place it by your bed or cereal box or coffee pot, and take 5 minutes to fill out the list when you notice those thoughts.
Are there places you go frequently that trigger these negative thoughts and emotions? Does a doctor’s office waiting room send you to the purgatory of ‘What If’ or anxiety? Carry your blank list in your car, in a bag, in your wallet, start it as a note on your tablet or phone. Have it clearly titled and ready, because as the thoughts begin their familiar cycle in your brain, an empty page is usually not enough to interrupt the pattern, and you are more likely to stare at it blankly or to make a chore or shopping list on it.
Being aware means taking the time to check in and pay attention. What are we experiencing physically, mentally, emotionally? When I listen to this music do I notice myself feeling sad? When I watch that news do I clench my jaw or tense my shoulders? When I engage in that activity do I feel drained and empty afterwards? We can do this as we look for patterns, times and experiences that trigger certain reactions and send us down certain paths, and we apply this awareness to the present, here and now, learning to recognize when we are not where we want to be, and when we want to stop and turn in a different direction.
We can build new and positive experiences, learning to savor them, letting them sink in, marinating them, so that they crowd out the memory space in our limbic system. They are not erasing previous negative experiences, but they are claiming more of the space. To do this we often have to interrupt the tyranny of busyness. Let the little things, the positives that you enjoy, add up internally. We help capture these memories by increasing our sensory experiences of them. Breathe in the ocean air, or the mountain air and pause to let it sink in. Close your eyes to listen to the music, and let it sink in. Smell the roses, the lilacs, the pine trees. Stop and feel the sun, the rain drops or the wind on your face. Catalog in your mind the chill of the evening as you stargaze. Take a photo of the sunset or rainbow, draw or paint the bird. Watch the squirrel run around, notice how the puppy plays with abandon. If in the moment we stop and experience as many of the senses as possible during positive experiences, smell, touch, sight, sound we help them seep deep and our brain can memorize those experiences and the positive feelings they trigger. The moment of calm, the laughter of joy, the wonder of beauty. These are building new paths, paths towards internal healing.
Try writing about your positive experiences shortly after you have them. Writing a couple of paragraphs about the beauty or joy or wonder of the sunset or sunrise, the waterfall, playing with the child, or singing in the car. If you don’t like to write in paragraphs, make a quick list. The senses you experienced, your thoughts, your emotions – all of the positive ones you can remember. If you took a photo or made a drawing, give it a caption, a description that identifies the positives. It is a conscious re-living of the positive and it helps to consolidate those memories, storing them more securely. If you tell someone else about them, you are reinforcing the memory again.
Build positive connections with Scriptures as well. Ask the Holy Spirit if there is a message from Scripture for you in the experience. As you reflect on your positive experience does it remind you of a Scripture? This is just for you, it doesn’t have to make sense to others. As you remember the amazing piece of pie does it make you think of “taste and see that the Lord is good”, as you admired the full moon did it remind you of the verse “praise Him sun and moon, praise Him all you shining stars.” (Psalm 148:4). If a verse or passage comes to mind write it down. Sometimes nothing pops up right away, but later we are reading and the positive memory returns, and we see a connection to the verse, write that down, record it next a note about your experience. If you printed out a picture, write the verse on the back of the photo, place it somewhere you will see it and be reminded of it.
It took a while for most of our old patterns to be formed. It can take a while for these new ones to be formed. It isn’t a magic wand. We make a plan, intentionally practice the plan, then rinse and repeat. Repetition is how the new paths become natural, normal, and even comfortable. We keep returning to listen to the Holy Spirit, it’s not a one-time lesson, and we are not failing because we need reminders.
Focusing awareness on our thoughts
One of the most un-natural and yet important things we can do in the changing, the repentance, process is to challenge our thoughts. Our thoughts can lie to us. Just because we think something that does not mean that it is true. Our thoughts may have been formed from false input, what others told us and we accepted, or by faulty conclusions, how we processed and made sense of information. We can question our thoughts, challenge them, seek out the truth, and choose to replace the lies we previously believed.
This is especially true with our thoughts about God and how He feels about us, and our thoughts about ourselves, our worth, our value, and our abilities. How easy it is to believe thoughts like “this is just how I am”, “God is angry with me or disappointed with me”, “it’s too late for me to change”, “God could never use me”, “I am not enough or I am too much”.
We can challenge these thoughts head on, by identifying them, recognizing them and countering them. We evaluate what emotions these thoughts lead us to, how they make us feel. If the result of the thought is discouragement, depression, anxiety, wanting to give in and give up, then we can assume that the thought is not of the Lord, and that it is not true. If you are battling these thoughts, you don’t need to condemn yourself because you have believed them, or beat yourself up because you accepted them without questioning them previously, but you can counter them now.
• We can search the Scriptures to see how much God loves us, the worth He placed on saving us, and the hope that He offers us that we can indeed leave the old behind and grow into maturity.
• We can meditate on these Scriptures, asking the Holy Spirit to show us how we are loved, how our strength and courage comes from the Lord, is given by Him for us to access.
• And,when the thoughts return,we can call them lies, counter them with the truth of Scripture, and refuse to dwell on them or believe them.
• We can also watch out for where some of the thoughts might be originating. Sometimes the negative voices around us are so critical, so loud, so repetitive that we adopt their messages in our own thoughts, but really they are external messages, that we have internalized. Once we recognize that the message is external, and is not true, about us, about God and how He feels about us, we can counter it even more effectively, and in some cases limit its access to us.
• We can replace those messages with trusted, positive voices of truth. Whether that is spending more time with encouraging and uplifting people in our lives, or listening to or reading messages based in the truth of the Word given to bless and encourage us, building us up in our faith rather than tearing us down, we can seek out sources that help us counter the lies with truth.
Is worry the well-worn path you want to turn from? Does anxiety crowd out joy and peace for you? How easy and natural it is to let fear and worry settle in. We know what has gone wrong in the past. We can imagine what can go wrong in the future. It can be intense, gripping our minds and our emotions. And we are not alone. There are things that trouble our minds and our hearts, there are real and potential dangers ahead. We are not asked to pretend, or live in a false sense of reality. The instruction to the Philippians applies to us here as well. When those worries and concerns arrive in our thoughts, instead of marinating in them, we take them to the Lord. The Message says: “Instead of worrying, pray. Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns.” The Living New Testament translation says: Don’t worry about anything, instead pray about everything: tell God your needs and don’t forget to thank Him for His answers. If you do this you will experience God’s peace, which is far more wonderful than the human mind can understand. His peace will keep your hearts quiet and at rest as you trust in Christ Jesus.
The strategy here is to acknowledge when the worry or concern comes up in our thoughts, and to use that as a reminder to pray, to take the issue to God. This isn’t telling us to feel guilty when worry comes, but rather not to soak in it, but to take that worry to God in prayer. We not only pray for the issue of concern but we pray and ask God to give us His peace in the midst of the situation. This is easier said than done. It also doesn’t come naturally. It also requires intentionality. Spending time meditating, and marinating mentally, on God’s faithfulness, God’s goodness, can help.
Relational conflicts
The conflicts in our lives are not limited to internal experiences. Our relationships, even the most important and dear to us, are at risk of conflict. When individuals are in distress, it very easily leads to relationships in distress.
In Romans 12:18, we are encouraged to live in peace with others, as much as it is our power to do so. Sometimes we don’t have the control, sometimes it is not in our power to resolve a conflict peacefully, but there are some practical things we can do, to help increase the odds, and to give us the confidence that we have done what we can.
Often one of the most valuable practices we can engage in is to prioritize the relationship over the issue. Sometimes the issue is life and death, putting other key relationships in peril, or in some other way is so important that it rises above the relationship, but frequently, if we really consider the issue involved in a conflict, we realize that we would rather keep the relationship than win the issue. Since we cannot always have the win and the relationship, we may need to prioritize, to make a conscious choice. I love win-win situations, where I can find a resolution where everyone wins. But sometimes the real win is in the forfeit, in letting something go to hold on to the more valuable. We can get in a winning – need to be right – want it our way mindset.
Sometimes when mediating a family dispute I will ask the parties separately, if they win the issue, but lose the relationship, will they be satisfied with that result. It’s an important thing to consider, as it brings perspective. It is easy to let little things get big fast.
When we separate the issue from the individual, and decide that a relationship is more than important than the issue we can return to the practices from Philippians 4 again, taking the time to list the things that are good about the person, that we appreciate and value, intentionally reminding ourselves of their value in our lives. We break the mental cycle of thinking about the problem, and turn towards the person. And as we do, we ask the Lord for His peace and we that He will guard our hearts and minds from returning to the old pattern.
And then there is unity without uniformity. We can be in relationship, even close relationship, without agreement. Even on important issues. We do not have to let significant differences and disagreements lead to conflict. We can give each other permission to come to different conclusions without the continual need for us to try to change their mind or convince them of our side. We can choose to respect differences without succumbing to the temptation to demean them. We can learn from each other through respectful dialogue or make a conscious decision not to bring up topics and issues that will tempt us to elevate hot-button or sensitive subjects. This isn’t easy to do, it’s a discipline, because most of us are passionate about our positions and we want to convert or persuade our loved ones to our side of an issue. And there may be a time and place for that, but we have to provide the space and grace, the honor and respect, for individuals to come to different conclusions. This may be a particularly useful strategy during the upcoming election cycle, but it is not limited to political issues.
When we are willing to recognize that all kinds of issues are frequently complex and nuanced, and that we each bring our background and our experiences with us as we form our positions, we can grow to respect that other individuals may not agree with us, and that doesn’t make them all wrong and us all right, it doesn’t mean they are ignorant, or stupid or stand as evidence of our superior intellect or good judgement. When we release the requirement for uniformity within our relationships we find a new strength, a richness in the diversity, and often the tensions that lead to conflict are lessened.
In choosing to take the time to think on things that are of good report, fixing our thoughts on what is true and good, on the good in others, we are making a choice not to dwell on the negative things, on the things we disapprove of in the lives of our loved ones. It’s not that we are not aware or are in denial, but we are not allowing those things to dominate our thoughts about the people we care about. In fact we can release our right to approval, and disapproval to help restore our relationships.
We form our approval, and our disapproval around what makes us comfortable, what matches our taste, what we are accustomed to or would like to become accustomed to. And then we impose that on other people. We want them to dress in a certain way, behave in a certain way, fit into our expectations in a certain way, so that we are not uncomfortable. It becomes a way to control others to relieve our own distress. We are not forced to change how we interact with world around us, to question our views or expectations, if other people behave in a way that meets our approval. When people challenge the norms, or what we wish were the norms, psychologically we can feel like it is challenging how we fit in the world around us, challenging our very interpretation of life. Imposing our disapproval on the behaviors of others, is our way of expressing our discomfort at the pace of change and growth around us. Sometimes we disapprove because people seem stuck in the old ways and are not embracing societal changes, sometimes we disapprove because we are the ones not ready to change.
Sometimes we attach a moral value to a taste or cultural difference. We disapprove and say that it is wrong, when in reality it is unfamiliar or different. In the church we can attach sin to these issues as well. I went to a Baptist college where women were required to wear skirts or dresses below their knees to church, chapel and class. It was a sin to wear pants, a sign of rebellion. The disapproval that leadership felt over societal changes in women’s clothing over the previous decades, was imposed on all students in attendance. I worked with another ministry organization that was constantly updating the views of what style of dress was appropriate for God fearing Christian women in leadership. The disapproval of a few was used to control the actions of others. Imposing our views of approval on others is demeaning, it is patronizing, it says loudly and clearly that we don’t trust their judgement or ability to form their ideas on what is appropriate. It says we don’t trust them to listen to the Holy Spirit or to read the Word and learn healthy and appropriate boundaries for behavior. And frequently it backfires, causing people to truly rebel and chose even more extreme expressions of independence from our influence.
To build healthy respectful relationships, we can let go of the power of our approval over others. We can intentionally choose to follow the instruction of Philippians 4, dwelling on the fine, good things in others, turning our thoughts away from those behaviors we don’t like, spending time looking for and acknowledging the good. It is not us compromising our own values, morals or beliefs to acknowledge that we are not responsible or accountable for the choices and decisions of others. We can trust other people to make choices in their lives without thrusting our own discomfort or distress on them. I’m not suggesting that we throw out all laws and rules or even dress codes or social behavioral norms, but I am offering as a strategy in personal relationships, especially those damaged by conflict, to try to let go of the expectation that our approval or disapproval of their behavior, and their willingness to conform to it, is a litmus test for our love and support. When people we love make choices and decisions that we not only disapprove of, but that we see are hurting them, we can pray for them, trusting the Holy Spirit to do a work, acknowledging the strength of our disapproval is not match for God’s love for our loved ones. Deciding not to hoist our approval or disapproval on others probably won’t change their behavior and may not change our comfort level regarding it, but it is an acknowledge that their decisions and actions are probably not about us at all, and can help us have compassion for them, and if they are behaviors meant to make us uncomfortable, to stick it to us or punish us in some way, then our disapproval wasn’t really helping the situation at all.
None of these strategies are very easy to practice, they all require change, and when we are in distress, when we are discouraged, overwhelmed or in conflict it can feel like the hardest time to make a change. We are already feeling drained and weak and finding the momentum to change from pathways and patterns that we are used to and that come instinctively can feel impossible. I think that’s the beauty of the community of faith. Together, here, we practice Meditation, we practice inviting the Lord in, quietly listening, waiting on Him. What at first feels awkward and uncomfortable slowly becomes comfortable, even natural. And in our practices we can encourage each other, support each other. We are not in this alone.
It’s okay to ask for help. If in the process of re-writing our brain’s manual we discover trauma we need help with, it’s okay to seek that help, to get that help. If we need help in restoring our relationships, we can get that help, and that’s not a failure. Whether it’s a counselor, therapist, mediator, prayer partner, or other source of help, it’s okay. This isn’t a pick up yourself up by your boot straps and figure it out process. This is a community, growing in love, teaching one another about the peace of God and together growing in our relationship with the God of peace. This is us sharing the inexhaustible riches and generosity of Christ with each other.
May the Lord Bless You and Keep You, May the Lord’s face radiate with joy because of you.
May He be gracious to you, Show you His favor and give you His peace.
Summary of Rewriting the Brain’s Owner’s Manual
How the brain’s Owner’s Manual is written through a lifetime:
“Neurons that fire together, wire together”
Habits are a person’s history imprinted on the brain and nervous system
The three main sections of the Owner’s Manual
The brain’s outer layer or cortex
sensory (bodily sensations) and motor (bodily movements)
the rational brain (in the frontal lobe, above the eyes–“prefrontal cortex”)
reason, analysis, planning, discretion
The brain’s internal areas
short term and long term memory storage
the emotional brain (limbic system)
romance, fear, anger, disgust, joy, etcetera
The brain stem (area that connects the brain to the spinal chord)
communication center for brain and body
the involuntary brain – regulates many of the body’s systems
toggles between a resting state and a fight or flight state
In emergencies, the brain stem activates the body and parts of the brain
– this happens a split second before a message reaches the rational brain
– some events are imprinted on the limbic system and the body’s nervous system without being recorded in explicit (working) memory
Many automatic, negative, and habitual thoughts are unconscious
– we are unaware of how they were written in our Owner’s Manual
– we need to know what’s written there if we’re going to rewrite it
Challenges:
We are caught up in our thoughts and feelings as if they were reality
“I am not my thoughts. I am not my feelings”
We are not aware of our unconscious automatic thoughts and feelings
we merely think our thoughts and feel our emotions without choosing them
We are addicted (by our brain chemistry) to certain thoughts and feelings
we have developed a dependency on them to help us cope
we continue to have them because they feel “natural”
Neuroplasticity refers to the brain’s ability to change–even to old age
Epigenetics tells us that genes do not determine all aspects of personality
– some genes are not predetermination, but a predisposition
– those genes can be turned on and off
We can rewrite our brains’ Owner and Operations Manual
Ways to Rewrite the Brain
The key to changing how the brain processes information–that is, our core beliefs, perspective, responses and reactions, attitude, moods, and so on–is focused attention. Through focused attention we cultivate the awareness necessary to observe what our brain is doing (and telling us) and then to reshape its neural connections.
Prayer
– bringing the “whole self” to God in silence, calming our soul (Ps. 131:2)
(the body as well as the mind, heart, and soul)
– trusting God has real value in reducing stress and anxiety
– affirming the new self we will be tomorrow by thanking God today
Being – aware of our “here and now” experience
◦ enter your body, “What am I feeling right now?”
◦ enter your mind, “What am I thinking right now?”
◦ enter your emotions, “What is my mood right now?”
Experiencing (all our senses)
Seeing – Hearing – Touching – Tasting – Smelling
– feeling the inside of the body as well as the outside
– discover bad habit “triggers” and catch them in the act
Savoring – positive experiences
– when something pleasant happens, hold on to it
– allow it to sink in so the brain can memorize the feeling of it
Doing – reinforce new neural circuits by acting on your new thoughts
– the brain needs new challenges to continue developing
– be at peace with being a beginner; clumsy at first
Integrating – create a total experience
– combine thought, emotion, physical sensations, and movement
Longing – be passionate about the changes you want to make
– be specific about your practice: Where? When? How?
Repeating – repetition is how we formed our current neural circuits
– practice focused attention
• the more we use those new synapses, stronger the connection
• this is what strengthens our new mental and emotional habits
Notes and handouts for each message in this series can be found on our blog site: http://reflexionsc.net/
Therefore I will judge you, O House of Israel, every one according to his ways, declares the Lord GOD. Repent and turn from all our transgressions, lest iniquity be your ruin. Cast away from you all the transgressions that you have committed, and make yourselves a new heart and a new spirit! Why will you die, O house of Israel? For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Lord GOD; so turn and live.
And I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put with in you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh Ezekiel 18:30-32 and 36:25-27
Intro: Why are these two passages not a contradiction?
First, God tells Israel to make for themselves a new heart and spirit
– then later, he says he will give them a new heart and spirit
• which is it? Do create the new self we are to become or does God?
◦ asking the question this way suggests an apparent contradiction
◦ it assumes that the situation must be either this or that
• either we are the active agents for change or God is the active agent
– the right question to ask:
“In becoming a new person, what is my part and what is God’s part?”
• now, instead of a contradiction there is cooperation
◦ but complementarity might be a better word
In quantum physics one object may consist of two properties, both of which cannot be measured at same time. For instance, in one experiment light presents itself as a wave; in another it presents itself as particles. This was difficult for many physicists to accept. They believed light had to be either a wave or particles, it could not be both. To date, there is no one experiment that demonstrates light as both wave and particle. Whether it acts like a wave or particles depends on how you look at it.
• examined one way, it looks like our faith depends entirely on us
◦ examined another way, our faith depends entirely on God
. . . work out your own salvation with fear and trembling,
Our faith depends on us, right? But the sentence goes on to say,
for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure (Php. 2:12-13)
Now our faith depends entirely on God–even our willingness
. . . to all those who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God,
Being God’s children depends on, right? But the same sentence says,
who were born, not of blood nor the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God (Jn. 1:12-13)
Now being God’s children depends on God
Today we review and conclude all we’ve learned up to now
We began with the word “repent” – “to think after” or “change the mind”
– there is a biological side to this change
• we have to change what our brains are doing
Curt Thompson, “We do not experience anything without there being a corresponding neuron firing pattern that represents that experience.”
• to produce one thought requires thousands of brain cells
◦ the brain forms habits by activating the same cluster of neurons,
◦ repeating the same pattern
– I used the analogy of creating a path through overgrown field
• the more you trample down the weeds, the clearer the path
◦ and the easier and quicker it is to travel that path
◦ that is how habits are formed in the brain
• the brain doesn’t discern if a habit is healthy or unhealthy
◦ some of our idea about ourselves and others are wrong
◦ we are all broken in some way, wrong about some things
We have referred to our brains’ programming as our “Owner’s Manual”
– most of what is written there is unconscious
• there are many well-worn paths along which it is programmed to run
• and the way it runs is reflexive, reactive, and automatic
– to repent is to rewrite the brain’s owner’s manual
There is a key skill we must learn to rewrite the owner’s manual
Let’s go back to Ezekiel for a moment
Son of man, these men have taken their idols into their hearts, and set the stumbling block of their iniquity before their faces. Should I indeed let myself be consulted by them? (Eze. 14:3)
– Ezekiel’s visitors did two things that were related and were wrong:
• they took something into their hearts and set something before faces
◦ “set before” — to intentionally make a thing the focus of attention
• this is how the had internalized their idolatry; taken it into their hearts
Daniel Siegel, “One of the key practical lessons of modern neuroscience is that the power to direct our attention has within it the power to shape our brain’s firing patterns, as well as the power to shape the architecture of the brain itself.”
“The intentional focus of attention is actually a form of self-directed experience: It stimulates new patterns of neural firing to create new synaptic linkages.”
– in Ephesians and Colossians, Paul says we are to
put off old the self
and
put on the new self
• our part of this is doable, but it requires our focused attention
The practice of contemplative prayer trains us to focus attention
The prophet Habakkuk was frustrated by what he saw in society
– but what God told him was coming disturbed him even more
• frustrated, he made a decision:
I will take my stand at my watchpost
and station myself on the tower,
and look out to see what he will say to me,
and what I will answer concerning my complaint (Hab. 2:1)
◦ in other words, before doing anything else,
◦ he was going someplace where he could hear from God
• the revelation he received became the foundation for Paul’s doctrine of “justification by faith”
◦ in fact, it is quoted at least four times in New Testament
– we cultivate awareness by quietly sitting in our observation tower
• we need a place alone with God where we can watch and reflect
◦ by reflect, I mean look at the reflection of our thoughts, ideas, feelings, perspective, attitude, reaction to situations, and so on
• we cannot change if we let our lives pass unnoticed
Awareness is not simply knowing that I am doing something
– it is observing myself doing something
• walking, having a conversation, thinking a thought
• it is not simply knowing something is happening
◦ it is an involved observation of an event as it unfolds
◦ an inner experience of interest and curiosity
– Daniel Siegel has an exercise he uses with many of his clients
• he has them bring their attention to middle of the room
◦ then move their attention to wall opposite them
◦ then move their attention back to the middle of the room
◦ then he has them bring their attention close to their faces
Siegel, “Notice how your attention can go to very different places.”
• we can send our attention to different places
◦ internal and external, real and imaginary
Sitting in the observation tower of contemplative prayer,
– we cultivate our present moment awareness
• we can get to the point where we detect
◦ when we’re mindfully aware and when we’re mindless
– it’s possible to learn to make decisions that are twenty times wiser
• if we pause, calm ourselves, and bring awareness to God’s presence
Curt Thompson, “. . . if I am aware that my fear is deeply connected to my breathing and heart rate, I can reduce my fear simply by consciously breathing deeply and slowly whenever I sense myself becoming fearful.”
• he says, “whenever I sense myself” – we cultivate this awareness too
◦ we listen to what goes on inside our bodies
◦ even if I’ve deafened myself to my body my whole life
Siegel, “. . . the brain is open to change across the lifespan. Because it responds to the focus of attention and to the experiences we create intentionally, there [is] great hope that those unrealized neural connections could still be stimulated to develop.”
Our bodies register a large variety of sensations
– sometimes we mistake a sensation for an emotion
• I knew a woman who thought she was always on verge of having a heart attack
• our bodies have something to tell us — we have to learn to listen
Curt Thompson, “. . . many elements of our mind/body matrix are means by which God is trying to get our attention, but we have not had much practice reflecting on them.”
Another area where we want to deepen our awareness: our self-talk
There is a lot of this going on in the Psalms
– for example, Why are you cast down, O my soul . . . ? (Ps. 42:5)
• there is negative self-talk
All in vain have I kept my heart clean
and washed my hands in innocence (Ps. 73:13)
• and there is positive self-talk
Return, O my soul, to your rest
for the LORD has dealt bountifully with you (Ps. 116:7)
◦ what are you telling yourself about your feelings, etc.?
◦ what are you telling yourself about you?
– we want to be aware of our thoughts as they arise
• I’ve found a helpful habit is to ask, “What am I thinking about?”
◦ then with slow deep breaths, become aware of my thoughts
• what do you want to reinforce? What do you want to resist or erase?
Conclusion: All through this series of lessons I have taught our part
I want to finish today with God’s part
– Andre’ Louf tells a story about the day he became an Abbot
• he requested a quote be read by Francois Fenelon
◦ it had to do with spiritual directors, which would be one of his duties
• after the reading, the Abbot who blessed him told Louf,
“. . . that is indeed what you will have to do from now on. Never try to impose yourself on your brothers. Of course, you would do very well, but grace can do more!”
– and that is the title of Louf’s book
• the last and most important lesson of this series
This is what I will leave us
The road ahead will be sometimes difficult,
sometimes frustrating and sometimes overwhelming
Some of us will be tempted to give up
But we will not give up,
not if we go forward fully dependent on God’s grace
Martin Laird, “. . . something that Christianity calls grace (God as constantly giving, constantly pouring Himself out) is an utterly reliable necessity.”
Whatever we give to this project,
God will add immeasurably more
If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.
So then, brothers and sisters, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.
Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God Romans 8:11-16, 26-27
Intro: Yesterday morning when I woke up, I felt stressed
I think now, that it was worry over preparing today’s talk
(imagine preparing and delivering an oral report every week)
– it began with a mild funk, but gradually intensified
• do you know how it is when you have a big job before you
◦ and you’re anxious to get to it immediately?
◦ having to do all the little daily chores first seems so annoying
◦ and I still had my regular morning reading and prayer time
• one reading was from Hebrews 12, and I thought to myself,
“Yes, yes, I’ve read this a hundred times!”
◦ coming to the words we’re not to grow weary and fainthearted, I cringed
◦ I felt both!
◦ and the key theme of the chapter 12 is endurance
It is for discipline that you have to endure (Heb. 12:7)
– the passage goes on to say God disciplines those he love–like a father
• and in the moment, all discipline seems painful
◦ then it hit me, “That’s what this moment is about!”
◦ my nervous system was in a reactive state and needed to be calmed
◦ this was an opportunity to practice my discipline in prayer
• God does not create our misery or stressful situations
◦ the world does — as Jesus said:
. . . do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own troubles (Mt. 6:34)
In the world you will have tribulation (Jn. 16:33)
◦ what God does, is make this an opportunity to practice discipline
– it’s like the first time I took a bad spill when learning to ride bike
• my dad did not cause me to fall off my bike
◦ but he was there to comfort, me and encourage me to get back on
• God did not want me to be miserable yesterday morning,
◦ but neither did he want my misery to be wasted
Today’s talk will cover unique forms of prayer
Practicing these disciplines, will improve our progress
– remember, we are rewriting the owner’s manual of our brains
• like Paul said in the Romans passage above,
we are putting to death the deeds of the body
• we are breaking the connections between brain cells of old habits
– these prayers are unique, because in them we don’t do all the talking
• I think most of us have learned to pray with our rational minds
◦ in prayer, we express our thoughts and feelings to God
◦ so our prayer tends to be a monologue rather than a conversation
• prayer from our spirit, and in the Spirit is wordless
If I pray in [an unknown language] my spirit prays but my mind is unfruitful. What am I to do? I will pray with my spirit, but I will also pray with my mind (1 Cor. 14:14-16)
◦ Paul is saying, public prayer has to be with the rational mind
◦ but our private prayers can come from another place within us
A few weeks ago I tried to frustrate you by reading from Romans 7 in the King James Version of the Bible
– there Paul described the “human condition” as it played out in his life
• he knew right from wrong, and wanted to do right,
◦ but something within him drove him to do wrong
• the answer to that inner conflict is in chapter 8
◦ God’s dynamic, powerful Spirit lives in us
◦ he assists us with everything God wants to do in our lives
– this includes prayer
• and when we do not know what to pray, the Spirit prays in us
• prayers too deep for words
So what are these unique forms of prayer?
First, we learn to seek God
– this is all through the Bible, especially the Hebrew Scriptures
• sometimes we’re told to seek God–and something else
Seek the LORD and his strength (Ps. 105:4)
◦ but mostly we are to seek God for himself
Seek his presence [face] continually (Ps. 105:4)
• this speaks to our primal need for God
◦ the creature in need of its Creator
As a deer pants for flowing streams,
so pants my soul for you, O God.
My soul thirsts for God,
for the living God.
When shall I come and appear before God? (Ps. 42:1-2)
When Paul argued his faith with philosophically-minded Athenians, he explained that God organized the divisions of humankind according to their place geographically and in time. He did this so that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, for in him we live and move and have our being (Acts 17:26-28). He was speaking to their primal need for God that drove them to seek him beyond all of their other deities, even though he was “unknown” to them.
– we never outgrow this essential need for God
• searching for God, we do not settle for ideas about God
◦ we don’t spend our time contemplating a God-concept
◦ we may notice our ideas about God, but we move past them
• it’s important to remember what Paul said about God being
not far from each one of us
◦ we do not conjure God, we do not make him present
◦ we open ourselves to the present moment and find him here
Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you, declares the LORD (Jer. 29:12-13)
Ask, and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened (Mt. 7:7-8)
Next, we learn to wait for God
– this too is found throughout Hebrew Scriptures, especially the Psalms
• but the classic verse that most of us know is in Isaiah:
Have you not known? Have you not heard?
The LORD is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He does not faint or grow weary;
his understanding is unsearchable.
He gives power to the faint,
and to him who has no might he increases strength.
Even youths shall faint and be weary,
and young men shall fall exhausted;
but they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength;
they shall mount up with wings like eagles;
they shall run and not be weary;
they shall walk and not faint (Isa. 40:28-31)
• everyone loves the idea expressed here – and wants it that renewal
◦ but few are willing to actually do what it requires – wait for God
– waiting is not passive, just sitting around doing nothing, killing time
• it is looking forward to the arrival of something important
◦ anticipation, alertness, attentiveness, and a readiness to respond
• we pause – we center ourselves in God – we rest – we trust
Next, we learn to watch in prayer
O my Strength, I will watch for you,
for you, O God, are my fortress (Ps. 59:9)
Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak (Mk. 16:38)
– typically, we are watching for whatever threatens us
Martin Laird says, “This . . . is an ancient contemplative practice called vigilance or watchfulness.”
• we’re not watching in fear or anxiety
◦ it is a quiet and calm observation of the present moment
◦ we observe whatever thought or feelings occur
• this was the job of the gatekeepers in the temple
◦ they monitored what was brought into the sanctuary
This is God’s Message. Be careful, if you care about your lives, not to desecrate the Sabbath by turning it into just another workday, lugging stuff here and there (Jer. 17:21, the Message)
◦ we monitor whatever enters the time we spend in God’s presence
– eventually we discern that thoughts and feelings are not reality
• they only appear real when we are lost in them
◦ you are not what you think or feel about yourself
• we also learn to discern the difference between thoughts
(and the stories we add to our thoughts and feelings, which cause us chaos and distress)
◦ rather than being victims of our thoughts, we become witnesses of them (Martin Laird)
Another unique prayer we learn is to be still
Be still, and know that I am God (Ps. 46:10)
I do not occupy myself with things
to great and too marvelous for me.
But I have calmed [or stilled] and quieted my soul . . . (Ps. 131:2)
The last unique prayer I’ll mention is that we learn to be silent
– notice the following verses combine waiting, seeking and silence:
The LORD is good to those who wait for him,
to the soul who seeks him.
It is good that one should wait quietly
for the salvation of the LORD. . . .
Let him sit alone in silence
when [the yoke] is laid on him;
let him put his mouth in the dust–
there may yet be hope (Lam. 3:25-29)
• “mouth in dust” is not about people degrading themselves
• it simply means, stop talking!
◦ silence all those inner voices that distract us from God
Conclusion: Our rational minds can form words and concepts of God
But we cannot with our rational minds embrace God himself
– we embrace him with the soul
• it is our with our spirit that we seek God
◦ that we wait, watch, and sit in silent stillness
• when we find, receive and the door is opened
◦ the encounter with God is Spirit to spirit
These strange forms of prayers
become the arms with which we reach out to God,
and when we enter the stillness of the present moment–
waiting, watching, listening–
God draws near,
embraces us in his love,
and breathes new life into our spirit
Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us. . . . 1 John 4:7-21
Intro: Wednesday morning, I drove three of my grandchildren to school
Before leaving their home, Calum complaining he had a stomach ache
– he suggested to me that he didn’t think he should go to school
• I assured him, he’d be fine once he got with his friends
◦ then he told me he also had a sore throat
• I felt that there was some a little sadness behind his complaint
◦ I know that school creates stress for him
◦ the thought of saying good-by to grandpa bothered him
– I said, “Just go until recess. If you still feel sick, then go to the office”
• later, my son Scotty told me, “Maybe next time don’t give him that option”
• it’s true – I caved-in to his manipulation
(But it’s possible Grandpa wanted to be with Calum as much as Calum wanted to be with Grandpa)
Our relationships are not only important, but crucial
– Johann Hari cites research into studies on loneliness
• it turns out, feeling lonely causes cortisol to spike as much as trauma
(cortisol is a hormone released in the blood stream in response to stress)
◦ loneliness creates as much stress to the body as being physically attacked
◦ being isolated from others creates a serious health risk
• loneliness increases:
◦ the damage of the major health risks and illnesses–e.g., heart disease
◦ the risk and severity of depressive and anxiety disorders
◦ the likelihood that a person will shut down socially
◦ becoming suspicious, fearful of strangers, and hyper-vigilant
◦ of being “more likely to take offense where none was intended”
– we need healthy relationships with other people to be whole persons
Our summer project has been to understand and practice repentance
– but to change the direction of our lives requires changing our brains
• the brain’s owner’s manual has been written over our lifetime
• something that is alarming if your think about it:
◦ almost anyone can write a chapter in my brain’s manual
◦ even complete strangers
(an AA quote: “The people who know how to push your buttons are frequently the ones who installed them”)
– we humans have this power
Death and life are in the power of the tongue,
and those who love it will eat its fruits (Pr. 18:21)
Gracious words are like a honeycomb,
sweetness to the soul and health to the body (Pr. 16:24)
• we can use this power to heal ourselves and others
John is sometimes referred to as the Apostle of Love
It is certainly a central theme in his writings
– we can tell by the way he talks about loving others,
• that he knows the concept is simple and it is true, but it is not easy
– love isn’t one specific feeling, attitude, or way of treating others
• love takes many different forms
◦ it can be a voluntary weakness or an unyielding strength
• and there are many ways love can unravel
◦ whatever philosophers, scientists, or poets may say about love,
◦ there is no life in Christ apart from love — for God is love
John specifies that we’re to love one another and our brother
Today I want to talk specifically about family, friends and neighbors
– from our closest bonds, as in marriage,
• to congenial interactions with others on campus or at the workplace
– the brain’s owners manual on this subject is fascinating
A friend in high school who vowed he would never have children,
– defined babies as organisms that functioned,
“They sleep, they cry, they eat, they poop”
• that was a prevailing view until about fifty years ago
• a baby’s nervous system was considered to be all reflex
◦ when stimulated, it could be activated or calmed
◦ but the infant was not aware of being a self performing an action
– in the seventies, researchers began filming infants and mothers
• they discovered, in the words of Colwyn Trevarthen, that “infants are actually born with playful intentions and sensitivity to the rhythms and expressive modulations of a mother’s talk and her visible expressions and touches.”
◦ even in their first year, “infants evoked ‘intuitive parenting’”
◦ babies are born with skills that later enable them to learn language
Catherine Mary Bateson noted that infants had other abilities, including rituals for healing ruptures in their relationship with their mothers
• these were confirmed by neuroscience in 1990s with new imaging technology that enabled researchers to observe activity in a living brain
Trevarthen, “Actions, even a newborn’s, are intelligent and conscious.”
A friend of mine has been effective in treating children on the autism spectrum
– typical symptoms include trouble communicating and social interaction
• my friend doesn’t offer a “cure,” but enables these children to progress
• her work is focused on toning the vagus nerve
– the human brain has twelve cranial nerves – the vagus is number 10
• its roots are in brainstem
◦ from there it receives and sends signals down into body and up into various structures in the brain
• its functions are both sensory (feeling) and motor (movement)
◦ it informs the brain of what is going on in the major organs
◦ it also affects the activity of heart and lungs
The vagus is the primary nerve in turning on and off the emergency system
(the technical term is the Autonomic Nervous System, which when activated triggers the sympathetic system and when calmed triggers the parasympathetic system)
– the sympathetic mode is frequently referred to as “fight or flight”
• the parasympathetic mode is a calm, restful state
• the vagus is constantly active in regulating various body functions
– it connects with muscles involved in facial expression
• it is responsible for activating the smooth muscles of the digestive tract
• the vagus also connects with the vocal chords,
◦ where it affects the modulation and intonation of speech
• the vagus nerve connects with the middle ear
◦ it is responsive to various sounds: potential danger or soothing speech
◦ the vagus nerve adjusts the middle ear to pick up specific frequencies
Imagine the role all these systems (face, voice, heart, lungs, stomach, etc.) play in relationships
– for instance, Stephen Porges refers to its role in the brain’s “Social Engagement System”
• facial expressions that communicate empathy and concern
• tilt head, nod – a comforting tone of voice
◦ this calms the heart and slows breathing of another person
◦ and all of this is unconscious
– the vagus nerve switches on the body’s alarm when in danger
Porges, “If our nervous system detects safety, then it’s no longer defensive. When its no longer defensive, then the circuits of the … nervous system support health, growth, and restoration. …the most important thing to our nervous system is that we are safe. When we’re safe, magical things occur. They occur on multiple levels, not merely in terms of social relations, but also in accessibility of certain areas of the brain, certain areas of feeling pleasure—being expansive, being creative, and being very positive as well.”
One other word on the brain
Scattered through various regions of the brain are mirror neurons
– these are what cause our bodies to jump when watching a scary movie
• I used to watch skateboard videos with my son Scotty – bad falls
◦ we saw some very painful spills
• the skater’s pain registered in various areas of his or her brain
◦ just watching the spill, caused activation in the same areas of our
◦ this is where we get our capacity for empathy
– Daniel Siegel refers to the ability to to feel what another feels “attuned communication”
• when we not only understand what another is saying,
◦ but feel what another is feeling
• we all need to be heard, but we also need to be felt
I have been in conversation with someone whose opinion differed from my own
– after arguing our positions for awhile,
• the other person says something, and for a moment I stop
◦ I was suddenly hearing this person differently
◦ then the conversation was no longer about defending my position
• I had not given up my ideas or changed my mind
◦ but I was now listening to the whole conversation
◦ not merely the specific words or phrases
– what happened was that in that moment, I have felt what she felt
• there was no longer any point in arguing
• my role in the conversation shifted
Siegel, “When we attune with others we allow our own internal state to shift, to come to resonate with the inner world of another.”
◦ what the Apostle Paul tells us is,
Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another (Ro. 12:15-1)
◦ that harmony or resonance is a skill that is strengthened with practice
Conclusion: Can you see how our practice of prayer will help us in relationships?
We learn to regulate our own emotions
– then with our nervous system calmed,
• we naturally help to regulate the emotions of others
• or we are prepared for this to work the other way
◦ we allow others to help us regulate our emotions
Whoever is slow to anger is better than the mighty,
and he who rules his own spirit than he who takes a city (Pr. 16:32)
God designed our brains for relationships
In telling us to be righteous,
God intended us to do what was right in every relationship
(what is good, just, honest, appropriate, and loving)
If, like me, you believe you need growth in this area,
then together let’s do what will help us most
We can start by developing a calmer soul in silent prayer
And next we can take friendship seriously,
by being friendly and being a better friend
Most of all, I must be a safe person
Judgmental people are not safe!
Let your speech always gracious (Col. 4:6)
I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
There is only one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call—one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. Ephesians 4:1-6
Intro: Several times in the last few weeks I have quoted Johann Hari
Hari is an author and journalist who struggled with depression
– eventually he realized antidepressants weren’t helping him
• so he began researching other options and interviewing experts
• he found anxiety and depression have less to do with a chemical imbalance in the brain (as pharmaceutical companies have told us)
◦ and more to do with environmental factors and lost connections
– the first half of his book explores how we have been cut off from:
• meaningful work
• meaningful values (for which we have substituted “junk values”)
• status and respect (apart from our position in social hierarchies)
• the world of nature
• a hopeful or secure future
• other people
– Hari tells stories of people who have re-connected with what we’ve lost
• in doing so, their anxiety or depression has diminished significantly
• more so than if they had been taking prescribed medications
If you were looking for happiness, would your chances be better in
– Japan, Taiwan, Russia, the United States, or Britain?
• the answer: Japan, Taiwan, or Russia—definitely not the US or Britain
Hari, “. . . our Western version of happiness doesn’t actually work . . . .”
◦ if you pursue happiness here, you do it for yourself
◦ you accumulate things, status and experiences for yourself
• in Asia or Russia, people pursue what’s best for the village, group, or tribe
• happiness is a shared experience
– sadly, in recent years our culture has become increasingly individualistic
We need to add a chapter to the brain’s owners’ manual
We can title it, “Christian Community”
– we have a picture of Christian community here in Ephesians 4
• Paul had prayed for the Ephesians
◦ that God would bring them into his infinite love
◦ and that they would experience the fullness of its dimensions
and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge (Ep. 3:14-19)
• now, with the Ephesians building on that love,
◦ he wanted to see the Spirit of God form them into a community
◦ to do this, some old brain circuits had to be pruned
v. 1, walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called
v. 17, you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do
v. 22, put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life
v. 24, put on the new self, created after the likeness of God
– Paul writes about Christian community–a lot!
(for starters, see Rom. chapters 12 & 14; 1 Cor. 12-14; Col. 3)
• we have seen that to be a whole person requires neural integration
◦ various brain structures have to be in sync
◦ these harmonious functions must be in sync also with the body
• for the last two weeks we’ve gone over relational integration
◦ after God and close relationships, the next step of integration
is a spiritual community
◦ notice how Paul emphasizes “oneness” in verses 4-6:
The same theme appears in 1 Corinthians: For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free–and all were made to drink of one Spirit (1 Cor. 12:12-13)
Martain Laird says a helpful image of community is a wheel
“The hub of the wheel is God; we the spokes. Out on the rim of the wheel the spokes are furthest from one another, but at the center, the hub, the spokes are most united to each other. . . . The image was used in the early church to say something important about that level of life at which we are one with each other and one with God. The more we journey toward the Center the closer we are both to God and each other. The problem of feeling isolated from both God and others is overcome in the experience of the Center.”
In mid-July I read through Ephesians
– waking up one morning, someone came to mind
• a person from my past
◦ immediately I relapsed
◦ into old familiar feelings of resentment and disgust
• I thought my heart had been purged of those feelings
◦ but my nervous system was still holding on to them
You know, it is never just the event–the argument, the abuse, the betrayal–that we remember and buzzes in our minds, but our commentary on the event. We have stories about what happened, conversations that we repeat and new conversations that we rehearse, perhaps with the hope of unleashing them on our abusers one day. We do this to try to make ourselves feel better in the moment. And it never works; it just carries the bad feelings forward.
◦ anyway, what I felt was not right – at all
– once I was fully awake and reading this chapter, I came to verse 31:
Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice
• the very feelings that had been triggered in me!
◦ and then verse 32:
Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you
◦ that seemed impossibly out of reach – until . . .
• I sat with Jesus – then my soul found a safe shelter in him
◦ nothing anyone has done to me can touch me there
◦ he holds me in his kindness and tenderness
(he knows my sore spots)
• any bad feelings toward anyone else dissolve in his presence
◦ Jesus again enabled me to forgive – to love
The target we are aiming for is love
The aim of our [mission] is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith (1 Tim. 1:5)
– this is what needs to be written into our brain’s owner’s manual
• love is an integrating energy, a psychological and spiritual glue
Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony (Col. 3:12-14)
– Daniel Siegel lists types of communication for healthy relationships
• reflective conversations
◦ that help others listen to their feelings and their bodies
“. . . reflective conversations can create new states of mindful awareness.”
• attuned communication – we went over this last week
◦ the neural resonance with another person; the experience of empathy
• interpersonal and integrative communication
◦ each person respects the different experiences of the others
◦ this results in forming a link or re-connection between them
◦ similar neural pathways are formed among participating members – we can add to this list Susan Smalley and Diana Winston’s
• mindful communication (or compassionate communication)
◦ it looks for information from those involved in the conversation
◦ it thinks through and discusses issues from a positive perspective
◦ it accept the fact that there are “multiple perspectives”
(not only multiple opinions, but perspectives behind the opinions)
◦ those involved are able to describe their thoughts and feelings
◦ each one acknowledges what all the others have to say
◦ each one is a participant in a conversation with other participants
◦ the participants take turns
When I read about the kind of conversations that build community,
– I can’t help but think of our experience with Lexio Divina
• first it brings us together–in prayer
• then it takes us into the Scriptures
• we allow the Spirit to take a word down into our souls
• we hold it within and allow it to awaken what’s there
◦ then we share – our thoughts and our souls
◦ this doesn’t mean we tell all our secrets
– lexio divina cannot just “happen” – it requires special conditions
• as Johann Hari has said, “To end loneliness, you need other people—plus something else. You also need . . . to feel you are sharing something with the other person, or the group, that is meaningful to both of you. You have to be in it together.”
• I think Paul states it perfectly:
. . . speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love (vv. 15-16)
To speak the truth in love doesn’t mean we tell others,
“I need to tell you something. I’ve never really liked you . . .”
“I was deeply offended by what you said”
“What I have to say is for your own good”
“No one else will tell you this, so it’s up to me”
– I don’t know the truth about anyone else!
• I barely know the truth about myself (see 1 Cor. 4:5)
• but what I do know about myself is the truth I can speak
– some people are guarded
• they talk in generalities, “Christians need to be more loving”
• or talk doctrine, or “What the Bible is saying here is . . .”
– in guarding themselves, they make others feel unsafe
To speak the truth in love is to:
– create a safe place – our souls won’t show up if we don’t feel safe
– listen – with our ears and attention of course, but also with body
• what am I feeling? it may be empathy with what someone else has shared
– share – what is yours, what you feel most deeply
Conclusion: What if there’s someone in the community who irritates you?
“I can’t just make myself love someone”
Explore your brain’s owner’s manual – what in you gets triggered?
– what is the commentary you’re brain has written about it?
Try a daily compassion meditation:
“May God let me feel his joy today”
then, for someone you love, “May God let _________ feel his joy today”
then, “May God let my family feel his joy today”
then, “May God let my friends and neighbors feel his joy today”
then, “May God let every stranger I see feel his joy today”
then, “May God let those who have hurt (or annoy) me feel his joy today”
then, “May God let everyone, everywhere feel his joy today”
– at first it may be difficult to bless those who have hurt you
• but praying this prayer every day will begin to change you
• it will help to form new synapses in your brain
◦ and eventually you will be free, well, whole regarding that person
◦ you will have the heart of Jesus toward that person
There will be bumps and struggles
but if we don’t give up,
there are also great rewards
I was ready to be sought by those who did not ask for me;
I was ready to be found by those who did not seek me.
I said, “Here I am, here I am,”
to a nation that [did not call on] my name.
I spread out my hands all the day
to a rebellious people,
who walk in a way that is not good,
following their own devices Isaiah 65:1-2
Intro: This week, I had a blow-up with one of my grandchildren
The details aren’t important – what matters was my reaction to it
– that night, I woke up around 2:00 am and could get fall back to sleep
• my mind was rehearsing what I would say to that child two days later
◦ I would explain how hurt and disappointed and angry I felt
• and none of that would have done either one of us any good
– the realization came to me that those thoughts would keep me awake all night
• so I took a deep breath and went another direction
• I prayed, “Lord, please show me why I’m overreacting like this. What am I hanging on to from my past? Or what from my past is hanging on to me?”
◦ I don’t have an answer yet,
◦ but just asking that question resolved my tension
– I could go back to just being a grandpa
• the misbehavior had been my grandchild’s
• the overreaction had been mine
The aggravation and agitated thoughts were the old me
– my nighttime course correction was the new me
• I am changing — slowly, because repentance is a process
• we do not change in an instant
◦ it took years of experience to wire the old self into our brains
◦ it will take awhile to erase and rewrite the brain’s owner’s manual
– we’ve seen how the new self is an integrated self — a whole person
• thoughts and feelings, the body and brain work together in sync
• last week, I talked about our primary integration
◦ that is the integration of our lives into the life of God
◦ I feel we need to go over this some more before moving on
Isaiah’s message from God must have shocked his audience
God wanted Israel to find him; he was even willing to help them find him
– but no one was looking for him
• he reached out to them, but no one stretched out their hands to him
• he was that close to them, and they were oblivious to him
For what great nation is there that has a god so near to it as the LORD our God is to us, whenever we call upon him? (De. 4:7)
– “Here I am” is a familiar phrase in the Scriptures
• Abraham, Jacob, Moses, Samuel, Isaiah spoke this phrase
◦ it is the normal response to a call – including when God called
◦ in our passage, this phrase is marked by two unusual features:
1. A reversal – God is not the one calling, but the one responding
2. God says it twice – the effect is to give it force (like bold font)
• God wants to be found
◦ “Here I am” – he gives away his location
◦ there’s only one reason he would not be found; if no one was looking
Our connection with God is the pivot point of our change
– we do not have to create a connection with God,
• he’s already taken care of everything
◦ it’s like a radio that has all of its components
◦ it just has to be turned on and adjusted to the right frequency
• as Christians, it’s a matter of waking up to what’s inside us
Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? (1 Cor. 6:15)
Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? (1 Cor. 6:19)
– how do we discover our connection with God?
Seek the LORD and his strength;
seek his presence [panyim, his “face”] continually (Ps. 105:4)
• it is searching for, and gazing on God’s face that we are changed
And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another (2 Cor. 3:18)
One of Israel’s patriarchs, Jacob, left home and traveled to to a distant land where he came to a well. Shepherds were there by the well with their flocks, but they were not watering them. A large stone covered the mouth of the well. Because it was midday and they had plenty of time to return their flocks to pasture, Jacob asked why they were not giving them water and taking them back out. But they told them, it was a local custom to wait for all the flocks to arrive before removing the stone from the well.
Jacob took initiative and removed the stone himself, then watered the flock that belonged to his uncle (Gen. 29:1-10).
We do not have to pray God will give us living water
– he already has, and the living water is in us (see Jn. 4:10-14 & 7:37-39)
• we need to dispense with the old custom, remove the stone,
• and drop a bucket into the well of our souls
– we need to discover, not create, our connection with God
We know how to search for our lost keys
But how do we seek God? We are told:
“Go to the Bible” – this is helpful
– the Bible tells us about the God we are seeking
– but the book points to a person (Jn. 5:39)
“Meditate on the Scriptures”
– there are certainly times of meditation when our hearts are warmed and God seems near
– but most of the time we are only reflecting on words and ideas
• and we have not found God himself
“Pray” – yes, prayer is interaction with God
– so we learn how to pray – formal, written and spontaneous prayers
• but one day we realize we’ve prayed, but not to God
◦ that we had no sense of his presence
◦ that we were looking for things, for answers, but not his face
• even if we are answered with miraculous signs and wonders,
◦ our hearts want more, need more
O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you;
my soul thirsts for you;
my flesh faints for you,
as in a dry and weary land where there is no water (Ps. 63:1)
“Go to church” —
In the Old Testament, people frequently went to the temple to seek God
– but the whole temple system became corrupt (more than once)
• eventually it totally fell apart
– God’s true people discovered that everywhere they went
• God was there
You see, we run into problems if:
– we look for God as an object in the world
• or we’re seeking a sign, a vision, an angel
– we postpone seeking God for any reason
• like until we learn more, make more progress or improvements
God is always right here, in this present moment
– his name is “I am” — and he is — he is everywhere, all the time
. . . whoever would draw near to God must believe that he is and that he rewards those who seek him (He. 11:6)
• seeking God is focusing our attention on him
• and doing it in there here and now of this present moment
This brings us to the practice of contemplative prayer
(you will find an example in the simplified outline at the end of these notes)
The biggest challenge we’ll have with contemplative prayer is distraction
– and the greatest distractions always come from our own brains
• we can’t be upset about this, it’s what the brain does
St. Augustine, “God is saying, ‘Be still and see that I am God” (Ps 46). But you refuse to be still. You are like the Egyptians tormented by gnats. These tiniest of flies, always restless, flying about aimlessly, swarm at your eyes, giving no rest. They are back as soon as you drive them off.”
Abbot John Chapman acknowledged that “for beginners, the great difficulty is with distractions.” He says distractions “have to be kept quiet, but they cannot be stopped. So that it is, on the one hand, useful to have certain words to repeat, which keep the imagination occupied (it is like throwing a bone to a dog, to keep him quiet while he gnaws it) and on the other hand, to be in a place that is quieting, [sacred], and restful.”
– in recent years, the use of a prayer word has been taught as “Centering Prayer”
• but it goes back many centuries
• in the fifth century, John Cassian interviewed desert monks
◦ a companion of his asked Fr. Isaac,
“[Tell us how we] may ever keep the idea of God in the mind, so that by always keeping it before our eyes, when we find that we have dropped away from Him we may at once be able to recover ourselves and return thither and may succeed in laying hold of it again without any delay from wandering around the subject and searching for it.”
Fr. Isaac recommended, “O God make speed to save me: O Lord, make haste to help me.”
• some suggest a single sacred word
◦ and to say it only when we need to return our attention to God
• others suggest that a word or phrase be repeated with each breath
– the point is that we resist being roped into our distracting thoughts and feelings
• that we have a way to effectively turn our focus away from them
• and resume our awareness of God’s presence
There is a benefit that comes from distractions
They provide us with a training exercise
– having a tool to deal with them, we are able to keep returning to God
For thus said the Lord GOD, the Holy One of Israel,
“In returning and rest you shall be saved;
in quietness and in trust shall be your strength” (Is. 30:15)
• the more we repeat the practice, the more it becomes a habit
• eventually we our return is natural and hardly affects the moment
– distractions also helps us discover our triggers
• then, once we discover how those triggers were formed,
◦ they become conscious memories and lose their power
• there also comes a time when God’s presence is more interesting than the distractions
Conclusion: There are beneficial side-effects of contemplative prayer
Emotional regulation–no longer being out of control
Resilience (our ability to bounce back from an upset quickly)
Lowered blood pressure — and a host of other physiological benefits
– but these are only side-effects
– our primary concern in contemplative prayer is our experience of
The nearness of God,
the loving encouragement of Jesus
and the energizing breath of the Spirit
______________________________________________________________________
The following is a simple guide to the practice of contemplative prayer. There are many variations, and I would urge you to find what works best for you. For some people, it can make a huge difference if they find a quiet place in nature, near (or on) the ocean, or in a garden, somewhere they can easily get to every day. What matters is not that you follow a specific form or take specific steps, but that you make however you spend this time you devote to God your own.
Find a quiet place
Sit in a comfortable position
Closing your eyes will help cut down distractions
– if you have to keep them open, hold your gaze on one thing
Begin with by drawing in a deep breath
– pause, and then relax the tension in your body as you exhale
– focus on the air entering and exiting your body
– progressively slow your breathing, still taking full breaths
When your mind wanders, gently return to your breath
– do this gently and without judgment or even thinking about it
Beginning at the top of your head, relax every muscle in your body
– feel that you’re making room in your body for God’s Spirit
– surrender to God’s peace
– relax your forehead, your eyebrows and eyes
– relax your mouth, lips and tongue
– relax your jaw and ears
– keep moving down to the tips of your fingers and toes
Be aware of what you are doing, as if observing yourself
– watch each breath come and go
– notice each muscle releasing its tightness
– notice your awareness
As you exhale, say, “God”
– or you can say, “Jesus,” or “Spirit,” or choose any word of your own
– after a few moments, try saying, “You”–directly to God
– allow yourself to sense his presence
– know God is right here, around you, breathing into you
When you’re finished stand up slowly
– calmly, gently move into your next activity
– continue to hold your awareness on God for as long as possible
– know he is with you–always
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. 2 Corinthians 5:17-21
Intro: Now might be a good time for a quick review
We began with the word repent – a second thought, change of mind
– this means we change the organ of thought: the brain
• we change how brain cells connect with other brain cells
◦ we rewire neurons to form new thoughts, feelings, actions
• we are re-writing the brain’s owner’s manual
Daniel Siegel, “. . . experience for the brain means neural firing. When we have an ‘experience,’ clusters of neurons are activated to send electrical signals down their long lengths. The gene activation and protein production triggered by neural firing can create new synapses, strengthen existing ones, alter the packets of [neuro-chemicals] that are released or the receptors that receive their messages, and even stimulate the growth of new neurons. . . . Neurons that fire together, wire together.”
– think of Paul’s statement, put off the old self . . . and put on the new self
The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.
Last week, to become a whole person requires integration
When we bring our awareness to God’s presence in prayer,
– we experience our wholeness in God
• and then what stands out? what seems out of place?
• the disconnected parts of the new self
◦ these are the neural connections we want to prune and replace
– my grandson frequently downloads games onto my iPhone
• one is a find-the-difference game, which shows two similar pictures
• I have a strategy for spotting the differences if the images are side-by-side
◦ crossing my eyes I create “one frame” between two blurred images
◦ the subtle differences immediately pop out
• something similar happens in contemplative prayer
◦ whatever is not part of our wholeness in Christ pops out
Daniel Siegel says that integration is crucial for optimum health
– he lists “eight domains of integration”
• we talked about the first six last week
◦ they have to do with integration within the brain and body
• the two other domains are interpersonal integration and temporal integration
– but towards the end of The Mindful Brain, Siegel adds a ninth
• “transpirational integration”
◦ an integration that breathes across the other eight domains
Daniel Siegel, “Transpiration opens our minds to another dimension of perception. The sacred suffuses each breath, our essence, each step through this journey of life. As we breathe life across the many domains of integration, we come to see ourselves as extending beyond the temporal-spatial dimensions that limit our view of the horizon. Transpiration gives us vision to see what is beyond our eyes.”
Neuroscientist, Jaak Panksepp identified seven primary motivational systems that drive human psychology and physiology
• but in doing therapy, he added another important system: Spirituality
“since that is so important for getting people over the hump of addictive disorders as well as, more widely, for finding the path to a life well lived.”
What Siegel and Panksepp address is the most important integration
The integration of our lives into the life of God
– Paul says something radical regarding our relationship with Jesus
• we are “joined” to him (1 Cor. 6:15-17)
◦ he uses the analogy of the most intimate physical union
• until we are united with God, I don’t think we realize how fragmented we are within ourselves
◦ a disconnected life is the norm in our culture
◦ God desires, and assists, and supports our integration
– there is a theological word for this integration: reconcile
• first time I read through the New Testament, it was in the Good News Bible
• for reconcile, it has “changed us from God’s enemies into his friends”
◦ that is what reconcile means and it is what reconciliation does
We were God’s enemies, but he made us his friends through the death of his Son. Now that we are God’s friends, how much more will we be saved by Christ’s life! But that is not all; we rejoice because of what God has done through our Lord Jesus Christ, who has now made us God’s friends (Ro. 5:10-11, GNB; cf. Col. 1:21-22)
Every human relationship is fragile and easily bruised
Every relationship breaks down sometimes
– perhaps the most common breakdown is in communication
• we misunderstand, or feel we haven’t been heard,
◦ or communication is cut off for some reason
• the pattern of our enduring relationships is rupture and repair
◦ we can survive the ruptures, because they’re followed by repair
◦ frequently, communication is even better after the repair
– we do not handle our relationship with God any better than we do with each other
When humans first appear in scripture, their world is perfectly integrated
– the intimacy of man and woman is indicated by the fact that they
were both naked and were not ashamed (Gen. 2:25)
(neither was afraid to be seen by the other, nor embarrassed of their body)
• intimacy with God is indicated by their evening strolls (Gen. 3:8)
• intimacy with animals is indicated by the fact that Adam met and named each one (Gen. 2:19-20)
• intimacy with the natural world consisted of tending the garden and enjoying its produce (Gen. 2:15-17)
– but the moment their relationship with God was ruptured, everything reversed
• now, instead of intimacy, they lived in alienation
◦ the humans were alienated from their own selves and each other
(their nakedness now became an issue, and they covered it; Gen. 3:7)
◦ alienated from nature and the soil that had fed them (Gen. 3:19)
◦ alienated from God’s immediate presence (Gen. 3:24)
• the story is meant to tell us why the world is the way it is
◦ why we can’t eat everything that grows from the ground
◦ why we can’t pet lions or swim with killer whales
◦ why we have such a hard time living in peace with others
Adam and Eve are representative characters
– they are stand-ins for all humankind
• in other words, if it were you, you would have done the same
That was the rupture – the repair began with a family
God revealed himself to Abraham and pulled him into a relationship
– he continued to reveal himself to Abraham’s descendants
• and he pulled them into a relationship–a covenant relationship
I will be your God and you shall be my people (Le. 26:12)
• although that relationship was ruptured,
◦ God promised a permanent healing through Israel
◦ the promise was fulfilled and rupture healed in Jesus Christ
– in Jesus we are integrated into a union with God
• the rupture does not define us
◦ old thoughts and feelings we had about ourselves do not define us
◦ we know the rupture is fixable
• what we are asked to do is to acknowledge the rupture,
◦ and trust Jesus to take it from there
If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1 Jn. 1:8-9)
We need to ground ourselves in two parts of this cure
The first part is God’s grace
– this is so vast and amazing that few Christians live in its fullness
• this is the essential factor in our spiritual integration
◦ and we cannot make it happen, have no control over it
• we cannot get to where we want to be in God,
◦ by any program, method, or technique
The second part is faith–or, more to the point of our experience, trust
– we trust God’s grace when we let go:
• of trying to win his love
• of guilt and shame
◦ that have been wired into our neural circuits
◦ we’ll keep sabotaging ourselves if we don’t get this straight
. . . whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything (1 Jn. 3:20)
• of habitual, negative thoughts about ourselves
◦ we’re not made of steel or concrete
◦ we are fresh clay and we are being re-molded
– we practice trust when we calm our souls in God’s presence
Martin Laird says when this is habit, it “cultivates dynamic stillness”
• a striking expression, “dynamic stillness”
• a divine energy is present in our silent stillness
Conclusion: Here is the mystery of God’s grace, the miracle:
We are already where God wants us to be
– there’s a section of Isaiah 41 in which God tells Israel,
I am the one who helps you
• then he says, you shall do this and you shall do that:
◦ listing three powerful demonstrations of his help
• he follows this with a fourth you shall
And you shall rejoice in the LORD (Is. 41:14-16; a proper, natural response!)
◦ giving thanks for our future self is a way of trusting God
◦ this is the prayer of faith
Thomas Merton, “In prayer we discover what we already have. . . . We already have everything but we don’t know it and don’t experience it. Everything has been given to us in Christ.”
His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence (2 Pe. 1:3)
– we need to grow in awareness of the grace already given us
• one of God’s promises to his exiled people was that they would return
◦ and once they were again in Zion, they would
possess their possessions (Ob. 1:17)
Our brains were created for connection
All that we need for re-connection is already ours
Calming ourselves in God’s presence is a return to Eden
It is God’s rest, where we enjoy his fullness (Heb. 4:6-10)
When we give God thanks today for what we will be tomorrow,
we are praying in faith
So stick with your practice of listening in silence
your practice of trust
and your practice of giving thanks
(I’m going to play a mean trick on you by quoting this particular passage from the King James Version of the Bible.)
Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good. Was then that which is good made death unto me? God forbid. But sin, that it might appear sin, working death in me by that which is good; that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful.
For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin. For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I. If then I do that which I would not, I consent unto the law that it is good. Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not. For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do. Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. Romans 7:13-20 (KJV)
Intro: I wonder if Paul intended this passage to frustrate its readers
Paul describes a frustrating struggle, a losing battle with himself
– suppose he wanted his readers to feel that frustration for themselves
• if so, Dr. Seuss could not have done a better job of creating confusion
• however, my guess is that Paul wrote it in a state of frustration
– early on, he had put every effort into living a sinless life
• but every time he thought he had achieved it,
◦ a new sin sprouted in some area of his life
• if he spent his entire time with nothing other than God’s law,
◦ even the law introduced him to sins he had not known existed
What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.” But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. (vv. 7-8)
and
. . . through the law comes knowledge of sin (Ro. 3:20)
• my guess is that when Paul brought this old struggle back to mind,
◦ he re-lived the experience of frustration it created for him
◦ then he wrote in the intensity of that frustration
If we were to put a modern label on Paul’s struggle,
– we might say he was conflicted – at war with himself
• other terms come to mind, such as:
◦ fragmented, compartmentalized, “dis-integrated,” dis-connected
– “the flesh” Paul refers to is another term for the old self (Ro. 6:6)
• or the brain’s old owner’s manual
(last week, Steve Pereira said “operation manual,” which I think I prefer)
• the flesh cannot be integrated with our spirit
◦ therefore, its old neural circuits must be pruned
Every significant problem is the result of a broken connection
We’ll track this statement for next two or three weeks
– but today, we’ll stick with the brain
• Paul’s conflicted state indicates a internal disconnection
(between spirit and flesh)
Joseph LeDoux explains how the brain “holds the self together.” He says, “The bottom line is simple: Functions depend on connections; break the connections and you lose the functions.”
He mentions a term coined by Norman Geshwind, “disconnection syndromes”–that is, disorders that result from a break in communication between different structures in the brain.
◦ there are many reasons we split-off parts of ourselves
◦ our past, or emotions, or why we repress certain needs or feelings
• these internal contradictions diminish and interfere with life
Abraham Maslow wrote, “Isolating two interrelated parts of a whole from each other, parts that need each other, parts that are truly ‘parts’ and not wholes, distorts them both, sickens and contaminates them.”
◦ we need all parts working together to be ourselves
◦ otherwise, as James said,
a double-minded person is unstable in all his or her ways (Jas. 1:8)
Maslow asks, “If ‘heaven’ is always available, ready to step into . . . is always a possibility for any serious and thoughtful person . . . . What prevents this from happening?.” He answers that it is “a state in which we are not ‘fully functioning,’ not at our best, not fully human, not sufficiently integrated.”
A key function of the brain’s new operation manual is integration
Previously I have quoted from Johann Hari’s book Lost Connections
– he suggests that lost connections are the primary causes of anxiety and depressive disorders
• in his chapter on the brain, he describes how it is changed by broken connections
• but he adds “reconnection can change it back”
– according to Daniel Siegel, the key to mental health is integration
• he lists “eight domains of integration”
◦ the first six have to do with brain’s operation manual
(we’ll get to the other two next week
- The integration of consciousness
• this is the opposite of being scatter-brained
◦ distracted by too many competing thoughts
• integration occurs when we can focus our attention on one thing
Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary (Lk. 10:41-42) - Horizontal integration
• by this, he is referring to the brain’s two hemispheres
• the right hemisphere:
▫ is more directly connected to the limbic system, brain stem, and body
▫ it is less concerned with rules and more concerned with feelings
▫ the right hemisphere is the artist, the poet, the dreamer
• the left hemisphere:
▫ has less direct communication with what goes on happening below it
▫ its functions are logical, sequential, it is “a list maker,” and looks for cause and effect
▫ the left hemisphere is the scientist, the engineer, the thinker - Vertical integration
• connecting everything below the neck to everything above
◦ skin, muscles, bones, organs send signals upward
◦ trauma can block those signals
▫ but we can also repress those signals by self-discipline
▫ we can refuse to listen to what our body is trying to tell us - Memory integration
• explicit memory – what we can bring into awareness
• implicit – what is buried in the unconscious
◦ the brain’s automatic, habitual reactions
◦ sometimes healing requires some of the hidden stuff to be brought to surface
• the integration of explicit and implicit memory relates to next domain - Narrative memory
• normal memory consists of stories
(that have a beginning, a middle, and an end)
◦ this is how we make sense of our lives, past and present
• my mother’s childhood made no sense, and she kept much of it from us
◦ it wasn’t until she was in her fifties that her older sister told her,
“Well, you know, Mom was schizophrenic”
◦ that’s when her childhood and teenage years began to make sense
▫ until then, an important and necessary piece was missing - State integration
• two mood states can occur at the same time
◦ then they tend to compete or conflict
◦ for instance, I may need solitude, but at same time I’m lonely
I am convinced that integration is a key theme in the Scriptures
– what was one of Jesus’ main concerns regarding his disciples?
you must not be like the hypocrites (Mt. 6:5)
• we’ll take a closer look at the biblical role of in integration later on
• for now we’ll merely note:
Teach me your way, O LORD,
that I may walk in your truth;
unite my heart to fear your name (Ps. 86:11)
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God (Mt. 5:8)
◦ the pure heart is a single heart, an integrated heart
Conclusion: How do we begin to move toward integration?
We have already begun moving that direction
Daniel Siegel, “How we focus our attention is the key to promoting integrative changes in the brain. With the integration of consciousness, we actually build the skills to stabilize attention so that we can harness the power of awareness to create choice and change.”
You integrate both hemispheres of brain when you
confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead . . . . For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved (Ro. 10:9-10)
– speech is mainly a left hemisphere function
– belief is mainly right hemisphere
Jesus Christ holds us together
For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities–all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together (Col. 1:16-17)
In Jesus, everything is redeemed, reconciled, healed, made whole
We spend time in silence with him,
our total attention focused on him
Then he takes the “many things” of our anxious hearts
and directs us to the one, necessary thing
that puts us back together
Daily Meditations From the Scriptures